I just Beat The GMAT!

Hi,

I took the GMAt today, got 740. I'm a bit surprised by the score... I got Q:47 (77th percentile) and V:45 98th (percentile). I didn't do too well on the quantitative section, screwed up "easy" questions (compared to what I usually do), especially considering my background (business school + finance), so falling in the 77th percentile for Q section seems a bit disappointing. Am I wrong to think so? I'd like to apply to one of the MBAs that have strong quantitative curriculum, will this score be enough to be taken under consideration for one of these schools, or does it make any sense to try to improve my quant score? I'm also surprised by my V score... I'm French and nowhere near bilingual, 2 seconds talking to me would confirm it, so V45 is surprising as well.

Thanks for the advice

Well...I understand your position. But if I were you, I would just leave the thought of not getting enough in Quant and move on in life. You have a terrific verbal score. So just chill.And I would like to believe that 740 is a good score.

I agree. I believe that your background in finance would make up for your Quant score.

Great score buddy!!

Thank you guys for putting this in perspective, maybe that was only the post-exam stress speaking or something
Anyways I'm putting the finishing touch on the essays now.

Cheers

nice score. how did you prepare for quant and verbal?

I think a 77 in Quant is good for most schools. I was in a similar situation, as I barely broke 80 on quant, and did really well in verbal. But if you have a solid app, I don't think most schools would reject you based on one point in the quant section.

Congrats on your score.

Preparation :

I studied for about 1 month 1/2. I did an initial test with Kaplan, with absolutely no preparation, got 620 (I graduated in 2004, so all that pythagorean stuff was long gone . Got started with Kaplan premier to get an overview, then got working on the OG, then used the 2 Kaplan workbooks (V & Q). Also bought EZ Solutions advanded math workbook, don't buy it, questions poorly written and not feeling "like" GMAT questions, lots of mistakes, almost useless... After finishing Kaplan premier (2 weeks), I did 710 (Kaplan). After that I spent most of my preparation on the quant part, on the verbal part I mostly did sentence corrections to refresh my knowledge of English grammar. I read a lot of english at work, so I didn't think I could improve much on my score in that area (besides learning a few tips). Until the test I did a lot of exercise, after a month did another Kaplan test - got 790, at that point I started to wonder if Kaplan cheats on its CAT so that you feel like you're improving.... So I did the first GMATprep, got 710, which felt more reasonable. 3 days before the test, I took the second GMATpret, got another 790 which made me feel all pumped up for the exam.

The exam :

The Quant section was a terrible experience. If I could have made a list of all the questions I hate, it couldn't have been worse... I felt like there was less variety in questions than in prep tests, actually I had 2 questions that were almost the same... Anyway I started getting pissed of, and I'm not performing very well when I'm in such a mood. I felt my last question was pretty easy and I screwed it up, so at that point I was thinking of walking away!
Verbal section was much better, I take usually 20-30 sec for sentence correction Q, 1 min for CR, which gave me enough time for RC texts that quickly became difficult so I kind of knew I was doing well.
The final score: was my verbal going to be enough to make up for quant??? I really pondered wether or not I should get my score, considering my assessment of my performance (usually I'm good with that). Then I figured, that exam is expensive enough, I might as well get something out of it... so I got 740, which was in the range of what I was aiming at, but with messed up Q/V scores and quite below the 790 I got 3 days earlier.