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Poor score, any tips on how to raise it?

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Poor score, any tips on how to raise it?

by lcmorrow » Wed Oct 21, 2009 12:01 pm
Well, I just took the GMAT for the first time today. I scored a very low score of 560 (32Q;34V) :(

I have been studying about 3-4 hours a day Monday-Thursday for about 6 weeks and went through most of the OG-12th edition as well as the green quantitative and purple verbal guides. I took the two free practice tests that are in the GMATprep download and scored a 620 and 650 on those.

I'm aiming to get anywhere above a 630. Does anybody have any encouraging advice or tips on how to raise my score about 70 points? How hard is it to significantly raise my score? What should I do? I know I can do better on the quant., for some reason I froze and forgot everything. My undergrad was in finance so I'm used to math. I just don't know if I can take computerized tests. :(
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by briantime » Wed Oct 21, 2009 1:13 pm
Did you time yourself while solving the OG-12 questions? Why do you think did freeze and forget everything? Were you too nervous? Was it the test-center environment? Burn-out? Not enough sleep?

Make sure to get confident in solving basic quantitive problems. Also, make sure you understand the principles that involve solving those questions. It's more important to understand the principles on what the problems rely on than to solve a large number of problems.

Also, I think some little rules can help you out with a lot of problems. For example, when I started reading OG-11 I didn't realize the importance of 3-4-5 triangles or length rations in triangles (90°-45°-45° -> 1:1:sqr(2) etc). Make sure that you can identify those problems.

- Chris
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by lcmorrow » Wed Oct 21, 2009 3:56 pm
Thanks for the reply. I didn't time myself, which is probably half the problem. I ran out of time and had to guess on the final six problems of the quant. section. Also, I froze on the first question and ended up guessing. The other questions I felt pretty confident on though. I had all the triangles memorized, geometry forumlas, permutations/combinations, and discrete probabilty down before the test. I just don't know what happened. I was just nervous. I think I need to practive more on the easy questions and get more of the fundamentals down.

I'm not going to give up though. I'm going to take all the other practice tests and put more effort in and try to take it again in a month. If anyone has any more tips I would appreciate it!
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by Turnpike » Wed Oct 21, 2009 8:53 pm
Did you take just two practice tests? You need to take about fifteen if you want to be well prepared. I think that's the biggest hurdle that you've had. I would suggest the MGMAT CATs which provide excellent analyses and explanations for on-the-job learning, Kaplan CATs for making you feel wretched and therefore urging you to work harder, and finally the GMATPrep CATs to properly evaluate your preparation.

I'm not going to tell you about the MGMAT Strategy Guides because you first need to assess yourself through mock tests and the OGs to know which particular topics you are weak in, and then go for the relevant Guides.

Good Luck.
"Many of the great achievements of the world were accomplished by tired and discouraged men who kept on working."
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by briantime » Wed Oct 21, 2009 9:55 pm
lcmorrow wrote:Thanks for the reply. I didn't time myself, which is probably half the problem. I ran out of time and had to guess on the final six problems of the quant. section. Also, I froze on the first question and ended up guessing. The other questions I felt pretty confident on though. I had all the triangles memorized, geometry forumlas, permutations/combinations, and discrete probabilty down before the test. I just don't know what happened. I was just nervous. I think I need to practive more on the easy questions and get more of the fundamentals down.

I'm not going to give up though. I'm going to take all the other practice tests and put more effort in and try to take it again in a month. If anyone has any more tips I would appreciate it!
Guessing the last 6 problems means that you lost a large amount of points there. Freezing on the first question happens to many people. Also, I don't think you need to do 15 practice tests.
If you studied long enough, you should know your weaknesses.

You say you felt confident and know all the formulas. What about careless errors? When I studied, I often felt too confident on easy math questions and then ran into traps, because I didn't read the question good enough.

Before you confirm your answer, you should always read again what is being asked. Those little things can steel you a lot of points even though you don't lack the ability to solve the math behind it.

- Chris
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by lcmorrow » Thu Oct 22, 2009 9:40 am
Yes, I only took the two GMATprep practice tests. The first one three days before the exam and the other two days before the exam. I think that was my main problem. I will be ordering a few of the MGMAT strategy guides and plan on taking about 10 practice tests before next time. I just need to work harder I guess. After reading what some of you guys have done to prepare I feel way underprepared. I studied about a total of 100 hours. I guess I need to double or triple that.
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by Turnpike » Fri Oct 23, 2009 1:00 am
It took me 11 months to prepare for the GMAT. The first 3 months went into the basics. by that i mean understanding the GMAT. it's a computer adaptive test, and it's a fairly new thing for me. once i had adequate information about the test i went about with a proper preparation from the 4th month onwards. from february till september end, it took me 8 months to get the things in order. and i did a total of 15 mock CATs. so many, that my greatest fear was that i'd get bored while doing the real exam.

As far as the MGMAT guides are concerned, you only need one to access the entire 6 tests. just check inside the back cover to see if the code is printed or not. i saw one copy where the code was missing and brought it to the notice of the store manager.

And i've realised one thing abt GMAT: the worse u think ur performing, the better it is. and another thing, and this one very important thing from BTG: you can always improve on a previous score if u really want to.

good luck. you can tweet me @gr8r if u need any more help.
"Many of the great achievements of the world were accomplished by tired and discouraged men who kept on working."
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