On June 9th I took the GMAT for the 2nd time and am excited to say I increased my score from a 660 to a 710! I performed poorly on the verbal my first time around and knew I could do better so I scheduled my second appointment as soon as GMAC would let me. You can read the post from my first go here:
https://www.beatthegmat.com/gmat-verbal- ... 82580.html
The month between the two test's I made it my goal to hit verbal hard and try to just maintain my math ability so that I could score the same as last time or improve by a point or two. I used the following resources to work on my verbal.
RC99-great resource but can be demoralizing, also a lot of typos. If you're into practicing the toughest material out there, this is it. Some answers must be taken with a grain of salt. I found one passage that is identical to one I had on a Kaplan practice test but the answer to one of the questions is different.
Aristotle CR and SC-CR is based on LSAT questions that are similar to GMAT format. Not as difficult as I was hoping. I never could find a resource that specialized in really difficult CR. SC was average.
BTG Questions: Amazing for quant. Make sure to do all problems that are 600 level and higher. Verbal questions were good but difficulty classification seemed obscure. Some of the easyist questions were considered difficult and the ones considered easy were really tough. Do all of the verbal problems.
Kaplan: Bought a Kaplan book to get access to practice tests. Although the indivdual quant and verbal scores are scaled in a ridiculous manner (quant and verbal scores in the high 50's that equal an overall low 700's score) the overall scoring seemed decent. The verbal was also challenging which I liked. Here are the practice CAT test scores I did between the tests:
Kaplan 2: 750 (51Q 49V)
Kaplan 3: 760 (49Q 53V) see what I mean about crazy scaled scores?
Kaplan 4: 730 (47Q 51V)
Hindsight:
I think my experience shows that it is possible to make a significant improvement in your score in a short time. Prior to my second test I had heard about people advertising big jumps, but they were using practice CAT scores and comparing them to their real GMAT scores which means nothing to me. My initial Knewton diagnostic CAT way back in September was a 510. With this said, don't give up if you feel like you are better than your GMAT score. Study hard and retake it!
As far a practice tests go, in my opinion, MGMAT is by far the best quant test. Their verbal has good questions but the algorithm is way to generous. I think Knewton may have the best verbal assessment in their tests. Obviously, nothing beats GMATPrep. Find the resources which has all of the their questions compiled. Final note, if you plan on scoring well on the real test, in my opinion it is more important to be rock solid with the easy/med difficulty questions than be good at the difficult ones. Mastering the easy/med ones can (almost must) be done by going through the official guides and taking a prep class. Knewton's was great. In addition, I bought all of the MGMAT books and found them to be very helpful. After that, you can dive into the tough problems.
Apologies for the lengthy post, but I think a lot of folks out there find it tough to find confidence that they can improve their score a second time around. It can be done!
https://www.beatthegmat.com/gmat-verbal- ... 82580.html
The month between the two test's I made it my goal to hit verbal hard and try to just maintain my math ability so that I could score the same as last time or improve by a point or two. I used the following resources to work on my verbal.
RC99-great resource but can be demoralizing, also a lot of typos. If you're into practicing the toughest material out there, this is it. Some answers must be taken with a grain of salt. I found one passage that is identical to one I had on a Kaplan practice test but the answer to one of the questions is different.
Aristotle CR and SC-CR is based on LSAT questions that are similar to GMAT format. Not as difficult as I was hoping. I never could find a resource that specialized in really difficult CR. SC was average.
BTG Questions: Amazing for quant. Make sure to do all problems that are 600 level and higher. Verbal questions were good but difficulty classification seemed obscure. Some of the easyist questions were considered difficult and the ones considered easy were really tough. Do all of the verbal problems.
Kaplan: Bought a Kaplan book to get access to practice tests. Although the indivdual quant and verbal scores are scaled in a ridiculous manner (quant and verbal scores in the high 50's that equal an overall low 700's score) the overall scoring seemed decent. The verbal was also challenging which I liked. Here are the practice CAT test scores I did between the tests:
Kaplan 2: 750 (51Q 49V)
Kaplan 3: 760 (49Q 53V) see what I mean about crazy scaled scores?
Kaplan 4: 730 (47Q 51V)
Hindsight:
I think my experience shows that it is possible to make a significant improvement in your score in a short time. Prior to my second test I had heard about people advertising big jumps, but they were using practice CAT scores and comparing them to their real GMAT scores which means nothing to me. My initial Knewton diagnostic CAT way back in September was a 510. With this said, don't give up if you feel like you are better than your GMAT score. Study hard and retake it!
As far a practice tests go, in my opinion, MGMAT is by far the best quant test. Their verbal has good questions but the algorithm is way to generous. I think Knewton may have the best verbal assessment in their tests. Obviously, nothing beats GMATPrep. Find the resources which has all of the their questions compiled. Final note, if you plan on scoring well on the real test, in my opinion it is more important to be rock solid with the easy/med difficulty questions than be good at the difficult ones. Mastering the easy/med ones can (almost must) be done by going through the official guides and taking a prep class. Knewton's was great. In addition, I bought all of the MGMAT books and found them to be very helpful. After that, you can dive into the tough problems.
Apologies for the lengthy post, but I think a lot of folks out there find it tough to find confidence that they can improve their score a second time around. It can be done!
