610 Q46 V28
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Source: Beat The GMAT — I just Beat The GMAT! |
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BlueDragon2010
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BlueDragon2010: Thanks very much for your comment. I was so distraught from the score I got that I did not want to write about it. It has been a few days since the test so I'm recovering a bit and am ready to share my story.
[b]
Here's what I did for my preparation:[/b]
Materials I used
1) All MGMAT Books including 6 online tests
2) OG Guide 11 plus additional verbal (purple) and math (green)
3) 800score
4) GMATPrep and Power Prep software for the cats
I started studying in January; it was my NYR to take the GMAT this year. I'd say I was right on schedule with my studies until late February when an unexpected situation at work caused me to have to start spending more time at work and less time studying. I didn't want to stop studying altogether because at that point I had already invested 1.5 months studying regularly so to give up then would mean I'd have to start over. Finally, things calmed down a bit towards late March and i decided to register for my test on April. 16. I even took a week off from work to prepare for the test but that was a huge mistake. For some reason, I seem to work better on weekdays even after coming home from a long day of work. I can't seem to focus on weekends, maybe it's because I'm on a different schedule. So taking the days off leading up to the exam was a huge mistake because I couldn't concentrate at all and pretty much did not practice much. I did take the GmatPrep maybe two times and reviewed material, and that was it.
Sorry...I'm was kind of rambling on and on up there...
For verbal, I first read the MGMAT SC and CR books, I skipped the RC one. SC was my weakest area but I thought I was getting better after practicing with many problems; my accuracy was about 50/50 before and then eventually 70/30. CR is my strongest area except there are a few types of CR questions that I was never good at such as weaken/stregthen conclusions. RC accuracy is either all off or all right depending on how much I'm concentrating. My verbal scores ranged from 30 (first MGMAT CAT) to 39 (last MGMAT CAT). I even scored a 41 in the PowerPrep CAT and 38 in GmatPrep.
For math, I went through all the MGMAT math books by subject. I did that in the very beginning of my studies and just kept practicing with problems. Even though I'm weaker in verbal, I must say that I spent more time practicing math than verbal. I'm a little disappointed with my actual M 46 score because I was consistently scoring in the high 40s in math. Even with numerous careless errors on the GmatPrep tests I always get at least a 47.
I went through the 800score book last and thought it was very useful for practicing with tougher problems. I didn't have much trouble with the math section, but the SC correction in the book gave me some trouble.
[b]
Actual Test:[/b]
So let me talk about what went wrong on the day of the exam. Firstly, scheduling my exam at 2PM was a mistake. Throughout my studies, I find the time from 12-5 PM the hardest to focus. My studies usually take place from 6-12PM. I decided to book my test at 2PM because I'm not a morning person and didn't want to get up for an 8AM test. I would have gone for a 4:30 PM test but there wasn't one available in the week that I wanted to take the test.
During the last week of my prep, I noticed that I did much better in math if I slow down and spend more time in the beginning, my score in Gmatprep increased from 47 to 49 because I made fewer careless errors. So on the day of the test, I decided to do the same thing. I slowed down my pace in the beginning and I think I was doing very well, I got two probability and combinatorics problems in the 10-20 questions range. But then I realized that I was running out of time. Please also note that I am the most mentally nervous in the math section between questions 20-30 because there is little buffer time if I'm behind on the timing. So when I realized that I was short on time and the problems are getting harder and harder...I totally panicked! I started guessing on some questions, spent some others, there was no strategy involved at all. When I got to the last problem, which was a fairly easy questions which would have taken be a minute to do normally, I just couldn't reason it out in my head and didn't even get to solve it. I just guessed and ended the math section.
I took a break, ate something drank something, but was still feeling disheveled from the math section. I knew it didn't go too well but I thought you'd never know and decided to focus on verbal.
I went back for the verbal section, first couple of sentence corrections went ok I think. Then, I got a CR question and I just got stuck. I'd have to mention here that the few days leading up to the exam, I became insecure with my CR abilities, mainly because it was my strong point so I had neglected to focus on it during my practices. I did reread the MGMAT CR book two days before the exam but I was still feeling uneasy. So when I got stuck on that question, I just panicked and couldn't reason out the logic at all. I spent about 5 minutes looking at it and finally moved on. At that point, I remembered a strategy that I thought I might use for verbal. During my practice CATs, I noticed that I would get about proportinally the same number of questions from for each question type if I focus on all the question types equally. But if I focus on RC and CR then my accuracy increases with those (almost 100%) and even if I got 6-7 SC wrong, my score would be higher than if I focus on everything equally. So I decided to do that for the rest of the test. I focused on CR and RC, spending extra time on them, and did not read the SC questions very carefully (dumb, I know!). I was also feeling so distressed with the timing due to the math section experience that I was just focusing on answering the questions in time rather answering them carefully. I just wanted to click the answer and move on.
Anyway, I finally got to the end of my test, I actually didn't have time to answer the last question because I was afraid I'd run out of time while I'm reading and wouldn't submit it ontime, so I just clicked an answer and confirmed. I was initially shocked with my verbal score of 28! That is the lowest score I've ever gotten! But in retrospect, I'm not surprised, I did everything wrong on the verbal section. I let pressure get to me, I didn't stick to my normal strategy, I panicked.
I don't have to tell you how disappointed I was in my score. I was expecting somewhere in the upper 600s and was not confident that I would break the 700 mark, but I was definitely not expecting to see something like a 610. My Gmatprep test scores were 640 (4 weeks before the actual test and I thought it was on the lower end because while I was doing the verbal part, everyone came home and it suddenly got really noisy in the house so I couldn't concentrate). My second GMatprep was a 690 (two weeks before the actual GMAT).
Sorry for the long post....I'm not sure if there's any takeaways for you guys but one thing I must say is don't lose focus towards the end of your preparation because the last few weeks can make all the difference!!!!
My strategy now is to focus on verbal especially SC. I'm going through the SC forums and reading all the different analyses of the wrong and right answers. I realize that I'm still very very weak in SC so I'm going to start here. I want to be able to take the test again in June. I'm also going to keep practicing CR and RC and plan to use the LSAT practice tests.
Thanks very much for reading and I'd really welcome any suggestions and comments.
[b]
Here's what I did for my preparation:[/b]
Materials I used
1) All MGMAT Books including 6 online tests
2) OG Guide 11 plus additional verbal (purple) and math (green)
3) 800score
4) GMATPrep and Power Prep software for the cats
I started studying in January; it was my NYR to take the GMAT this year. I'd say I was right on schedule with my studies until late February when an unexpected situation at work caused me to have to start spending more time at work and less time studying. I didn't want to stop studying altogether because at that point I had already invested 1.5 months studying regularly so to give up then would mean I'd have to start over. Finally, things calmed down a bit towards late March and i decided to register for my test on April. 16. I even took a week off from work to prepare for the test but that was a huge mistake. For some reason, I seem to work better on weekdays even after coming home from a long day of work. I can't seem to focus on weekends, maybe it's because I'm on a different schedule. So taking the days off leading up to the exam was a huge mistake because I couldn't concentrate at all and pretty much did not practice much. I did take the GmatPrep maybe two times and reviewed material, and that was it.
Sorry...I'm was kind of rambling on and on up there...
For verbal, I first read the MGMAT SC and CR books, I skipped the RC one. SC was my weakest area but I thought I was getting better after practicing with many problems; my accuracy was about 50/50 before and then eventually 70/30. CR is my strongest area except there are a few types of CR questions that I was never good at such as weaken/stregthen conclusions. RC accuracy is either all off or all right depending on how much I'm concentrating. My verbal scores ranged from 30 (first MGMAT CAT) to 39 (last MGMAT CAT). I even scored a 41 in the PowerPrep CAT and 38 in GmatPrep.
For math, I went through all the MGMAT math books by subject. I did that in the very beginning of my studies and just kept practicing with problems. Even though I'm weaker in verbal, I must say that I spent more time practicing math than verbal. I'm a little disappointed with my actual M 46 score because I was consistently scoring in the high 40s in math. Even with numerous careless errors on the GmatPrep tests I always get at least a 47.
I went through the 800score book last and thought it was very useful for practicing with tougher problems. I didn't have much trouble with the math section, but the SC correction in the book gave me some trouble.
[b]
Actual Test:[/b]
So let me talk about what went wrong on the day of the exam. Firstly, scheduling my exam at 2PM was a mistake. Throughout my studies, I find the time from 12-5 PM the hardest to focus. My studies usually take place from 6-12PM. I decided to book my test at 2PM because I'm not a morning person and didn't want to get up for an 8AM test. I would have gone for a 4:30 PM test but there wasn't one available in the week that I wanted to take the test.
During the last week of my prep, I noticed that I did much better in math if I slow down and spend more time in the beginning, my score in Gmatprep increased from 47 to 49 because I made fewer careless errors. So on the day of the test, I decided to do the same thing. I slowed down my pace in the beginning and I think I was doing very well, I got two probability and combinatorics problems in the 10-20 questions range. But then I realized that I was running out of time. Please also note that I am the most mentally nervous in the math section between questions 20-30 because there is little buffer time if I'm behind on the timing. So when I realized that I was short on time and the problems are getting harder and harder...I totally panicked! I started guessing on some questions, spent some others, there was no strategy involved at all. When I got to the last problem, which was a fairly easy questions which would have taken be a minute to do normally, I just couldn't reason it out in my head and didn't even get to solve it. I just guessed and ended the math section.
I took a break, ate something drank something, but was still feeling disheveled from the math section. I knew it didn't go too well but I thought you'd never know and decided to focus on verbal.
I went back for the verbal section, first couple of sentence corrections went ok I think. Then, I got a CR question and I just got stuck. I'd have to mention here that the few days leading up to the exam, I became insecure with my CR abilities, mainly because it was my strong point so I had neglected to focus on it during my practices. I did reread the MGMAT CR book two days before the exam but I was still feeling uneasy. So when I got stuck on that question, I just panicked and couldn't reason out the logic at all. I spent about 5 minutes looking at it and finally moved on. At that point, I remembered a strategy that I thought I might use for verbal. During my practice CATs, I noticed that I would get about proportinally the same number of questions from for each question type if I focus on all the question types equally. But if I focus on RC and CR then my accuracy increases with those (almost 100%) and even if I got 6-7 SC wrong, my score would be higher than if I focus on everything equally. So I decided to do that for the rest of the test. I focused on CR and RC, spending extra time on them, and did not read the SC questions very carefully (dumb, I know!). I was also feeling so distressed with the timing due to the math section experience that I was just focusing on answering the questions in time rather answering them carefully. I just wanted to click the answer and move on.
Anyway, I finally got to the end of my test, I actually didn't have time to answer the last question because I was afraid I'd run out of time while I'm reading and wouldn't submit it ontime, so I just clicked an answer and confirmed. I was initially shocked with my verbal score of 28! That is the lowest score I've ever gotten! But in retrospect, I'm not surprised, I did everything wrong on the verbal section. I let pressure get to me, I didn't stick to my normal strategy, I panicked.
I don't have to tell you how disappointed I was in my score. I was expecting somewhere in the upper 600s and was not confident that I would break the 700 mark, but I was definitely not expecting to see something like a 610. My Gmatprep test scores were 640 (4 weeks before the actual test and I thought it was on the lower end because while I was doing the verbal part, everyone came home and it suddenly got really noisy in the house so I couldn't concentrate). My second GMatprep was a 690 (two weeks before the actual GMAT).
Sorry for the long post....I'm not sure if there's any takeaways for you guys but one thing I must say is don't lose focus towards the end of your preparation because the last few weeks can make all the difference!!!!
My strategy now is to focus on verbal especially SC. I'm going through the SC forums and reading all the different analyses of the wrong and right answers. I realize that I'm still very very weak in SC so I'm going to start here. I want to be able to take the test again in June. I'm also going to keep practicing CR and RC and plan to use the LSAT practice tests.
Thanks very much for reading and I'd really welcome any suggestions and comments.
