Thank you BTGMAT COMMUNITY. Today i passed my exam

[DBushkalov]

Hi fellows,

after 2 months spent on my gmat preparation, I finally sat for the exam today and took it with 640 (73 Percentile) - q44 (63perc) and verbal 34 (69 percentile). Of course I am not a native speaker, and I have never really learned English extensively at school or anywhere else. But, please, read ruther, and you will understand what bothers me.
Now, while I am not too dissapointed, I am definately not happy either. Why is this?

Well, 2,5 months ago I took my first ever full GMAT Test( but w/o AWA or IR); it was my first test test to estimate where I stand. Without any, let me repeat this since it is important, without ANY preparation, neither in elementary math, nor in grammar or critical reasoning I scored a 610 on the GMATPREP exam. Now, I had only studieed English at school as a second foreign language and spent 4 years after that in germany; thus I really did not have any experience with english up until this estimation first gmat test I took.

So in short, 610 with all the areas of improvement mentioned above.

I thought that after I spend 2 months learning and improving, I will definately be in the 700 zone (especially since I had never heard before of things such as parallelism, modifiers, text-reading strategies or whatsoever).

So let's be honest; after a 610 without any deep knowledge in English or Math, I scored a mere 30 points more on my real exam, despite spending hundreds of hours learning. And indeed I learned thoroughly and analyzed all my mistakes and areas of weaknesses, worked on my wrong answers and did all the tasks from the OG13 and the OGs for QUANT and VERBAL Reviews too.

Please do not get me wrong: I do not blame anyone about my mediocre result. Actually I want to say a BIG THANK YOU TO ANYONE WHO HELPED ME OVER THE COURSE OF MY PREPARATION; what i would as for is just an explanation from more experienced people in the field of GMAT.

And here is the question. I really felt confident about my knowledge. Yesterday actually I took a very relaxed verbal and quant with about an hour break between the two. It is true that i knew some of the questions as this was the forth time I took the gmat prep, but I chose the wrong anwer choice on half of the questions I knew. So, this way I scored 710 points. Thus, I thought today, the real exam should be about the 650-690s. Moreover, I felt really confident how I did my real exam today; I really felt the questions the exam threw at me were NOT easy, but rather from higher difficulty. Theere was no rush, no time shortage or whatsoever. So what could have gone wrong. As I told you, it is not the skills (as the 710 on my last gmat prep exam shows, and the 690 on MGMAT a few days earlier); it is not the pressure or the shortage of time in some of the sections, since the question were reasonably difficult as I mentioned.

Please tell me how you see the situation. In my view the scoring was much more severe/ demanding than on anything gmat related that I had ever faced before today. And of course thank you for taking time to read my thread and to answer it.

I wish you a nice day

D. Bushkalov

[DBushkalov]

what's up, fellows ?

why doesn't anyone want to answer my question ?

[charu_mahajan]

Dear Bushkalov,

In such situations as yours, I have always and I will always refer to this article (by Stacey Koprince of Manhattan GMAT) that I call the 'Holy Grail'.

https://www.manhattangmat.com/blog/index ... ent-wrong/

There's nobody else but you who can introspect few things like -

- Were all your mock tests under official conditions?
- Was there any test anxiety on the actual test date?
- Was your time management in place?

As a fellow BTG member wrote in his debrief - https://www.beatthegmat.com/a-story-of-p ... tml#635481, please see whether you had a command over the following -

1. Theory and Concepts
2. High Quality Practice
3. Time Management
4. Coping with Anxiety

In case everything was foolproof, I would suggest take one or two private sessions from a good GMAT instructor like Charles Biblios aka GMAT Ninja (This is only if you want. This is not an endorsement. I'm just telling you what worked for me).

Try to practice more from official sources (consider buying Paper Tests or Question Pack). If you want even more practice, consider LSAT tests.

These words from GShine's debrief are still resonating in my mind - The GMAT tends to punish those who want it the most. However Many of life's failures are people who did not realize how close they were to success when they gave up. Do not give up. Take a date 2 months from today n get back on track. All the Best !!

[Pleaman]

what's up, fellows ?

why doesn't anyone want to answer my question ?

Hi
I think that you have failed 4-5 questions from first 10 on quant section. Having done it, you closed the way to 700.
Try one more time, look carefully on first 10 and you will get 690.

Are you from russia?)

[DBushkalov]

what made you think that I have got the first few questions on quant wrong, mate?

[Pleaman]

Look at your Mock GMAC test with 700 sscore. How many wrong answers do you have within first ten QUANT AND vERBAL?

[Brent@GMATPrepNow]

I can see how a 30-point increase could be disheartening after 2 months of prep.
Sometimes people have an off day on the test day. A complex RC passage or a confusing math question can create a chain reaction of mistakes. In fact, it's quite possible that, if you took the test today, you'd score much higher. Scores can easily fluctuate 40 to 50 points from day to day.

If you intend to retake the test, you can spend time honing your content knowledge and test-taking skills.

Cheers,
Brent