350 :(

[elizabethsmith909]

I took the gmat today and scored a 350 (this is 50 points lower than my previous scores. I went to my car and just cried. During the test I always get so nervous that I get sick to my stomach and my head just goes blank. I really need some very good advice right now. All I need is a 450 to get into my local university's mba program, but I can't seem to achieve this score. I'm What I don't understand is that in the past 3 weeks I have taken 3 practice gmats and scored the following:

MGMAT1: 460
PRGmat1: 450
PRGmat2: 450

I'm not giving up I guess my plans will be put on hold for now.

[mbadrew]

I can suggest a short break and then a comprehensive review. It seems as if you a selling yourself short with a goal of only 450 and therefore, I think it's safe for me to assume, you're not putting in time to learn the core subject matter that's tested on the gmat.

[wawatan]

it seems like your nerves got the best of you. look on the bright side, you only need a 450 to get into your school. you really need to take more practice exams to simulate real test environment so you won't get nervous on D-Day. first you have to know your basic concepts by heart. (number properties, percents, ratios, word problems, geometry, probability). i would suggest you to take a prep course (manhattan gmat). you will improve. you need to believe in yourself. 8)

[mbadrew]

I can recommend GMAX online. I started reviewing a month ago and I've noticed significant improvement in my knowledge.

[GMAT_Tomorrow]

elizabethsmith909 - Hello and how are you doing? I am responding to your post, while it is a while ago I wanted to let you know that I too scored a 350 on the GMAT today. I broke down crying and pretty much almost got into an accident today because I had lost focus. I only needed a 450 to get into my school of choice and couldn't even get that. I don't know what to do and while my recommendations are superb, I don't know if that will help me get into my program which starts in 3 weeks. I feel like a failure amongst other things but I plan to write the GMAT againand score higher than before. If that was your first time taking the GMAT I recommend that you take the test again. If you want, I will somehow study with you across the net. We can exchange answers and study tactics. I don't believe that the prep test really prepare you for what's going to be on the exam but a generalization. I also find that without them switching up (the princeton review doesn't change their questions) you tend to find some of the same practice questions that do not accurately depict what will be on the exam. I scored in the 500s on my practice test but NOTHING that I studied was on the real exam.. Besides the fact I was extremely nervous

[AleksandrM]

After a month and a half of studying, I took a practice test and scored a 480. 4 months later, I took the test and scored 640. Two weeks after that I took a practice test and scored 720. Now, I am retaking the test in September. Rather than writing a long comprehensive list, here is a checklist of sorts:

-Start with the most basic concepts on both quant and verbal. Learn these cold.

-Progress towards problems and verbal concepts that are more difficult because they use in combination what you learned during the "basics" stage.

-As you solve problems - AT ANY LEVEL - thoroughly review what you did and what the book did. Make sure that you are not just reading but LEARNING as well.

-Less is more. Do not study for hours at a time. I did this, and it is not a good idea. Instead, solve 20 problems a night and do 20 verbal questions a night. Move quickly. Then, spend a good amount of time reviewing what you did and what the book did.

-If you answer a question correctly, go on and see what the book did compared to what you did. Which method is better.

-Do not stay away from the things you like to do. See a movie, read a book, go out, don't just do GMAT... do not get obsessed.

-Make GMAT the goal, not the school. Your goal is to get into the GMAT, not into a given school. Otherwise you will constantly see it as an obstacle rather than an opportunity.

-Learn to enjoy learning. If you sit down to do problems and think to yourself how much you don't want to do this crap... put down the pen, close the book, and go do something else. Otherwise, you will only be wasting your time.

-Needless to say, make flashcards and review them.

-Consider blogging about what you are doing. I blog about math problems, verbal strategies and concepts. When you try to explain something to an imaginary reader/pupil, things really sink in.

-If possible, take a practice test once a week. If you do well, do not think that you are doing well. If you do poorly, do not think that you are doing poorly. The practice test is just practice that is all. The score you get is just an estimate of how you will do on the test.

-THEREFORE, focus on the concepts rather than the score.

[medea66]

AleksandrM,

That is inspirational. The most difficult thing is spending the time on the studying and not seeing the increase. After a soaring score of 370 in May, I decided to study again. After a month of studying, I took the GMATPREP I and scored a mere 490. I don't really see this as an improvement as I used to score mid-500s before May.

I have been doing problems under timed conditions and then reviewing all problems that I got wrong and problems that I doubted (but got correct). I then move on to a different section. Now that I'm taking the practice tests, I will spend time reviewing the same way.

I have 2wks to go, is there anything else that I can do to improve the score?

[AleksandrM]

medea66,

What resources have you been using? I found that Kaplan and Princeton books were pretty much a waste of my time. Things that have been instrumental in increasing my score came from Manhattan GMAT books, the OG (orange, purple, and green), MGMAT CATs (which provide a lot of explanation to each question), and this forum.

I would not suggest doing problems under timed conditions. I believe that there are two stages to the GMAT. The first stage is the learning stage. The second stage is the practicing and solidification stage. You are still in your learning stage and I would not suggest doing problems under timed conditions (that's what you have the practice test for). Instead, move through a problem as fast as you can, but LEARN. It is better to solve a problem from the OG in six minutes, and really learn how to do it. The next time you see a problem of the same type, you will solve it in four minutes. As you see more and more manifestations of the same concept, you will learn it from every angle. THEN, you will see that your time will decrease.

Two weeks is a very short time to work with. This should really be a time when you review rather than learn. However, in your situation you have to get as much learning in as possible. I suggest that you focus on the problems that you almost always answer incorrectly. I also suggest that you focus on the problems that are most commonly tested: rates (distance and work), ratios (new men being added to a room, liquids being transferred from one jar into another, etc.), percentages (percentages of, over, increase, decrease), brush over geometry (unless you are really weak on the most basic of things), DO NOT DO any probability or combinatorics.

On the verbal section, I would focus on sentence correction more than anything else, because that is where return could be highest. You can get better at critical reasoning over a longer period of time. It requires a close and rigorous study of each question type to see what the subtle differences are between the correct answer and the second best answer. Reading comprehension is about creating enough time for you to read the passage. The way to increase your time on RC is to get better and quicker on CR and SC questions.

Let me know if you have any other questions. I'd be happy to answer them.

[medea66]

The resources that I've recently used are OG Green & Purple. I'm now starting w/ OG Orange. We'll see how things go. One thing I must admit, while taking the GMATPREP1, I felf the verbal wasn't so bad. However, it ended up being a 28 and my Quant a 29. I don't understand that.

[pepeprepa]

medea66 you have the same verbal level of 28 as I have.
If you have any clues to upgrade this verbal level....

[AleksandrM]

I am guessing that both of you are not native speakers of English. I am not a native speaker either, but I have lived in the US for the past 12 years, and have come to speak the language better than many of the natives. Therefore, I doubt that I can help the two of you. In general, I was pretty comfortable with the verbal section, scoring in the upper 30s. It took me 2 weeks - during which I went through two MGMAT guides - to get my score into the 40s zone.

I hope that someone else - a non-native speaker who has improved his/her verbal score - can provide you with an input. I doubt that my approach to increasing my score would help you.

Sorry.

[medea66]

You're absolutely right, I'm not a native speaker. But, I've been in the US since elementary school and I graduated 2yrs ago from an undergrad program. So, given the time I've been here I'm assuming that this should not be a big problem. But the thing is, I don't find the verbal piece that difficult. At the end of the test, I expect to do really well and end up being disappointed when I see my score. So, I really don't know what to do about that.

For now I will take AleksandrM's advice and really focus on the SC part so can practice the rules over and over again. Let's see how it goes........

[medea66]

After reviewing GPREP1 for a week, I re-took it last night and got a 580 (Q30, V40)!!!! I'm so excited!!!! I must admit, quite a few questions repeated from the first time I took it last week. But, atleast some progress is made from my score of 490 from last week. I focused ALOT on SC for the verbal and definitely felt the difficulty of the questions. The thing w/ this whole test is that you don't know the reasoning behind why you find the test difficult.........b/c you don't know the basics or that you're doing well and just getting the difficult questions.

[AleksandrM]

Nice progress medea. Keep pressing on. Be hard on yourself, and you will get to your goal.

[medea66]

AleksandrM,

When you re-took the GMATPREP 1 & 2 exams, did you re-install the program from the website each time?