Hi All
After 12 weeks of effort I sat my GMAT test yesterday.
Scored 710 (Q42, V45). Not sure what to make of it. Obviously I am very happy with the Verbal Score (99%ile), but the Quant score is only at the 59%ile.
I am concerned my application will be discounted due to my poor Quant score. My New Zealand GPA is low (approx 2.5-3.0), with an F in an intermediate finance paper and a C- in my final advanced finance paper. However as an older applicant (31), I can point to significant quant experience in my essays and recommendations.
I would like some advice on my options. I feel that if I sat the test again, I could increase my quant score up to a 46 or 47 (I was scoring at this level in some of the MGMAT practice tests), however I believe I got lucky on the verbal, as my previous high was a V42. It is therefore unlikely that I will increase my combined score more than 10 or 20 points.
The standard advice would be to build an alternative transcript - however I don't think I have time left to complete even a single maths paper before R1 applications are due, and would probably be pushing it for R2. I don't think this is an option before submitting applications, but I could state that I would take quant courses before courses started next year if required.
As I have found this forum very valuable over the last three months I probably should make some mention of my GMAT journey:
Resources used:
Princeton: Cracking the GMAT
Kaplan: GMAT Premier 2012
OG 12
Manhattan Guide (Sentence Correction)
OG Verbal review (purchased but didn't use)
OG Quant review (purchased but didn't use)
GMATClub IPad App - expensive, but must have for tracking OG performance
MGMAT online tests
I started by taking the first GMATprep test. Scored a 690 (didn't note v/q), which surprised me as I had no knowledge of the material covered or test strategy. I believe that I may have just been very lucky with this result and it lulled me in to a false sense of my abilities.
I booked the GMAT 8 weeks in the future, to give me a deadline to work to, and then followed the strategy below.
Week 1: Princeton: Cracking the GMAT
Week 2-3: Kaplan: GMAT Premier 2012
Weeks 4 -5 : Manhattan Guide (Sentence Correction)
Weeks 6 - 8 OG 12 and MGMAT practice tests
The Cracking the GMAT provides a good background to the test, tips and tricks and the motivation of the exam writers, but it lacks the depth of the other books.
I found the Kaplan book useful, particularly the quant section. The "expert exclusives" were very interesting.
From my diagnostic tests, I knew that I had near perfect RC and CR, but was scoring 50% on the SC section, so it was very important that I improved in this section to raise my score.
Contrary to many other members of this forum, I found the Manhattan Sentence Correction guide to be very difficult to understand. As a native English speaker, I found the guide to be excessively complex. It covered concepts so quickly that I lacked an understanding of the terms used. This maybe due to the New Zealand education system not teaching proper grammar, or parts of speech at school, but even now, I couldn't tell you what and gerund is, or how it differs from an adjectival predicate.
I spent final 3 weeks doing practice questions from the OG 12 and taking the MGMAT practice tests every Wednesday and Saturday. I downloaded the GMATClub GMAT toolkit IPad app and found it invaluable as an error log and for analyzing the time I was spending on certain types of questions.
My final three practice test scores (taken in the last 10 days) were:
MGMAT V: 710 (Q46, V41)
MGMAT VI: 700 (Q44, V40)
GMAT prep II: 690 (Q45, V38)
Test day:
I was the only candidate taking a test at the centre yesterday afternoon, which was located at a local community college. I was happy with the AWA section, the Analysis of an Argument section used a passage that I had practiced on. Was very disappointed that the proctor wasn't watching the screens when I was on my first 8 min break, and even though I had my hand up for 4 mins waiting to be logged back in, I had to walk over to their desk and get them to log me back in. In doing this, I went 30sec over my 8 mins and had this taken off my time for the quant section.
I was a little flustered going into the first few questions of the quant section, and I assume I got a couple wrong as the remaining questions were quite easy and a was ahead of time for most of the section. I think I had 20 mins to do the last 7 questions. A very weird thing happened after what I thought was the 35th question - I had 7 mins remaining on the clock and the test ended. Either I was mistaken and had actually finished all 37 questions, or because I had time deducted, the count down clock was wrong and I ran out of time.
The verbal section was a breeze, guessed on a few SC questions, but I found the CR and RC section very easy and finished with 5 mins to spare.
There is no break before completing the new section and was pretty tired, so I gave the questions my best shot. Initial impressions are that this section will be quite challenging, especially in answering the 12 questions (with up to 6 sub questions) in the 30 min time limit.
Finally got to the stage where I could reveal my scores, pressed the button, and got the 710. I was happy that I had scored over 700, very happy with the 99%ile in verbal, but disappointed to see the 59%ile in quant.
Thank you to all those who have posted on this forum; I am now interested to hear your advice.
After 12 weeks of effort I sat my GMAT test yesterday.
Scored 710 (Q42, V45). Not sure what to make of it. Obviously I am very happy with the Verbal Score (99%ile), but the Quant score is only at the 59%ile.
I am concerned my application will be discounted due to my poor Quant score. My New Zealand GPA is low (approx 2.5-3.0), with an F in an intermediate finance paper and a C- in my final advanced finance paper. However as an older applicant (31), I can point to significant quant experience in my essays and recommendations.
I would like some advice on my options. I feel that if I sat the test again, I could increase my quant score up to a 46 or 47 (I was scoring at this level in some of the MGMAT practice tests), however I believe I got lucky on the verbal, as my previous high was a V42. It is therefore unlikely that I will increase my combined score more than 10 or 20 points.
The standard advice would be to build an alternative transcript - however I don't think I have time left to complete even a single maths paper before R1 applications are due, and would probably be pushing it for R2. I don't think this is an option before submitting applications, but I could state that I would take quant courses before courses started next year if required.
As I have found this forum very valuable over the last three months I probably should make some mention of my GMAT journey:
Resources used:
Princeton: Cracking the GMAT
Kaplan: GMAT Premier 2012
OG 12
Manhattan Guide (Sentence Correction)
OG Verbal review (purchased but didn't use)
OG Quant review (purchased but didn't use)
GMATClub IPad App - expensive, but must have for tracking OG performance
MGMAT online tests
I started by taking the first GMATprep test. Scored a 690 (didn't note v/q), which surprised me as I had no knowledge of the material covered or test strategy. I believe that I may have just been very lucky with this result and it lulled me in to a false sense of my abilities.
I booked the GMAT 8 weeks in the future, to give me a deadline to work to, and then followed the strategy below.
Week 1: Princeton: Cracking the GMAT
Week 2-3: Kaplan: GMAT Premier 2012
Weeks 4 -5 : Manhattan Guide (Sentence Correction)
Weeks 6 - 8 OG 12 and MGMAT practice tests
The Cracking the GMAT provides a good background to the test, tips and tricks and the motivation of the exam writers, but it lacks the depth of the other books.
I found the Kaplan book useful, particularly the quant section. The "expert exclusives" were very interesting.
From my diagnostic tests, I knew that I had near perfect RC and CR, but was scoring 50% on the SC section, so it was very important that I improved in this section to raise my score.
Contrary to many other members of this forum, I found the Manhattan Sentence Correction guide to be very difficult to understand. As a native English speaker, I found the guide to be excessively complex. It covered concepts so quickly that I lacked an understanding of the terms used. This maybe due to the New Zealand education system not teaching proper grammar, or parts of speech at school, but even now, I couldn't tell you what and gerund is, or how it differs from an adjectival predicate.
I spent final 3 weeks doing practice questions from the OG 12 and taking the MGMAT practice tests every Wednesday and Saturday. I downloaded the GMATClub GMAT toolkit IPad app and found it invaluable as an error log and for analyzing the time I was spending on certain types of questions.
My final three practice test scores (taken in the last 10 days) were:
MGMAT V: 710 (Q46, V41)
MGMAT VI: 700 (Q44, V40)
GMAT prep II: 690 (Q45, V38)
Test day:
I was the only candidate taking a test at the centre yesterday afternoon, which was located at a local community college. I was happy with the AWA section, the Analysis of an Argument section used a passage that I had practiced on. Was very disappointed that the proctor wasn't watching the screens when I was on my first 8 min break, and even though I had my hand up for 4 mins waiting to be logged back in, I had to walk over to their desk and get them to log me back in. In doing this, I went 30sec over my 8 mins and had this taken off my time for the quant section.
I was a little flustered going into the first few questions of the quant section, and I assume I got a couple wrong as the remaining questions were quite easy and a was ahead of time for most of the section. I think I had 20 mins to do the last 7 questions. A very weird thing happened after what I thought was the 35th question - I had 7 mins remaining on the clock and the test ended. Either I was mistaken and had actually finished all 37 questions, or because I had time deducted, the count down clock was wrong and I ran out of time.
The verbal section was a breeze, guessed on a few SC questions, but I found the CR and RC section very easy and finished with 5 mins to spare.
There is no break before completing the new section and was pretty tired, so I gave the questions my best shot. Initial impressions are that this section will be quite challenging, especially in answering the 12 questions (with up to 6 sub questions) in the 30 min time limit.
Finally got to the stage where I could reveal my scores, pressed the button, and got the 710. I was happy that I had scored over 700, very happy with the 99%ile in verbal, but disappointed to see the 59%ile in quant.
Thank you to all those who have posted on this forum; I am now interested to hear your advice.
