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TRUE OR FALSE?

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TRUE OR FALSE?

by Tplee » Fri Jul 15, 2011 6:23 am
Hello I'm new to the froum and had a quick question pertaining to the ficus of my study and strategy for the GMAT.

I recently met with my MBA guidance counsleor who told me some things regarding the GMAT and I wanted to verify this with someone who actually knows. She told me:

1.) All I needed to get was a 550 on the gmat in order to be admitted. (this is probably true, its not like im going to harvard)

2.) She told me to only focus on the math and quantitative sections of the GMAT. SHe told me that they don't even consider the essay questions and that the verbal portion of the gmat isn't even that important. Basically she told me if I did well with the math section I would be fine.

So my questions is does any of this sound right. I am new to all of this so I really have no idea but I'm concerned because I can't find any info on the internet that can confirm this and obviously the study book I have doesn't mention this. It makes it seem like the verbal is just as important. Can someone please help because my GMAT exam is on Aug 11th and it would really help me if all I had to do was focus on the math portion.

Thanks in advance.

Thomas
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by Ian Stewart » Fri Jul 15, 2011 7:56 am
I don't think that anyone can properly answer your question here without more information about the program to which you're applying. Different schools use GMAT scores in different ways; for some, the Quant section is especially important, while for others, it's the score out of 800 which matters most.

If you do genuinely need a 550 for your application, then you can't ignore the Verbal section. The Quant and the Verbal sections make an equal contribution to your score out of 800, and if you were to completely tank the Verbal, you wouldn't have much of a chance to get a score over 550. That said, the Verbal section is less knowledge-based than the Quant, so it is more difficult to improve at Verbal than it is at Quant. That might be the reason your adviser suggested you focus on Quant. I would not recommend you ignore the Verbal completely - you should become familiar with the question types, and you can certainly significantly improve at Sentence Correction with study if that's a weak area - but you should probably plan to spend the majority of your study time on math.

There is a third component of the test, the AWA section (the essays). Many schools ignore these completely, and your score on the essays is unlikely to be important. Be sure to do the essays on test day, since a 0 in that section does not look good on an application, but you would not want to spend much time preparing for them.
For online GMAT math tutoring, or to buy my higher-level Quant books and problem sets, contact me at ianstewartgmat at gmail.com

ianstewartgmat.com
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by Tplee » Fri Jul 15, 2011 9:02 am
Thanks thats pretty much the answer I was looking for. Very informative.

Thanks a lot Ian

Thomas
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