I just Beat The GMAT!

Hi Guys!

I have just taken the exam and scored 620.
I want to share my experience as this community is great!

Materials: OG 11 all books (Verbal and Math) Gmat Focus x3, Manhattan all tests and books. Princeton book.Forum questions.

Math: it begins easy but very soon I found word problems questions regarding digits, geometry and hard probability (yes hard) Also lots of absolute value, some reminders and distance problems. I begin with 2 minutes and a half less as the person in charge in the lab was not present when I returned from the break!!! However, the level seems very similar to Manhattan online tests and the last 50 questions of the OG 11.

Verbal: it begins with a killer SC and a tricky CR. RC I fell very comfortable (women vote´s rights, genetics, bilingual students).
Unfortunately all my scores in Verbal were above 35 (in the Gmat Prep and Manhattan tests I scored an average of 39 most of the times and never below 35) So I am very surprised.
Any tip to know how to identify the weaknesses would be very much appreciated!!

Hope this debrief helps to this awesome community!
(will probably retake in 2 months aprox)
All the best!

Hey El Cucu,

Sorry you did not hit your target score. Don't lose hope however! You're a fighter...

You say you were disappointed with the verbal section and received a lower score than expected. I wonder whether fatigue did not have anything to do with it? Did you take your practice tests with AWA? That might explain the below average performance.

As for identifying your weakensses: all I did was make a table with date of CAT, scores and number of wrong for each section. After a few tests, I knew that CR was my greatest weakness - all I did was add up the number of wrong and compare... Maybe this will work for you as well!

However, don't forget that hit rates are not the most important things out there: sometimes we get a question wrong because we are tired, did not properly read the question etc. But if you "feel" that Permutations are an issue, no matter if you get the question right, then that might be classified as a weakness. It's this "feeling" that helps you identify real trouble spots.

All the best. I'm 100% confident you'll get your desired score next time around.

Tks Dana, you rock!

People like you give this forum a competitive advantage over others!

Will have to retake it as my advisor told me that I have ZERO, yes ZERO possibilities to enter a top 15 US school with that score.

Will tell you about my progress and tks for your encouraging words!

DanaJ wrote:Hey El Cucu,

Sorry you did not hit your target score. Don't lose hope however! You're a fighter...

You say you were disappointed with the verbal section and received a lower score than expected. I wonder whether fatigue did not have anything to do with it? Did you take your practice tests with AWA? That might explain the below average performance.

As for identifying your weakensses: all I did was make a table with date of CAT, scores and number of wrong for each section. After a few tests, I knew that CR was my greatest weakness - all I did was add up the number of wrong and compare... Maybe this will work for you as well!

However, don't forget that hit rates are not the most important things out there: sometimes we get a question wrong because we are tired, did not properly read the question etc. But if you "feel" that Permutations are an issue, no matter if you get the question right, then that might be classified as a weakness. It's this "feeling" that helps you identify real trouble spots.

All the best. I'm 100% confident you'll get your desired score next time around.

Hi Dana , my Verbal scores in the Manhattan online tests were:

Cat 1: 35=77%
Cat 2: 36=81%
Cat 3: 39=89%
Cat 4: 40=91%
Cat 5: 35=77%
Cat 6: 36=81%

In other words I averaged 82,6% compared with 52% in the real exam.

I think you are right (as always ha) My problem was that I didn´t do all those tests with the AWA and in the real exam I felt exhausted aprox. in the question #20 of Verbal. Besides, in the preps I was used to have a cup of coffee in the breaks before starting the Verbal Section, and I couldn´t do that in the test center.Moreover, I didn´t sleep very good the days before the exam and I continued stuying till 10 minutes before entering the test center...

I will do again all those tests with the AWA and mimic the real test circumstances to the detail. Then I can redefine my weaknesses and finally will try to boost my score to 90% in all 3 sections (RC, CR and SC).

Regarding Math, I will try to push from 46 to 49 by improving speed. Could you pls. suggest something on this?
I will also work on the "weak" areas.
Do you think redoing all the Manhattan online tests will help or should I try doing new tests?

I would appreciate very much your thoughts/advice on my "own review",

Tks again!

I myself felt tired around question 35 of the verbal portion... The test is exhausting, so stamina is essential. This is why indeed it's really important to mimic test day conditions and to always time every practice session (doesn't matter if it's just 10 questions).

Speed in quant is actually 90% feeling comfortable with a given problem. Other stuff to do besides practice:
- use mental math (i.e. in 23*39 notice that 39 = 40 - 1 and use this to do calculations faster)
- do not take lengthy, untidy notes. You might get confused because of all the scribbling! Besides, it's a proven fact that mess around the workspace will impact your performance
- try to memorize a few important things (like the squares up to 15, Pythagorean sets like 3, 4, 5 or 12, 13, 5).

Working on weak areas means using targeted practice. CATs are not at all what you should use for this. Just work on specific issues. One idea would be to search the forum for keywords (like permutations or circle).
CATs are not mainly for practice. IMHO, CATs serve other purposes:
- addressing timing issues
- building up stamina
- evaluating where you stand

All the best with your next attempt.

El Cucu - Was your math score pretty close to your MGMAT or GMATPrep scores?

JeffB wrote:El Cucu - Was your math score pretty close to your MGMAT or GMATPrep scores?

At first I struggled with Math scoring 34 in Manhattan CATS and after doing very, very hard work I scored 46 in my last two CATS. However, be aware that Manhattan is not all, is just for having a solid background and some techniques. Is 30%/40% of the work.

To score above 45 in Math you have to master 100% the OG (master means doing every problem and understand every concept) as the questions in the real thing are like those and do all the problems you can as you will have a lot of variations not only in the type of issues involved but also in the manner they are written. I still remember that in the Math section they trough me almost all the issues (probability, geometry, number properties, absolute value, inequalities, roots, quadratics, remainders, sequences,...and so on and the majority of them were mixed, for instance the problems were about reminders but first you had to factor the number then calculate the exponents... This means you will have the majority of the problems involving more than one concept)Therefore, you must understand all this topics very well and the problem is that the OG is not good at explaining concepts, IMO.

In the Gpreps I scored between 45 - 48, so pretty much related to the real thing.

Hope this helps!

What about GMAT Focus? Was that helpful?

I asked about the correlation between MGMAT and GMATPrep because I found MGMAT math a lot more complex than the OG.

Thx.

JeffB wrote:What about GMAT Focus? Was that helpful?

I asked about the correlation between MGMAT and GMATPrep because I found MGMAT math a lot more complex than the OG.

Thx.

GFocus is very good but if you have the OG 11 and 12 I heard you won´t need the exercises. Nevertheless, it could help you to evaluate self assessment, although it gave you an estimate...

IMO MGMAT is not more complex than the OG, it is different and helps working on the basics. However, the results in MGMAT were pretty similar than in the real thing in my case.

My advice is to take what is best for you, nobody has the truth in this issues. So don´t be pushed to use any particular company. I have some friends who scored very, very high (51) who didn´t need any other book than the OG. It depends on your background, etc. A particular tutor also helps but be sure to choose the right one for you.

Hope this helps!