Disappointed!

[sharoonsaleem]

Hi Everyone!

Prepared for 3 months with the last week off from work and got a dismal 620 40Q 34V. This score was significantly below my expectations.

I studied from MGMAT and practiced all OG problems of PS, DS & SC.

First ever take - GMAT Prep 1 : 610 46Q 29V
After this i engaged in serious study to prepare myself for GMAT. While i am not a native English speaker, i was quick to identify that i could easily improve my verbal score by fixing some fundamentals while on quant i was roughly there. I practiced every problem in OG 13 for PS, DS and SC. Also took 2 tests of MGMAT and gave GMAT Prep tests again scoring below:


GMAT Prep 2 : 650 47Q 33V
This was two weeks before my exam, i got really nervous and started to practice extra hard on my quant and verbal skills. Purchased GMAT Prep Question bank and practiced all problems and realized i was doing decently in all sections. In the meantime i gave MGMAT tests and scored below:

MGMAT 1: 650 43Q 36V
For MGMAT tests which are considered harder, i thought i was doing ok! until i did my second test
MGMAT 2 : 620 41Q 34V

I really thought that i needed to gauge myself on GMAT Prep again to see where i actually stand:

GMAT Prep 1 : 690 47Q 38V
This was in line with my expectations!

Day before the test i took GMAT Prep 2

GMAT Prep 2: 680 48Q 35V

I was all set to experience anything in the range of 670-690 with these results.

On test day, i was calm and convinced that i would do well. Then Integrated Reasoning struck me like lightning, i panicked and lost my cool. Quant section started off fine and i was making good progress until one after the other i started to get stuck, i felt as i hit some wall and finding it hard to move forward. Then GMAT started to throw real easy ones on me, this was good to restart but on retrospect i took the harder route in every problem and guessed many questions since i was running low on time. In short, i really really messed up!

Verbal started off fine and i felt much more at ease. I was anticipating that i will land with an 80 percentile on this one.

Then result screen flashed and my jaw dropped... i had scored a dismal 620. Verbal was below my expectations but quant virtually crashed...

I cannot overcome the fact that i was beat by the GMAT today. I really want to get up, look GMAT in the eye and say i can beat you. For that i need to fix whatever is wrong with me in quant.

I take the longer path on every question on quant and this is what keeps me down, i think i need to approach quant a different way. Being an engineer i am prone to solving everything the pure mathematics way (algebraic longer solutions) and not do a lot of mental maths. This is something i qualify as a sure shot weakness. Need your suggestions to get back and put up a good solid fight with the GMAT.

[ganeshrkamath]

I take the longer path on every question on quant and this is what keeps me down, i think i need to approach quant a different way. Being an engineer i am prone to solving everything the pure mathematics way (algebraic longer solutions) and not do a lot of mental maths. This is something i qualify as a sure shot weakness. Need your suggestions to get back and put up a good solid fight with the GMAT.

Being an engineer myself, I think I can give you some tips:
1. Solve every problem from OG13 again, and time yourself every time. Try to solve the problems in another method if you think that the solution you got in the first try was lengthy. If time permits, solve problems from other books as well.

2. From my understanding, your problem is that you are slow in quant and this is because you take the longer path to solve problems. In the worst case scenario, let's assume that you cannot think of any short method. You have two options, either guess and move on or solve using the longer method.
To get a good score in quant, you can only do so much guessing. What I would advise you to do is to increase the speed at which you solve a problem using the longer method. This takes care of the worst case scenario.

3. Keep a tab on the timer. Every 10 minutes, check whether you've completed 5 questions. If you haven't, it means that you gotta hurry. If you have, then you can take more than 2 minutes to solve a problem if need be.

In the end, it all comes down to keeping your calm under any circumstance.

Never give up.
All the best.

[Brent@GMATPrepNow]

As you have alluded to, most GMAT math questions can be solved using at least 2 different approaches. Typically, one approach is much faster than the other(s). So, the key to speed improvement is recognizing the fast approach for each question.

To get better at recognizing the fastest approach, I suggest that you spend a lot of time reviewing the responses from the Experts on this site. Here you will find a variety of approaches for every question. You'll also see the steps and thought processes involved in tackling math problems.

Cheers,
Brent