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Marginal Improvement....Help!

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Marginal Improvement....Help!

by jk2010 » Fri Jan 07, 2011 12:04 pm
I am in a bit of a rut, and any help would be greatly appreciated. First, a little background about me. I am 41 years old, I am in the Military (have been for 23 yrs), and consider myself to be pretty smart. I did very well in High School, scored high on my ACT (32 in 1987), and my undergrad (BS in Management) GPA was 4.0.

Last October, I decided to attend Business School starting in the Fall of 2011. I scheduled my GMAT, then, as an afterthought, enrolled in a weekend GMAT prep course with Veritas. I was absolutely not prepared for the GMAT as scored a woeful 480. Granted, it had been roughly 25 years since I had done any of this type work. I decided to attend a full 7 week course, again with Veritas (I only had to pay the difference in fees). I used the 12th edition OG, both supplemental guides, and my assortment of Veritas books to prepare. I put in at least 1 hour/day studying in addition to the 40 hour course.

I took a battery of practice tests and my score improved from the low 500's to the mid 600's. These tests included 800Score, GMAC practice, and the 2 versions from Veritas (GMAT Life and GMAT Simulator). I felt confident that I would walk out of my second GMAT with at least a 600, but likely in the mid 600s.

Today I took my test (again) and scored a paltry 540 (Q31/V34). I was uncomfortable with most of the questions in the Quant section but felt very secure in the Verbal. I am at a loss as to what to do next. My inclination is to simply keep practicing using the OG, but I wonder if I should enroll in another program. I am already out over $2000 between the two tests and the cost of the Veritas course, but am willing to invest more to get a respectable score. I do not mean in any way to blame Veritas; had I not attended their program, I would surely have scored worse!

I am wide open for any suggestions. I still plan on attending B School in the fall of 2011. I have between now and Apr 15 to make substantial improvements on my GMAT and I am confident I will, but any solid advice for maximizing my time will be greatly appreciated!

Thanks
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by rishi raj » Fri Jan 07, 2011 8:39 pm
Firstly, accept my salute! I have great respect for folks from the Army. :) Grew up in an army background and feel energized to see war movies.

Your grades seem to be impressive and logically you should have done better but I think that the basic problem here might be that you have been out of touch with formal education. I think the right man to bail you out of your dilemma is Ron Purewal(alias "lunarpower" on the forum). Just ping him and request him to answer here on this thread.

In the meantime, you may wanna go through these links. In the first post, you'll see Ron in action. In the second post, you'll see a great story of someone who was in your shoes some time back and how he scaled the "GMAT mountain". However, since you plan to go to a business school in Fall 2011, you may not be able to implement that strategy,though I think that is the way to go.

https://www.beatthegmat.com/dissapointed ... 71919.html

https://www.beatthegmat.com/3-yrs-4-atte ... 72531.html

Just a passing thought, don't you think that you'll be quite late to apply to schools for Fall 2011 session as you plan to re-take the GMAT by April. I think that even if your submit your applications before the R3 deadline, the schools are not going to consider your application until and unless you have a GMAT score. Or in your case they're going to take into account your score of 540. Which schools are looking at ?
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by Brian@VeritasPrep » Wed Jan 12, 2011 4:33 pm
Hey, jk2010:

Sorry to hear about a frustrating test experience! It certainly sounds as though you've put in the work, so I think this is pretty salvageable. A few thoughts that I have:

1) Just because you mentioned Veritas - keep in mind that your enrollment comes with the opportunity to take the course (or any parts of it) again for free, so I don't think you'll need to enroll in another program or spend any more money. If you want to talk about any of those options, email me or give our office a call (800.925.7737) and we can help you with a plan of attack, at least as far as getting back on the horse that way.

2) The absolute best practice test you can take is an actual GMAT. You'll get a feel for how you perform under that kind of time and emotional pressure; you're forced to go through the whole experience from check-in to the essays to the breaks to each section; you're seeing questions that are brand new and in rapid succession. Practice tests do a nice job of simulating that, but you can learn a lot from the real-deal experience. So, while it's fresh in your mind, I'd urge you to consider:

-How did you pace yourself? Did you leave much time on the clock? Did you have to rush on either section?

-Did you see any concepts or questions types that you just didn't feel prepared for?

-If you were told that you could take the GMAT again for free two days from now, what would you spend tomorrow studying? Now that you've seen the test, what do you wish you would have emphasized more?

-Were there any concepts or question types that, in retrospect, you knew needed work but you just hoped you wouldn't see often? Were there any concepts that kept you up the night before?

-Does anything else stand out about the test experience that may be useful in gameplanning round 2?


ALSO:

-From your most recent pre-test practice tests, were there any common "silly" or "careless" mistakes you tended to make? And did you catch yourself making any on test day?


I think if you take yourself through this kind of assessment you can probably find a few points of emphasis for your next few study sessions and practice tests. That's likely to be important as you seek to improve - it's not a case of "studying more" or "doing more problems"; it's much more about determining strategically where you can get the most improvement and carrying it from there.

I hope that helps...
Brian Galvin
GMAT Instructor
Chief Academic Officer
Veritas Prep

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