I just Beat The GMAT!

Hi All,

I had thought that I will be writing "I just beat the GMAT" in my subject line, instead of what I have written. Unfortunately, things did not turned out the way I planned.

Anyways, it is not the end of the world, and I will be sparring with this mean exam again. I will continue to do so until I beat it dead. So let me share what I have done so far.

I gave my GMAT exam this week and scored an abysmal 560 (Q40, V27).

Test Experience:

On the exam day, I arrived at the center on time, checked in and started the test. I did both the essay and the IR part swiftly without wasting a lot of energy. Then took my first break and afterwards started the quant section. As I had made a commitment to myself that I will stick to my game plan and timing strategy, I found the quant section easy. I knew what I was doing on most of the problems, with the exception of a few data sufficiency problems that I had to guess. By the time I was on the 36th question I had 4 minutes left. I finished the quant section and then went for the second break. Then I started the verbal section.

This is where things started going south. After I had done 5 questions I don't know what happened. I started getting really tough sentence correction questions one after the other. Although I had 83% success rate on the SC questions, I found myself in a real tough position. In any case, as I had to stick to my timing strategy I made educated guesses and moved on. In the middle of the section I also noticed that I made some careless mistakes on at least two questions. Finally, I completed the section and looked at my score of 560.


Prep Strategy:

Although I have been preparing for the GMAT for almost a year, I really became serious in December 2012.

Books used: Manhattan GMAT guides and OG Archer. I also signed up for E-GMAT verbal live prep. In addition to this for the last 60 days I also followed the BTG 60 guide. (Thanks to Brent for his untiring efforts)

I also purchased the set Manhattan CATs. All the tests were taken under actual test taking conditions. The scores on the Manhattan GMAT and GMAT Prep CATs are as follows:
Manhattan GMAT CAT 1 - 570 (Q41, V28) - 02/28/13
GMAT Prep CAT 1 - 550 (Q36, V29) - 03/13/13
Manhattan GMAT CAT 2 - 540 (Q38, V27) - 04/2/13
Manhattan GMAT CAT 3 - 610 (Q38, V35) - 04/12/12
Manhattan GMAT CAT 4 - 570 (Q41, V28) - 04/19/13
Manhattan GMAT CAT 5 - 590 (Q44, V27) - 04/27/13
Manhattan GMAT CAT 6 - 590 (Q39, V32) - 05/09/13
GMAT Prep CAT 2 - 610 (Q46, V28) - 05/18/13
GMAT Prep CAT 3 -710 (Q47, V40) - 05/19/13

With the exception of one outlier data point of 710, all other scores were in a standard deviation of 25.8. Both the mean (578.75) and the median (570) are quite close to each other. I have disregarded the 710 data point in my calculations.

Now I am planning to retake the exam in approximately 1-1.5 months.


THE BIG QUESTION?

Here comes the dilemma. The results of both the mock test and the real GMAT test do not measure up to my real conceptual understanding of the material, and with the OG Archer stats. I am confused because I know the concepts very well and have reviewed them again and again in the last one month.

However, I believe that I may have poor test taking skills. But I don't know how to identify and rectify these poor skills. I know that I need more practice. May be I should do drills with large sets of both quant and verbal questions. Moreover, I am not sure if retaking the test in 1-1.5 months is a good time frame. At this point, I am feeling a bit lost on what type of retake strategy to employ. I will appreciate if the experts can push me in the right direction.

Thanks and Best Regards,
JBK

you did well, don't fret it. The SD for the gmat is 30 points and you fell right in that range. Keep practicing, try new things, and keep an open mind.

Don't loose heart. You will do definitely do well in your next attempt

Now, em little petrified, coz em scoring the same numbers in MGMAT CAT 1,2,3. Still three more to go

ceilidh.erickson wrote:First of all, a 560 is not abysmal - a 200 would be abysmal. A 560 indicates that you have knowledge of the concepts - it's just not the excellent score you were hoping for!

If you've been studying consistently and you know your content well, then a lower score usually indicates that you're making careless errors in your process. Are you still relying on your ear for SC? Are you making assumptions or jumping to conclusions with RC and CR? Are you making computation errors or answering the wrong questions on quant?

You've taken a lot of practice tests over the last few months, but how deeply have you been reviewing them? With every single question you do, you should be asking yourself, how could I get there more quickly and with fewer mistakes? How can I connect this to other questions I've done? Most of us tend to brush off careless errors, but those are actually the #1 reason for score drops on the GMAT. Make sure that you pinpoint the kinds of mistakes that you make, and think about how to mitigate those.

I think it could also be worthwhile to spend extra time on the verbal side, and focus on your weaknesses there. Good luck!

Hi Ceilidh (Kaylee)

Thanks for your feedback. I appreciate it.

To answer your question:

1. No I am not relying on my ear for SC. As a matter of fact, SC is my strong point on verbal. I can virtually dissect a sentence in its respective components, and easily identify errors. I believe I had a fatigue issue with my SCs on the actual gmat exam. However, RC is my weaker point and I will be working on it for the next one month. I guess for RC one can apply only a handful of mechanical techniques, and one has to practice as many passages as possible.

2. Yes I had reviewed the mock test thoroughly. I used to spend a good 18 hrs reviewing every mock test. I noticed that I made some careless mistakes especially with the DS problems. However, now I realize that I only noticed the careless mistake, and did not take measures to effectively minimize them. Now I am working on minimizing them.

I am wondering if I give 4-5 hrs everyday, is 1.5 month enough to improve you score 100+ points?