Hello all...
I have been a silent lurker of this site, mostly reading forum posts for inspiration... Sadly, this is not a post of success but rather failure... Today I took the GMAT after 8 months of studying. I just graduated from college and am hoping to attend b-school in a couple years (I am going to take advantage of the 5 year holding period while I get some work experience) I started studying mid-May of 2010. I decided to study for the entire summer in hopes of taking the exam early in the fall (with no real date set yet).
I studied everyday for 3 to 4 hours except on Sunday's. I took one week off for a vacation. At the very end of August I took my first practice test (a disappointing 510). I must note here that although I consider what I did self study, I also saw a tutor about once a week who walked me through the key elements of the test such as deconstructing the CR questions and math strategies. At the end of August I began my last semester of School.
After scoring a 510 I decided that I should wait to take the exam. Getting busy with school I decided to cut my study time back to about an hour or so a day. I scheduled my exam for Nov. 15th. However, as the exam day came closer I still had not been able to take sufficient practice exams and decided to postpone the test until graduation. I kept studying an hour or so a day.
Upon graduation on December 15th, I landed a job at a big Financial Institution as an associate but will not be starting until the end of February. I decided I would spend all of January studying. I then stepped my studying back up to what I had been doing in the summer, being approximately 3 hours a day plus taking at least one practice exam a week. My scores for all my tests are as follows:
GMAT PRACTICE:
800score.com 1: 9.6.2010: 510 Q: 28 ; V: 33%
MGMAT CAT 1: 10.13.2010: 500 Q: 26 - 19%; V -: 33 - 69% 38 percentile overall
MGMAT CAT 2: 12.23.2010: 620 Q: 42 - 70% ; V: 32 = 67 % 76 percentile overall
MGMAT CAT 3: 1.4.2010: 560 Q: 35- 44% ; V: 32- 67 % 57 percentile overall
MGMAT CAT 4: 1.8.2011: 600 Q: 39 - 57% ; V: 34 - 72 % 70 percentile overall
800score.com 2: 1.10.2011: 580 Q: 34 V: 36
800score.com 3: 1.13.2011: 630 Q: 36 ; V: 42
800score.com 4: 8.17.2011: 710: Q:43 ; V: 42
800score.com 5: 8.21.2011: 660 Q:42 ; V: 39
MGMAT CAT 5: 1.25.2011 640 Q: 36 48% , V: 41 93 % 80 percentile overall
MGMAT CAT 6: 1.27.2011: 700 Q: Q: 42 66% ; V: 42% 96% 93 percentile overall
GMATprep test 1 1.29.2011: 680 (not sure of breakdown)
GMAT prep test 2: 1.31.2011: 660 (not sure of breakdown)
With all those practice test behind me and my course starting to hit the upper 600's I felt confident going into the exam today. I was expecting mid to upper 6's.
My weaknesses I have noticed from studying are sentence correction and data sufficiency.
While doing practice tests I always did essays too.
TEST DAY:
My exam was at 8 and I arrived at 7:30. Waking up this morning I felt well rested but a little nervous. I did not eat hardly anything at breakfast due to my nerves but was still confident going to the exam.
Thought I did well on the essays.
Took my break and snacked on some raisins (stomach was still a little uneasy).
I walked back in to take the Q section and felt confident and not too nervous. Through the Q section I could not really gauge how I was doing because there seemed to be a mix of difficult and easy questions.
After the Q section, I still felt good going into the Verbal. Thought I did well on verbal section. Had a few challenging SC questions and three long RC (4 overall, 1 short) but all in all I thought it went well.
Quickly sped through my survey at the end (I actually ran out of time on the survey because I was thinking so much about my score - this doesn't affect your score does it? Haha). Clicked my results and was bewildered by a 580 (34 Q 38th percentile; 35 V 73rd percentile).
What should I do? What happened? I am definitely going to re take the exam. Maybe it is a blessing in the sky and I need to prepare more to get the score I really want (above 700)... I am just frustrated because I did study a lot and am not looking forward to more studying. However, if I have learned anything from the GMAT, you cannot let it beat you! I am not going to give up, I will beat this exam!
My goal is a top ten business school. Please guys, help me? What advice do you have? What do you think went wrong?
I am going to take one week off and then start studying again! I start work at the end of February, so I still have some free time aside from my business. I am thinking about scheduling in about a month.. What do you all think?
Credentials:
Major: Busines
s/Economics Minor: Finance
Graduated Cum. GPA 3.74
Varsity Athlete
President of Honor Society
Won schools business plan competition
Started my own business in the last year
Finance Associate at big FI
I have been a silent lurker of this site, mostly reading forum posts for inspiration... Sadly, this is not a post of success but rather failure... Today I took the GMAT after 8 months of studying. I just graduated from college and am hoping to attend b-school in a couple years (I am going to take advantage of the 5 year holding period while I get some work experience) I started studying mid-May of 2010. I decided to study for the entire summer in hopes of taking the exam early in the fall (with no real date set yet).
I studied everyday for 3 to 4 hours except on Sunday's. I took one week off for a vacation. At the very end of August I took my first practice test (a disappointing 510). I must note here that although I consider what I did self study, I also saw a tutor about once a week who walked me through the key elements of the test such as deconstructing the CR questions and math strategies. At the end of August I began my last semester of School.
After scoring a 510 I decided that I should wait to take the exam. Getting busy with school I decided to cut my study time back to about an hour or so a day. I scheduled my exam for Nov. 15th. However, as the exam day came closer I still had not been able to take sufficient practice exams and decided to postpone the test until graduation. I kept studying an hour or so a day.
Upon graduation on December 15th, I landed a job at a big Financial Institution as an associate but will not be starting until the end of February. I decided I would spend all of January studying. I then stepped my studying back up to what I had been doing in the summer, being approximately 3 hours a day plus taking at least one practice exam a week. My scores for all my tests are as follows:
GMAT PRACTICE:
800score.com 1: 9.6.2010: 510 Q: 28 ; V: 33%
MGMAT CAT 1: 10.13.2010: 500 Q: 26 - 19%; V -: 33 - 69% 38 percentile overall
MGMAT CAT 2: 12.23.2010: 620 Q: 42 - 70% ; V: 32 = 67 % 76 percentile overall
MGMAT CAT 3: 1.4.2010: 560 Q: 35- 44% ; V: 32- 67 % 57 percentile overall
MGMAT CAT 4: 1.8.2011: 600 Q: 39 - 57% ; V: 34 - 72 % 70 percentile overall
800score.com 2: 1.10.2011: 580 Q: 34 V: 36
800score.com 3: 1.13.2011: 630 Q: 36 ; V: 42
800score.com 4: 8.17.2011: 710: Q:43 ; V: 42
800score.com 5: 8.21.2011: 660 Q:42 ; V: 39
MGMAT CAT 5: 1.25.2011 640 Q: 36 48% , V: 41 93 % 80 percentile overall
MGMAT CAT 6: 1.27.2011: 700 Q: Q: 42 66% ; V: 42% 96% 93 percentile overall
GMATprep test 1 1.29.2011: 680 (not sure of breakdown)
GMAT prep test 2: 1.31.2011: 660 (not sure of breakdown)
With all those practice test behind me and my course starting to hit the upper 600's I felt confident going into the exam today. I was expecting mid to upper 6's.
My weaknesses I have noticed from studying are sentence correction and data sufficiency.
While doing practice tests I always did essays too.
TEST DAY:
My exam was at 8 and I arrived at 7:30. Waking up this morning I felt well rested but a little nervous. I did not eat hardly anything at breakfast due to my nerves but was still confident going to the exam.
Thought I did well on the essays.
Took my break and snacked on some raisins (stomach was still a little uneasy).
I walked back in to take the Q section and felt confident and not too nervous. Through the Q section I could not really gauge how I was doing because there seemed to be a mix of difficult and easy questions.
After the Q section, I still felt good going into the Verbal. Thought I did well on verbal section. Had a few challenging SC questions and three long RC (4 overall, 1 short) but all in all I thought it went well.
Quickly sped through my survey at the end (I actually ran out of time on the survey because I was thinking so much about my score - this doesn't affect your score does it? Haha). Clicked my results and was bewildered by a 580 (34 Q 38th percentile; 35 V 73rd percentile).
What should I do? What happened? I am definitely going to re take the exam. Maybe it is a blessing in the sky and I need to prepare more to get the score I really want (above 700)... I am just frustrated because I did study a lot and am not looking forward to more studying. However, if I have learned anything from the GMAT, you cannot let it beat you! I am not going to give up, I will beat this exam!
My goal is a top ten business school. Please guys, help me? What advice do you have? What do you think went wrong?
I am going to take one week off and then start studying again! I start work at the end of February, so I still have some free time aside from my business. I am thinking about scheduling in about a month.. What do you all think?
Credentials:
Major: Busines
s/Economics Minor: Finance
Graduated Cum. GPA 3.74
Varsity Athlete
President of Honor Society
Won schools business plan competition
Started my own business in the last year
Finance Associate at big FI
) stuff.
