From 610 to 700 - I am happy and want to thank the forum

[mikart0708]

All -

I understand there are a lot of people here who aim for more than 750. This message is not for them. My aim was not that high - my target was between 650 to 700 to get closer to 700. The first time I gave GMAT I got a 610 and I was pretty disappointed. By then I gave a lot of practice tests including some from Kaplan, Crack GMAT and 800 score. In those tests I scored close to 650 - 670 and I thought I was close to my target. 3 days before giving the actual GMAT I used the actual prep software and gave the GMAT Prep tests and very disappointingly got a 620 and a 600 and as the prep tests proved I got a 610 (Q47 / V28).

Then in frustration I went to Google and searched on to get some advice as to how I can really improve on my verbal - I knew if I get close to 33 / 34 - I can get closer to 700. I found this forum in my search and read the success stories and was really inspired and motivated by those stories. So I immediately ordered everything from Manhattan GMAT - all the 8 books, their tests. I also ordered the Verbal Review, Quantitative Review. First I went thru the Sentence correction and started preparing flash cards - 3 to 4 flash cards for each of the chapter. It took a week for me to learn all of the details in the Sentence correction. Then I started practicing the OG - 11 Sentence correction - started doing 30 to 40 questions per day. I completed them - I got 72 % correct out of the 130 or 140 that were there. Incrementally I started learning new topics each week - critical reasoning, reading comprehension. Also I did the quant in parallel. I came to a stage, as some one suggested in this forum, where I was practicing some SC, RC and CR. By the time I did Verbal Review I got 82 % SC correct, 75 % CR correct. After completing all of the Manhattan GMAT CATs I wasn't satisfied. Then I went to the MBA.COM and purchased their paper tests - which comprises of approximately 55 verbal questions and 50 quant questions per test. There were 9 of them. I did 7 Quant and 9 Verbal. Between Kaplan, Crack GMAT, 800 Score, Manhattan GMAT and GMAC official site I must have done over 3500 - 4000 practice questions. The best were from GMAC web site - obviously closest to the GMAT exam and next best were Manhattan GMAT. I would recommed those two would be sufficient.

I would like to thank this forum as well as Manhattan GMAT for the useful advice and I am really happy to hit just 700 (Q 50 / V 34) (the top of my expectation).

Thanks,
Krishna

[bekkilyn]

Fantastic! Such good news!!!

[omilad]

hey...need some help from you......gave GMAT today...and got a meagre 600 thinkin of a retake...had a doubt regarding which score will be considered.The higher one or the average of both.....

[bleacherseat]

Officially they will consider your highest score. But all your scores will be sent. It depends on university/school , how they look at multiple attempts .
Sometimes it may hurt you , sometime it may not. But getting a good score is important too.

[logitech]

Do paper tests have explanations ?

[steinbock]

Congrats, Krishna! It really inspires me to read from people who have improved their scores. I need to improve too - but in quant, verbal is kind of ok.

Good luck with your applications!

[mikart0708]

Logitech - The paper tests do not have explanations.... that is defn a disadvantage - but if you fo the OG and quant and verbal reviews the paper tests have a few questions from them but there will be others as well for practice....