GMAT Strategy

Took the GMAT today and got killed! Any advise would be appreciated.

Score - 700 (50/34::Q/V).

The quant questions were like GMAT Prep 2 tests and MGMAT aka bit hard. The Verbal section was in no way reflective of the prep I had done in the OG or MGMAT, especially the RC which were small passages but real tough questions.I have consistently scored 750 or more in MGMAT (3 and 4) and GMAT Prep. At this stage, I have 2 questions:

Q1 - Have completed pretty much all questions of OG12 and GMAT Prep tests and MGMAT tests - if I plan to take the GMAT again in 37 - 38 days where can I practice tests? Knewton, Veritas etc.?

Q2 - Which score is taken by the school as my final score? The last one or the highest or a mixture of two?

Thanks!

First, congratulations on hitting that elusive 700! That's a coveted number among most test-takers, so be proud of that and of a phenomenal quant score, although I can certainly understand your wanting to improve your verbal to add some balance (and some overall >700 points).

Rest assured, in response to Q2 below, that schools only care about your highest score. Even if, for whatever reason, you were to drop on this next one, your baseline now is a 700 so you're in a pretty advantageous position to have a chance to improve on that without any real risk.

For additional practice tests, the community may have other suggestions, but I recommend our free practice test (linked to this site) as one with a pretty tough pool of questions and some really well-written verbal questions (which I know can be hard to come by in the marketplace).

If you're going to emphasize verbal, you may want to consider grabbing some LSAT resources for Critical Reasoning and Reading Comprehension, as the LSAT focuses on a higher median difficulty point than the GMAT does, which means that you'll find more verbal challenge in those question sets than in the average GMAT book. And don't let me turn this into a Veritas Prep advertisement, but our books are now available for individual retail sale, and contain quite a bit of challenging practice, so they could be good resources for you as you attempt to master the verbal, as well.

Best of luck, and keep us all posted!

@Brian
Those are some great suggestions! Just that it sucks when I got a 730 ~ 6 years ago and now it went down.

Thanks

Oh, I know - the test has evolved and gotten a little harder over time, so I can definitely empathize with you! If you can "unpack" that evolution, though, that gives you some insight into how to study. A few things I've noticed over that time on the verbal have been:

-More dense RC passages (and, like you said, a little shorter) with trickier questions. To me, that means that you need to treat them a little more like CR - make sure you know exactly what the question is asking before you pick your answer, beware of negation (double-negatives, etc. that make it hard to follow the author's direction), etc.

-CR question stems that require you to think more about what they're asking (e.g. "Which of the following best completes the passage?" "Which of the following studies would be most useful in evaluating the conclusion?"). That means that you need to pause a bit more to identify what the answer choice needs to do before you start reading them. If you have a chance to think skeptically, do so - as human beings, we're much better skeptics than optimists!

-SC questions that seem to focus on obscure idioms, but actually test the logical nature of the sentence (if a sentence needs to draw a metaphor but instead reads as though it's actually happening, that's wrong). Before you get lost in small details, check the big picture first to see if you really need to worry about the subtlety. Most times, you don't.

Anyway, look for where the difficulty is coming from (man, is that sentence an SC error all over the place!) and train yourself to think that way, and you should be able to return to the mid-7s pretty quickly.

@Brian

Those are great insights! Thanks.

I will keep them in mind with the second attempt.

Cheers

Brian@VeritasPrep wrote:Oh, I know - the test has evolved and gotten a little harder over time, so I can definitely empathize with you! If you can "unpack" that evolution, though, that gives you some insight into how to study. A few things I've noticed over that time on the verbal have been:

-More dense RC passages (and, like you said, a little shorter) with trickier questions. To me, that means that you need to treat them a little more like CR - make sure you know exactly what the question is asking before you pick your answer, beware of negation (double-negatives, etc. that make it hard to follow the author's direction), etc.

-CR question stems that require you to think more about what they're asking (e.g. "Which of the following best completes the passage?" "Which of the following studies would be most useful in evaluating the conclusion?"). That means that you need to pause a bit more to identify what the answer choice needs to do before you start reading them. If you have a chance to think skeptically, do so - as human beings, we're much better skeptics than optimists!

-SC questions that seem to focus on obscure idioms, but actually test the logical nature of the sentence (if a sentence needs to draw a metaphor but instead reads as though it's actually happening, that's wrong). Before you get lost in small details, check the big picture first to see if you really need to worry about the subtlety. Most times, you don't.

Anyway, look for where the difficulty is coming from (man, is that sentence an SC error all over the place!) and train yourself to think that way, and you should be able to return to the mid-7s pretty quickly.

Hi Brian,

Thanks for your insights I prepped keeping them in mind and got a 760 today, pretty happy about it.

Cheers

Wow, congratulations, mj78ind! That's a fantastic improvement, and an incredible overall score. Really, really well done!

Once you're done celebrating, if you have any insights on your experience I'm sure the community would love to hear what you thought of the test.

Congratulations!

Brian@VeritasPrep wrote:Wow, congratulations, mj78ind! That's a fantastic improvement, and an incredible overall score. Really, really well done!

Once you're done celebrating, if you have any insights on your experience I'm sure the community would love to hear what you thought of the test.

Congratulations!

Thanks @Brian

Sure thing, I have a detailed debrief (infact very detailed especially for 2nd timers) - https://www.beatthegmat.com/760-done-dea ... 66740.html

Best

I don't think too many schools see a big difference between 700 and 730. If you don't mind, could you donate 100 points to me? Thanks.

odannyboi wrote:I don't think too many schools see a big difference between 700 and 730. If you don't mind, could you donate 100 points to me? Thanks.

@odannyboi

Now that is an innovative proposition my friend , if I can have the joy of retaking the GMAT, free of cost and if I could transfer 100 points I would do it. May be they make the technology soon , I keep my fingers crossed till then and you can study if you plan on retaking

Thanks for the comment

Cheers