I just Beat The GMAT!

680 (Q 47, V35)
Took the GMAT yesterday morning and that moment when I saw the score on the screen must be one of the saddest moments in my life.
But after a few hours and after analyzing what possibly went wrong, I think I should just let it pass and try again after a month or so.
I am 25, with 3 yrs of WE, so 680 is certainly not going to help me especially when I am an Indian.
My preparation:
I did not take any prep courses; neither did I buy any material. The only material I bought was the OG 12 edition which I did not look into much. I could solve most of the quant questions easily and it was too much effort to find questions that I could not solve. So basically the only resource that I used was the BTG. I always thought that a 700+ score is without a doubt within my reach and I was hoping for a 750+ score and the practice tests only added to my confidence. Within about a week before the test, I crammed 6 MGMAT tests in my schedule.
My MGMAT scores:
Free: 730 (saw repeat questions)
MGMAT 1: 720
MGMAT 2: 710
MGMAT 3: 720
MGMAT4: 720
MGMAT 5: 760
MGMAT 6: 710
I saw these scores and did not bother to review the questions because I thought MGMATs were tougher than the real thing and a score of 710+ on MGMAT was enough to ensure the score a wanted. This is where I went wrong. So after coming back from the test, I spent about 4 hours trying to find what went wrong and here are the things I should have done and things I shouldn’t have:


1) Did not sleep at all the night before the test. Had a lot of work to finish and Japanese people are serious about deadlines. No compromises there. Ended up totally tired and trying hard to stay awake in the morning and my test was scheduled from 9 am.
This was certainly not the reason for my bad score because during the test the adrenalin was so high and the effect of red bull that I did not feel the tiredness. But this is something I would try not to do next time.
2) Relying on MGMAT scores: MGMAT CATs are by all means the best out there. You take the test and you know that these tests are at least as challenging as the real one. But I would say and I would emphasize it “DO NOT RELY ON THE SCORES”. Now I can see that in almost all the prep tests, I had more than 10 questions wrong in each section and I still managed to get 47+ and 37+ in quant and verbal respectively.

3) Verbal: I did not study any rules for the SC. In fact I think of accidents whenever someone mentions “run on sentence”. But I have 95% accuracy in SC. It’s because I read a lot and for the sentence correction I rely on my ears more than the rules. But RC and CR are something I need to work on. I just don’t know what to do about them. A lot of times I get the 700-800 level questions right and get the 500-700 level questions wrongs and sometimes the opposite. I am going to get the Manhattan prep material to work on the verbal part.
4) AWAs- I should wait for the scores. But I guess I will get something like 5-6.
I am glad that I can figure what I should focus on for the retake and this really helps me keep my confidence level up. I did not review the MGMAT tests and it was certainly a mistake. But I think its good for the retake because I still have a lot of fresh questions which I could not solve or got them wrong.
I would request you guys to please suggest me if there is something else I can do better. I aim for the European business schools and considering my low work ex, a 720+ score is a must.
There is one more thing I noticed. Quant 47 is only 78 percentile. So all you guys who are aiming for 700+ but can’t push your verbal score past 40, you better get 50-51 score on the quant.
Thanks for reading and please post your suggestions, advice criticism or whatever you feel.

First off, I want to say that you have a respectable score! You shouldn't be too hard on yourself. A 680 can get you places but I think that you can do better -- from seeing your Quant score and reading your Quant posts, you easily have potential to go above 80% percentile.

Regarding your Verbal, I would suggest the MGMAT CR and/or Powerscore CR Bible. If you can have a structured way of attacking the CR's, you shouldn't have a problem breaking the 700 barrier. As you may know, RC's are just a longer version of CR, so if you work on learning different CR question-types and methods of attacking each one of them, you should be able to come back with a 700+ debrief!

Hi,
Is 680 not enough to apply to a b-school ? which school you are targeting to ?

subhasis8877 wrote:Hi,
Is 680 not enough to apply to a b-school ? which school you are targeting to ?

my target schools at this point are- IE spain, HEC paris, IMD , INSEAD ,LBS, Judge, Said.
I am planning to apply for fall 2010 intake so I would rather make sure that my GMAT scores are way above average for these schools.

So true abt the MGMAT scores. I have also observed that even 10 wrong answers gives a score of 49 !! I am sure that is not the case in the actual GMAT.
I also have similar scores as you have on MGMAT. I guess I should reduce my scores by atleast 30 to 40 points to know where I am with my prep.

I think 1000 SC doc should suffice for SC and for CR it must be just intuition and btg forum questions.

Was quant much tougher than in MGMAT ?

I'm surprised you didn't score higher in Q, you definitely have the ability to. If you had scored a Q50 or 51 and you would have gotten your 700+.

I always thought the Manhattan GMAT test were very close. I think it's a good idea to buy all the manhattan books. They will be very beneficial to you. Also, try not to take soo many tests before the actual exam, you might have tired yourself out mentally.

Good luck next time around, you'll easily get 700+

raghavsarathy wrote:So true abt the MGMAT scores. I have also observed that even 10 wrong answers gives a score of 49 !! I am sure that is not the case in the actual GMAT.
I also have similar scores as you have on MGMAT. I guess I should reduce my scores by atleast 30 to 40 points to know where I am with my prep.

I think 1000 SC doc should suffice for SC and for CR it must be just intuition and btg forum questions.

Was quant much tougher than in MGMAT ?

quant was not tougher than the mgmat. But it was definitely tougher than the GMAT prep and the OG. There were so many lengthy questions one after another. I think one of the two things happened. Either I did the same as in the mgmat cats and got a low score or I might have got a lot of answers wrong for the last few questions.

My target now is to keep the number of wrong answers under five. And that's what u would suggest you too.
Like 1000 SC'c, are ther any 1000 RC'c floating around ??

JeffB wrote:I'm surprised you didn't score higher in Q, you definitely have the ability to. If you had scored a Q50 or 51 and you would have gotten your 700+.

I always thought the Manhattan GMAT test were very close. I think it's a good idea to buy all the manhattan books. They will be very beneficial to you. Also, try not to take soo many tests before the actual exam, you might have tired yourself out mentally.

Good luck next time around, you'll easily get 700+

thanks Jeff, appreciate it..
MGMATs are really pretty close. But as I said, look at the number of questions you are getting right and not at the score..
and good luck with your target score...

tohellandback wrote:Like 1000 SC'c, are ther any 1000 RC'c floating around ??

I hadn't searched for one until now. I found one in esnips.com

https://www.esnips.com/doc/22dc9606-29a9 ... db/1000_RC

Goodluck with your prep. Right now I guess its best for you to take a break for a couple of days or more than that before getting back to beat the gmat.

All the best for your next exam!

Oh man! I was rooting for you! I am positive you can pull through the 2nd time around!

I cant speak for the MGMAT CR....I have the Powerscore CR and this book is quite amazing...worked miracles for me...maybe it could help you for CR.

RC is just all about practice. If you can...you can brush up your reading skills with magazines/ websites like The economist, NYT and WSJ.

Good luck!

ssmiles08 wrote:Oh man! I was rooting for you! I am positive you can pull through the 2nd time around!

I cant speak for the MGMAT CR....I have the Powerscore CR and this book is quite amazing...worked miracles for me...maybe it could help you for CR.

RC is just all about practice. If you can...you can brush up your reading skills with magazines/ websites like The economist, NYT and WSJ.

Good luck!

thanks man!! int he next few days i am gonna stack up all the material needed..and yes i will show GMAT who is the man..
good luck GMATTING!!!

Can you guide on how to get MGMAT Tests?

rookiez wrote:Can you guide on how to get MGMAT Tests?

You have to buy it from manhattangmat.com

tohellandback wrote: I am planning to apply for fall 2010 intake so I would rather make sure that my GMAT scores are way above average for these schools.

what would be the best month to take GMAT, so that the applications are in well advance for the fall 2010 intake? any idea?