I just Beat The GMAT!

fitzgerald thanks for sharing your prep and exam experience with me and fellows at BTG. I think there was no over-analysis on my side. On the exam I was taking 15 sec. off from math talk and would make an aerial review of the quant questions. I did this with the question no 7 and spent 10 sec. for solution 'find last digit of a^b' <-- content changed, I got b=c^d and d=e^f where b, c, d are cycle numbers to obtain the last digit of 'a'.

My approach and strategy for verbal was triple - SC, CR and RC

For SC I was reading the sentence and tried to understand the meaning firstly. Then I moved to answer choice B if the sentence was not conveying the desired meaning and/or wasn't grammatically correct... kept working through all answer choices until I could decisively select the correct answer. When I could not succeed, I was making contender analysis.

For RC I employed skimming techniques. I was reading the first paragraph very carefully and then was concentrating on the first and last sentences of each paragraph, as I was quickly reading the entire text. At the end I was trying to link all paragraphs together and get the sense of passage. After all skimming and sense capture I was turning to questions in RC.

For CR I employed novelty at this time, BUT not for all question types only for weaken/strengthen and assumption types. I approached the inference, paradox type of questions as it was suggested in Hacks GMAT total verbal book (I bought one and studied). For CR weaken/strengthen and assumption questions - I was building small domains in my head to test and evaluate three hypotheses. These were based on the gap analysis of premise-conclusion. The gaps had to be filled with reasons after Stats/Sampling, Causal relationship (containing inside and outside conditions), and Analogies. I was focusing on this strategy for CR and it has worked fine for me before exam. I had decided to use it on the G-Day.
Nothing special just took exam and got the verbal score 16. I am still uncertain about the reasons behind my showing such a low score. Is this my true verbal ability?

Hi NightReader,

I'm from your GMAT "generation", I took the test around the time you took your first test. So I followed your story.

This board has been great to me, so I feel compelled to contribute by offering you my honest advice.

The situation is this:

Background
Universities decided that they were gonna measure students by using a useless test that supposedly correlated with important things, although this has never been proven. The test barely measures mathematical and verbal skills, but a collection of very random skills such as ability to focus on uninteresting readings under a lot of stress for a very long time.

Your problem
You scored too low on verbal. You figured it could have been a bad day, so you took it again. You scored the exact same low score (which cannot be a coincidence). This is in no way related with your ability to speak English (evidenced by your writing skills), but just related to obscure factors that we cannot know.

Your options
a. Develop a conspiracy theory based on bad algorithms or discrimination against Indians.
b. Be very philosophical about it and try to understand the intricacies of the test, and how you responded to it. Compare it to MGMAT tests or other tests which GMAC never endorsed in the first place.
c. Take the GRE and get an awesome score.

Those really are the only three options you have. I say go for option c.

Good luck!

hi hcueva, I know that my writing and speaking English do not look bad. This does not answer my question though. The three options listed by you shouldn't qualify my test result in verbal and force me for taking GRE. I need to understand the real cause behind my low verbal score. This cannot be coincidence, right - I agree with you. There is something related to either my verbal abilities or the test itself. I need to know the factors contributing to my verbal score of 16.

I took mine on 4th April. Q46 V18.

There was a f...en nut sitting next to me yawning aloud and did everything that distracted me. Nonetheless I was not expecting a 18!

I got the official score today and AWA is 5.5.

I still cant believe I screwed up this bad!

This thread is SCARY...

@NR, My friend, to be very true i was eagerly waiting for your post that you share your exam experience but not like this one. After i joined this community in February, your posts really helped and reflects how strong you are not only in Verbal but also in Quant. Even i add many post of yours to my personal notes but your score verbal 16...can't believe.

I can't suggest that you study this and that and this may be the area where you made mistake etc because i don't find anything wrong in your strategy and can't doubt on the amount you practice.

But still say, a guy like you should take the GMAT again as you deserve to get a high score, so test you fate one more time. Why i use this word fate because this word does matter. I took my first GMAT test in Nov 2010...imagine my paper starts at 9 AM but end up at 4 PM..7 hrs of GMAT....why this crazy thing happened because of the power cut. The power goes off 3 times in the middle of the exam...once in the middle of Quant (for an hour or so) and Twice in b/w verbal (more than 1 hr each time)...although the paper starts from the same question where the power goes off and you not even loose a second but imagine you are in middle of RC passage and power cut and after an hour of frustration you have to read it again from the beginning. and since i was on the verge of Round 2 so i deny their offer to cancel the exam at that point(when power cut) because it took almost 2-3 weeks minimum for a new test date. Finally ended up with a horrible score of 620(V-28, Q-48). After getting this pathetic score, my dream to study in B-school in 2011 fall...but its okay now from Fen 2011 i started again.

So buddy, don't give up, you may thought that i just shared my story and told you nothing relevant, but what should i say to a guy like you. You always seems to me a string contender so i can only say....fight again...as not all the days are same.

Best of luck
Atul

Atul,
now this is even more worse.
Which centre was it? Pathetic. Pearson Vue?
Did you report the matter to GMAC? They should have offered you another retake? We PAY for the exam, and continuous power supply is expected by default.

Cheers,

@hcueva

CAN YOU JUSTIFY THIS POINT OF YOURS????

Your options
a. Develop a conspiracy theory based on bad algorithms or discrimination against Indians.

atulmangal wrote:@hcueva

CAN YOU JUSTIFY THIS POINT OF YOURS????

Your options
a. Develop a conspiracy theory based on bad algorithms or discrimination against Indians.

Ahh..thanks for pointing this out Atul, im sure hcueva has a good explanation of whatever that means.
right hcueva?

@Rohu
Buddy, the center was in Jaipur, Rajasthan. In there is only one center and that's in the Jaipur only. See as i told you that GMAC is not responsible (apart from that the examinations centers must have generators or alternate power sources), they asked me that you can cancel your exam right now when first time the power goes off. Then i asked when the Re-exam will happen so they told me after 2 weeks from now you get a call from GMAC and after that the date will be set on the basis of availability...so imagine it gonna take a long time and round 2 will be over.

Just wanna add to your surprise, I booked my date in September 2010 for 3rd of November and 10 days before my exam i got a call from Pearson, and they request me to postponed or preponed my exam date, they said on 3rd of November the exam will not take place as This happened because they didn't update their database in September that because of Diwali festival on 4th the exam center doesn't conduct exam on 3rd also...imagine...so i have to forcefully postponed my exam and that made the things more worse.

The moral is sometimes things happen and i believe they happen for better, may be in Nov i was not enough prepared to score 720+ and now may be in June i achieve this target.

@NR my friend try again

Interesting Atul.
I think the Jaipur centre is no long operational, GMAC closed it down i guess.
Few months back many people on this forum complained that GMAC cancelled scores of applicants who gave their test at Jaipur(at the same time as yours) citing inconsistencies on the part of the test centre.
So as you said somethings happen and this must have happened for good. imagine you getting a good score and later gmac cancels it.

NR,
Are you done with your GRE mate? I still cant cant understand how you got a 16?

@Rohu

Is that so?? Hey after reading your post i tried to check my score through the link i received from GMAT and link is not opening my page. Its saying your score report is not yet available. God, this crazy, i haven't received any information E-mail from GMAT regarding the cancellation of my Score. How it is possible?? I just send them a mail lets see. In case if candidate's behavior is not responsible for the cancellation then i think GMAC should pay for my Re-test as i'm not responsible for the problems at examination center. This is pathetic.

Now, i'm even more scared, the result of @NR, the first tragic experience at examination center and now this..... I originally scheduled my paper in Bangalore but because GMAC want me to postponed the paper i took in my home town as after a year long of work i got leave to spend some time at home....God help me now.

Check this out Atul,

https://www.beatthegmat.com/gmac-cancele ... 76780.html

as per the poster GMAC did send a mail and also offered a free retake, just see if it applies in your case too.

@Rohu

Thanks a ton for the link man, but that was scary...a horrible dream that come true for some people. I didn't know so much happened...thanks for the information.

can you let me know the URL you are checking to know your GMAT score online ?

Yes sure, here is this URL


https://www.pearsonvue.com/entry/gmat/vo ... 02a09dd5f1

I received this from [email protected] via email