I just Beat The GMAT!

After being fairly active here for quite sometime, I finally took the GMAT yesterday and while I was initially very happy to see a 700 on the screen, the break-up of the score has since taken away some of its sheen. While a 42 in verbal is more than what I had expected, a 44 in quant is definitely much lower than what I thought I would get. It is just about 63rd %ile or so. In my practice tests I was consistently getting a quant score of 47+ and a verbal score of 36+ so this strange inversion of marks in the two sections has me baffled.

Just to give a quick background, I have a couple of years of work experience and currently working with a large data analytics firm in India. I started my prep long time back and referred to the Manhattan books and the OG13 + OG supplements initially but due to work had to halt my prep. Restarted again and got my hands on all the verbal books of aristotle prep this time, plus I attended their online classes that came free with the books, which I found very useful. Referred Barron's also but it was very easy and not of much help.

While I was generally good in Quant, DS was my bug bear but I still used to get an accuracy of around 60-65% in DS. In PS I had close to 90% accuracy.


In Verbal I found CR to be relatively simple and just did the questions in the OGs. In SC I was making the classic mistake of going with the answer that 'sounded' correct. On low difficulty questions this used to work but on high difficulty questions I was consistently getting the answer wrong. While I tried to make a conscious effort to curb this tendency, I'm not sure to what extent I succeeded. I really liked the SC Grail though; it does an excellent job of explaining all the SC rules and concepts in 'understandable' English.

For RC I was only concentrating on doing more and more practice passages. I did all the OG passages, the 20 or so passages in Manhattan and the 60 passages in the RC Grail. Overall I was getting 3 out of 4 questions correct in RC.


Test Day - There was nothing unusual that happened on test day. I reached the testing centre on time and, while I was a little nervous, it was nothing that I couldn't manage. In fact in the end when I saw a 700 on the screen I was quite satisfied because I had been consistently scoring in the range of 680-720 in my practice tests. It was only when I saw the 44 in Quant that I started to worry.

I am targeting the top business schools , and I know for a fact that they require an 80th %ile on the quant section.

While I am not averse to retaking the GMAT, I am really not sure what I could do differently now to improve my quant score. I am also not sure whether I can get a 42 on verbal for a second time.


What if the score falls instead of increasing? Experts, should I retake the test? Any thoughts will be much appreciated.

All in all, while I did get a 700, something tells me I'm not yet done with the GMAT (or maybe it's the other way around!)

Honestly, you are in a very competitive applicant pool. I would advise retaking the exam...

Congrats for the great score.While there is nothing wrong in taking GMAT again but unless you are planning to break 740+ barrier you will still be in same competitive pool of Indian Male 680-740 range.Harvard Median GMAT score is 730,so you are within 50 mark range.If it is not taxing for you then take GMAT again but if it is then I would suggest to concentrate more on your profile and try to stand out,bcz unless it is a stand out score it will just be another checklist item.

In my opinion it makes more sense not to retake it since you are very well placed within the middle 80% in quite a few of the top B-schools. If you do not have a specific school in mind, there is a realistic chance for a good admission and that chance can be broadened if you have a good overall application. Hope this helps.

I'm a risk-averse person, so take my advice with a grain of salt, but I wouldn't retake the exam unless you're applying to a program that demands a high quant score. You have a great score already, and it sounds like your verbal performance was as unexpectedly high as your math was low, so that could revert to form and contribute to the same overall score, or even a decrease.

My suspicion - as tinfoil-hatty as it sounds - is that the second time you take the test, the CAT seems to "remember" a few things about you and wants to further investigate them. The first time I took the test, I had a real variety of math questions, and I distinctly recall "missing" a tricky coordinate algebra problem at the very end (#34 or #35 in quant): I clicked the wrong letter, and realized my sloppiness immediately. (This is unfortunately typical of me: I once had to cancel my LSAT scores because I misbubbled an entire section (started answering Q1 on the line for Q2, and did the whole section that way!))

Well, the second time I took the test, I had about 15 (no exaggeration) algebra and coordinate questions and none of the geometry, combinatorics, remainders, etc that had been all over my first exam. What a coincidence!

My hunch is that the first time you may have escaped some of the CR and SC that had troubled you in practice tests, but you might not this time. Take the money and run!

The 63rd percentile IS low if you are applying to top schools, and you have nothing to lose by retaking except time and $250-300. If you were to spend 40 hours practicing over the next month, from what activity/ies would the time be taken away from? Figure out why your DS performance lags!

Thank you all for the insights. I really appreciate that so many experts and members pitched in their thoughts. After a lot of retrospection, I've decided to take the GMAT again. 44 On Quant is too low and especially because 700 is not too great a score as such. I'm planning to take the GMAT in another month's time and hopefully, I should pull off around 49 on Quant this time

Good luck! I hope this ones turns out as you hope...

Did you retake the GMAT yet ? And how much did you get ?And can you elaborate on your experience this time around ?

great score on verbal..but you certainly can do a lot better on quant.42 is too low even for an average guy on quant

HBSaspirant,
Great story..did u retake the GMAT ? Curious to know how much did you score on the second attempt.