Beaten by the GMAT - 640 q42 v36 down from 770 on Gmatprep H

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Hey guys,

I took the GMAT yesterday and got a 640 and was shocked when I saw my score.

I used the Manhattan guides and OG 12 for quant

Manhattan SC and Powerscore CR books for verbal.

I was consistently doing well on GMAT Prep and Powerprep tests which was the reason I booked an appointment and went ahead and took the exam.

Here's my practice test scores

Gmatprep 1 - 650

Gmat prep 1 repeat 720 Q49 V40

Powerprep 1 and 2 740 Q49 V41

Gmat Prep 2 730 Q48 V41

Gmat prep 2 reinstalled 770 Q50 V47 (very few repeats)

GMAT 640 - Q42 V 36

I badly need a score of atleast 720. What do you suggest I do?

I did self study and did not use shortcuts and the bullcrap but learnt all the concepts cold and was pretty confident I would do well.

At the same time, I dont think I saw any questions which threw me off balance or those which I couldn't do. I ran out of time in both the sections - I normally finish verbal with atleast 10 minutes on the clock.

I'm not a morning person but wrote the test in the morning - which must have partly contributed to the decrease - maybe a lack of concentration or maybe my nerves got to me.

Im very disappointed and confused. I would be grateful if the Gurus here can guide me - retake in a month or retake in 2-3 months(take about 10 days off and then come back full force)

Also, I think Ive exhausted all the resources - tests and practice problems I have - It would be nice if you guys could suggest more practice resources/tests

Tx

Also, I might have messed up the first few q's in quant - another reasaon for a low score

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by mp2437 » Tue Dec 01, 2009 7:09 am
djprithvi,

I had a very similar situation to you (was scoring 700 in GMATPrep, ended up with 640 on real thing). A few thoughts - it seems that your quant score was the big reason for the drop. Going from 48-50 on practice to a 42 on real GMAT is a larger difference than going from 40-41 down to 36 on verbal.

I think you should reschedule in one month since you are already in the groove of studying. It seems like you don't have seriously weak topics, so I would recommend going through 2 weeks of quant study and 2 weeks of verbal (or a bit more verbal in case you feel your quant really shouldn't be the focus).

For quant - go through zuleron's post of 198 700+ quant questions and make sure you analyze all of the incorrect choices. For verbal, I would browse through the thousands of questions posted on this site (I'd recommend you do an RSS feed to this site - that way, you can get a list of questions people are posting/ responding to and get some extra practice).

Final note is stress. You might have gotten nervous after completing the quant portion of the GMAT, which affected your performance on verbal. Next time around, walk into the exam confident, and remember that the algorithm that is in place adjusts to your level of knowledge, so don't overthink when you see some relatively easy questions near the end.

Best of luck to you!

Newbie | Next Rank: 10 Posts
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by djprithvi » Tue Dec 01, 2009 10:24 am
mp2437,

Thanks for the encouraging words. Will go through the doc with 198 questions.

Also, just to give you a little more clarity over what went wrong, I've done 5 MGMAT CATs - just the quant part and have got 46-47 in the last four exams. Got a 42 in my first MGMAT(with zero prep).