710: Q50 V36. Not great but not bad

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710: Q50 V36. Not great but not bad

by sudhanshoo » Wed Sep 01, 2010 10:13 am
Hi All

I took the exam on Monday and I am happy that I scored a 710, though a higher score would have made me happier :D Nevertheless, I do not plan to take GMAT again and I am continuing with my applications. As for others, BTG has been extremely helpful in my preparation. The various personal experiences shared here were great motivators during the low days of preparing for GMAT. I wholeheartedly thank the BTG team and everyone (esp experts) who has shared his/her thoughts on this forum.

Preparation:
I did not get a lot of time to prepare for the exam. For 2 months, I spent 2 hours studying every weekday and whatever I could do on the weekends. Material read--> For Maths: OG12 questions + MGMAT tests and problems. For Verbal: OG10 and OG12 for all sections. Manhattan SC, Powerscore CR Bible and Kaplan 2009 guide. Also useful were Spidey and Sahil SC notes. However, the key were the several tests I took.

MGMAT 1: 600
MGMAT 2: 610
MGMAT 3: 640
MGMAT 4: 730
MGMAT 5: 670
MGMAT 6: 730
Kaplan 1: 600
Kaplan 2: 600
GMAT Prep 1 (1st attempt): 620
GMAT Prep 1 (2nd attempt): 590
GMAT Prep 1 (3rd attempt): 710
GMAT Prep 2 (2 days before the actual test): 710 (I took this one as if I am taking the actual test. Wrote essays. Took 2 breaks of 8 mins each)

I lost a lot of time meandering through books initially. If the preparation were structured, I honestly believe I could have done better than 710. But as I said, I am happy with what I got.

On the exam day:
I slept well the night before. I had a light breakfast and carried a few Snickers for munching during the 8 min breaks. Kept my calm during the test process. It is tempting to think every time during those 4 hours that the end of the exam is near but a calm attitude certainly helps.
AWA: They were ok. I am yet to receive a score but I hope it will be good. I used one of the templates as a guiding tool but put in entirely own thoughts.
Maths: I thought I did pretty well and I was expecting a 51, but 50 it was.
Verbal: I started off ok but wasted precious mins in a couple of SC questions. This made me rush through the end questions, which I probably did badly and also pulled down my verbal score.
I was hoping for something like Q51 and V(Surprise) but it was Q50 V36, exactly similar to my GMAT Prep2 exam.

Hope this helps. Let me know I can be of help to anyone here.

I will focus on my applications now.

Thanks again!
Sudhanshoo
Last edited by sudhanshoo on Wed Sep 01, 2010 10:48 am, edited 1 time in total.

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by kvcpk » Wed Sep 01, 2010 10:26 am
Congrats!! good score
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by Osirus@VeritasPrep » Wed Sep 01, 2010 10:28 am
your score doesn't match your subscores
https://www.beatthegmat.com/the-retake-o ... 51414.html

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by gmatsensei » Wed Sep 01, 2010 10:41 am
osirus0830 wrote:your score doesn't match your subscores
yeah, its a typo. It should be V36.

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by sudhanshoo » Wed Sep 01, 2010 10:47 am
I found the scores for MGMAT and Kaplan irrelevant. MGMAT Quant is nowhere close to the real stuff and Kaplan Verbal, esp RCs, is miles away from the real stuff. Of course, I went bonkers when I saw those scores but the key was to plug the gaps each time I scored badly.

GMAT Prep is a great practice test. One can take each test at least thrice.

And apologies for the typo. corrected that.

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by gmatsensei » Wed Sep 01, 2010 11:03 am
sudhanshoo wrote:I found the scores for MGMAT and Kaplan irrelevant. MGMAT Quant is nowhere close to the real stuff and Kaplan Verbal, esp RCs, is miles away from the real stuff. Of course, I went bonkers when I saw those scores but the key was to plug the gaps each time I scored badly.

GMAT Prep is a great practice test. One can take each test at least thrice.

And apologies for the typo. corrected that.
Congratulations sudhanshoo. A 700 score with a high quant percentile is more than enough to get all the bschools interested. All you need to do now is do your research on the schools, make your list and focus on your essays. Easier said than done :wink: All the best!

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by sason » Wed Sep 01, 2010 11:29 am
sudhanshoo wrote:I found the scores for MGMAT and Kaplan irrelevant. MGMAT Quant is nowhere close to the real stuff and Kaplan Verbal, esp RCs, is miles away from the real stuff. Of course, I went bonkers when I saw those scores but the key was to plug the gaps each time I scored badly.

GMAT Prep is a great practice test. One can take each test at least thrice.

And apologies for the typo. corrected that.
congrats !!!
by "nowhere close to real stuff" you mean the prep tests (mgmat & kaplan) were easy or difficult than gmat .It would be great if you rate the difficulty level of both the tests relative to gmat ( gmat verba with mgmat and kaplan verbal and same for quants ).

regards
sason

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by debmalya_dutta » Wed Sep 01, 2010 11:42 am
sudhanshoo wrote:I found the scores for MGMAT and Kaplan irrelevant. MGMAT Quant is nowhere close to the real stuff and Kaplan Verbal, esp RCs, is miles away from the real stuff. Of course, I went bonkers when I saw those scores but the key was to plug the gaps each time I scored badly.

GMAT Prep is a great practice test. One can take each test at least thrice.

And apologies for the typo. corrected that.
Congratulations Sudhanshu.... Great score ...

Can you shed some light on your prep strategy for Reading Comprehension?
@Deb

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by outreach » Wed Sep 01, 2010 9:24 pm
congrats on the score
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by sudhanshoo » Wed Sep 01, 2010 10:11 pm
MGMAT Maths is tougher than actual gmat maths. MGMAT Verbal is alright although the actual gmat exam answer choices follow a particular pattern that may not be true for MGMAT.
Kaplan Verbal is also tougher. Kaplan RCs are weird.
Kaplan Maths is much easier.

I am only referring to the tests' content. Not stuff from the books.

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by sudhanshoo » Wed Sep 01, 2010 10:21 pm
@Deb: Initially RC was a tough nut to crack for me. I used to get 30-40% correct. However, I improved significantly with the following things in mind:
(a) Read and understand the passage. It is very important to grasp what the passage is communicating. Do not write a lot of notes. Just a few keywords about each paragraph. If you spend time understanding the passage, you will save time on the questions.
(b) Style words such as however, moreover, etc are helpful to keep track of.
(c) 3 out of 5 choices are mostly irrelevant.
(d) Primary purpose questions usually have abstract answers that do not refer to a particular para or object in the passage
(e) In According to Passage type of questions, answer is always in the passage. Read 2-3 lines above and 2-3 lines below the referred lines. Mostly the answer is in a veiled form with different words used for the same message.
(f) Inference type questions do not change the actual content dramatically. You just need to think one step more to answer these.

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by sudhanshoo » Thu Sep 02, 2010 1:52 am
Just received the AWA score. Got a 6 (91 percentile). So thats good :)

For AWA, I read a couple of templates. But put down my own thoughts and kept it simple.

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by debmalya_dutta » Thu Sep 02, 2010 4:22 am
sudhanshoo wrote:@Deb: Initially RC was a tough nut to crack for me. I used to get 30-40% correct. However, I improved significantly with the following things in mind:
(a) Read and understand the passage. It is very important to grasp what the passage is communicating. Do not write a lot of notes. Just a few keywords about each paragraph. If you spend time understanding the passage, you will save time on the questions.
(b) Style words such as however, moreover, etc are helpful to keep track of.
(c) 3 out of 5 choices are mostly irrelevant.
(d) Primary purpose questions usually have abstract answers that do not refer to a particular para or object in the passage
(e) In According to Passage type of questions, answer is always in the passage. Read 2-3 lines above and 2-3 lines below the referred lines. Mostly the answer is in a veiled form with different words used for the same message.
(f) Inference type questions do not change the actual content dramatically. You just need to think one step more to answer these.
Thanks a Lot sudhanshu for the good tips..
Had one last question - how did you get hold of the Kaplan tests ? did you subscribe or was it part of any book or on their website ?
@Deb

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by sudhanshoo » Thu Sep 02, 2010 4:35 am
I purchased the Manhattan tests and got the Kaplan ones in the CD that comes along with the book.

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by debmalya_dutta » Thu Sep 02, 2010 6:57 am
sudhanshoo wrote:I purchased the Manhattan tests and got the Kaplan ones in the CD that comes along with the book.
Which of the Kaplan books - The Premier Program one ? - The tests in that book are demotivating me :).. ofcourse, the tests must be good...they are turning out to be my nemesis
@Deb