I just Beat The GMAT!

I have sat my third GMAT exam today and I thought I'd share my thoughts on it.

1. I finally increased my score -> got 630 (had 540 on both my previous attempts)
2. My verbal %ile went from 30 to 80 for a month!!!
3. My math % remained the same (60) even after a month of additional training.
4. I feel like if I retake the test again I can still improve
5. I was left with about 4 questions to wild guess at the end of each section (verbal and math)

For the tremendous verbal improvement, I believe that starting to take notes while reading the first 2 RCs helped a lot (no time to apply the same for the 3rd and 4th). Also, I used the well-advertised technique of sketching ABCDE over my notepad to work out the CRs. That seems to have helped a lot as well. As for the SCs, I have always done extremely well on these (above 85% rate of success)

Now that I know that I have gotten > 600 I am reassured that the schools I am applying to (ESSEC MSc, ESCP-EAP, ESSEC MBA, EDHEC - France), will in fact consider my score as competitive enough! phiewff I am relieved

Good luck to all who are still up for the challenge out there

Hi, I think I'm in the same boat as you. I had studied for about 3 months in October, didn't take the test and have just started studying again. I plan on taking it in August, so I have about 3 months. Previously, I was scoring around 550 on my practice tests, and my goal is 630.

How long did you study for by the time you took your first exam?

Did you do it on your own or take a course?

How much time per day do you think you studied?

I'm trying to get a sense of what I can/should do to get my score up. I'm weak in Quant., but I think I can do pretty well on Verbal. I just took a Kaplan Diagnostic "mini-GMAT" and got 71% of all the questions right (mostly verbal, but most of my Quant. mistakes were stupid ones). Any advice would be great. Thanks and good luck!

Hi cobraquuen,
You are such an inspiration to me..In this forum everybody has scored 700 or above on their first attempt and I was really wondering if I was in the wrong place..My GMAT journey started a year back when I scored a 450 on my first attempt and then after 3 months I retook and scored a 590 and thoght could improve it so took it the third time and scored a devastating 480..clearly my nerves got onto me..but now I am focused..I have booked it for the fourth time and will be taking up the test on the 12th of May...have been scoring between 600 and 700 on the pratcice tests..target score is 650..any suggestions??