I just Beat The GMAT!

Wrote the GMAT yesterday, Scored Poorly (680 Q44, V41)

My experience :

AWA : Went well, got 5 solid paragraphs in. Finished with about 5 minutes to go

IR: IR seemed a mix of Easy-Medium level questions and some Brutually hard questions (Harder them most of the hard questions in QP1) .. Guessed on 2, but spent solid amount of time on the remaining 10. Since IR is so new, it will be some time before colleges use it as a benchmark. I was hoping to get a 5 on it, and think that i have done enough.

Quant: This was the deal breaker for me. I am a non traditional candidate (MD) and quant was never my strength. Through self prep and using this forum, I had built myself up to a level where i was reasonably confident with GMAT quant. In my MGMAT Mocks i was scoring between 42 and 46, with constant improvements in Mock 1 to Mock 4. In GMAT prep, i scored between 45 and 48. My lowest score on Kaplan was 80th percentile (quant). I do not know what happened to me on test day, but i am assuming that i made a string of careless mistakes. The Quant section was very much like GMAT PREP, especially if you take into account Question Pack 1. In fact, I feel GMAT PREP questions, coupled with Question pack 1 are more Representative of the REAL QUANT SECTION then A) any other test prep company, B) Either of the OG. I got only one Probability question, and NO P&C question on the test. I got 2 questions on SIMPLE INTEREST, and atleast 2 on SETS. As expected Number properties dominated the DS, and i also got 4 geometry questions (2 triangles, 1 area/perimeter DS, 1 circle). Overall i am EXTREMELY disappointed with my quant performance needless to say, i need to take a break, and get back to the basics.

Verbal: Verbal went very well. I feel that it was quite close to GMAT PREP (and QP1). SC was a bit of a worry for me going into the test, as i had heard that the NEW SC is quite a bit difficult from OG, and that QP1 SC is old and not representative of the modern test. In my practice mocks (Official & Non official) i was getting around 2-3 questions from SC incorrect per section. SC on the GMAT, was fairly similar to GMAT PREP. I think MGMAT does a great job with SC on their CAT's and the advanced set (set of 25 questions that can be purchased for 5$).CR on the test was pretty manageable and most answer choices were CLEAR (unlike many non official mock tests that do not get CR right). Usually i get all CR questions right in a section, and i was fairly confident with all but one CR question on the test. I feel Practicing LSAT questions is great for verbal, the first 15-18 questions per LSAT section are great, and very similar to the GMAT. I got 3 RC passages (2 short , 1 long) , One short passage had 5 questions (guessing i got some experimental ones there). RC passages were very interesting to read and "personalize" however i made 2 careless mistakes (That i realized soon after submitting the answer choice ) .. In my mock tests i was scoring between V42 and V44, i feel that the STUPID mistakes in RC cost me a point or 2 but my overall Verbal score is to my satisfaction.

Materials Used : *MGMAT SET (Mixed set , some 4th edition books, some 5th edition)
*LSAT Logic Bible
*Veritas Prep : Advanced word problems, DS Book, RC Book
* Actual 10 LSAT Practice tests with answers
* MGMAT Advanced Quant
* Kaplan Premier & Kaplan 800

Shout outs: David Newland , Ron Purewal for his remarkable videos, Brian Lange for being kind enough to review my essay, beatthegmat.com and Eric Bahn, for providing such a good platform for test takers, All the others that have painstakingly taken the time to answer my queries.

What Next ? : Hoping for some advise from some of the experts who have constantly helped me in my prep. Here is what i think i need to improve my score :

- QUANT : Need to go over the basics, I may need specialized coaching given that i have self prepped but was unable to remove certain chinks in my strategy (The way i tackled inequalities for example (DS) )

- Verbal: Stay at par, but beef up on SC concepts (Since i have time) and keep on practicing CR and RC.

WHEN?: I rushed to take the GMAT as i will be extremely busy between march and april (Have to polish up and finish my Doctoral thesis) however i can probably find around 5-8 hours a week for the next month. I Will not be applying until later this year (Round one , around October-November) so am looking to re-test around Mid June - Early July ...

THE GMAT HAS NOT HEARD THE LAST OF ME :twisted:

Thanks Brian, for the kind words of encouragement. I know that 680 is a pretty decent score, but i feel that it does not reflect my full potential. Since i have quite a bit of time between now, and july when the MBA programs come out with a list of essays for next year, I will prepare some more and re-take the test . I am taking a week off from studying for the GMAT.

Good idea to take the prolonged break after the exam. I have seen many people like yourself succeed by working hard in between their first and second attempts.

You are already at a great level, so congrats.

Your self-assessment was right on too - get back to the basics and you will see your score go up.

Thanks Jim, As advised, i am going to be taking a week or so off from the GMAT. I will then chart out my plan and strategy for quant prep and will run it by you guys.

Good to see you are taking a step back. See you in a week.

Hi brian,

Enjoying my time away from the GMAT. A bit busy at work but still its refreshing not to think about crazy Data sufficiency and Boring RC every day . I have had time to look at my goals as far as the GMAT is concerned, and have decided that given that i have time before the essays are released, i should be aiming for 30-50 point improvement. I know the bulk of it has to come from Quant but will be working on my Verbal trying to get more comfortable with some of my weaker areas. Still a couple of days to go before i kick start my quant prep, will keep you informed as to what i plan (the way to approach this time around). My goal is to be done with the GMAT by mid to end of June, but i would not be fully committing myself to prep before 1st of may as i would be travelling and would be extremely busy at work. I intend on starting slowly (5-8 hours a week spread over 3-4 days) and taking one topic at a time and going through it thoroughly.

Update:

Received my score today. the same overall score and QV , IR -4 (Very very disappointed), AWA 5.5 (happy) ...

Will be looking to firm up my IR (am aiming for a 6 or higher)

Just a quick update. I wrote the GMAT (2nd attempt) Yesterday, and ended with a score of 730 (Q48, V42)...I am delighted! Here's a brief summary of my G_Day experience (full de-brief later)

ESSAY: Fairly easy prompt, took around 20 minutes to knock it out. I had practiced around 4-5 essays before my first GMAT...This time i just read over chineseburned's templates and went...

IR: IR was something where i really psyched myself out the last time around. I was determined not to take IR too seriously this time around. I spent around 80% of the time on the first 7-8 questions...Guessed the last 3, never spending a lot of effort on any one question. One advise on IR would be to SMARTLY GUESS and move one...If the prompt has 3 choices, and you are not sure about 1 of the answers, go on and guess and move on...do not spend too much time given that your answer could be wrong even if one sub-parts is wrong....I am aiming for a IR 5, and think I've done enough to achieve that...I did not want to burn myself out with IR before the big quant section..

QUANT: This is where i fell short the last time, around. I started off nervously and thought that i was going to repeat my last performance. Around the middle of the section, i started to get some really tough questions, so that kind of gave me some confidence, that i was heading in the right direction. Overall Quant was very similar to the GMAT PREP, and especially similar to the NEW VERITAS PREP quant section. MGMAT, although gave me similar scores, but MGMAT's quant is WAY WAY too tough, in terms of the individual problems/sums. I finished quant with about 10 seconds to go.

Verbal: I scored a V41, the last time around, and wanted to repeat the same performance. The verbal questions seemed a lot tougher this time around. I got 2 really brutal RC passages, and one that was manageable. SC seemed a bit on the easy side. For SC i had only watched Thursdays-With-Ron Videos, and that helped me to really nail down a lot of concepts. With SC one needs to master parallelism and that will take care of 70% of the SC problems. CR was easy compared to what i had practiced (LSAT)....

After verbal came the survey..which i had pretty much filled out after my first attempt. Then Came the score...730 (Q48, V42)...I was delighted with it...Wanted a Q49 or 50, that would have brought my overall score closer to 750, but i am very satisfied with my current score...

Shout outs: I would like to thank the entire BTG Team, Ron Purewal (MGMAT) for his videos, David (Veritas) for being very helpful..Brian Lange for showing so much interest in my progress after my last gmat attempt...and all others who have helped me along the way....

Thx, Brian, You have always encouraged me and kept a tab on my progress.

Congrats! Definitely serves as motivation and inspiration to others!

Do you mind sharing the CATs you used? Specifically the Vertias CATs. I am currently using them to build up my test taking stamina and to know if they are a good feel of the actual GMAT.

Thanks!

Hi Faraz, Thx for the kind words. I practically used every CAT that i could lay my hands on. GMAT PREP, MGMAT CAT, VERITAS PREP, KAPLAN, Question Pack (Quant), GMAT-Focus (Avoidable) , GMAT CLUB TESTS (Quant)....

In my opinion GMAT PREP CAT's are the best for VERBAL and are fairly close in quant. I found the current quant to be one notch higher than GMAT PREP, but I still think working with GMAT PREP to be the best option. MGMAT Quant is mighty tough, but worth going over, since the explanations are spot on, and the SHORTCUTS they suggest can help you on the real thing. Timing is hard to get a hold on, in the MGMAT QUANT section, but they did score me similar to the actual test. The New Veritas Prep CAT is awesome, and very close to the level of the current GMAT in my opinion. Since i had bought Veritas books during my first attempt, I had taken the older CAT's which were changed in May. I've only taken their free updated CAT and if that is anything to by, the new CAT's rock! The quant is very similar to what is on the real thing, and their verbal has always been as close as you could try to make it. With MGMAT and VP, do not bother about Verbal scores, concentrate on the question types you get wrong and in between CAT's work on those areas. Try to do GMAT PREP as much as you can, I must have done each test about 6 times. Also search for "LEGENDDADY" on GMAT CLUB, and download the files he has posted, which are basically GMAT PREP questions, as well as questions from some other CAT's. Those are the best practice sources once you are done with your CAT's.

I hope you get inspired from my story, I had no quant background, and had not touched Math for almost a decade prior to begining my Gmat Prep. If I can do well, almost anyone can.