590(Q48,V23) Please suggest.

[vaishalijain7]

Let me introduce myself a bit first. I am an indian female with over 4 years of work experience in IT.

I took GMAT on 3rd july and today I thought to write a debrief after a week full of disappointment. I started my preparation around oct 2008 and in the very first GMAT prep I got just 520 (Q44,V15-20). After that as I have proceeded further in my GMAT preparation my score started increasing. Finally I have managed to score 700(Q48,V37) 2 days before my test date in GMAT prep. There were only 2 RCs repeated in that test and before that I was scoring consistently between 36-40 in verbal in atleast 4-5 prep tests. I was confident that I will atleast score 35 in verbal and my quant was ok so I was not worried about quant.

On the test day, my appointment was at 11:00 AM. However I was a bit nervous before sitting for exam but once I sat for exam it was ok. I found the quant not so easy and I made many guesses. When my quant finished I thought that my quant did not went well as I made so many guesses then I thought whatever it was I will try to do my best in verbal and will try to finish it on time. I started fast in verbal and I saw I finished up intial 10 questions very fast. After that I got very easy questions and I was thinking that I am doing good. At last I ended up getting 590 (Q48-84%, V23-29%). The result was just opposite what I was expecting. Maybe it's a punishment of starting fast in verbal section.

I was aiming for some good business schools in India but I am pretty sure that I am not gonna get admission in one on such a low score. Now I am thinking that I should wait till mid of the next year so that I can complete my 5 years of work experience so that I could be considered for 1 year executive MBA programs in good indian business schools. I am in the dilemma whether should I continue my GMAT prep till then and give the GMAT a second shot at that time only or should I prepare for 1 or 2 months again and take the GMAT. I think as I just gave the GMAT I am fresh on concepts and I can raise my score more easily if I take it early instead of waiting till next year mid.

Any suggestions?

[cramya]

You have almost won half the battle(Q48) so fight on.....

If I were you I would take a break for a week-2 then restart the prep. It's good to do so when concepts are fresh in mind rather than wait a year or so. This time focus more on Verbal and yes it's better to start a little bit on the cautious side for the first 10 questions (I am not saying these are the most important or anything like that but just double checking and being absolutely sure that you have a reason to eliminate all the other 4 choices atleast to the best of your knowledge).

What materials did u use for Verbal and how did u approach the prep on the Verbal side of things?

I am sure u will achieve ur target score the next time and u have decent experience to back up a good GMAT score.

Good luck!

Regards,
CR

[nitya34]

I had the same fate exactly one yr back when i was aspiring for PGPX:)


decided i will re write and conquer verbal by Dec/Jan


always note:only 10% test takers do able to write "I just beat" column as remaining guys score in the range of 470-630 and never come out to express!!

My break up was 48,24 and i had a solid 5 months of prep:)
btw,good luck,young lady

Note: Purchase the MGMAT SC book and attempt CAT 1-6 ,religiously

Thats what I am going to do in next few months
also you can use RSSReader and try to practice as much as you can

one can improve easily as forums are all v helpful and you get bechmarking!!

[BlindVision]

The fact that you posted your experience and asking for help, shows your strong nature. I feel that you are a brave soldier and will conquer the GMAT with your unwavering strength!

[indir0ver]

Vaishali, congratulations for doing good in Quants. Thats a good score.

Weakness clearly lies in verbal. Dont stress yourself, you have worked hard for this exam and now chill out for a moment. Give yourself a free thinking.

From the details you have provided in your post, i would suggest you can prepare better this time. If you work on this notion, things happen for good. I see it as positive in your case. You got a full one year to complete your experience. In the meantime, you can schedule a retake on gmat.
For verbal, I am not expert but currently preparing slowly for GMAT. I would suggest look at your weak areas.
- If its SC, Check manhattan gmat secntence correction guide.
- If it is critical reasoning, go for CR Bible by powerscore. That is so far very simple n detailed guide after reading that you will feel you can easily find out mistakes in yourself while attempting questions.
- If it is Reading comprehension, check ETS MLIC Module V guide for RC or someting similar.

Drill down on better comprehensive guides now. Remember one thing its psychometric test, you cannot unlearn things of last 20 years in few weeks. To unlearn those and learn new techniques, you should REGULARLY study GMAT stuff.

Also, in that one year you have opportunity to develop your profile. Working in communities, try to find out similar work that you want to opt in your MBA( your major stream).

This said, you need to find out your mistake areas and concnetrate more on that. I may be wrong in advising you but this is a fair idea how you should review yourself.

Not only B schools in india, you can target all over world. If things are feasibly, you may land in one of the best b schools . So dont let anything in your way to avoid you to going to the best. That is also one of the reasons am targetting good development of myself irrespective of the place where b school is. This is just again general thinking as I dont know you may have some compelling reasons to opt in india.

Good luck for your decisions, keep us posted..

[myohmy]

Did you do the AWA with your practice tests? That might account for the unexpected dip in verbal.

[vaishalijain7]

Did you do the AWA with your practice tests? That might account for the unexpected dip in verbal.

I didn't do AWA in every practice exam but in those I did, the verbal score was no different.

Anyways, thanks everyone for your suggestions. I really appreciate your responses. I used all the good books for my preparation which are recommended on BTG. All OGs, MGMAT SC, CR powerscore bible. However, for RC I have not used anything else than OGs.

Does anybody want to suggest some good reading material which can help me in my preparation?

[rahulg83]

Hey, the best strategy to take down your own notes and read them again and again. I can see you have all the useful resources required to crack the exam. Make separate diaries for SC, CR and RC and make it a habit to read them everyday. By diaries i mean to say, your error logs, corrections, random list of idioms (for SC). In CR also, if you feel you encounter a question that can be solved by a specific strategy (for instance, numbers vs percentages, negating the assumtion, causation vs correlation etc.), just jot it down in your copy. For RC, i'd suggest doing old passages from this forum under strict time. Start your stopwatch before starting any passage and target maximum accuracy. You can definitely check resources link https://www.beatthegmat.com/resources.html. Some great tips to imrove your accuracy and pace

[maihuna]

Dear Vaishali,

I will add the following:

1: For SC: Do not rely on MGMAT guides, they are pure waste, what they have done is KUNJI kind of thing in indian context, where you see people coming up with guides to previous year questions, what they have done is combined the concepts tested in published paper of OG, and produced them in easy fashion. It is only good for beginning, go and pick Wren and Martin, wren and martin is the bible of gmat tested concepts, it has three parts: grammar, analysis/synthesis, rule summary. Ensure you do plenty of exercises given at the end of each concepts, and that each concept is on your finger tips...

2. For CR: CR bible is not sufficient, Use their parent company LSAT bible, the concepts covered are more or less same but the CR GMAT bible doesn't contain plenty of exercises, the original books has some 500 exercises of 25 questions each, since you have a year to prep, cover the theory asap, and complete those exercises a few set a day for coming 12 months. You will be amazed how easy is gmat verbal.

3. RC: Difficulty in RC is like a slip disc disease. Once you have got a slip disc, it will never be cured, if you do any kind of exertion, like lifting more weight, doing abrupt posture changes, you will get back ache and may get a severe back ache...
The RC is similar, we (indian) are weak in reading native phrases condensed just to make it extra tough to read, now how we can remedy is is by stealing time from SC and CR. If you will take extra time in them, the RC disease will increase in severance as that of slip disc due to exertions.
Plus, most of the tough RC questions will be CR questions, which you will improve in LSAT bible exercises, so you have to learn how to cut time from SC, and keep cool while reading passage in RC's.

[madhur_ahuja]

Dear Vaishali,

I will add the following:

1: For SC: Do not rely on MGMAT guides, they are pure waste, what they have done is KUNJI kind of thing in indian context, where you see people coming up with guides to previous year questions, what they have done is combined the concepts tested in published paper of OG, and produced them in easy fashion. It is only good for beginning, go and pick Wren and Martin, wren and martin is the bible of gmat tested concepts, it has three parts: grammar, analysis/synthesis, rule summary. Ensure you do plenty of exercises given at the end of each concepts, and that each concept is on your finger tips...
.

Is it really true that MGMAT guides for SC are not worth ? I tried studying Wren and Martin, but it seems very theoretical

[maihuna]

IMO, the MGMAT SC guides are not worth the hype created for the same. They are just good for unlocking OG. Beyond that there is nothing to get.

The MGMAT is definetly SARAL compared to Wren and Martin, as MGMAT scope is very limited. You go through their Rule Summary section, and if you have idea of parts of speech, you will get good value add there.

While doing wren and martin, important thing to carry is you need to give some time. Have you emphasized on exercises? Have you checked whether you are picking right questions.

At least the amount of energy wasted in MGMAT to emphasize the importance of rather than vs instead of, like vs as, which vs that, the Wren and martins are great, go through them once more, if you have time.

[maihuna]

IMO, the MGMAT SC guides are not worth the hype created for the same. They are just good for unlocking OG. Beyond that there is nothing to get.

The MGMAT is definetly SARAL compared to Wren and Martin, as MGMAT scope is very limited. You go through the wren and martin Summary section, and if you have idea of parts of speech, you will get good value add there.

While doing wren and martin, important thing to carry is you need to give some time. Have you emphasized on exercises? Have you checked whether you are picking right questions.

At least the amount of energy wasted in MGMAT to emphasize the importance of rather than vs instead of, like vs as, which vs that, the Wren and martins are great, go through them once more, if you have time.

Let me put the challenge here: Do the MGMAT guide solve OG see %tage correct, go and apply it on unseen questions, see the %tage correct, its almost likely you will falter.

Do the wren and martin, solve OG and see the %tage correct, now go an see another set of unseen questions and check your percentage, you will be definetly improved.

Which one would you like to do in real tests, where all the questions are guaranteed to be unseen and adaptive?

[madhur_ahuja]

Thanks for all the information. Can you suggest which chapters are important in Wren and Martin from GMAT perspective.

[maihuna]

The minimum to be done is: Book II Composition PART TWO: Correct Usage All from Chapter 17 to Chapter 23. Little bit of Punctuation. And read IDIOM chapter as per your appetite.

If you are not too comfortable with Parts of Speech, BOOK I, Grammar, nearly everything from chapter 1 to chapter 42(The Sentence to Te Conjunction) is good to review.

For advanced concepts, Book II Composition Part I, at least analysis part is good to review.
Do PM me in case you are interested for more thorough review.

[madhur_ahuja]

Thanks a lot