Hi Eric and the forumers!
First of all, let me express my deep gratitude for all the materials you guys have made available on the forum. I would like to emphasize the usefulness of the flashcards; it seemed as if they were designed especially for me, for they stressed namely mistakes I tend to make. Also, I liked the folder with stuff for permutation/combination/probability.
I’m 21 and I have 2 years of work experience and a GPA of 4.0 (one year of undergrad. spent in one of American universities).
Back in November 2006 I took the GMAT for the 1st time and the 4 month long preparation was obviously not enough: I got 600 (42Q,31V) and 5 for the essay (yeah, right, who cares about the essay?!). One of my mistakes was that I treated all the questions equally, while I should have concentrated on the first 10. My preparation consisted of GMAT for Dummies (hey! Stop laughing! It was a good start for the one who had never heard about the nightmare called GMAT! ), then was Kaplan 800, Arco 2006 (I liked this one) and the OG 10th edition.
When preparing for the second try, I availed myself of the www.beatthegmat.com and must admit that it was very-very useful. I reviewed the tough questions from the OG 10th Edition (thanks to Eric for the classification of the questions in excel file), looked through the Kaplan 800 and also took the Kaplan Prep tests and, have to say, got pretty nice scores on it.
I downloaded Eric's results on the same Kaplan and official Powerprep tests (excel file) and should note that it proved useful to have your results compared to somebody's. Got exactly 600 on 1,2 and 4th tests, while the 3rd one was 670 (as is known, Kaplan Prep tests are much harder than the real test). The Powerprep results were 690 and 680. Based on these results, I expected my real score to be not less than 700 (so naïve!! )
So after 2 moths of preparation I retook the test on 28th of May and got 650 (44Q,35V; 5 for essay, and again, who cares?!
). This time the math seemed much-much harder, the tough one turned out on the 3rd question already (after what I had started panicking) and verbal section merely killed me with its tough SC…used 6 minutes for the 1st question which was SC!! All in all, had guessed at about 4-5 last question on each section because of the lack of time (this time I allowed as much time as necessary for the first 10 questions). Thanks God RCs were not as terrible as in Kaplan Prep tests! LoL
Honestly, I think additional 50 points were worthy of a retake. However, still feeling a slight dissatisfaction. Not sure whether I will retake it once more, as feeling kind of exhausted at this moment, but might start the preparation in several weeks anyway and see what happens.
How would you comment my scores and experience in GMAT? Do you think its worthwhile for me to retake the test (based on your experience, do you think I will be able to improve my skills)?
Thanks in advance!
With Respect,
Shaki.
PS I have just now downloaded the SC tips from Sahil and Spidey...for future. What else would you suggest me to download from this forum as an absolute must for 700+ score?
First of all, let me express my deep gratitude for all the materials you guys have made available on the forum. I would like to emphasize the usefulness of the flashcards; it seemed as if they were designed especially for me, for they stressed namely mistakes I tend to make. Also, I liked the folder with stuff for permutation/combination/probability.
I’m 21 and I have 2 years of work experience and a GPA of 4.0 (one year of undergrad. spent in one of American universities).
Back in November 2006 I took the GMAT for the 1st time and the 4 month long preparation was obviously not enough: I got 600 (42Q,31V) and 5 for the essay (yeah, right, who cares about the essay?!). One of my mistakes was that I treated all the questions equally, while I should have concentrated on the first 10. My preparation consisted of GMAT for Dummies (hey! Stop laughing! It was a good start for the one who had never heard about the nightmare called GMAT! ), then was Kaplan 800, Arco 2006 (I liked this one) and the OG 10th edition.
When preparing for the second try, I availed myself of the www.beatthegmat.com and must admit that it was very-very useful. I reviewed the tough questions from the OG 10th Edition (thanks to Eric for the classification of the questions in excel file), looked through the Kaplan 800 and also took the Kaplan Prep tests and, have to say, got pretty nice scores on it.
I downloaded Eric's results on the same Kaplan and official Powerprep tests (excel file) and should note that it proved useful to have your results compared to somebody's. Got exactly 600 on 1,2 and 4th tests, while the 3rd one was 670 (as is known, Kaplan Prep tests are much harder than the real test). The Powerprep results were 690 and 680. Based on these results, I expected my real score to be not less than 700 (so naïve!! )
So after 2 moths of preparation I retook the test on 28th of May and got 650 (44Q,35V; 5 for essay, and again, who cares?!
). This time the math seemed much-much harder, the tough one turned out on the 3rd question already (after what I had started panicking) and verbal section merely killed me with its tough SC…used 6 minutes for the 1st question which was SC!! All in all, had guessed at about 4-5 last question on each section because of the lack of time (this time I allowed as much time as necessary for the first 10 questions). Thanks God RCs were not as terrible as in Kaplan Prep tests! LoL Honestly, I think additional 50 points were worthy of a retake. However, still feeling a slight dissatisfaction. Not sure whether I will retake it once more, as feeling kind of exhausted at this moment, but might start the preparation in several weeks anyway and see what happens.
How would you comment my scores and experience in GMAT? Do you think its worthwhile for me to retake the test (based on your experience, do you think I will be able to improve my skills)?
Thanks in advance!
With Respect,
Shaki.
PS I have just now downloaded the SC tips from Sahil and Spidey...for future. What else would you suggest me to download from this forum as an absolute must for 700+ score?
na etot raz poluchitsya!
