GMAT Test Preformance

[raghudeep.b]

Hello MGMAT Staff,

I have recently taken GMAT (06/26/2010) and have scored 640 (Q49, V28). I started preparing for GMAT about 3 months back and started with OG Review and Manhattan GMAT books for SC and CR. I took my GMATPrep tests about 1.5 months ago and scored 700 (Q50, V35) and 710 (Q51, V35) in the two tests, respectively. However, I do not consider them my full performance.

I took the Manhattan GMAT 6 tests at a frequency of 1-2 per week and scored on them as shown below:
MGMAT 1: 650 (Q47, V32)
MGMAT 2: 680 (Q48, V34)
MGMAT 3: 680 (Q46, V37)
MGMAT 4: 700 (Q49, V36)
MGMAT 5: 710 (Q48, V38)
MGMAT 6: 740 (Q50, V41)

I was extremely comfortable with both quant and verbal sections in the last 2 MGMAT tests.

I practiced MGMAT books, OG books very sincerely in these 3 months and also did a majority of questions on the 1000 SCs and CRs question banks. I used to solve them with very high confidence and accuracy.

I retook GMATPrep tests a week before exams and scored very high in these tests too. I solved the repeated questions as though they were new, allotting the 1.5 minutes time for SC, 2 min for CR and RC each.
GMATPrep 1: 770 (Q51, V42; 16 questions repeat in Verbal)
GMATPrep 2: 740 (Q51, V39; 10 questions repeat in Verbal)

In the two repeats of GMATPrep, I saw very non-standard SC questions, for instance, sentences which were grammatically correct but wordy or not the best. I used the principles that I studied from MGMAT SC book and could solve about 13-14/17 correctly (at the max 1-2 questions repeated).

Before taking the Real GMAT I was extremely confident that I would atleast get 700 in the worst case. However, I was shocked to see my score. I am not that upset about my Quant even though I could have scored 50 (there is not much difference), but clearly 28 is not what represents my verbal capacity. I believe to have solved the SCs decently. I felt that I got pretty tough questions in the CR section from the beginning to almost the end (however, I did not get boldface questions). The CRs that I got were very bulky. I might have got about 3-4 Evaluate the Conclusion questions, and 2-3 assumption questions, strengthen the conclusion, and find the conclusion type questions. I only got 1 weaken the conclusion question. I got pretty normal RCs (2 short and 2 long) and have solved them decently.

Realizing that I can score much much better than now, I scheduled again for GMAT 1 month from now. The iron is hot now and I want to retake the GMAT before it gets cold. Can any of the MGMAT staff kindly suggest me as to what I should plan on doing in the coming weeks to improve my score.

Thanks in advance.
Raghu

[tim]

When will people learn that taking practice tests is NOT the way to get better on the GMAT!

It's okay to take a practice test once every few weeks to make sure you can finish each section with good time management, and to see where your strengths and weaknesses. Beyond that, taking additional practice tests not only wastes practice tests you will need later to evaluate your strengths and weaknesses, but it also wastes time you could be spending actually reviewing OG problems and solutions and improving on the GMAT!

At this point, it is clear you need some work on verbal. It sounds like you know how to do the problems you've studied but that you are having trouble applying this learning to new problems. In general, i find that one of the best approaches to CR and RC is to take the questions you answer and review them deeply: you need to take a close look at all the answer choices and understand not only why the correct answer is correct but why all the wrong choices are wrong. Try to identify why the GMAT included each wrong choice and what trap they tried to lay for you. Once you figure this out you will be much better prepared to avoid those traps in the future, and you will expand your understanding to include more than just the correct answer to a very specific practice question that you are guaranteed not to see on the GMAT..

Beyond that, your best bet will be to do the following things:

Look around on the forums for information on how to improve verbal generally. You can get a lot of good information here but you will have to work for it..

If you took one of our classes, sign up for a post-exam assessment. This will give you an opportunity to talk one-on-one with an instructor who can help give you specific directions on how to regroup and attack the GMAT a second time..