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jonathan graham
- Newbie | Next Rank: 10 Posts
- Posts: 4
- Joined: Sat Apr 12, 2008 9:13 am
Hi all, this is my first post here. I suppose it is too long for a first one. I have been following the post in this community during my preparation for GMAT. I felt others experiences – good or bad, helped me prepare better. So with this in mind I am sharing my experiences as well. Perhaps it might help you. I gave my GMAT today... I am disappointed and confused after seeing my scores.
My profile briefly...
I am working as a software engineer in a well known Software Company, India (3 Years experience now…. Should be 4 years by the time I apply). I have passed out of BITS-Pilani (one among the top five colleges in India) with a mediocre CGPA. Extracurricular activities: moderate (been the head of the acting club in college).
Now why did I give GMAT?
I always wanted to do my mba, right after my first year at office. I tried my hand at CAT for the IIMs… did not fair well (especially in English). Got a 96 percentile for XAT but didn’t consider any colleges other than XLRI. Then I considered giving GMAT.
How did I start?
I did research on the colleges, met lots of people, surfed through sites and finally enrolled with Princeton Review (PR). I gave my first CAT at PR got 640 Q48 V34 (without AWA) without any preparation. I was pretty confident at this point of making above 700 then. I had a cool 4 months to prepare so a little tuning of Verbal and I should be there. I then aimed at 720 and colleges with average GMAT in that range.
Study plan
I did my best to balance both hectic work at office (moved into very critical project with only me to handle the issues at offshore) and my study. I made sure that I learned all the OG questions. I started with Math first. After doing the OG 11 math, I was confident to score well in Math on the exam day. Then I spent all my time to understand Sentence Correction (SC) and Critical Reasoning (CR). I found that I am pretty consistent in my CR. My accuracy in CR was around 75 to 85 percent. Reading Comprehension (RC) was very difficult for me. Sometimes I could not agree with the explanations in the OG 11. In addition, I also did Kaplan 800 (it is very reader friendly and has very good explanations for CR and RC, but Kaplan SC was beyond me) and OG Verbal Review in addition to attending PR classes. Here are the stats associated with my progress:-
21st Apr PR1 630 51Q 26V (Disappointed with my Verbal, earlier thought that I couldn’t possibly score less that 34 in verbal after having learned all the rules and the tricks)
1st May PR2 710 51Q 38V (Really brought my confidence back, here I should mention that I had done my Verbal section a day after the Quant)
17th May PR3 620 48Q 28V (Realised that not being in touch with Math does count, verbal scores still disappoint… but had done the AWA this time and the test was strictly timed so exhaustion did show up)
15th Jun Kaplan free Test 680 47Q 39V (I had earlier heard that Kaplan test skews down your score by 30 to 40 points, so assumed that I was back on track to achieving my goal)
23rd Jun PR4 660 51Q 31V (only a week left for my test, taken leave from office, English needs to improve… going through SC(accuracy 60 %) and getting 3/10 questions wrong in the beginning.
25th Jun GMAT Prep 670 51Q 28V (got my timing horribly wrong in an attempt to improve on my accuracy in the initial questions)
27th Jun PR5 660 51Q 31V (got my timing perfect… but couple of silly mistakes in my Verbal first ten questions… Sentence Correction still at 60% accuracy)
Only 3 more days to go for THE TEST, so I decided to concentrate on sentence correction. I went through all the rules I had noted down during my study, did 251 questions in OG 11 and Verbal review put together. This was because I realised that the earlier mistakes I might have made were because I didn’t quite remember some rules. I had a GMAT Prep 2 to give but decided not to because I was pretty tensed a couple of days before the test and didn’t want to add onto that. But at the same time I was pretty confident with my timing and the strategy I had learned and concentrating through out the test.
On the day of the TEST
Things went just the way it was to be (except for the end of course). The stress during the test is very less when compared to what I had anticipated. AWA went very well (that’s what I hope, haven’t got my scores yet). Unlike what I was told, the breaks in between the Sections are 10 minutes and not 5 minutes. So there is enough time for snacks and restroom etc. Math was OK, similar to the OG questions. Here I should tell you that I had anticipated tougher questions etc after reading the blogs of earlier test takers. There were a few tricky ones that at the first look would mislead you. I didn’t get time to answer the last question and perhaps that’s what cost me a point in Quant. Verbal started pretty ok couldn’t find any obvious hard questions. Its level of complexity never seemed to vary. (Well, later the test scores did tell me why!). I don’t remember guessing any answers upfront etc and was pretty confident throughout the Verbal Section. The 1st RC question was related to business (a little tricky one) but felt I had done well in it. At the end as I clicked the next button for my Test Score was expecting 690- 700, but to my disappointment got 630 with 25 in Verbal, the lowest ever. I can’t figure out where I went wrong or how could I have prepared better.
Currently, I am planning to give it another try in a month or so… but with no clue as to what I can do better. I don’t know if retaking the test is a good idea. Please help my out here… Should I be applying for lower colleges with these scores or retake the test? Frankly at this moment I don’t think I could prepare this well again especially with the constantly increasing work load at office.
My profile briefly...
I am working as a software engineer in a well known Software Company, India (3 Years experience now…. Should be 4 years by the time I apply). I have passed out of BITS-Pilani (one among the top five colleges in India) with a mediocre CGPA. Extracurricular activities: moderate (been the head of the acting club in college).
Now why did I give GMAT?
I always wanted to do my mba, right after my first year at office. I tried my hand at CAT for the IIMs… did not fair well (especially in English). Got a 96 percentile for XAT but didn’t consider any colleges other than XLRI. Then I considered giving GMAT.
How did I start?
I did research on the colleges, met lots of people, surfed through sites and finally enrolled with Princeton Review (PR). I gave my first CAT at PR got 640 Q48 V34 (without AWA) without any preparation. I was pretty confident at this point of making above 700 then. I had a cool 4 months to prepare so a little tuning of Verbal and I should be there. I then aimed at 720 and colleges with average GMAT in that range.
Study plan
I did my best to balance both hectic work at office (moved into very critical project with only me to handle the issues at offshore) and my study. I made sure that I learned all the OG questions. I started with Math first. After doing the OG 11 math, I was confident to score well in Math on the exam day. Then I spent all my time to understand Sentence Correction (SC) and Critical Reasoning (CR). I found that I am pretty consistent in my CR. My accuracy in CR was around 75 to 85 percent. Reading Comprehension (RC) was very difficult for me. Sometimes I could not agree with the explanations in the OG 11. In addition, I also did Kaplan 800 (it is very reader friendly and has very good explanations for CR and RC, but Kaplan SC was beyond me) and OG Verbal Review in addition to attending PR classes. Here are the stats associated with my progress:-
21st Apr PR1 630 51Q 26V (Disappointed with my Verbal, earlier thought that I couldn’t possibly score less that 34 in verbal after having learned all the rules and the tricks)
1st May PR2 710 51Q 38V (Really brought my confidence back, here I should mention that I had done my Verbal section a day after the Quant)
17th May PR3 620 48Q 28V (Realised that not being in touch with Math does count, verbal scores still disappoint… but had done the AWA this time and the test was strictly timed so exhaustion did show up)
15th Jun Kaplan free Test 680 47Q 39V (I had earlier heard that Kaplan test skews down your score by 30 to 40 points, so assumed that I was back on track to achieving my goal)
23rd Jun PR4 660 51Q 31V (only a week left for my test, taken leave from office, English needs to improve… going through SC(accuracy 60 %) and getting 3/10 questions wrong in the beginning.
25th Jun GMAT Prep 670 51Q 28V (got my timing horribly wrong in an attempt to improve on my accuracy in the initial questions)
27th Jun PR5 660 51Q 31V (got my timing perfect… but couple of silly mistakes in my Verbal first ten questions… Sentence Correction still at 60% accuracy)
Only 3 more days to go for THE TEST, so I decided to concentrate on sentence correction. I went through all the rules I had noted down during my study, did 251 questions in OG 11 and Verbal review put together. This was because I realised that the earlier mistakes I might have made were because I didn’t quite remember some rules. I had a GMAT Prep 2 to give but decided not to because I was pretty tensed a couple of days before the test and didn’t want to add onto that. But at the same time I was pretty confident with my timing and the strategy I had learned and concentrating through out the test.
On the day of the TEST
Things went just the way it was to be (except for the end of course). The stress during the test is very less when compared to what I had anticipated. AWA went very well (that’s what I hope, haven’t got my scores yet). Unlike what I was told, the breaks in between the Sections are 10 minutes and not 5 minutes. So there is enough time for snacks and restroom etc. Math was OK, similar to the OG questions. Here I should tell you that I had anticipated tougher questions etc after reading the blogs of earlier test takers. There were a few tricky ones that at the first look would mislead you. I didn’t get time to answer the last question and perhaps that’s what cost me a point in Quant. Verbal started pretty ok couldn’t find any obvious hard questions. Its level of complexity never seemed to vary. (Well, later the test scores did tell me why!). I don’t remember guessing any answers upfront etc and was pretty confident throughout the Verbal Section. The 1st RC question was related to business (a little tricky one) but felt I had done well in it. At the end as I clicked the next button for my Test Score was expecting 690- 700, but to my disappointment got 630 with 25 in Verbal, the lowest ever. I can’t figure out where I went wrong or how could I have prepared better.
Currently, I am planning to give it another try in a month or so… but with no clue as to what I can do better. I don’t know if retaking the test is a good idea. Please help my out here… Should I be applying for lower colleges with these scores or retake the test? Frankly at this moment I don’t think I could prepare this well again especially with the constantly increasing work load at office.
and better try to solve as many questions as you can from Verbal/Qa sections in this forum.
....as I found many questions ... which were alien to the concepts in Manhattan SC.I could not mark even a single SC question confidently and feel 16/16 could have gone wrong...
