Quantitative-37 (49 percentile)
Verbal- 41 (92 percentile)
AWA-Feeling great about it. I expect between a 5 and 6.
I took the GMAT yesterday after four months of very mild studying followed by two months of increasingly intensive studying. Overall, I am happy with my score. But I am not completely satisfied.
Prep:
Purchased official GMAT guide in August- went over problems from both verbal and math but had no idea how to do them. Rented some sort of GMAT Prep book from the library and read through it. I was still struggling greatly.
I then signed up for a prep course from The Princeton Review which helped out greatly with my fundamentals. I highly reccomend the prep course for getting yourself to a great base score of around 600. If you want to get above that, you need to take initiative with reagards to your hw assignments and practice tests.
My PR Practice Tests
11/1/2009 Overall-440 (V-30, Q-21) Granted, I was hungover from Halloween, had the television on, and generally went with my instinct on guesses. This is before any classes.
11/8/2009 Overall-530 (V-31, Q-32) After re-learning the basics with the class, my score had a significant improvement. I also turned off the television and focused my attention.
12/4/2009 Overall-470 (V-31, Q-25) A major dissapointment. This is after I had spent a week focusing on my weak sentence correction skills. Verbal stayed exactly the same and math went down. I was at a public library when taking this and people were talking loudly. Needless to say i was distracted. I told myself this test was a fluke and went on working significantly on my math and slightly on my verbal.
12/13/2009 Overall-650 (V-43, Q-37) Everything seemed to come together on this test. My argument and reading comprehension skills were sharp and my sentence correction made much more sense. I was also getting significantly average on my math.
Week before the test.
It was all about math. I went over a math book I had purchased, used the PR online drills to hammer in methods for solving problems, and generally focused all my attention on math. I was confident I could boost my math score to 40+, which would be all I need to get high 600s!
Unfortunately, the day before the test I became very ill. I had eaten some bratwurst the night before and I believe it gave me food poisoning. I had -explosive bowel movements- all morning and one in the afternoon. I was feeling light-headed and off my game. There was no postponing the test though so I continued to study and rest in intervals. I also ate healthy food: salmon, salad, fruit, veggies, sweet potatoes. I began to feel better throughout the day and continued with my study plan. I went to bed and got about 7 hours of rest.
I woke up and worked on some more math. Drove to the center early and did math problems in the book while I waited in my car. I was feeling a lot better health-wise but I was still slightly off. Nevertheless, I focused
Test Environment- I wore my glasses, which I never wore during study time, to give me an extra advantage. I also used the ear plugs they provided to help muffle out distracting noise.
AWA- I felt really great about these essays. Again, I am a natural writer and I knew the framework of how these essays are graded. It took all 30 minutes for both essays. I didn't have time to proofread the final two paragraphs of the second essay but I am not too worried. I expect a 5 or 6 overall.
Quant- I dove right into it, knowing that I needed to score the first 10-15 right to get above 40. For the most part, I did alright at the beginning. Then the problems became increasingly more confusing and tricky. There were many cases where I did not know what the question was asking for. I can't remember too much from this section because I was in the zone. Near the end, I felt that I may have achieved my 40 score. But I knew that my performance suffered because of my illness the previous day which still lingered.
Verbal- I was determined to answer everything correctly. I am naturally great at reading comprehension and arguments, and I had studied and practiced all the rules of sentence correction. The first 20 or so questions I felt were too easy. Then things got a little tricky. I still feel that I must have scored at least 90 percent of the questions right. I was feeling good about verbal.
The End. While about to press the submit button, I was happy. I knew that I was somewhere in the 600 range. Maybe even a low 700. I felt I deserved a 40 in Quant and 40+ in Verbal. No matter what, I was not in the 400-600 range.
Pushed the submit button and 640! Happy, but I was also disappointed. I was feeling a 660. Still, I've come a long way from my 400 days.
If only my Quant were a 40+, I would be ecstatic!
My study guides:
Princeton Review Materials- for basics and good strategy
Manhatten GMAT sentence correction- This moved a relatively weak verbal area for me into a strong one
Bob Miller's Math for the GMAT- easy, simple, math guide for learning GMAT math. I rushed through the end of the book and that probably ended up hurting me. I also did not have time to finish the practice tests in the back. If I weren't sick, or had two more weeks, I'm pretty sure my math would have been 40+ and my score 660+
Question
Should I retake the GMAT? Is my math score going to hurt me? I received an undergradute degree in Journalism with GPA of 3.2. I have nearly 3 years of work experience and currently hold a position as a Marketing Manager. I am applying for UCLA, UCSD, SDSU, Pepperdine, Chapman, and possibly Georgetown.
Should I retake the GMAT because of my quant score?
