I just Beat The GMAT!

I did my GMAT today. I dont know what to say. I have been going over the OG and KAPLAN. I have been scoring around 560-580 and was under the impression that the questions were more like the OG or GMAT Prep. But what I saw, was not the same specially the verbal section. I had been doing excellent in the OG Verbal section but I dont know what I did wrong today. I feel like a failure. But I must get up and do it again.

Your input will be appreciated. Dont worry if you are hard on me.....

Hey don't be down... You can always retake! It's probably a good idea to check out a course because a 330 means you may be struggling with the basics.

Good luck!

I agree with Dana and I think you're definitely struggling with the basic. You can try purchasing the MGMAT series of books, which go in depth from the basic to more advance topics. I have never been in a GMAT prep classroom, but maybe you should consider prepping the foundation first before investing a large sum of money into GMAT-concentrated prep courses.

Once upon a time it was announced that the devil
was going out of business and would sell all
his equipment to those who were willing to pay the price.

Over in the corner by itself was a harmless looking,
wedge-shaped tool very much worn, but still it bore a
higher price than any of the others.
Someone asked the devil what it was, and he answered,
"That is Discouragement."
The next question came quickly,
"And why is it priced so high even though
it is plain to see that it is worn more than these others?"

Because replied the devil,
"It is more useful to me than all these others.
I can pry open and get into a man's heart with that
when I cannot get near him with any other tool


Don't give up. Once you do, all is lost.

Thanks a lot.. I am writing again in five weeks. I will go through MAGMAT math book plus GMAT Prep. I have to get this right because I am determined to go to Business school. I have 8 work under my belt ( one international) and my GPA is 3.8.

There is no point in looking back. What I meant to find out the role OG plays because it seems that everyone who has 700+ has said that OG is the way to go.

I know that one day on these pages, I will cite my GMAT score with pride...

What's your target score? 5 weeks may not be enough to reach it.

My target score is 600.

Work really hard, you can do it.

Any advice? I will be focusing on the sources I mentioned early in my post. How much time do you think I should devote and what else?

Study time varies from person to person. Someone with strong foundation could master GMAT materials in few weeks, and someone without such foundation could take months.

If 600 is what you need, for quant, I would recommend you to focus on the foundation such as number properties, geometry, and word problems, and do not worry about advance topics such as combinatorics and statistics <---I meant probability.

For verbal, in SC, I would recommend you to master: subject/verb agreement, parallelism, pronoun errors, tense, and basic modifier errors. Don't worry so much about advance topics or idioms.

CR: Focus on recognizing common wrong answer traps for each type of questions, and have a good understanding of what constitutes as correct answers.

RC: Similar to CR, but what's most important for 600+ is not to waste too much time.

I might have more detail response if you have specific question.

I agree with you and thanks again for your very informative advice.
I will starting tommorow, go through Math MGMAT Math and solve OG problems again.

My question is:

Should I do Mock tests like GMAT Prep every few days?

GMAT prep was giving me 560-580 but in retrospect, that was not what I got today. Is there any test which is an actual reflection of the real GMAT?

Any good source for RC? Again, I did very well with OG verbal section.

Mock tests are not great tools for learning the material. You need books like MGMAT's for that. As for RC, I've used Veritas' and it's very effective

GMAT Prep should be used as a progress report to identify your weaknesses. Personally, I really don't see the need of taking it more often than once a week.

GMAT is the most accurate representation. What were your breakdowns with GMAT Prep and actual GMAT? Were you able to identify any weakness during the actual GMAT, such as timing or loss of concentration in verbal?

For the real GMAT, my breakdown was 17, 17. For GMAT Prerp, I dont recall but if I am not mistaken, for Quant it was around 38 and Verbal was around 34. I would say loss of concentration perhaps.

I am disappointed.....

I notice you have received lots of great advice on here - I would note that you should not be disgusted but motivated to improve your score! I agree that you must have gotten confused on fundamentals. Consider checking out the Manhattan Foundations of Math book. (You might want to try and see if you can find it somewhere and skim through it before purchasing). I would avoid signing up for a course just yet - I really think that courses are more beneficial for keeping you on a study schedule, and are really not helpful if you are not already understanding a lot of the material. (I took a Manhattan GMAT course).

I agree with uwhusky, I would take a practice test at most once a week. It is more important to concentrate on doing problems and understanding the material than retaking tests over and over.

I would also try to seriously evaluate your experience at the test. Did you get a lot of math problems you did not know how to solve? Were you running short on time? Were you too nervous or tired? If you don't analyze what went wrong, you can't fix it.