Hi !
This is going to be a pretty long and detailed post, but please bear with me.
I attempted the GMAT for the 2nd time a few days back. Scored mere 610 : 39(Q) 35(V). Although the score is below average, it is far better than what i had scored first time around i.e. 460 : 36 (Q) 19 (V).
I am a non native speaker, so English is not really my forte. I have an engineering background and so I feel fairly comfortable with Maths. But the poor score in the Quant section intrigues me.
1st Attempt : I took a GMAT PREP as a diagnostic test before I started any preparation and scored 480 (18 V & 39 Q). Prepared for almost 6 months and wrote the exam last December. Scored 460 : 36 (Q) 19 (V). Going into the exam, I realised that i had made some huge mistakes;
(1) I had no sense of time on the D day and ultimately ended up randomly (un intelligent) guessing A LOT of question on both the sections. So timing was (may be still is) an issue for me.
(2) I also had NEVER included AWA in the practice tests earlier. As a result, On the D day, verbal section was literally unintelligible to me.
All in all, I learnt many lessons from this disastrous attempt and decided to work on them for the 2nd time around.
2nd Attempt : I did a lot of analysis on my poor performance in the verbal section, read few of Ron's suggestions on BTG and decided to change my strategy.
(1) I decided to lay utmost importance to understanding the Meaning of the Sentence in SC. During my 1st attempt, I had tried to cram every possible rule given in the Manhattan SC guide. As a matter of fact, I must have gone through that book at least 6 times.
This time around, I decided not to lay equal emphasis on each and every rule but rather look out for the meaning first, then parallelism issues, then S-V agreement and so on. Solved a bunch of questions timed. What I also did was read the explanation of each SC question, whether I got it right or wrong. I did see an improvement in my Verbal score on the practice tests. My score ranged from 28 to 32. Never had I touched 35 in any of the practice tests but I did so in the 2nd attempt.
(2) I also practiced a bunch of CR questions timed (around 20 per day) for a week or so from Aristotle prep CR doc. Although timing was still an issue, I did see an improvement in this section as well.
(3) Never really practiced RC the 2nd time around. Just did the ones I got on practice gmat prep tests.
QUANT : As I had finished OG 11 last year, this time around I decided to do few GMAT club tests and revise the notes that I had prepared. Apart From GMATclub challenges, I paid attention ONLY to Quant questions that I came across from the GMAT prep. I also revised the Number properties book by Manhattan GMAT.
I must add that I feel pretty confident with the basics as well as the concepts tested on the GMAT except for certain areas such as probability, work rate, time distance and the weird sets/grids problems. I should also confess that I still have timing issues as things don't click for me at the spur of the moment although I am able to crack the very same problem untimed.
My last 3 GMAT prep scores are as follows (taken in that order):
GMAT Prep I : 650 -> 47(Q) & 32(V)
GMAT Prep I (repeat) : 580 --> 40(Q) & 28(V)
GMAT Prep II : 620 --> 45(Q) & 30(V)
I don't know where I am going wrong. My Quant score is still the same as the one I got last year in the Diagnostic test. I don't expect a 50 or 51, but I am sure that I can get atleast 45.
Also, What else should i do, or continue doing in order to improve my verbal score ?
I am distraught at the moment. My target is atleast 700 and I plan to take another shot at this exam in the first week of September.
Your opinions are valuable, Please Help !
spb
This is going to be a pretty long and detailed post, but please bear with me.
I attempted the GMAT for the 2nd time a few days back. Scored mere 610 : 39(Q) 35(V). Although the score is below average, it is far better than what i had scored first time around i.e. 460 : 36 (Q) 19 (V).
I am a non native speaker, so English is not really my forte. I have an engineering background and so I feel fairly comfortable with Maths. But the poor score in the Quant section intrigues me.
1st Attempt : I took a GMAT PREP as a diagnostic test before I started any preparation and scored 480 (18 V & 39 Q). Prepared for almost 6 months and wrote the exam last December. Scored 460 : 36 (Q) 19 (V). Going into the exam, I realised that i had made some huge mistakes;
(1) I had no sense of time on the D day and ultimately ended up randomly (un intelligent) guessing A LOT of question on both the sections. So timing was (may be still is) an issue for me.
(2) I also had NEVER included AWA in the practice tests earlier. As a result, On the D day, verbal section was literally unintelligible to me.
All in all, I learnt many lessons from this disastrous attempt and decided to work on them for the 2nd time around.
2nd Attempt : I did a lot of analysis on my poor performance in the verbal section, read few of Ron's suggestions on BTG and decided to change my strategy.
(1) I decided to lay utmost importance to understanding the Meaning of the Sentence in SC. During my 1st attempt, I had tried to cram every possible rule given in the Manhattan SC guide. As a matter of fact, I must have gone through that book at least 6 times.
This time around, I decided not to lay equal emphasis on each and every rule but rather look out for the meaning first, then parallelism issues, then S-V agreement and so on. Solved a bunch of questions timed. What I also did was read the explanation of each SC question, whether I got it right or wrong. I did see an improvement in my Verbal score on the practice tests. My score ranged from 28 to 32. Never had I touched 35 in any of the practice tests but I did so in the 2nd attempt.
(2) I also practiced a bunch of CR questions timed (around 20 per day) for a week or so from Aristotle prep CR doc. Although timing was still an issue, I did see an improvement in this section as well.
(3) Never really practiced RC the 2nd time around. Just did the ones I got on practice gmat prep tests.
QUANT : As I had finished OG 11 last year, this time around I decided to do few GMAT club tests and revise the notes that I had prepared. Apart From GMATclub challenges, I paid attention ONLY to Quant questions that I came across from the GMAT prep. I also revised the Number properties book by Manhattan GMAT.
I must add that I feel pretty confident with the basics as well as the concepts tested on the GMAT except for certain areas such as probability, work rate, time distance and the weird sets/grids problems. I should also confess that I still have timing issues as things don't click for me at the spur of the moment although I am able to crack the very same problem untimed.
My last 3 GMAT prep scores are as follows (taken in that order):
GMAT Prep I : 650 -> 47(Q) & 32(V)
GMAT Prep I (repeat) : 580 --> 40(Q) & 28(V)
GMAT Prep II : 620 --> 45(Q) & 30(V)
I don't know where I am going wrong. My Quant score is still the same as the one I got last year in the Diagnostic test. I don't expect a 50 or 51, but I am sure that I can get atleast 45.
Also, What else should i do, or continue doing in order to improve my verbal score ?
I am distraught at the moment. My target is atleast 700 and I plan to take another shot at this exam in the first week of September.
Your opinions are valuable, Please Help !
spb
