Need advice!

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Need advice!

by gaditanmba » Tue Nov 22, 2011 4:02 pm
Hi,

I want to share with you all my experience with the GMAT. I'm an European who lived more than three years in the US and with an Engineering background. Today I took it for the third time, and I failed once again!

- In my first attempt I scored 480(29%) - Q31(27%), V25(35%) (July 13th) --> Studied just for one month, and I wasn't prepared to take the test.
- In my second attempt I scored 580(57%) - Q42(59%), V28(48%) (October 7th) --> Studied for almost three months. I had trouble with the timing and had to skipped 5 questions on the quant and almost 8 on the verbal.
- In my third attempt I scored 640 (74%) - Q47(76%), V31(58%) (November 22nd) --> Everything went all right, finished both sections 5 minutes beforehand.

I have taken several GMAT Prep tests for the last two weeks with the following scores:

- 710 (Q48, V38) - November 12th
- 690 (Q48, V35) - November 13th
- 760 (Q49, V42) - November 19th
- 750 (Q50, V41) - November 20th

As you can see, my scores are way too low when compared with my prep scores. I'm having a lot of trouble raising my verbal score. I would like to know if you think it be a good idea to retake the test again.

I don't know how to prepare myself for another go on the GMAT. The prep tests are no good anymore, since I'm getting a lot of repeated questions. I have done all the problems on the 12th Edition Guide. What should I do in order to increase my score in the verbal section?

Thanks in advance.

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by tpr-becky » Tue Nov 22, 2011 5:56 pm
It is interesting that you do so well on the prep tests and so low on the actual exam. The thing to do is to analyze why that may be the case. Are you suffering from test anxiety, do you do the questions differently on the "real" test? for instance, are you double checking all your answers and thus not able to get to the final answer. The fix for your problem probably lies in fixing your testing psychology if you are doing 650+ on practice exams.

as far as how to increase your verbal score both Critical Reasoning and Reading comp benefit greatly when the test taker has a general idea of what the answer will be before he ever looks at the answer choices provided. You can go back over all the OG questions and walk through and explain what specifically from the answer made it wrong and what specifically makes an answer correct.

In Sentence Correction it is important to realize you are not editing but looking for bad grammar. Focus on the main errors tested and develop a system for recognizing each error and how to fix it. This solid knowledge is essential to getting your best Sentence Correction score.
Becky
Master GMAT Instructor
The Princeton Review
Irvine, CA

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by gaditanmba » Wed Nov 23, 2011 3:35 am
Thanks for your answer tpr-becky!

For me, besides interesting, it's frustrating! :D I'm not suffering any test anxiety; I was way too calm before and during the test. By the end, right before clicking the final "NEXT" was a different story though...

At my last test I did exactly everything that I had trained for the last month, and as I said, I was really happy during the test about my performance and was sure that I was doing a good job.

I don't know if my low score on the verbal has anything to do with the new SC format. I don't want to excuse my score in this, but during the test, I found several questions where two answers "were right": one with a good structure bad different meaning, another with not such a good structure but without changing the meaning. Where can I find any resources to practice this even more? Overall, I went with the same meaning response.

Thanks in advance!