Sth. to laugh/cry about: V43 (96th P-tile) & disaster

[alex_katharina]

Ok, here it goes... I bombed the GMAT with 460 today. A stellar V43 and utter disaster with Q18.....
I am really proud of my verbal score, but honestly I don't know how I could manage to get a 18 on the quant section.
I am going to retake the test in 30 days and NEED a 650!!!

Any suggestions on how to tackle my math!
Tonight, I am going to sit down and do a debrief on what could have caused me to perform so terribly on the quant section....
Believe it or not, but I did take calculus and aced with an 'A,'about a year ago...

Any advice on what my next 30 day quant study plan should look like is very, very much appreciated!

[pulchritudinous]

I took two years of calculus and also got A's. I LOVED Calculus...But being good at math does not mean you will do well on the GMAT (shocking right?). And anyways Calculus math is completely different from anything on this exam. They're also testing you on your reasoning abilities (what are they really asking you in that convoluted word problem?) and your ability to prioritize (as in, how much time should I spend on this question? Should I skip it or keep going?). I've come to accept the fact that the GMAT really says nothing about you. A good score on the GMAT means you were in a good mental place at the time of the test and are good at taking the GMAT and that's about it. So don't stress over it.

What were your practice test quant scores like? Mine dropped about 4 points from the average of my practice tests when I took the real thing. I would analyze what went wrong and remember that you can retake it. I'm retaking mine in a week and if things don't go well...well there's always the next time too lol!

[buzzz85]

Ok, here it goes... I bombed the GMAT with 460 today. A stellar V43 and utter disaster with Q18.....
I am really proud of my verbal score, but honestly I don't know how I could manage to get a 18 on the quant section.
I am going to retake the test in 30 days and NEED a 650!!!

Any suggestions on how to tackle my math!
Tonight, I am going to sit down and do a debrief on what could have caused me to perform so terribly on the quant section....
Believe it or not, but I did take calculus and aced with an 'A,'about a year ago...

Any advice on what my next 30 day quant study plan should look like is very, very much appreciated!

alex_katharina
First of all congrats on a very good Verbal score. This gives you a license to devote more time to Quant before the next attempt.
Your strategy should be based upon the two conditions -
1. You got more questions wrong in GMAT - If this is the case, then you need to go back to the concepts. There are 11-12 main topics in Quant and try to complete the concepts and practice questions for topics in 2 days each. 25th to 30th days can be used for full time tests with analysis of incorrect questions.
2. You found time constraint and couldn't give ample time to all questions - here, you should do only questions but have them times. Take up 20 questions for each Quant topic and try to wrap them in 40 minutes max. Do this for 15 days and for the later half (16-30), indulge into full time tests with analysis of incorrect questions.

Hope it helps