720 (Q50 V38 IR5)

[vrchen]

Hey guys,

So I took my GMATs a while back (Sept '12) but decided to finally post here since my IR score has been bugging me. I'm pretty satisfied with my overall score of 720 (Q50 V38) but my IR score is pretty low at a 5/8 which puts me at the 53rd percentile. AWA was 5.5.

I know everyone's been saying not to worry about IR too much but being at the 53rd percentile definitely doesn't put me at ease (getting at least a 6 would have made me feel much better). I will most likely applying in 2013 or 2014 at which point I believe B-schools will have a much better idea of how they will use the IR score to evaluate applicants.

Should I consider retaking it? My fear is that even if I can get a higher IR score (which is probably harder and harder now since the avg scores keep going up), I run the risk of getting a lower overall score.

Any thoughts?

[Bschool2013]

I know everyone's been saying not to worry about IR too much but being at the 53rd percentile definitely doesn't put me at ease (getting at least a 6 would have made me feel much better). I will most likely applying in 2013 or 2014 at which point I believe B-schools will have a much better idea of how they will use the IR score to evaluate applicants.

First, congrats on the score, especially the 50Q! My non-expert opinion is that it will take longer than 2013/2014 for the IR score to become relevant if for nothing else, GMAT scores are valid for 5 years and there could still be applicants in the pool who took the GMAT prior to the IR section. Is a 53%ile in IR better or worse than someone who didn't have to take it at all? I don't think that's a fair comparison.

Also, when you look at the AWA section, it's basically pass/fail. 4.5 is good enough, and a 6.0 isn't going to earn you any extra admissions points. I think that's the way the IR section is headed and can't imagine it ever carrying the same weight as your 720 score.

[reylo11]

Hey! Congrats!! It is a really great score.
I don´t believe that IR matters much for now. I just went to a couple top MBA programs meetings and they told us not to worry about it for at lest 1 or 2 years. Besides a 5/8 on IR is not a really bad score, I think is good enough. And your quant is really amazing!!!
By the way, can you share with us what books did you find more helpful for both Q and V?

Thanks and congrats again!!

[Saunak]

Hi vrchen,

I am yet to take GMAT and planning to target a score of 6 in IR.

In my mocks, I observe that often I am running out of time in IR. Could you please tell me how many IR question you could attempt properly and how many you guessed-and-moved-ahead in the real GMAT (for the score 5)?

Thanks,

[vrchen]

Hey guys, thanks for the feedback...definitely makes me feel a little better.

By the way, can you share with us what books did you find more helpful for both Q and V?

I used MGMAT set and OG (full, quant, and verbal) to study. I find the MGMAT helpful for tricks and shortcuts to help with quant calculations and cutting down on time. In terms of verbal, I didn't really put a lot of time towards those other than just going through the MGMAT books (pretty quickly) as I knew my abilities were pretty limited there and had a better shot at upping my quant score.

When I got closer to the test date, I actually didn't do a lot of problems or practice tests. Instead, I just made sure to do some quant drills (timed sets of 20-40 questions) to keep my mind fresh in the game.

In my mocks, I observe that often I am running out of time in IR. Could you please tell me how many IR question you could attempt properly and how many you guessed-and-moved-ahead in the real GMAT (for the score 5)?

I got pretty stumped by a set of multi-source reasoning questions so I'd say I guessed at maybe 2 of the 12 questions and moved on quickly. But it turned out that I should've spent a little more time on those questions because I ended up with a little bit more time towards the end than I needed. I think this happened because I also always run out of time during my practice IRs so I was worried that the same would happen.

In my opinion, IR timing in harder to manage even though you have more time per question, the range of time you can spend per question varies much more than regular quant questions (i.e. you can potentially only need 1-2 min for one type of question but 5-6 minutes for another type). I'd say the best thing you can do is to identify the questions you know you typically spend more time on (for me it was the multi-source reasoning because of all the reading and flipping back and forth between tabs) and make sure you give a good shot at it before moving on.

[Saunak]

Thanks a ton vrchen. It would be indeed helpful for me.

The difficulty levels of IR questions in real GMAT were similar to standard Mocks (Manhattan/Kaplan etc) or easier ?

Thanks,
Saunak

[vrchen]

The real thing seemed easier than MGMAT IR questions. You can get a good sense of the actual difficulty through MBA.Com's practice test and OG Practice problems (online).