Word of Warning! 680 (Q49, V34, IR8, AWA6)

[loseyourself]

I want to address a mistake I made right before I wrote my exam, hopefully it helps at least 1 person avoid something similar.

I was using Kaplan and OG for practice tests. My last two practices before the exam had the following breakdowns:

Kaplan - 710 (Q50, V40)
OG - 710 (Q48, V39)

I aimed to get Q50 and V42 on the actual exam, so I diagnosed my weak areas on these practice tests and from others I had taken before and addressed them head on. Weak areas were SC, Geometry and Number properties. So I got Manhattan guides specific to these areas. They were great for Geometry and Number properties, I learned methods for solving problems that were giving me trouble that I was able to apply immediately. As for SC, I had ~4 days before the exam when I really started to crack down with Manhattan SC guide and SC Grail. I didn't have time to get into the real nitty gritty and learn all of the special cases for SC, but I got a good method going for picking out major problems and using them as decision points. I would say that I got marginally better at SC between my last practice exam and the real GMAT.

Herein lies the problem - I got marginally better at SC, but I was also taking a lot longer to solve SC problems. Before I started studying SC, I would basically say to myself 'it's an SC question, let me give it a best guess effort and move along,' but after studying I thought, hey, I'm better at this now, let's really nail down an answer. The extra time that I used to get marginally better results in SC on the exam was time that I sacrificed answering my bread and butter questions, CR and RC. Hence, my verbal score shot down from 39 and 40 on practice to 34 on the real GMAT.

Maybe I am overanalysing the problem, but I strongly feel that this strategy change hurt me. I think I would have realized the problem if I had taken another practice exam right before the test - or maybe even if I had not studied SC at all! I think I would have realized my timing dilemma and not fallen into this trap, but I figured I wouldn't do another practice because I wanted to carry the confidence of my last practice results into the real exam, and that it really would not help me improve at that point.

So, take this as you will, but I hope that I can help people to be cognizant of such a situation and hopefully avoid my mistake.

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Hi loseyourself,

First off, a 680/Q49 is a strong combo - with those numbers, you can comfortably apply to any US Business School.

After reading your debrief, there's one specific issue that I think needs pointing out: you didn't put in enough time into your SC practice. SCs usually represent the largest portion of questions in the Verbal section; waiting until the last few days of your studies to focus on this big point category was a mistake.

Big picture study plans have to include review periods. Essentially, it's time that you would set aside to go back and review earlier work, review formulas, concepts, patterns, etc. that you haven't looked at in a while and even redo past questions to try out new tactics that you've recently learned. Your plan didn't really allow for that. This is not to say that your plan was a bad one - you scored just shy of the 90th percentile, so your approach led to a great result. The real advice is to make sure that you invest enough time to learn the necessary concepts, practice them repeatedly AND review throughout the course of your studies.

To put your mind a bit at ease, taking another CAT right before Test Day would not have made a difference. It would have been far more likely to burn you out than provide any benefit.

What schools are you planning to apply to? And when?

GMAT assassins aren't born, they're made,
Rich

[loseyourself]

Hi Rich,

Thanks for the reply. Completely agree on inadquate study time for SC.

However, knowing this, my contentions are still the following:

-My change in strategy which was spending more time on SC questions for marginally better accuracy at the price of less time on CR and RC may have been the reason for such a large change in verbal score between practice and exam. I don't think I was off my game that day, as the first three sections could not have gone much better.
-Taking a CAT right before exam day may have identified the problem that my new strategy created - improper time management for verbal, and I potentially could have made an adjustment before the exam.

I am happy with my score, and the school that I have already applied to (non-US) will doubtless tick that box on my application. But I enjoy doing well on these kinds of things and, while I was able to tick the box for score necessary for my application, I was not able to tick the box for my personal goal.