After intense review - same score - please read

[Donkey_man_88]

Hey All,

About a year and a half ago I took the GMAT and scored a 600 (45Q 28V). I enrolled in a Kaplan Advanced course. See all of my practice test scores below, along with my second official GMAT score.

Kaplan:
Diagnostic - 700
CAT 1 - 680 (49Q 35V)
CAT 2 - 710 (49Q 41V)
CAT 3 - 730 (48Q 49V)
CAT 4 - 700 (44Q 48V)
CAT 5 - 690 (41Q 51V)
Ultimate Practice Test - 710 (49Q, 41V)

Gmat Prep 1 - 710 (46Q 42V)
Gmat Prep 2 - 670 (43Q 39V)

Actual GMAT - 600 (45Q 28V)

The actual verbal is way tougher than anything else. I don't know what to do because I couldn't apply most of the rules that I learned. It seemed that I received a lot of style/usage questions. Reading comp was insanely tough. Quant wasn't so bad. I had some timing issues with Quant, but that's about it. Honestly, I think that RC and SC are key issues in verbal. My CR has always been consistent, but my SC and RC always change. It's hard to guage someone's verbal progress because someone can get used to taking similar test questions. I did not think that the Kaplan CATs were harder than the real thing. If anything, they were a lot easier. I think the Gmat Prep tests are the best practice tests to use even though my scores do not reflect that. I'm really frustrated because I kept scoring in the 90+ percentile in almost every CAT. I'm going to try one more time in about a month. I'm going to focus solely on verbal. Please do not neglect verbal. I'm pretty distraught right now. If you need any additional details, please feel free to send a message.

-Donkey

[thirst]

Your results are puzzling to me. I am currently taking a Kaplan course and now feel weary of the results of my CATs. You were able to score 48,49, and even a 51, on the verbal section, yet only scored a 28 on the real test? I wonder if you just had an extraordinarily unlikely pool of questions. Are you generally a good standardized test taker?

[Donkey_man_88]

Usually, I'm pretty good at taking standardized tests. I think most of it had to do with over-confidence. I was not expecting the questions to be so difficult. The Verbal questions seemed very different. That pretty much took me out of my game plan. How are you performing on your CATs? I would take the Gmat Prep exams. Those are very good.

[wngo21]

Plan for the worst, hope for the best

[thirst]

Here are the tests I've taken

Diagostic - 670 (45Q, 35V)

Kaplan CAT1 -750 (48Q, 44V)
Kaplan CAT2 -670 (49Q, 31V)
GMAT Prep 1 -710 (49Q, 38V)
Kaplan CAT2 -700 (50Q, 34V)

I have my UPT scheduled for 12/20 and my actual test on 1/20. I appreciate you sharing your story, so that I don't get over-confident on the quant section. I know that my verbal is ALL OVER the place, so there's no way I'd get over-confident on that. Being careful and thorough all the time, while staying positive and calm will be key points I continue to remind myself as I prepare for the exam.

Good luck, I am sure you will do better on your next attempt.

[Donkey_man_88]

Good luck with your exam. I think another point is not to be "too perfect." If you don't know the answer, strategically guess and move on. I think I got caught up in trying to get everything right, and lost a lot of valuable time. The pacing on the real exam differs slightly because the level gets high fairly quickly. Once you hit question 20 or so, be ready to handle the difficult questions.

[rajibgmat]

Good luck with your exam. I think another point is not to be "too perfect." If you don't know the answer, strategically guess and move on. I think I got caught up in trying to get everything right, and lost a lot of valuable time. The pacing on the real exam differs slightly because the level gets high fairly quickly. Once you hit question 20 or so, be ready to handle the difficult questions.

Dear,

A small piece of suggestion : Do GMATPrep at least 10-12 times. You can extract a lot of new questions.

I too scored very badly in real GMAT in July 08': socre was 590, Q 49 and V 23, but thereafter I have but 80% effort in verbal and only 20% in Q and I have the feeling that I am improving. May be you can follow the same pattern. Also try this books....Manhattan SC and PowerScore SC plus PowerScore bible for CR. They are good books. It helped me for sure. For RC, concentration, practise and vocabulary is the key.

[adilka]

thanks for the advice, guys

[Donkey_man_88]

Yes, thanks for the advice. I'm going to take this again in a month or so. I think taking GMAT Prep more than twice is a good way to see the very difficult questions. Also, I think it will help with my timing.