I just Beat The GMAT!

Hi everyone,

I took the GMAT today; my score breaks down as follow:

Quant 47 81%
Verbal 44 97%
Total 730 96%

I have mixed feelings about the result. I'm happy with my overall score, but I feel like my quant score is a bit low. My big questions is this: will a 47 on the quant section keep me out of a good business school?

I finished up my undergrad in May. I had some time before I started working, so I thought I'd do something constructive and take the GMAT. Before doing anything else, I took a GMAT Prep test. I got a 680. I remember thinking that was a good starting point.

I bought the Official Guide, the OG Verbal Review, the OG Quant Review, some MGMAT books and Kaplan 800. I found the Official Guide to be indispensable. The OG provided a good enough representation of the GMAT, so the OG Verbal and Quant Reviews were not as helpful. Kaplan 800 didn't offer much besides additional questions. The MGMAT Sentence Correction book was great. I read through the book twice and feel like sentence correction is my strongest GMAT area. A great thing about buying the MGMAT book is that it gave me access to 6 online practice tests. MGMAT's practice tests were almost as good as the real thing and the answer explanations are definitely top-notch.

I devoted most of my study time to taking practice GMATs. I did the GMAT Prep tests twice each, all 6 MGAMT tests, the free PR test, and the free Kaplan test. After taking the tests I would go back and rework the problems I got wrong. I found that I could solve just about any question given enough time. Unfortunately, the GMAT doesn't test my ability to solve problems; the GMAT tests my ability to solve problems quickly.

I hope one or two of you found that longer-than-intended debrief helpful.

hi..congrats..great score...can u pls highlight more on ur D-day exp..?

hi KJM84,

Congrats dude.
really nice and concise de-brief.
Could you please tell me how similar real thing is compared to OG-11?
Also, IMO 47 in QA is a really nice score and top-10 really do not give a big attention to your break-up (Other experts may put some more light on this).

Regards,

First of all, congrats.

I actually read somewhere that verbal scores are a better predictor of first-year academic performance (this is what GMAT is intended to measure, in theory). As you can tell, the whole is greater than the sum of its parts, as 97% + 81% = 96%. It looks like you are strong on both parts.

That said, and this is just rehashing what I've read on this site, I would consider a few factors.

1. What is your profile? You will most likely be evaluated against others that are similar to you. Everyone else may have really high quant scores, but fewer people perform well in both areas, as you can tell by your overall breakdown.

2. Do you have other ways to prove quantitative aptitude? Particularly high marks in quantitative courses like stats, accounting, finance, etc. Also, if the nature of your job is quantitative it may help.

3. You said you just graduated...when do you plan on applying? If you have time, take (or retake) a stats or calculus course. It will show you are dedicated to improvement and if you get an A, should address any concerns about your quant score.

Just some things to think about, congrats though!

drizzle...
My biggest piece of advice for G-Day is to stick to your typical sleeping schedule. Before test day, I was in the habit of sleeping 7 hours a night. The night before the test I slept 9.5 hours thinking the extra sleep would help me focus. Instead, I found myself very sleepy during the test. It seems counterintuitive, but I think the extra sleep made me more tired!

cubicle...
I found the OG very indicative of what you'll find on the real thing. The same with GMAT Prep. I also found GMAT Prep a great predictor of my real score.

ptgbeauregard...
My undergraduate degree is electrical engineering. My GPA was a 3.2. While not horrible, my GPA is a bit low for my target schools. I expected to do a bit better on the quantitative section because of my math-heavy background. During prep, I found that the majority of my mistakes on the quant section resulted from careless errors. I have a feeling that that's what got me on the real thing. I'd like to start business school fall 2011.