14 months of hard work, did not pay off.

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14 months of hard work, did not pay off.

by Sky78 » Mon Sep 29, 2014 6:20 pm
I took GMAT this Saturday (Sept-27 ) and scored 600 (Q 45 V 27). I have invested so much time but still somehow did not achieve my target score.I am just confused whether I should take GMAT again. Moreover, I am not sure whether putting effort for another 2-3 months and taking GMAT again will result in any improvement because in past 6 months I did not see much improvement in my score.

I started my preparation in July 2013. (Yes that's right 14 months back) In Oct 2013 after reviewing all concepts through Kaplan and MGMAT books I took my first GMAT Prep test and scored 530 ( Q 45 and V 19). At that time I knew it is long way to go so I did not schedule my exam for another 3 months. In first week of Jan 2014 I scored 580 (Q47 and V 23). When I saw 50 points improvement I got excited and thought may be in another 3-4 months I can reach around 650 so I scheduled exam for Apr-2014. At that time I thought of trying different approach for learning and purchased magoosh online course. Magoosh did help with Sentence correction strategy but I was still not hitting the score that I wanted. Anyway in Mar -2014 I took another GMAT prep test (repeat test1) and scored 600 (Q 48 and v 25). I guess concepts and strategies from magoosh helped in quant improvement but I was still not satisfied with verbal score. I wanted to score at least 34 in verbal so I rescheduled GMAT.

I started reviewing other online products. Not sure why I thought that trying different course will help me improving the score. After spending a week in reviewing different products I finally purchased e-GMAT. This was the bad decision I made.Not because there is anything wrong with the course but because I was putting in time in learning same concepts from different sources instead of focusing on identifying the issues that I had and improving those. Anyway, I invested 3 more months to improve my verbal score but did not see much improvement so rescheduled exam again. Also upgraded my e-GMAT course and purchased verbal live prep, which also did not help with improving score. I took another GMAT prep in Aug 2014 and scored 590 ( Q 47 and V 25).
After that I got really devastated and I thought I would never achieve the target score but still I reviewed all concept files all over again and then practiced questions using e-GMAT strategies. I saw marginal improvement but it was not good enough to get target score. On Sep 20 -2014 (a week before GMAT) I took GMAT prep test (Test # 3) and scored 620 (Q 48 and V27) . At this point I knew that I will have to live with this score because I already had re-scheduled twice and I had no time left to re-schedule.

I think it was my bad decision to invest my time in e-GMAT course, as I saw only marginal improvement in 5 months. There is nothing wrong in the process or concepts that e-GMAT offers. They are , what they are, but I found most of the information repeated and now I think I wasted too much time in learning same concepts which I had already learned from MGMAT books. The e-GMAT does offer bit different strategies to answer questions but I guess if strategy was an issue then my score should have improved but it did not. In my practice I found that my accuracy was really high(close to 90%) while solving question without a timer but it used to drop to (60%) under timed conditions. I am non-native speaker so I guess poor comprehension and slow reading speed is my main issue. My assumption was that it will improve using e-GMAT but that did not help. I guess there is no one for all solution. The course does provide guarantees for score improvement but now I feel it can only help with concepts and strategy but issues such as poor reading habits or slow reading speed cannot be fixed by online course. About 6 months back Magoosh experts advised me to focus more on reading, when I reached out to them for help. I did that for couple of weeks but then thought it may not help improving in 3-4 months so did not take that advice seriously. I guess I should have. Instead I wasted my time in reviewing same concepts over and over again. I did improve to some extent but I might have done better if I had done quantitative analysis of my mistakes and had taken steps to improve my weakness - Poor reading habits. Most important, I invested too much time in verbal and did not focus on quant. I regret that now. I am not sure why I did that. Somehow I thought I will be able to score 47 or 48 because I was scoring that in GMAT prep exams.

As of now, I am just confused, Really not sure what to do. I have no time left to prepare and I think 600 is not a good score to apply in any top 30 universities. Is it possible to improve on reading abilities in 2-3 months ? I am not targeting 700 score. I just want to score between 650-680. Not sure if that is really achievable. I still need to take TOEFL and invest time on applications. Any advice please .....

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by [email protected] » Mon Sep 29, 2014 7:52 pm
Hi Sky78,

I'm sure that you must be feeling frustrated right now, but it's important to remember the BIG PICTURE. There's still plenty of time to continue studying, retake the GMAT and apply for Round 2 or Round 3 this year.

Before choosing a new study path, it's important to evaluate how you've studied so far. Certain things you've done well, others you have not. From your review, it looks like you put the bulk of your energy into a series of books, the Magoosh Course and the E-gmat Course. This combination of resources might help other people, but it wasn't enough to help you hit YOUR goal.

Your Verbal scores are remarkably consistent, which means that you "see" (and react) to that section of the GMAT in the same general way. Again, maybe the resources you used weren't enough to help you improve or maybe you are making the same silly mistakes again and again. Regardless, you're going to have to try something new.

Thankfully, you've already developed some GMAT skills, so you probably won't have to take another full course to improve. Since most GMAT companies offer free resources, you can sample them before deciding what you want to invest in. We offer them (at www.empowergmat.com), so do Kaplan, Veritas, MGMAT, etc., so you should take a little time to look at the various options. You could absolutely be ready to retest in 1-2 months.

Many Test Takers feel frustrated by the Verbal section, but it's as standardized and predictable as the Quant section, so you CAN train to CRUSH it. The fact that you've identified an issue with your "reading ability" is note-worthy, but you don't have to understand every word in an RC prompt to get the questions correct (that's one of the strategies that you'll need to learn).

Keep your head up. Many Test Takers find that they have to adapt their study/application plans on the way to their eventual MBA. Your story isn't over yet.

GMAT assassins aren't born, they're made,
Rich
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by Keshav Goel » Tue Sep 30, 2014 3:59 am
Hi Sky78

I understand you pain.

Even i was struggling with fluctuating score on verbal but finally I scored 41.

In case you make another attempt, spend your time and energy on right techniques to solve the questions.

All the best!

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by Sky78 » Tue Sep 30, 2014 5:56 am
Keshav Goel wrote:Hi Sky78

I understand you pain.

Even i was struggling with fluctuating score on verbal but finally I scored 41.

In case you make another attempt, spend your time and energy on right techniques to solve the questions.

All the best!
Keshav, Thanks for your suggestion! could you please tell me what helped you in improving your score ?

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by Sky78 » Tue Sep 30, 2014 6:09 am
Rich

Thanks for your advice! I also want to mention that it is not just RC, even with CR I take too long to read and understand the passage. When there is complex passage I usually read it 2-3 times to understand the logic behind the argument given or I read it really slowly. That process itself takes about 1.5 to 2 mins. If I take that long to read passage then how can I solve question in 2 mins? Your thoughts have given me bit encouragement but I am still doubtful about my abilities to crack exam in 2 months. Do you think, using different technique to approach the question can help in improving my accuracy in tough(or medium level) CR and RC questions in timed conditions ?

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by [email protected] » Tue Sep 30, 2014 4:24 pm
Hi Sky78,

Yes, you can absolutely improve - you'll have to make the necessary adjustments to how you handle the Verbal section though, which means that we have to get you out of the bad habits (e.g. reading a prompt 2-3 times) that are causing these problems. With 1-2 months though, you do have enough time.

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by Vanessa Clemens » Wed Nov 19, 2014 5:01 am
IF you lack somewhere and have asked yourself enough then forget and buckle up :try again if you really wish to... Improve on what you should, I've learnt one thing that comes from competing, there are many ways one has to change including their habits in order to succeed.
A very small example, you don't have the habit of getting up early in the morning so you can't study at that time. But you have only the morning time to study(because of other buzy schedule)..so what do you do? You push yourself to an extent that you really have to get up - no more delay by snoring in bed !

Hope that helped.

"Never give up, the race is long and in the end its only with yourself."