650 Q49/V28-should have been better than that, any advices ?

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Hi there,
First of all, I want to apologize for bad writing, I am so nervous, the things come in my mind, and i am typing them freely, an emotional discharge
I really want to beat it but I could not.
I did all waht it takes except 1 thing, doing practice tests.
I only wrote 1 Gmatprep, in which I saw repeated OG problems in Verbal and scored 700.
What I did:
Exhausted all OG guides
Exhausted all MGMAT Verbal Guides
Exhausted Bible CR and SC
Exhausted ALL GmatPrep SC AND CR questions which were compiled by BTGers and GClubbers.
Exhausted all explanations from MGAMT, especially those from Ron,
Exhausted all videos by Ron , especially the verbal ones...
I have tons of Word documents, in which I wrote my errors, takeaways etc regarding all official quesitons including GMATPrep Qs..
The list goes on and on...
So, in the real exam when I sat on the verbal part, I was already torn apart, I even did not understand the last quantitative question...
I did all the questions in timed conditions and my success rate is for verbal part range from 66%-100%...Lately it was on 80-90% accuracy...But as i said earlier, i did them seperately not in a real exam fashion, I know almost every type of SC and CR tricks, but you know the result
But i bumped it on the real exam, because although i did them timed and reviewed them till the nitty-gritty details, I did not write many practice tests and did not improve my stamine during a exam session...
I think my problem is not writting many practice tests, because I can almost solve any SC and CR questoins in required time when they come individiually not mixed the case by the real exam...
What do you think guys, i really need help
I am an international applicant from Turkey, my GPA is 3.71/4.00 in mecahnical engineering.
I exhausted every thing so that if i retake, i will do nothing but pratice tests, what do you think
I think I did almost everything correctly except doing practice test und building up stamina
I read tons of your success stories guys, and believe me I really worked hard and harder, I want to be one of you,too

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by Siddharthpaul » Tue Sep 13, 2011 5:55 am
Hi

First of all, Relax. Its a pursuit and working hard for it has already made you a winner.

I think the number of tests you took were less than normal and you could have appeared for more tests. Now the question which needs to be answered is that what are your future goals? Which colleges are you applying to? Though 650 is not good for top 10 ones but for mid level colleges, this score can walk.

Have faith and prepare hard(either for the retest or a strong application)

Best of Luck.
Siddharth Paul
IIM Calcutta
Indian Applicants, ThroughMBA.com

contact me : https://throughmba.com/contact/contacts/throughmba
Call me : +91-7873282250

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by amaterasu » Tue Sep 13, 2011 8:47 am
Thanks Siddarth
I will try my best, I have already made up my mind to retake the test b/c I want to get into top 10 schools

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by amaterasu » Mon Sep 26, 2011 6:50 am
Brothers and Sisters,

I already made up my mind to retake.

I always will update about my process and progress in this thread.

By the way, my retake date is 18 October.

I have written 3 practice tests so far.

1) GmatPrep 2 & Review

GmatPrep 2: 730 (Q50/V38)---> Does anyone know how to diminish those stupid mistakes in quant, everytime I feel that I am so close to the top, but I generally come up with 49-50, I know this is not bad, but my quant is stronger than verbal as you see, and I need my quant to be some higher to leverage the overall score.
My verbal target score is 40, but I did not manage to get that level, so far.

When I review my exams, I solve them 1-1,and miss questions that I should not have missed, this is really disappointing because I know I can solve them, but in exam conditions, so close to top, but never managed to get to the top.

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2. MGMAT Cat 1 & Review

Q49; V 41, 730 97%--> how come ? Is 97% not equal to an overall score of 740 ?

Could anyone clarify the issue that does not 97% correlate to a overall score of 740, I think MGAMT CATS are calculating overall scores, somewhat lower.
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3: MGAMT CAT 2
Q46 :((, V:35-->670 89%--> how come ? Did not 89% correlate to a total of 690 or 700 ?

I guessed 5 or more questions in quant because I ran out of time. Mann, these MGMAT Quants are really long quant questions, from geo to numbers they require a lot of calculations.

--
That's all, more update will come

Thanks

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by lunarpower » Sun Oct 16, 2011 12:12 am
i received a private message about this thread.
amaterasu wrote:GmatPrep 2: 730 (Q50/V38)---> Does anyone know how to diminish those stupid mistakes in quant, everytime I feel that I am so close to the top, but I generally come up with 49-50, I know this is not bad, but my quant is stronger than verbal as you see, and I need my quant to be some higher to leverage the overall score.
you do know that the highest possible quant score is 51, right?
your 50 is only one point away from there, so you probably shouldn't change much of what you are presently doing in quant.

if there's anything that can be trusted to give you a little bit of improvement, that would be increased use of the "backup methods" for problems that are engineered to be resistant to textbook-style solutions. those methods are presented in the february 4 lecture of my "thursdays with ron":
https://www.manhattangmat.com/thursdays-with-ron.cfm

When I review my exams, I solve them 1-1,and miss questions that I should not have missed, this is really disappointing because I know I can solve them, but in exam conditions, so close to top, but never managed to get to the top.
what does "1-1" mean?
2. MGMAT Cat 1 & Review

Q49; V 41, 730 97%--> how come ? Is 97% not equal to an overall score of 740 ?

Could anyone clarify the issue that does not 97% correlate to a overall score of 740, I think MGAMT CATS are calculating overall scores, somewhat lower.
it's possible for one percentile to straddle more than one score, especially at the top and bottom of the percentile scale. for instance, "99th percentile overall" represents all scores from 760 to 800.
3: MGAMT CAT 2
Q46 :((, V:35-->670 89%--> how come ? Did not 89% correlate to a total of 690 or 700 ?
the numerical scores should approximate those on the real exam.
it's possible that the percentiles have shifted by a *small* amount since the scoring algorithm on our software was programmed (a few years ago). however, if you are actually worrying about this as though it were a major issue, then your priorities are definitely in the wrong place. (remember, unnecessary stress can absolutely kill you on test day. worry about the things that are actually worth worrying about!)
I guessed 5 or more questions in quant because I ran out of time. Mann, these MGMAT Quants are really long quant questions, from geo to numbers they require a lot of calculations.
in the next few months we will be revising some of our cat questions to address this problem; we are aware that some of them have, to put it bluntly, too many steps.
on the other hand, the presence of such questions may not be a bad thing for students -- after all, if you get to a point where you can finish our tests on time, then you'll have no problem at all with time management on the real exam.
Ron has been teaching various standardized tests for 20 years.

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by amaterasu » Sun Oct 16, 2011 12:38 am
Thanks Ron for your reply.
I watched your Back-Up methods video.
By the way I see an improvement in my scores. In all of them, quant was 51, but the verbal is fluctuating between 39-44.
MGMAT CAT 3: 760
MGMAT CAT 4: 730
MGMAT CAT 5: 730
It seems that I am on the right track,not ?
BTW, 1-1 means I solve them separately through the review. In exam, you wrote 2 essays and 78 questions. However, by the review, I only concentrate on the wrong questions, only 10 or so.

My re-take is on 18 October

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by Big Pop » Sun Oct 16, 2011 2:46 am
just relax and take the last day off.
ATB!

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by amaterasu » Sun Oct 16, 2011 3:19 am
Thanks Big Pop
I really want to beat it that time

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by Big Pop » Sun Oct 16, 2011 9:36 am
read a book that you like..or something that is diverse and easy to go through..
don't try any fancy food on "the day", and treat "the day" as any other day.
you'll do well. GL :)

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by amaterasu » Tue Oct 18, 2011 5:55 am
Update, I wrote the exam today and again 650.
Man, I am stuck here.
Only one point improvement in quant--> 49 before, and now 50.
Verbal is the same, 28
I do not know, whether I had better give up

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by adi_800 » Tue Oct 18, 2011 8:05 am
I seriously believe that Mgmat sores are not reflected your actual exam.. Although Mgmat exams have a variation of 50 points... you could have scored somewhere from 690 to 790 (considering your avg scores as 740)...
This might not true for everyone but donno why, I somehow believe that getting 700 in Mgmat is easy coz:
1. It allows you to get close to 12 questions wrong to get 41 in verbal..
2. A 700-800 level SC question on Mgmat is not same as the one in actual GMAT -> Ron.. what's your take on this one ?? Do you believe the same?
3. Same thing with quant.. U can get close to 12 questions wrong and still have a score of 48.. This is not possible on actual GMAT...
Today, I just got to know that it is not about how many questions you get right or wrong it is about what difficulty level questions you get wrong.. that is more important..
But I have seen my scores in mgmat not getting translated to real ones. I do not expect them to be same as what you would get in Mgmat but at least close to same scores on your mgmat tests...

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by amaterasu » Wed Oct 19, 2011 5:10 am
I do not know. I am a Turkish applicant, not of those who begin their GMAT early at undergraduate. I prepared for one year while FT employed, maybe as many other non-rockstar applicants did. But after such a hustle, I cannot accept this score. Where is the problem, I did not know.
Only one point improvement in quant from 49 to 50 !!!
I thought that I did everything OK this time, but

My practice scores are below:

GMATPrep 1: 700
GMATPrep 2:730
MGMAT 1: 730
MGMAT 2: 670
MGMAT 3: 730
MGMAT 4: 760
MGMAT 5: 730

What do you think, what could be the problem ?


:(

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by lunarpower » Wed Oct 19, 2011 5:41 am
some quick comments:
amaterasu wrote:Man, I am stuck here.
Only one point improvement in quant--> 49 before, and now 50.
the highest possible quant score is 51.
the difference between 50 and 51 is statistically insignificant, so i'm not sure what you are getting at here. are you upset because you got a 50 rather than a 51?
A 700-800 level SC question on Mgmat is not same as the one in actual GMAT
we determine our difficulty levels the same way gmac determines the official ones: we aggregate the data from thousands of students' attempts at each question.
by contrast, when forum posters talk about the difficulty levels of problems on the official test, they are using a different method, also known as "making things up at random".

the former of these methods is, of course, more trustworthy than the latter.
Same thing with quant.. U can get close to 12 questions wrong and still have a score of 48.. This is not possible on actual GMAT...
says who?

in my own experimentation with GMAT PREP -- which uses the same scoring algorithm as the real test -- i have scored Q48-Q49 with as many as 18 problems wrong. it is definitely possible.
as for the people who claim that it's not possible... they are once again using that extremely popular method known as "making things up at random".

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But I have seen my scores in mgmat not getting translated to real ones.
if a student studies by memorizing everything they've ever seen in the official problems and strategy guides (probably the worst way you could possibly study, by the way), then his/her scores are going to be higher on our test than on the official exam. the same will be true for any prep company's exams; ours are not unique in this sense.

the reason is simple: we can't put a concept on our test until it has shown up on some official problem, somewhere (otherwise we'd just be making up random stuff).
so ... if you've memorized most of what is out there, then you're going to see many of the same things on our (or anybody else's) exams, and so your scores will be artificially inflated.
gmac, by contrast, puts new stuff on the official exam all the time. the new stuff will be related to the existing material, but the specifics won't be the same; therefore, people who've gotten artificially high practice-test scores through lots and lots of memorization are generally going to bomb the real test, especially on verbal.
Ron has been teaching various standardized tests for 20 years.

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by amaterasu » Wed Oct 19, 2011 5:48 am
Thanks Ron.
I did not think that I memorized the questions or strategies; this situation would be a long shot for me. I did not manage to figure out what I did wrong ?

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by pemdas » Wed Oct 19, 2011 6:23 am
i know a man who scored greater scales than yours, yet he suffered from the lower score than yours on GMAT (Q50,V29 = 640)

you are lucky to be placed at such a high percentile rank

that your verbal score did not increase is not fortunate, as GMAT is the standardized test for native English speakers unlike TOEFL or even Pearson's Language test, which is is primarily oriented on foreigners and is less cruel :)

I am also in your shoes as I was not borne and have not been raised in an English speaking environment - hence call me non-native. Now imagine the effort you must take for RC needs to be doubled in terms of engagement in the passage, feeling it with all your nuts and selecting correct choice.

With CR it's much easier as we have shorter text(s), i.e. stimuli and have time to translate in our minds the passage(s) and answer choices. Still we must be able to compete with native speakers who predict the answer choice(s) for the most types of logical reasoning questions unlike foreigners who reread stimuli in their minds several times trying to feel meaning

Finally, SC is also test of fluency of English,to express an idea clearly.

Now that i shared my view points with you, please if you feel they were of some value, make not speedy arrangements but gradual preparation for the verbal part.

p.s. I can understand Ron who is advising the BTG students and aspirants on GMAT verbal part, but Hey - who else can know better how it's to be non-native and sit for GMAT verbal section

again, one can ace TOEFL 120 out of 120 but totally bomb GMAT verbal like 10th something percentiles
Success doesn't come overnight!