I just Beat The GMAT!

I am unbelievably disappointed with this score, mainly the Q34. My undergrad is in Finance and my GPA in Quant related coursework (Finance, Econ, Accounting, Stats, etc..) was 3.67 - so I obviously don't feel like Q34 is very representative of my quantitative abilities. I will say that the most important aspect, as has been repeated on this site countless times, is make sure you have your timing down! Well, technically, an understanding of the concepts tested is the most important, but anybody with a college education (or really even a high school education in the US) should have a solid grasp of the concepts since they are testing Algebra, Geometry and rudimentary statistics. My problem lied in my timing. I felt confident while I was solving the questions and feel like I was doing very well until, at question 25, I checked the clock and saw that I had 13 minutes remaining (essentially 1 minute per question). Everything after that became a blur because I lost my focus and began glossing over the question and randomly clicking answers. Hindsight 20/20, I should have continued to solve the problems and not worried about time until there were 2 minutes left - this would have allowed me to solve another 5-7 problems, leaving only a handful of "blind guesses" and giving the algorithm less time to penalize my time management mistake. I'm not sure if I will retake the exam, as I have a pretty strong overall package with that low score being the biggest obstacle. I am not applying to full time programs, so I feel like I am still very competitive to most of the schools, however I probably just blew my shot at the Duke Cross Continent program & probably my shot at MBA@UNC. My advice for those who are reading this that have not taken the exam is to go through your choice of study prep material, I used Manhattan GMAT & I think they are a great resource, and make sure you do the practice problems at the end of the chapters. Once you are comfortable with that material, complete a CAT (here my advice will break from others that I have read) untimed - this will give you an idea of what your actual strengths and weaknesses are (since you aren't under time constraints). Use that as your basis to go back and focus on your weaknesses. After you have established your weaknesses and you have focused on those, take another CAT, but this time make it timed so you can start to get your timing down (this is where I failed). My problem is I didn't give myself enough prep time before the exam to get my timing down - I gave myself 2 weeks and 2 CATs to get my timing down, which wasn't enough time. I would think that 4-6 weeks and 3-4 CATs should be sufficient time to get your timing down without overworking yourself. Best of luck to the rest of you & I will update my results if I decide to retake the exam.

Cheers!
Chris

The beauty of the GMAT is that you can start with a clean slate (take it as many times).. One strategy that you should have followed when you realized that you had 13 minutes left with 12 questions, was to guess every alternate question so that you would not have a string of incorrect answers...

Anyways Your Verbal score is close to 90th percentile so you are set there. Do go over quant, and take a lot of CAT's to stream line your timing strategy. If you are reading MGMAT books, or are comfortable with their material, I would recomend reading a few chapters from the GMAT ROADMAP book, or else read comments by Stacy and others on Guessing (Both quant and verbal) and timing strategy. I believe their is also a Thursdays with Ron video on timing strategy. Go over that. I am sure the next time you will do well on the GMAT, Just work hard on quant and timing..

Thanks for the advice/tips. I should have had a better strategy for the scenario I encountered, but I didn't and my score suffered. After speaking with the admissions counselors to the 4 schools I am targeting & the 5th that is my fall back, I have decided to not re-take the GMAT. I am going to rely on my overall app pkg & I feel very confident that I will get into at least 3 of the 5. As I stated below I have a very strong overall package, especially for the distance programs. Thanks to everyone on this site that has either responded directly to my inquiries or just provided general advice - trust me it helped me prep - I didn't mention this in my earlier post, but my progression looked like this:
MGMAT CAT 1 - 470 (Q29 V27) 10/10/12 (Diagnostic; 18yrs since last standardized test)
MGMAT CAT 2 - 550 (Q37 V29) 01/10/13 (taken after reading most of the quant books)
MGMAT Cat 3 - 510 (Q29 V31) 01/20/13 (taken after not looking at the material for a week)
MGMAT CAT 4 - 630 (Q44 V33) 02/02/13 (taken a week before actual GMAT, untimed bc I wanted to get a feel for where my subject area weaknesses were)
MGMAT CAT 5 - 570 (Q36 V32) 02/05/13 (timed, taken after focusing on weak areas)
MGMAT CAT 6 - 590 (Q41 V31) 02/08/13 (timed, taken night before exam)

Based on my progression, I was expecting a Q score in the low 40's but would have been happy with Q36 or higher - this would have put my total score in the 620-670 range - not a superstar by any stretch, but it would have pretty much made me a lock for 5/5 acceptance letters.

Cheers!
Chris

As an update to my post, I received my official scores & don't feel quite as disappointed....my Q score was still much lower than is representative, but my IR score came back as 7 so I take some solace in that. Overall final stats look like:
Q - 34
V - 38
Total - 590
AWA - 5.0
IR - 7

I have completed my apps to UNC & UF and am nearing completion on my Indiana & ASU apps...I am applying to the online components of these programs due to work and family commitments.

Cheers!

Aren't u retaking the exam?

shreerajp99 wrote:Aren't u retaking the exam?

No...no need, it would only be to boost my ego. I've already been accepted to Florida (Hough) and am awaiting decisions from UNC (Kenan-Flagler - interview this Sunday) & ASU (WP Carey)...

Best of luck Chris!

Brent@GMATPrepNow wrote:

shreerajp99 wrote:Aren't u retaking the exam?

I think it's important to add some perspective to a 590 score.
First of all, GMAT test-takers are university-educated individuals who are, on average, very intelligent and motivated. These are your competitors on the beloved bell curve. So, if you score 560, you're right at the 50th percentile, which already means you scored better than half of a very talented group of students.
Scoring over 560 is even better.

Nice work, Chris!

Cheers,
Brent

Thanks for the perspective Brent. I do think that fact gets lost sometimes on a site like this because there are so many success stories. In "real life" I work with several people who are currently pursuing their MBA and scored sub 500 on their GMAT's. The only reason I was disappointed was my Q score, it was well below my capabilities & feel I should have done much better in that respect, but when I received my official scores and saw my IR score I felt better. The IR is still in the validity stage at most schools, but in my conversations with admissions counselors, the prevailing trend is that the IR is showing to be very representative of a student's ability to succeed at the MBA level.

Anyway, thanks again for adding perspective.

Cheers!