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Knocked down by the GMAT for the second time ..

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Knocked down by the GMAT for the second time ..

by the nona » Wed Apr 03, 2013 9:58 am
Totally depressed and heart broken !!!! Took the GMAT on Feb the 13th and scored 540 , realised I was studying wrong depending mainly on memorization like school days . Booked another appointment for today , took one week free then worked for 5 weeks using a better approach of analyzing problems and writing down takeaways from them . I relied in both times on official material , Manhattan books , and GMAT Club forums .Also covered most posts in blogs by Manhattan , Veritas , and Kaplan , in addition to most of Ron's videos and the free GMATPrepNow videos . This time I scored in my first GMATPrep a 570 and my first Manhattan CAT a 560 , then scored from 600-650 in ALL the rest of these (4 Manhattans and 2 GMATPreps ) , taking into consideration that the repeated questions in GMATPreps I used to intendedly answer them wrong to be as honest as possible with myself . I trained myself to review my timing every 5 questions and created a list of weaknesses to throw away when running out of time , and kept an error log which I regularly reviewed . Finally , I took yesterday off and went today high spirited and optimistic ... and here came the worst surprise I have ever had ... !!!! First I was pleased when I found myself facing difficult questions , then noticed I am a bit behind time so started to skip questions but still faced difficult questions , and thus skipped many questions ... a situation I NEVER faced before !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! In quant I managed with difficulty to finish , but in Verbal I missed the last question (SC) , ended up with a 550 39Q 27V !!!!!!!! Left the test center frustrated , and will book for my last opportunity after one month to catch the deadline . What do you advise me to do everybody ???? I will make use of this opportunity to practice a bit more to increase my ability level , and meanwhile will take tests on alternate days to practice timing more , although I really never had this problem in my mocks during my preparation for the second attempt after the first two 500s .Any further advice , please ? Really upset :(
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by bpolley00 » Wed Apr 03, 2013 10:55 am
The Nona,

Here is my debrief, perhaps it will help:

https://www.beatthegmat.com/570-39q-29v- ... 13416.html

Don't get depressed. Getting depressed never helped anyone and it isn't in your own self interest. Keep working at it. Figure out the way each and every question works. There is a trick that they are trying to get the average person to miss, whether it is fractions in a DS question, consecutive even integers in an arithmetic sequence, average speed is slighty less than half the two speeds not exactly half, a misplaced pronoun in SC. Think of it this way: some bro from across the world is creating this test. It is just another person out there that has a limited number of questions he/ she can possibly ask. Don't let that guy/ gal trick you and crush your confidence :). If you take it again, make sure your practice tests are reflecting the score you want. Also, a big thing I keep saying is categorically separate out all the questions from all the practice tests you have. What is really hard about this test isn't the material, it is the ambiguousness in which it is presented; thus, making it hard to actually study for. That way the concept will stick and you'll see how the different questions work. If you buy a math book they don't just give you one question type to practice so why would you just do the OG as is - where you only get 1 question type of each question. The gmatprep tests I can tell you are very very similar to the real thing.

This test is a challenge and it took me 3 to 4 months to figure out the nuances of the test and obviously I still don't know all of them yet. I think if you keep working at it you are going to do well. I may even take it again as I took it again this weekend, after my test and scored another 720.

-BP
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by Brent@GMATPrepNow » Fri Apr 05, 2013 6:04 am
From your post, it sounds like:
- you are preparing in a very thoughtful/analytic manner...great.
- you have a solid time-management strategy...great.
You're on the right track. All that's holding you back is time. Keep working on the weaknesses you identify and don't stop until you've overcome each difficult concept.
To that end, I suggest that you use BTG's tagging feature to isolate concepts.
For example, here are all of the questions tagged as statistics questions: https://www.beatthegmat.com/forums/tags/ ... statistics
See the left side of that linked page for more tag options.

I hope that helps.

Cheers,
Brent
Brent Hanneson - Creator of GMATPrepNow.com
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