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Really bad score on exam today. Please help

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Really bad score on exam today. Please help

by bsingh3 » Thu Mar 26, 2009 11:46 am
I got 520 today (Q42 V20). In math I had to rush through the last 10 questions as there was hardly any time left. On verbal i has to rush through last 6-7 questions. Really devasted with this score, dont feel like studying it again. Verbal went really bad even though at that point I thought that i was doing average and thought I would get around 620 or so. My target score was 660. I think i am really weak on CR and may be SC.

In my practice emams I did GMAT prac tests and I got 45-48 in math and 25 in verbal.

Any tips/books?? especially for verbal....I already have Kaplan 800, K2009, OG, Princeton and Barron and I did them all.I also did the flash cards. Any ideas on what I should do and how I should plan????
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by aabsih » Thu Mar 26, 2009 6:32 pm
hi bsingh3,

you can refer to some of the other postings of people that scored well, here's a link to my preparation, but there are plenty of others who scored even better. Look into them for more specific strategies but I hope we can at least point you in the right direction. The good news is that you know what to focus on now, right?

Pacing
You need to improve your pacing. I personally liked to use the timed spreadsheet to keep track my timing on each question. It is extremely helpful. You can also check out a non-time version in the resources page. In fact, check out the Resources page. A lot of people neglect to look at it, and it has several useful study guides.

Focus your energy on studying the material from the three OG books, including the supplementary green and purple books. These are the closest questions to what you'll see on the exam, and hence deserve most of your attention. When you do problem sets, give yourself an appropriate amount of time to tackle a question, and this is where the timed spreadsheet comes in handy. I liked to do problem sets of about 40 questions, giving myself 75 minutes (I picked this up from someone else in this forum).

Verbal
You should work on improving your verbal. I find that the questions you can improve the most in verbal are the Sentence Correction. Get the Manhattan Sentence Correction guide and learn the concepts. There is a lot to absorb but the book isn't that long, and trust me, with practice you will realize how easy most SC questions are.

As for RC, don't assume you can figure out the logic behind the questions without understanding the key elements of a typical argument: premises, evidence, assumptions, and conclusions. Make sure you understand how to identify them, because I initially thought that I can figure things out without understanding these concepts. I was surprised to see how much my performance improved when I learned the theory, and trust me, it's not that hard to learn.


Keep your head up, and focus your studies on your weaknesses. Trust me, you will do great.

Good luck,

Aabsih
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by beat it » Thu Mar 26, 2009 7:25 pm
I have the same problem with verbal. got Q41V28 on my first practice test this past sunday. Anywho, I was wondering if the Manhattan SC that you are suggesting is the 66 page long or the 288 one...
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