I just Beat The GMAT!

I just got home from the GMAT. I am extremely frustrated and a little disheartened. I studied the past 2-3 months almost every day (efficiently I thought). I had NEVER got a score close to this low.

My practice scores are as follows:

MGMAT 1: 620 (Q: 45 V: 31)
MGMAT 2: 650 (Q: 44 V: 35)
MGMAT 4: 720 (Q: 44 V: 45)
GMAT PREP 1: 650 (Q: 44 V: 34)
MGMAT 3: 690 (Q: 44 V: 39)
GMAT PREP 2: 710 (Q: 49 V: 39)
MGMAT 5: 680 (Q: 47 V: 35)

I am not entirely sure what happened on my verbal part to receive a 27 split. I was never in that vicinity except for my first test. I was expecting a split between 46 and 49 for Quant and a split between 37 and 42 for Verbal. I guess I was way wrong.

I studied BTG, OG, and a little from Kaplan. My hit rate in the OG on the Verbal portions was around 82% (another reason I am shocked about my score).

A couple takeaways from the test:

-The AWA was a breeze. I outlined about 4 essays and wrote about 4 essays during my study process. I will be surprised if I get below a 5.

-The Quant section was much easier than I had expected. If you can do well on MGMAT Quant you will most definitely score well on the real GMAT. Expect a 2-3 point boost in that split. During the GMAT I thought I was actually doing much worse than a 47. I had to guess on a couple and I felt like I was getting questions that were way too easy to receive a 47.

-The Verbal section IMO is harder than MGMAT and the GMAT PREP exams I took (or maybe I just screwed everything up early and had no chance to recover). I thought I was doing fairly well when I got a bold face CR around #18 and within the next 3-4 questions I got an extremely LONG RC passage. I had to scroll down to see another paragraph and a half! I don't know where I went wrong and I am kind of at a loss for words.


Overall, I am shocked about my score. I guess it just wasn't my day. This was definitely not representative of my ability in the Verbal section. I plan on going to pick up Manhattan SC and PowerScore CR tonight so I can start studying again. I will be focusing solely on SC and CR with a few hours of math sprinkled in throughout the week. I will also be rescheduling my exam for 5-6 weeks from now.

One question...are Manhattan SC and PowerScore CR the two best books for those topics?


Alright, BTGers...no rest for the weary. I am not going to let a stupid test keep my out of top business school. Are you?

Don't give up.


Any pointers or words of advice are appreciated. Take it easy.


cata1yst

Just bought OG Verbal Review and Manhattan SC.

I am fired up and ready for another 5 weeks of studying! I just need to get my Verbal consistently around 40 and I will have no problem cracking the 700 barrier.


Do you guys think I should purchase PowerScore CR?

Powercore Bible CR > Manhattan GMAT CR

For everything else (RC, SC and Math guides) Manhattan GMAT (like Mastercard hope you get the joke!)

Look you'll spank the GMAT easily with more in-depth preparation for the Verbal portion.

I just got the Powerscore CR Bible book and I'm like woaah! Dave Killoran takes CR apart and puts it back together again as Engineering students would take apart and put together a machine

cata1yst wrote:Just bought OG Verbal Review and Manhattan SC.

I am fired up and ready for another 5 weeks of studying! I just need to get my Verbal consistently around 40 and I will have no problem cracking the 700 barrier.


Do you guys think I should purchase PowerScore CR?

you should get the 12th ed OG and use it in combination with Manhattan SC (because manhattan SC refers to questions in the OG)