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Completely Lost and Dejected after 4 GMAT attempts

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Completely Lost and Dejected after 4 GMAT attempts

by saswani » Tue Aug 13, 2013 10:38 pm
Hi,

I gave my forth attempt of GMAT on 12th Aug 2013 and my third attempt was in 2012 May. This time I thought I was going to score 650+ in the real test as in practice I scored 670 (Q: 44, V: 38) and 660 (Q: 46 V: 35).

I gave both the practice test in "test like conditions". Even if I remove 30 points from each score due to repetition of test question I was at least expecting to score 630. But in the test on 12th August 2013, I ended up scoring lower than my third GMAT attempt. I scored 580 (Q: 43, V: 27).

My last three attempt scores are,

1st GMAT: 510 (Q: 35, V: 25)
2nd GMAT: 560 (Q: 42, V: 24)
3rd GMAT: 600 (Q: 43, V:30)

In my forth attempt I never expected a drop, but ended up with a score drop by 20 points due to verbal. Though this time I was most confident of scoring in my target range. Seems like in my destiny an MBA is not written. I started my GMAT prep in Jan 2011. But still not getting any where.

Please help me with my strategy and let me know how can I figure out what I am doing wrong. Let me know if it is best for me to just quit?


Regards.
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by bpolley00 » Wed Aug 14, 2013 3:30 am
If I were you, at this point, I would take a week or two away from the GMAT and reflect. Reflect on perhaps why it went that way. I would also think about expectations: Do you know yourself? Has standardized testing always been difficult for you? Is English your native language? Perhaps spending time brushing up on English and reading books would help. I am certainly not advocating giving up on your dreams but you have now taken it 4 times, which is getting to the point where you don't want to A) spend much more money on a test and B) you don't want to be applying to business schools telling them you took the test 10 times :). If you are going to give it one more go I would strongly consider consulting one of the GMAT tutors on here. They are extremely knowledgeable, incredibly bright and can help you figure out the all important WHY as to why the test might not be going in your favor on test day.

Best of luck and hopefully down the road we will see your 650+ debrief.

-BP
Last edited by bpolley00 on Wed Aug 14, 2013 8:30 am, edited 1 time in total.
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by Brent@GMATPrepNow » Wed Aug 14, 2013 8:12 am
Sorry to hear about your latest test.

Looks like things went well with the Quant section, but your Verbal score dropped considerably.
Sometimes a ridiculously difficult and long RC passage (with 4 questions) near the beginning of the verbal section can knock you off your game (both in timing and in confidence). Did this, by chance, happen?

Cheers,
Brent
Brent Hanneson - Creator of GMATPrepNow.com
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by saswani » Thu Aug 15, 2013 9:18 am
Hi bpolley,

I am planning to take off for few weeks and reflect on what went wrong. As I feel one of the aspects that could have hurt me in the test was the fact that night before the test I had very disturbed sleep and when I went for the test my head felt "heavy".

And yes standardized test have always been a nightmare for me...i shudder even at the thought of giving a standardized test. But yet I always find my self fighting standardized tests....

English is not my native language, but my schooling and university have all been in English. I was in the US for my Undergraduate degree in Electrical Engineering. And having an engineering degree makes it even harder for me to accept that I am bad at Quant, Verbal ok I can accept, but Quant it is hard for me to accept that. Also if you see my practice test scores I know for sure that questions that I got in my GMATPrep Test were not such that I saw the question and instantly knew the answer for the same. In fact in Quant I feel my concept and understanding of which area a question belongs to has become quiet strong over time.

I did not even wish to go up to the 5th try but I am at a stage where I am now gonna give my 5th GMAT or at least debating to give my 5th GMAT Attempt. In terms of going for coaching...i took GMAT course in Dubai in 2011 and that did not add much value. I felt like it would be better to prepare alone there after on my own preparation i got my score up to 600 from 510.

I hoping that through these online forums at least i can think of a new strategy or figure out what went wrong.


Regards,
Salesh.
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by saswani » Thu Aug 15, 2013 9:27 am
Hi Brent,

Actually in Quant I was expecting to score at least higher than my last attempt. This time I felt more prepared for the Quant section than the last time I gave my test. I think I would have messed my Data Sufficiency by unnecessarily thinking that there was trick in DS and selected a wrong answer. Since that is one area in Quant that has always dragged my score. In quant my aim is to only score 46 or 47 enough to bring my percentage of Quant above 70%.

I was thinking if I should go for only harder question such as 700 level questions in quant. That way I can shore up my quant further and hopefully will not make mistakes in my 600 to 700 level questions in the GMAT. Let me know what you think if i follow that strategy for quant.

As for Verbal I felt my RC was much better...but I think my SC would have been impacted as fatigue could have hit me due to lack of sleep the previous night. My verbal section began normally with few CR's and then an SC and then short RC. So it was normal. Also for RC I had done close to 50 RC passages, which were of Low and Medium level. And had gotten use to doing RC's.

I have further details with regards to my preparation in previous test in my reply to bpolley. Based on this if you can provide your guidance I shall be indebted to you.

I really hope through this forum I can figure out holes in my preparation for the GMAT.


Regards,
Salesh.
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