I just Beat The GMAT!

The title of this post accurately reflects my feelings after taking the GMAT today. I first started my studying about 5 months ago and about a month after I started my studies, the highest I was able to score on my own was a 520, but most of my scores were in the high 400 range. So, I decided that since self study wasn't working, I signed up for a Kaplan course and schelled out the $1400+ to take the course.

My diagnostic was a 480 on Kaplan and after a few weeks of studying, I managed to get a 550 on the first CAT. The scores after that began to decline: 480, 440. I then decided to take the GMAT PREP to see where I was. So, on the GMAT PREP 1, I got a 520, which was very disappointing since I had already scored at this level on my own. I studied more, took the same test again and got a 570. I then went to take the Ultimate Practice Test, which is just a Kaplan CAT that is taken at a real GMAT test center, and scored a 500. This was decent news as people say that the Kaplan CATs tend to give you a lower score than the actual test.

I revised some things, studied some more and went to take the test today....


It is with great embarrassment that tell you all, I got a 370. The feeling of being beaten and bruised is an understatement. The first math question took me a few more minutes than it should have and I think I got it wrong. The math overall seemed more difficult than the verbal and my score in math reflected this. Usually however, I do better in math than verbal. Anyway, as I had finished the survey and waited to see my score, I knew that the worst-case scenario would be a 500. But I was wrong, it was a 370. I stared at this horrible score for 10mins. I was shocked, this could not have been my score, something went wrong, but I guess this is the score. It is so frustrating to see this happen. I spent all that money, time and energy to see this? For the past 2 months my life has been consumed by the GMAT and I missed out on so many things just for this? Highly disppointed, very hurt, thoroughly embarrassed......

Hi medea66,

Sorry to hear about your latest score; would you like some pointers to help you improve in the future (so that you can give it another go) or have you had enough?

May I ask what your quantitative and verbal breakdown was?

Hi Jim,

Thanks for the reply. I have no choice but to take it again. I am trying to get into a top program and these programs will have a field day with this kind of score. In case I didnt mention it before, this kind of score is DEFINITELY NOT reflective of my preparation or ability (3.8GPA undergraduate, magna cum). The breakdown is Q18 & V22.

hi medea,
your math score looks a bit on the low end. do you remember the math topics tested? which ones did you struggle with ? did you guess torward the end of the math portion of the exam? what was your score for powerprep exam?

The first problem on quant threw me off a little. It was a reverse work problem. Usually, I have been doing the work probs. that require you to fig. out how long it takes BOTH do finish something. This one was the opposite, it gave you the total rate/time it takes for 2 ppl and gave you the rate/time of one of them and asked you to fig. out the other. I started w/ right concept but then couldnt get the answer. I tried a few diff meths. but realized it had been about 3 mins or so and guessed. This happened a few times over the couse of the quant and I realized that I was running about 10 mins behind schedule for the rest of the exam. As I got towards the end, I had to guess on 4 since I was running out of time. Usually, I score higher on the math than verbal. The lowest I've ever gotten in math was mid 20's.

I was in shock and to be honest, don't remember the other questions that threw me off.

I guess my study method/preparation was flawed, your help would be greatly appreciated.

right now i'm also trying to prepare and take the gmat as soon as possible. hmmm....i had taken a prep course, but i will have to take the real exam to tell you if the prep course was helpful. right now, i just think that you have to study the different types of math problems that can be on the gmat. i found the nova prep book for gmat helpful in explaining math concepts if you already have the basic down. have you studied for the verbal or you've mostly focused on math? because maybe your verbal score dropped, (trust me...if you don't review critical reasoning, you will forget the techniques) oh yeah, isn't the reading comp on the real gmat easier than kaplan? that's what i've heard...i think you have to focus on other practice test that might be more reflective of the real gmat...princeton review (their verbal is also ridiculous. so ignore the scoring) manhattan gmat, i think you should give the gmat another try. it doesn't sound right that you scored 100 points below your gmat prep exam.

You may want to think about taking (or re-taking) a basic college level math course at a local community college. This will give you a much better foundation in math fundamentals than any GMAT prep course will give you, as (you may have discovered) they tend to focus on overall strategies and a few specific problem types, to a great extent assuming prior knowledge of the basics.

Take a Manhattan GMAT course (either online or in-person if you are in NY/DC/Boston).

Also, it would probably help to take a math course if your feel that the reason you are scoring poorly is lack of ability in math.

The trick to the GMAT is learning the fundamentals. For instance, a reverse work problems is going to give you the rates of two or more individuals, added together. Work problems are nothing more than Rate/Time/Distance problems where Distance = 1. (i.e. how long does it take to complete 1 job).

The reason that these are tough for people is that you have to work with fractional rates. So if Jim completes the job in 4 hours, his rate is 1/4job/hour. If I tell you that he works with Sam, and together they complete the task in 2 hours, then their combined rate is 1/2j/hr. 1/2 - 1/4 = 1/4 job per hour. So Sam's rate must also be 1/4 job per hour.

Anyway, my point in all of this is not to teach you the math....it is just to demonstrate the level you need to get to in the math if you want to get a good score. You should be able to essentially write one of these problems yourself, because you understand the underlying concepts. Once you get to that level, you can quickly piece together the parts of the problem that are missing, and solve for those parts.

Anyway, I would suggest taking Manhattan GMAT, and studying every problem you do, and ask yourself how you could do it faster. Don't take the test again until you can crack 600 on practice tests (there are lots of sources of these out there - 800score, etc).

"You should be able to essentially write one of these problems yourself, because you understand the underlying concepts. Once you get to that level, you can quickly piece together the parts of the problem that are missing, and solve for those parts."

This is a really good point. I felt that I reached true "GMAT Enlightenment" after I had taught a couple GMAT classes and had gotten into the habit of making up problems on the board. Really, there aren't THAT many types of common problems. Once you understand the foundations well enough to make up your own, you'll have no trouble dealing with many of the problems thrown at you on the GMAT.

Today I gave the GMAT and have no emotions to show how embarrassed I am. I am numb.After 2 months of self practice and 2 months of kaplan classroom course I am no where.I scored only 500 on the GMAT.I scored fare in all the practice test(5 from Kaplan and 2 from GMAT prep) from 580 to 620.But I don't know where I went wrong in actual GMAT(Q45,V16).Verbal is the weak area and I am trying to find out what exactly I am missing and from where to start again.

Ivincy,

Though I am not a GMAT expert, I can share some of my thoughts.

1. Don't Lose Hope - Think Positive. (It may sound weird but trust me)
2. Take a few days break.
3. Keep a notepad and write down the mistakes that you had commited.
You can do this during your break (Point # 2).
4. Did you try GMAT SC ?
5. Did you try PowerScore Critical Reasoning Bible ?
6. How was your exam day ? Did you sleep well the night before the exam ?

There is a reason for everything, Only you would know better about what went wrong on the Exam Day.

I decided to take the last few weeks off from the GMAT and anything related to it. Its amazing how low one's score can get after putting in so much work. Its funny many of you mentioned that my math was really weak, according to the score on the actual GMAT, that may be correct. However, during ALL my practice exams, the math was always higher than the verbal and never fell as low as it did on the actual exam.

Verbal was a no brainer. I found it to be much easier than any of the practice tests I had taken. I knew I was nailing those questions and felt very confident, however that score too was not high either. I don't really understand what went wrong there.

But my confidence level was definitely low during the math section. After I realized I was messing up and taking too long, I had to move on. The confidence hit an all time low when the questions got easier and easier. So I think when it comes to math, by two biggest problems were lack of confidence and lack of "Nirvana", or the ability to solve any math problem that comes my way. I guess I focused too much on finding the quickest method to solve a specific problem instead of truly trying to understand the "why" behind solving the problems.

Not quite sure if I should attempt it again as it would be my third time if I decide to. Need your help as to how I can do things differently...................

lvincy wrote:Today I gave the GMAT and have no emotions to show how embarrassed I am. I am numb.After 2 months of self practice and 2 months of kaplan classroom course I am no where.I scored only 500 on the GMAT.I scored fare in all the practice test(5 from Kaplan and 2 from GMAT prep) from 580 to 620.But I don't know where I went wrong in actual GMAT(Q45,V16).Verbal is the weak area and I am trying to find out what exactly I am missing and from where to start again.

lvincy,

Do you know if you had a particular verbal area you were weakest in (Sentence Correction, for example), or was it just verbal in general?

medea66,

Do you know if you were getting specific math problems wrong, or was it just math in general? What I'm trying to get at is, did you just get, for example, geometry problems wrong, or can you not pinpoint a particular area? If you were getting specific math questions wrong, that's easier to fix. That said, I would still recommend perhaps taking a college level math course at a community college to refresh your memory of math fundamentals.

Also, in terms of the difficulty of the verbal questions you had on the exam, a possibility is that you were not getting very hard questions (relatively speaking), and that is why your score was not as high as you'd expect. Conversely, when you're faced with a difficult question, that just might mean that you're doing well on the exam, and so you're receiving harder and harder questions.

Thanks everyone for all your help.

Jim,

It's now been approx. 1 month since I bombed the GMAT and now have acquired enough courage to decide to pick up the books once more. I need to know how to go about it now since it did not work well the last time. Should I start w/ verbal or math? In my Kaplan diagnostic, I scored better on verbal than math, and every CAT since, my math has been higher than verbal. On the actual exam however, I got trampled in math and scored so-so on the verbal.

I have all kinds of books and many CATs. This is what I have in my GMAT bookstore: PR's Cracking the GMAT
Kaplan's GMAT Premier Program
OG 11TH ED
OG Verbal
OG Math
I have CATs from PR, Kaplan, 2 PowerPrep exams and 2 GMATPREP exams.

I plan on maybe doing 20 problems a day(math/verbal) and 1 test a week(without essay). I will also be spending time going over each problem and re-doing as many as I can, paying close attention to those I got wrong. The only problem I see here is that people say the OG books are the closest thing to the real test, however the explanations in the OG STINK!!!! They explain the question using complex methods and sometimes are not clear.

Instead of studying for months, I feel I should do it for a shorter time period. Perhaps 6weeks, etc. I do not wish to take a class as taking a class has not helped me. I also would like to atleast take 1 day off in the week from studying. Kindly assist me in devising a plan to help punch the GMAT in the face.