Beaten by GMAT - GMATPREP 710 - Actual test 570

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Hi guys,

Background -

I am from India, Engineer, around 6 year of experience in IT.

This is my progress report on tests.

MGMAT TEST 1 - 680
MGMAT TEST 2 - 700
MGMAT TEST 3 - 710
MGMAT TEST 4 - 720

GMATPREP 1 - 700 (Q49, V36) (three weeks before the test)
GMATPREP 2 - 710 (Q50, V36) (10 days before the test)
GMATPREP 1 (OLD GMATPREP software.) - 710 (Q49, V37) (four days before the test)

GMAT Focus tests: Test 1: 47-50
Test 2: 46-49

I took test on Wednesday and scored a mere 570 (Q45, v25). Tears rolled down my cheeks as I saw the score.

I thought I will never ever take the test again. But my instincts are not allowing me to let go.

I spent around 14 months (tho not continuously) preparing for this test. I decided not to miss any concept. All the hard work went into drain. I am right where I was 1 and half years ago.

Till today I am not able to come to terms with what happed. I am not able to sleep and am not able to concentrate anything.

I am sounding emotional but I am partly/may be mostly to blame for this disaster. The night before the test I had sore throat and could not sleep properly. My legs were weak and kind of numb. Generally, these are the symptoms of fever for me. So, I took an antibiotic and kept on taking Tylenol every 4 hours till morning. I woke up in the morning and felt ok. But I contemplated few times whether to take the test or not. But then decided to get the exam off my back and decided to take the test. I swallowed a couple of Tylenols and an antibiotic and went to take the test. AWA went well. Then I raised my hand but the proctor did not respond. I had to say 'excuse me' to grab his attention. Then he came and by the time 2 minutes of my break was already over. Then went out grabbed the restroom keys from the receptionist (that's how it was in this center) and then went to rest room. In the break I drank red-bull and took a Tylenol again and told myself, I have to give my best. I went back and tried to do the palm scan. We tried three times with different hands but the scanner could not verify me. It verified me on the fourth time. By the time I entered and started to write the Quant section, 5 mins and 45 seconds of the quant section had already elapsed. Then I stared to rush and the result is reflected in the score.

Then came the second break. Took the break. But I had a feeling that something went wrong in the Quant. I knew I did not do my best. But said let me give best atleast in verbal. When I tried to enter the hall the stupid palm scanner did not recognize me two time and it recognized me only on 3rd try and by the time I started verbal section, 2 mins of verbal section had already elapsed.

I would like to state that I did not write any essays while doing the practice tests but I made sure I took only 8 minutes of break. Also, while doing GMATPREP, I knew answers for few questions because I came across them either in OG or on forums.

Also, as I recollect now, I think I hardly used what I learnt while preparing in the actual test. I don't remember having ever used any principles of CR (such as finding the conclusion, argument etc) or any principles of SC in the exam. I don't know why. May be I was trying to make up for the lost time. I was so DUMB.

BTW, my 10th question in Verbal was boldface. So, I think the boldface myth is absolutely wrong.

I know all the above reasons might have affected my score but I think no reasons would justify a mere 570.

For some reason, my intuition is not allowing me to quit GMAT yet. Somewhere beneath my heart, I know I can do it. When I look at my practice test scores I think something went horribly wrong in the test but I am not able to figure out what it is.

Can experts guide me and help me with the answers to below questions:

1. What should I do now?
2. How do I make sure I make use of what I learnt in preparation in the exam? I think this is my biggest problem. If I can overcome this I can do well.
3. Now if I do GMATPREP tests or OG or MGMAT Tests, the scores will be inflated as I will remember answers to most of the questions. How do I forget all the answers?
4. How many months should I take break before re-attempting.
5. Finally, should I re-attempt at all.


Please help.

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by Erlendsen » Fri Mar 09, 2012 9:45 am
Hey there,

I cannot help you, but I am in the same boat as you. I did my GMAT yesterday, and got a sub 600 score aswell.

14 months of studying is obviously a long time. I've been preparing for the GMAT for 4 months now, and I've studied hard for the past 2 months.

During the past 14 days, I've been doing all the tasks in OG12 before reviewing them before I did all the exercises in Kaplan's GMAT 800 book. Both went along pretty well, and I got most of the GMAT 800 questions right.

I felt that the quantitative section just went wrong. A lot of the tasks, esepecially in geometry, mentioned features of the circles, triangles or other shapes that I had never heard of before. Also, some of the data sufficiency and arithmetic tasks were quite hard and I don't remember doing any similar problems during my preparation.

During the test I got the feeling that my preparation material was outdated. Could that be it?

I did the GRE test this winter aswell, and with 9 days of preparation I got in the 71 percentile on quantitative and 70 on the verbal. On the GRE I felt like my prep materials matched the test great, and I am so ashamed of my GMAT results that I am considering looking for schools that accepts GRE scores.

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by bpeyster » Fri Mar 09, 2012 1:01 pm
Sounds to me like you just had a bad day. A lot of factors outside of your control, combined with some serious nerves (which everyone gets) definitely worked together to throw you off course. I wouldn't be too discouraged, even though being slightly discouraged is obviously natural. Use it to fuel you to study for 30 more days and provide a little payback to the GMAT. Here's what I would do:

1) You said you've seen all the tests, but you only have 4 MGMAT CATs listed. Do you have the fifth and the sixth of those? If you do, that should be plenty. You've taken enough practices, plus the real thing to really be fine.

2) You've got 30 more days now, so may as well use it to your advantage. Even though I thought I studied everything twice before I sat for my exam, I remember wishing the night before that I wish I just had a couple more weeks to go through some more weaknesses. Think of this time as an advantage. For you it seems like you could maybe gain a point or two in Verbal, so try really hammering home those CR and SC strategies that you failed to use on your test so they become second nature.

3) Your verbal went down a ton from your practices until the real thing. There could be a number of factors for this, including overall carryover from having a bad day, obvious nerves (you stated you didn't apply any of your strategies to the test), and your sickness. One possibility though is that you hadn't done the CATs with the test, and these fatigued you more than you imagined. They seem easy, but they're still an hour of brain power usage that you were saving for your Verbal on the practice tests. When you do take your one or two tests, I'd make sure to write these. May as well make practice as realistic as possible. Also, be careful drinking an entire Redbull between AWA and Quant (assuming that's what you did). Redbull's are nasty and will easily lead you to crash in an hour or two (right in the middle of verbal). If you do find that you need a little caffeine to get through the test, I'd do it between Quant and Verbal, since the crash shouldn't come til after.

Whatever you do caffeine/food wise, make sure to practice it during your practice tests. The last thing you want to do is take the tests without caffeine and then pound a Redbull in the middle of the real thing. Your heart's already racing enough.

4) FORGET ABOUT IT! You obviously had a lot of things going against you this day. A fever, crappy testing center, losing time on both sections, and everything else. And don't underestimate the nerves that go into this process. I was very confident going into my test, and as a former college athlete and a pretty confident guy, relaly didn't expect to display similar nerves to what others report during the GMAT. Then I got in the center, sat down at the computer, and realized that 3all those hours of hardcore studying all come down to this. That is nerve racking. By the time I got to verbal, i was completely exhausted, and found myself straying from my strategies as well. You know how one real test experience, which gives you an advantage over every first timer. So forget about 90% of it, and then only rememmber the little bit that will make you better next time.

Now you know not to take long breaks, and to practice the essay section, and to really really focus on applying the strategies even when tired on the verbal. If I were you, and it's possible, I would also go to a different testing center, since this one was clearly a disaster. If not possible, let them know what happened last time and make sure you discuss possible fixes in case their systems are not working.

You seem to me to be a 700 scorer. You've taken 8 or so tests and gotten that on almost every one. Trust yourself, and your preparation, and go back and crush it. Use this 30 days and your failure to your advantage.

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by achieve_dream » Fri Mar 09, 2012 4:15 pm
Thank you so much.

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by pemdas » Sat Mar 10, 2012 8:35 am
@achieve_dream, concentrate on the verbal section and review the log file(s) for math if you have one. Otherwise do analyze all your mistakes from solving hard math problems of gmat-club test kits and polish-polish-polish SC entries. Do as much as possible of RC and practice with CR from LSAT. In the coming month if you don't get flue and sleep well before exam your math score 49 is almost guaranteed from your take on Focus-Prep and your verbal score may either stay at 25 or come closer to mid-30s.

yes, and change the test center destination if you praise exam time, because 5 min-s gone from math section is way too much.

gl
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by [email protected] » Mon Mar 26, 2012 5:52 am
Sir this is only a suggestion from my side to you, do not take it too seriously. I think you already know everything in the gmat. The concepts, the application and everything that is required for the gmat. I would say that only that particular day was wrong or not good for you.

It happens, it is not so bad, though difficult to digest after such great scores.

I would say go for the second time and solve all the tests only once and read the concepts only once and go. Ya and this time make sure that before exam date you are fit and fine and watch a motivational movie like gladiator, dark knight etc etc....

Do not stress yourself so much on the last day. Last day just chill and relaxe

This is also a very important aspect of getting a good or a high score i.e relaxing before 'THE DAY'

I would recommend that sir you do not give up come what may...


I am already seeing your next post at 'I just beat the gmat' saying hurray scored a 750 quiet easily...


When the going gets tough, the tough gets going...


Hope this helps you sir!!! :) :) :)
IT IS TIME TO BEAT THE GMAT

LEARNING, APPLICATION AND TIMING IS THE FACT OF GMAT AND LIFE AS WELL... KEEP PLAYING!!!

Whenever you feel that my post really helped you to learn something new, please press on the 'THANK' button.

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by lunarpower » Thu Apr 26, 2012 11:50 pm
i received a message regarding this thread.

to the original poster:
unfortunately, despite the length of the original post, it contains very little on which meaningful advice could be based. specifically, you've given essentially no details at all about HOW you studied -- i.e., about what you actually DID to prepare for the exam. (this lack of description is all the more surprising given how much detail you used to describe your experiences with the palm scanner, tylenol, etc.)

there's one thing in here that's relatively easy to answer, and that's the question of whether you should attempt the exam again. if, in fact, you were feeling sick -- and, on top of that, you had time taken off your quant section because of technological mishaps at the center -- then you obviously have the potential to get a higher score simply by showing up and taking the test again.
other than that, there's not much specific input i can give, because all you've given here is a bunch of practice test scores. to be able to say anything more, i'm going to need information about what you actually did during all those months.

finally, don't place an inordinate degree of importance on practice tests. practice tests are not tools for improvement -- they are only tools for assessment and diagnosis.
the actual improvement is going to come from concentrated practice (i.e., a practice in which you actually do the same type of problem more than once -- as opposed to a practice test, on which there is a huge variety of questions with very little in common). even if you have run out of fresh practice tests, the overall impact on your preparation should be quite small.
Ron has been teaching various standardized tests for 20 years.

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by Jim@StratusPrep » Wed Jul 18, 2012 12:41 pm
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by achieve_dream » Mon Aug 20, 2012 7:20 pm
Ron,

Though I looked at your response before, I could not reply you. please accept my apologies.

I hope below info will give you some insights into my prep to give me your advise


My prep went like this:

Books used.

1. All quant and SC MGMAT guides.
2. Powerscore Bible
3. OG 12, Verbal Review, Quant review
4. MGMAT tests
5. GMATClub Quant tests.

I prepraed like 3 hours on week days and 3 to 4 hours on the weekend for 4 months.


I went thru MGMAT guides doing the exercises at the end of each lesson. Then in one go did all the Quant problems from OG 12 and Quant supplement.
I went thru CR bible doing all the exercises at the end of each lesson. Then in one go did all the CR problems in OG 12, Verbal supplement.
Did the same with SC also.


After first 4 months I gave MGMAT Test 1 and scored 660.

I was not able to finish Quant section. As a non english speaker, I knew I need quant to prop up my score to 700.

So I bought GMATClub quant tests and did the tests for 2 months. After this, I had to take a break for 4 months due to family constraints.

Then again started studying. This time I prepared for 3 months. I went thru Quant MGMAT guides, SC guides and CR bible, re did all the problems in OG 12, Verbal and quant reviews. This time I almost knew answers for most of the questions. No surprise, right!

I started giving practice tests and below were the scores.

MGMAT TEST 1 - 680
MGMAT TEST 2 - 700
MGMAT TEST 3 - 710
MGMAT TEST 4 - 720

GMATPREP 1 - 700 (Q49, V36) (three weeks before the test)
GMATPREP 2 - 710 (Q50, V36) (10 days before the test)
GMATPREP 1 (OLD GMATPREP software.) - 710 (Q49, V37) (four days before the test)

GMAT Focus tests: Test 1: 47-50
Test 2: 46-49

I took test on March 7th and scored a 570 (Q45, v25).As stated in my debrief, I was sick the night before and could not sleep properly. On the exam I contemplated on taking the test but forced my self and took the test. Result was very bad.


So Ron, I need your advise on

1. When do you think I should take the test again?
2. How should I prepare for the test? Can you point me to some methods?
3. How do I improve my Verbal and Quant score.
4. Will joining any GMAT course help me?
5. If I do GMATPREP tests or OG or MGMAT Tests, I will know the answers for most of the questions. The scores will not represent my abilities. How should I overcome this problem. I am sure you might have seen plenty of students like me. What do students do in this situation?

Thanks for your help.

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by lunarpower » Tue Sep 04, 2012 4:20 am
I prepraed like 3 hours on week days and 3 to 4 hours on the weekend for 4 months.
crucial question:
how much time did you take OFF studying?
in other words...
... how many days per week have you taken completely away from the gmat?
... how often, and for how long, have you taken extended periods (at least a few days, preferably a week or more) away from studying for this test?

i hope the answer is not "i haven't taken any time off."
if, in fact, that is the answer, then your #1 task is to step away from studying -- completely -- for at least a week, preferably a little longer.

this is a test of mental flexibility, not a test of "cramming stuff". basically, the story is that you can't have mental flexibility without regular time off.

I went thru MGMAT guides doing the exercises at the end of each lesson. Then in one go did all the Quant problems from OG 12 and Quant supplement.
I went thru CR bible doing all the exercises at the end of each lesson. Then in one go did all the CR problems in OG 12, Verbal supplement.
Did the same with SC also.
what did you do to REVIEW these problems afterwards? that's the important part -- much more important than just doing the problems, which, in and of itself, doesn't accomplish a whole lot.


Then again started studying. This time I prepared for 3 months. I went thru Quant MGMAT guides, SC guides and CR bible, re did all the problems in OG 12, Verbal and quant reviews. This time I almost knew answers for most of the questions. No surprise, right!
there is still no information here about what you did to review the problems. even if you are already familiar with the problems, there are still lots and lots of things you can do with them.
read here:
https://www.beatthegmat.com/advice-neede ... tml#490822

1. When do you think I should take the test again?
this is not a question to which i can give an actual date or range, since it depends on how long it will take you to adapt to this exam. in order to improve on the verbal section, you're going to have to change the entire way in which you think about the problems -- away from "rules" and memorization, and toward intuitive understanding.
if you have spent lots and lots of hours trying to use "rules" and memorization, then un-learning that approach may be a relatively long and painful process. on the other hand, if you are a fairly flexible person, it may not.
2. How should I prepare for the test? Can you point me to some methods?
the link above is a good start.
3. How do I improve my Verbal and Quant score.
there's clearly no simple answer to this question; you're asking about the entire test all at once!
4. Will joining any GMAT course help me?
if the course can help you change the way in which you fundamentally think about the test, then yes.
if you go into the course thinking you're just going to learn a bunch of rules and memorize a bunch of stuff, then no.
5. If I do GMATPREP tests or OG or MGMAT Tests, I will know the answers for most of the questions. The scores will not represent my abilities. How should I overcome this problem. I am sure you might have seen plenty of students like me. What do students do in this situation?
the score is the least important part of a practice test. in order to derive the most value from the test, you should basically just ignore the score and concentrate instead on review. as far as that goes, the suggestions above are a good starting point.

good luck.
Ron has been teaching various standardized tests for 20 years.

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by pemdas » Wed Sep 05, 2012 8:03 pm
How much Ron sounds banal on this forum?

We are all temped to be deceived by the very banality of words uttered or no, put in written by Ron - relax be4 exam, take breaks, off-time, analyze your mistakes, etc.

Paradoxically, none leaves the test room of PVue unbeaten by exam. Even people who scored 800 full, feel a bit puzzled and punched on their muscles right after sitting for GMAT, despite an absolute score b/d. The truth about GMAT is to show that you can go as far as you can and as quickly as it's possible for the man of your kind; it's the only formula for success. When doing verbal stuff we are usually told by tutors and/or private course runners to ignore lengthy text of RC passages since the only credit we get is not from reading all the data but correctly responding to questions following passages. Hence we are intuitively inquired: "how not to read or how not to read profoundly the passage if we need to understand what needs every question to be responded?" It's the same as asking - "how not take the flight to London metropolitan area if we need to look at Big-Ben? » is this possible? Yes and no. Yes if you have other means of observing Big-Ben appearance from your sitting place.

GMAT is not the right place and time to start demonstration of your mathematical knowledge gained through college math major route or your literature aptitude through diving into details of each and every passage for RC. GMAT will seek different combination of look and use skills by a person who can adjust himself to the varying degrees of difficulty in exam as well as coverage of information or better said information gap. So the more alert we are on G-day, the greater are our chances for scoring higher on exam. How a person can be alert for tricks on exam? By practicing to see the test from different view-points. By taking off-times and returning to the exam again and again to get finer feeling of it. One simple example: if one constantly looks at one object from his given perspective, be it his own vision in mirror, the written data put on paper or comp, namely essay, whatever other object ... then that one person will have disadvantage of one time reviewing his work. That person regardless of time spent/devoted to steering of the study object will see all effects only one way. However, with time taken off and returning to sit and look at the same object from different perspective can spur big progress thereon.

Sometimes, taking one GMAT book and solving all problems from it incessantly and then continuing with another book and with another one, and yet with the other one, fresh to get access to as much as possible problems we can see is less useful than studying from only one book several times on. If one constantly uses only OG (official guide) book for his studies and achieves 100% accuracy in all questions, obviously because much of the content is being remembered by problem solver, quickly that person starts asking why the specific question was posed in this way or even at some point some questions may be modified or altered to see the different scenarios in them. Sticking to one pattern given in OG and being ready to look at this pattern from different perspectives is better than experiencing various situations of different test lay-outs and telling oneself that we have seen as much as possible questions for GMAT and now we are ready to tackle the exam. On the contrary we are not.

Thinking over GMAT problems must be not by assigning patterns for specific questions or combination of all previously solved problems. Thinking must be by association of what we have seen. That is if encounter the word slope in math section we should know that slope IS
- Indicator of direction and be able to point to the different ends of lines (given we tackle linear function) on x-y coordinate system (c.s.)
- a useful parameter describing how lines behave on x-y c.s - cross, parallel, contain given points

If we encounter strengthen/weaken question in the verbal we must look into
- assumptions leading the argument to conclude about the point expressed in entry
- factual data contained in the entry which build stairs to climb up the assumption floor
- dejection of us and including neutrality in every piece of information analyzed per logical consistence on GMAT - analogy of writing up a personal anecdote contrasted to writing good article for the public in magazine - no personalization is allowed.
etc.

Associations and being ready to see them along with working with association are the key for success on GMAT. Take on breaks too
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