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Did Not Beat the GMAT (But should have!) HELP!

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Did Not Beat the GMAT (But should have!) HELP!

by RachelAL » Wed Mar 07, 2007 6:16 am
I took the GMAT on March 3rd and scored a 650 (44 Quant / 35 Verbal). I was very disappointed because I want to get a 700+. I took four practice tests the month before my tests and scored as follows:

1) 740 (MGMAT)
2) 700 (MGMAT)
3) 680 (GMATPrep)
4) 710 (GMATPrep)

I took the MGMAT class and have done every math problem in OG 11th Ed. I was scoring 95%+ on verbal on ALL my practice tests so I focused little there during studying. Somehow, come test day I scored below 80th percentile in verbal which i think drove my score down. I have been scoring high 70th percentile in math, and don't expect to move up much (despite my math minor in college and my quant heavy job).

I felt great going into the test. Felt good on the math, and ok on the verbal. Did not realize how bad I did on the verbal (for my goal). In practice the answers jumped out at me, not on the test.

Any suggestions on studying this month? I am retaking April 3rd.
-Rachel
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by beatthegmat » Wed Mar 07, 2007 10:23 am
Hi Rachel:

Thanks very much for sharing your experience with us, and welcome to this community!

Can you provide us a little more description on your study strategy to date?

For your second round of GMAT prep, I highly encourage you to systematically identify your weaknesses and drill down on them with practice sets from OG. You can find info on how to do this from reading my GMAT Blog: https://beatthegmat.blocked

as well as from resources listed in the GMAT Resource Wiki: https://www.beatthegmat.com/wiki/

Best of luck!
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My Strategy

by RachelAL » Wed Mar 07, 2007 10:38 am
My Strategy was as follows:

MGMAT Course Oct-Dec (3 practice exams during course, and course homeword for the Official Quant and Verbal Guides)

Jan-Feb:
EVERY Math problem in OG 11th, including a thorough analysis of the answer explanations. I did the problems I got wrong, and was unsure of TWICE.

SOME of the verbal problems in OG 11th, including a thorough analysis of the answer explanations.

I logged all my answers and times.

Feb:
Four exams, one a week (2 MGMAT exams 740&700, and 2 GMATPrep exams 680&710). Reviewed the MGMAT exams well. Less on the GMATPrep because they don't have explanations and I found myself getting frustrated.

March 3rd: Exam @ 650

Next exam April 3rd

I was planning on going through more OG problems, focusing a bit more on the verbal but not forget the math. Also, taking 4 more practice tests (again 2 MGMAT and 2 GMATPrep)

I don't know why I scored the lowest on the actual test. I felt confident going in.
-Rachel
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by beatthegmat » Wed Mar 07, 2007 10:35 pm
Your study strategy seemed pretty sound.

Improving your verbal is going to be the key to really pushing your score above 700. What made the real test situation different from your practice tests, where the answers seemed to "jump right out" to you?
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by RachelAL » Thu Mar 08, 2007 5:47 am
During the exam I was unable to eliminate most choices. I found myself stuck between two or three choices more often than in practice.

For sentence correction, I had a much more difficult time finding the splits. For example, in practice I often found that once I found a split or two, I was able to eliminate at least 3 choices. During the exam, I thought there were less obvious splits. Could be in my head.

For reading comprehension, I felt like the passage was not sinking in. I was reading but not retaining, which made the questions more difficult.

As for critical reasoning, I always performed well on that, and unfortunetly I can not tell if I did well on the test on CR because you can't see what you got wrong.

Thanks for your input. I plan on studying verbal AND math during the comming weeks. I think in the end, what happened, was when the answers did not "jump out" at me, I did not have study skills to fall back on.
-Rachel
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by beatthegmat » Thu Mar 08, 2007 9:55 am
RachelAL wrote:During the exam I was unable to eliminate most choices. I found myself stuck between two or three choices more often than in practice.

For sentence correction, I had a much more difficult time finding the splits. For example, in practice I often found that once I found a split or two, I was able to eliminate at least 3 choices. During the exam, I thought there were less obvious splits. Could be in my head.

For reading comprehension, I felt like the passage was not sinking in. I was reading but not retaining, which made the questions more difficult.

As for critical reasoning, I always performed well on that, and unfortunetly I can not tell if I did well on the test on CR because you can't see what you got wrong.

Thanks for your input. I plan on studying verbal AND math during the comming weeks. I think in the end, what happened, was when the answers did not "jump out" at me, I did not have study skills to fall back on.
When you mention study skills, am I correct to assume you mean understanding of GMAT concepts/topics?

It sounds like you have test strategy and psychology down, which is the hardest thing to master. All you've got to do now is review the GMAT concepts/topics. Lot's of great resources here to help!
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