I just Beat The GMAT!

Took it Friday, July 30th. It was a 710 (92%) / 41Q (56%) / 46V (99%)

Right off the bat I want to say that I know this is not a bad total score. I know many are (rightfully) happy with a 710. However, that 41Q is just not good enough given my particular circumstances. I will be retaking the test.

Also, and trying not to sound conspiratorial, in this forum we usually see many awesome write-ups of people who start with Quant in the high 40s, and have their struggle in getting their Verbal up. I think up until this week I can recall maybe two reports of people with High V/Low Q splits. I took the test on Friday, July 30th. Right now if you look at the forum I see two reports of people who took it I think on the same day and got the same rare splits. I have no idea what conclusion (if any) I should reach about it, but the fact that we see three splits like these on the same day while I personally only saw 2 or 3 splits like these in the past six months did pique my interest. Hopefully someone can tell me I'm just a poor user of the "search" function.

While I don't think I have the cachet to do a Quant debrief, I'll try to see if my Verbal can help anyone. Hopefully I'll be able to write a great quant recovery debrief in a month. =)

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The "one-line takeaway": Read as much as you can as often as you can.

Reading Comprehension:
-I think the key to RC, as echoed by others, is to "get into" the passage. Especially if you're at the higher CAT levels, you might be seeing some passages which are outlandish. It's easy to lose interest and focus. Lock0ut's advice about reading the NY Times is dead-on, only I would personally (and snobbishly =) recommend The Economist instead. Don't just read what you like. You can be a finance guy, but read the science and technology section. If Homer Simpson can, you can too.

-I found that the "author intent" questions can usually be solved by stepping back from the passage for a few moments (IE: don't focus on the facts or the logic), and then look at the first paragraph and the last, looking for "conditional" statements ("However,..." or "In fact,..." for example).

-Be on the lookout for extreme statements and things that may very well be true, but are not germane to the question. I think many questions in RC try to catch "lazy" readers who look for an easy "true or false" answers.

-I don't know how to "practice" interest, but one (perhaps odd) exercise that I do is to go on Wikipedia and find a random Featured Article and read it thoroughly. It may be something that you're not interested in, but most likely it'll be well-written and carry a historical tone which you can't find in current publications (but you'll definitely see on the GMAT). Thankfully they provide a link for random featured articles.

-Materials: Kaplan was okay, but OG is king. Also, GRE materials are exceptional for RC, as it tends to be great "high altitude" training.

Sentence Correction:

-Again, I think the greatest determinant of your success here is the amount of reading you do. I never took formal English grammar in school. Doing the OG, while I got 95% of the RC/CR questions right, my SC always lagged behind in the low 80s. I kinda learned grammar by reading and having a plethora of "ah" moments when I saw an idiom being used. This is another reason I recommend the Economist over others, as they seem to be more colloquial while maintaining the same level of grammatical correctness (and I kinda enjoy the occasional wit).

-One thing that got me in the beginning of studying SC is the "justified change"--if an alternative will change the meaning of the sentence. I had a tendency to be conservative about this--if an alternative is grammatically flawless but changes the original meaning of a question which I think is right, but just awkward, I tended to stick to the original sentence. This is kind of a personal gut-feeling thing which may not work for everyone, but certainly worked for me.

-Materials: I cannot say I got much out of the Manhattan SC guide. I know people worship it, and I'll certainly sing their praises when I do a Quant writeup, but I just didn't get anything out of it with the exception of things such as verb tenses. Having said that, I would endorse MGMAT on the SC questions in their CATs.

Critical Reasoning:

-This is tough. CR is one the one thing about the GMAT which I actually enjoyed, but it's tough to give tips. Try to find a method that works for you, but CR for me was usually obvious at first--the alternatives are very predictable. I usually flew through CR and RC. That gave enough time to do SC and still finish the test with 20 minutes left on the clock. I can't think of any great revelations here, other than maybe working on recognizing the usual patterns in alternatives.

-Materials: It was hard to find good materials to practice CR outside of OG. The one thing I'll say is that the MGMAT CAT's critical reasoning was infuriating. When I did OG and even on the test itself, the CR was straightforward. On the MGMAT CAT's I often got a feeling that there was a right answer and the answer that they wanted me to pick. After the test, I would feel like picking up the phone and calling someone at MGMAT to argue why my "wrong" answer still worked. I think the approach they take to writing the questions themselves is different from the GMAT, so the questions look similar, but the alternatives are out of whack. I never got above a 41 on the MGMAT CATs, and got 46/47s on the two GMATPreps.

-On the flipside, I would recommend going after some LSAT CR materials, which tend to be harder and based on more "pure" logic--they're not comparable to actual GMAT questions, but they help you get beyond the content and at the logic of the issue, which is a great help for the actual GMAT.

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That's it for verbal! Hope you've found something useful here. I will be retaking the test on account of that 41Q.

On a final note: Don't get intimidated by the verbal on the GMAT. I'm a non-native English speaker with ADHD-PI. If I can get a 99% percentile on the verbal, you can too. It's a question of finding out what is the right strategy for you.

dalillama wrote:Took it Friday, July 30th. It was a 710 (92%) / 41Q (56%) / 46V (99%)



On a final note: Don't get intimidated by the verbal on the GMAT. I'm a non-native English speaker with ADHD-PI. If I can get a 99% percentile on the verbal, you can too. It's a question of finding out what is the right strategy for you.

Well said Dalilama, Verbal is just a matter of finding that comfort zone and that comes from practice .

Good score, wish you all the best for your Q improvement.

dalillama,

Excellent!!!Good verbal score..The verbal tips u provided are really worthful...

Surely you will score high in your second attempt...All the Best!!!!

On the MGMAT CAT's I often got a feeling that there was a right answer and the answer that they wanted me to pick. After the test, I would feel like picking up the phone and calling someone at MGMAT to argue why my "wrong" answer still worked

.

Very funny

Thank you for the debrief, and I agree with retaking the GMAT with such low quant score.

Only thing I didn't find comfortable with your analysis of verbal is how you approached SC. But I guess if you're a strong reader and you have read a lot of good writing, your instinct of what is right and wrong must be pretty reliable. Unfortunately for me, relying on my instinct would probably drop my score by quite a bit.

out of curiousity dalilama what were your GMATprep and MGMAT quant scores?

uwhusky wrote:Thank you for the debrief, and I agree with retaking the GMAT with such low quant score.

Only thing I didn't find comfortable with your analysis of verbal is how you approached SC. But I guess if you're a strong reader and you have read a lot of good writing, your instinct of what is right and wrong must be pretty reliable. Unfortunately for me, relying on my instinct would probably drop my score by quite a bit.

Yeah, SC was not my strong suit initially. Like I said, I think it always played "catch-up" to the other two sections. You're absolutely right: I would not recommend "gut feeling" on SC unless you have a high degree of confidence. In fact, I think one the reasons why I improved so much on my SC hit ratio is because I realized I could, in fact, study the rules of SC without hampering my "gut feeling" skills. Error logs in this regard are invaluable.

I think my SC was, yes, ultimately guided by my reading, whereas most people would feel more comfortable (and get a better score) by focusing on the rules. I think this reinforces my message about finding the method that works best for you.

RumpelThickSkin wrote:out of curiousity dalilama what were your GMATprep and MGMAT quant scores?

MGMAT I only took two, and they were 43 and 48. GMATPrep were 46 and 48. I also took two Focus diagnostics (which I don't hear much about in the forums, for some reason), and they were 42-45 on one and 47-51 on the other (but the first one I did as a "baseline" about a month before the test).

I was never going to be a stellar Quant guy, but that 41Q really caught me by surprise.

dalillama wrote:

RumpelThickSkin wrote:out of curiousity dalilama what were your GMATprep and MGMAT quant scores?

MGMAT I only took two, and they were 43 and 48. GMATPrep were 46 and 48. I also took two Focus diagnostics (which I don't hear much about in the forums, for some reason), and they were 42-45 on one and 47-51 on the other (but the first one I did as a "baseline" about a month before the test).

I was never going to be a stellar Quant guy, but that 41Q really caught me by surprise.

wow! shocking were u nervous before quant only reason that i can think for your quant score. 41 seems way to low with those scores .. good decision to take the GMAT again - best of luck hope u go past the 750 mark!

RumpelThickSkin wrote:

dalillama wrote:

RumpelThickSkin wrote:out of curiousity dalilama what were your GMATprep and MGMAT quant scores?

MGMAT I only took two, and they were 43 and 48. GMATPrep were 46 and 48. I also took two Focus diagnostics (which I don't hear much about in the forums, for some reason), and they were 42-45 on one and 47-51 on the other (but the first one I did as a "baseline" about a month before the test).

I was never going to be a stellar Quant guy, but that 41Q really caught me by surprise.

wow! shocking were u nervous before quant only reason that i can think for your quant score. 41 seems way to low with those scores .. good decision to take the GMAT again - best of luck hope u go past the 750 mark!

On the contrary I think I was too calm--I think after I took the GmatPrep and saw that I could get a 48 and still get 12 questions wrong, I let my guard down on test day and didn't focus. I think between bad timing strategy (I ended the quant with 8 minutes left on the clock) and general strategy, I ended not getting anywhere near the result I wanted.

But I'll get there. Balls to the wall!

dalillama wrote:
On the contrary I think I was too calm--I think after I took the GmatPrep and saw that I could get a 48 and still get 12 questions wrong, I let my guard down on test day and didn't focus. I think between bad timing strategy (I ended the quant with 8 minutes left on the clock) and general strategy, I ended not getting anywhere near the result I wanted.

But I'll get there. Balls to the wall!

I can echo this same mistake in my previous GMAT. I scored on average 49 in GMATPrep and 48 from MGMAT, and ended up with a crappy 44 in the real deal.

Hi Dalillama,

I posted this one here: https://www.beatthegmat.com/beat-the-gma ... 62907.html

I can tell you for sure that my quant score was deserved. I blindly guessed the first 2 questions. My nerves were shot for whatever reason! It took me until questions in the 30s to get to the more difficult numeric problems (remainders, etc.). I knew I would make it up on the verbal, which I was scoring in the 99th percentile on all practice exams.

Take care!

Evan

Congratulations. Really appreciate your excellent writing regarding your Verbal preparation experience. Your writing actually reflects your excellent verbal score; and therefore, it is believable. I am struglling with every verbal category. I can get only 50% right in RC, 67% right in SC, and 63% right in CR when I anwer the OG 12th edition questions. On these mock tests, my verbal score ranges from 33 to 36. Your actual score of 46V is fantastic. I can't raise the verbal score any higher even after I studied the Kaplan, Manhattan, and the OG according to the Beathegmat 60 guide.

On Quantitative I am a little better. The Quant score on the mock tests ranges from 38 to 45. I just need to do more practice questions so my score is consistant.

It seems that the score 700 will be a dream, and a dream only. Good luck to your next try on the GMAT and wish you attain 780 or higher.

I would say that quant is tougher than the prep so you might surprised on the test day. But my mantra is not not get bogged down by one question; If you are not getting it, leave it and move ahead. Its important to complete the test with time to spare. I have also found that it is really important to get the last few questions right. It really takes your score higher.

Is doing the OG problems in Quant enough for the test?