I just Beat The GMAT!

This post is more about venting than anything else.

I just took the GMAT this morning, and I'm "that person" that's not happy with a 740. Why? Because my 46Q is very disappointing (received a 46 on the verbal as well). My goal was a 50Q, and I received between 48-50 on the last few MGMAT CATs and the GMATPrep CATs. I've spent a lot of time in the Math forums here over the past week and felt that explaining answers helped me out a lot. So I'm not completely sure what happened on the actual test.

I struggled on a few questions about 1/4 of the way through and noticed I was already way behind on time, so I then sped through the next handful of questions to catch up on time. I tend to make careless mistakes when I don't take the time to read properly, so I probably got hammered in this stretch. About 1/2 the way through, I could tell things weren't going well because the questions were pretty easy. Still, I felt like I closed well and I was hoping to have eked out a 47 or a 48. When the 46 popped up at the end, my heart sank, even though 740 is still a good score.

I'm probably crazy to consider retaking it, but I am indeed thinking about it. My background is finance, so I'm sure adcoms will feel that my Q score should be higher. The ego probably plays a factor here too - it really stings knowing I was scoring 49-50 on practices when I wasn't even taking breaks.

Anyway, here's a debrief:

I took about 6 weeks to study. I started off with the general Princeton Review guide and went through it in two days. While I thought it gave a decent overview of the exam, it was pretty poor with respect to its treatment of the material. Too much of the math was "plug in numbers". I then decided to go ahead the 8 MGMAT books. Much better and a huge help. Number properties was great, because I don't remember ever delving so deeply into them at any point in school. Word translations was a big help as well. The fractions/ratios and geometry books were sufficient, but I probably would have been OK without them.

I already felt comfortable on the verbal side. I've always been a strong reader, and I didn't have many problems with the practice critical reasoning questions I had taken early on. I was decent on SC questions because I had a good ear for it, but I ran into problems when all the answer options "sounded funny." The MGMAT SC guide was a huge help in this respect. This book was definitely the difference between getting a low 40s and the 46 that I ended up receiving. I found the RC and CR guides almost useless.

I spent 2-3 hours a day studying when I didn't take a practice test, focusing on the quant and SC. I went through the last 50 problems in the OG for both PS and DS and didn't have too many problems. I went through every PS and DS problem in the OG quant review, which I found to be slightly more difficult. I went through the last SC 100 problems in the OG and the last 50 or so in the OG verbal supplement. For RC, I went through maybe 10 passages in the OG over the six weeks. For the CR, I went through the last 40 problems in the OG.

I took one or two practice tests a week except for the last week, when I didn't take any. I didn't want to burn myself out, but perhaps this was a mistake. I sometimes did the essays before and sometimes didn't, but I found that stamina wasn't really an issue. I didn't take any breaks. After the test, I took a good 2+ hours to go over the answers.

Practice cat results:

MGMAT 1 Q45 V45 740 - I wasn't too worried about the quant score here. I was pretty rusty with a lot of my math, not having practiced many of these types of problems in over 10 years. I took way too long on most of the problems and ended up guessing on a fair number at the back end. After this test, I set my Q goal of 50.

MGMAT 2 Q45 V45 740 - I took this a few days later. Although the Q didn't increase, I felt a lot better about it. On this test, I finished in time, although I made a lot of careless mistakes.

MGMAT 3 Q48 V45 750 - Progress on Q. I felt pretty good and I was getting quicker.

MGMAT 4 Q48 V42 730 - Verbal took a dip for the first time. I exhausted the 700+ level verbal questions, made a couple careless mistakes on 600 level SC questions, and this is the result.

GMATPrep 1 Q49 V42 - Still felt like I was on track to meet my goal. The verbal stayed at the 42 level from the previous MGMAT CAT, but I still was not worried about it.

MGMAT 5 Q51 V45 780 - I was initially very happy with this, but I then noticed that only about half of the last 10 Q questions are 700+, so I tempered my expectations and decided not to take the 6th MGMAT CAT.

GMATPrep 2 Q49 V45 - I made a couple bonehead errors in the quant section, so I made it a point in my last week of preparation to focus on reading questions carefully.

I didn't really do much to prep for the AWA. I wrote a few prior to the practice CATs. I quickly looked at the Chinese Burned guide on gmatclub and realized that it was pretty close to how I would structure my essays anyway so I felt pretty good. I do recommend that guide for anyone who isn't used to writing.

So that's that. I plan on sleeping on it a few nights before deciding whether to retake the test. Maybe I'll feel better about it tomorrow.

Congrats
740 is awesome score
P.S. Didn't know you have an exam. So belated all the best

Don't worry. The relatively high scores in both sections will stand you in good stead.
Congrats on the score. Really, you have to be proud of it.

Just curious, what were your GMAT prep total scores?

Great score!! Congrats.!!!

Great score yeah!!! and did not know you took the GMAT...

Hi,

It is a good score in general, not in your case though. Didn't know you were taking test yesterday.
Even though it depresses you, I should still say Congrats, great score!
Even I expected you to get 50-51 in Quant based on your posts in the Math forums.Probably, not your day. Verbal score of 46 is just outstanding.
Do whatever you feel like doing. I don't wanna suggest you anything on this.

vineeshp wrote:Don't worry. The relatively high scores in both sections will stand you in good stead.
Congrats on the score. Really, you have to be proud of it.

Just curious, what were your GMAT prep total scores?

I don't remember. I was much more focused on the subscores than the overall score, so I didn't record it. I think they were 750 and 760 but I'm not sure.

Hi,
Good luck with your apps!

dont worry dude 740 is a great score, gud enuf 4 most bschools . ur nxt focus should be strenghthening ur resume and atb

Great score.Congratulations....

SoCan,

The AdComs consider the balance between Q and V but they don't look at those with a magnifying glass. Relax man, your score is great!

You indeed did a great job!