MGMAT Tutors can you plz help me?

[rahultmac29]

Hi,
I gave my GMAT today in the afternoon (07th Sep) in Pune, India and received an unflattering score of 640(Q-48 V-30).

More than few things went awry on exam day. I am not sure if this has happened to anyone before but while on my Verbal section the screen froze for a few mins. The test center in-charge said that nothing would happen and the test would resume as it was before the screen had frozen. To my surprise, when the screen worked again, I was 4 mins down on time and obviously the same question was still on screen. I am shocked and clueless as to what went wrong. I was already down on time by about 4 mins before the screen had frozen. Now suddenly i was almost 8 mins down on time and from there on the Verbal section was all downhill. I didn't want to create a scene at that moment, so I just informed the in-charge and continued on. In a hurry to complete the section and not miss out on questions I got too many questions wrong. And hence the 640.
I have will be registering a request with GMAT service cell about this. But I think it will take a lot of time and time is something that I don't have.
http://www.beatthegmat.com/merit-trac-p ... 47939.html
This link seems to a discussion about issues similar to the one I faced. But I don't know it will work out my favor eventually.

In my run-up to the prep, I followed MGMAT guides for SC, RC and CR.
I had purchased the MGMAT Reading comprehension guide and had given all the MGMAT tests under proper test condition including following the break timings perfectly. I had read almost every post on various rules of SC's by Ron and Stacey and other instructors here on the forum.

My scores in various tests are as follows:
GMAT Prep1: This was before any preparations. 690(Q-49 V-36).
I started my preps after this and then decided to take up the Manhattan tests. I gave the free test from Manhattan first.

MGMAT Free Test: 740 (Q-47 V-45) 01st August
MGMAT2: 680(Q-45 V-37) 23rd August
MGMAT3: 670(Q-43 V-38) 01st Sep
MGMAT4: 710(Q-46 V-41) 04th Sep
GMATPrep 1 (2 time): 710 (Q-48 V-40) 03rd Sep
MGMAT5: 610(Q-40 V-34) 05th Sep
GMATPrep 2: 650 (Q-48 V-31) 06th Sep

I don't know what went wrong on my part. I am sure I did my concepts well and was expecting to score at least 700 because I had been doing well on MGMAT tests and that made me sure that my latest GMATPrep2 performance was an aberration.

I am planning to take GMAT again after the one month stipulation of GMAT runs out. I cannot afford to mess it up this time.

My questions are:

1. Do things like this (freezing of the screen) happen? What should I do now?

2. I don't want to dwell the issues with the test center too much. My next shot at GMAT will be my final one. And this time I want aim for 760+ and not aim for 720.
Can u please help me plan my journey to 760?

3. I want to make Verbal my strength, how should I go about this? My quants is not bad. I have MGMAT SC and RC guides.

4. As you might have seen from my MGMAT scores there is a lot of fluctuation in the scoring patterns. I was scoring way more on MGMAT tests than GMATPrep. How do I go about improving my consistency?

5. I have given almost all the MGMAT tests. How do I now take tests? Resetting will present the same questions again.

Well after this score I don't know what my strengths are. Though before this I used to believe that I was decent at both sections. Not brilliant in either but decent at both. I am really looking forward to your replies. Ron, Stacey, anyone actually, who can guide me to do better. I know my level is not 640. I want to put this whole thing behind me and just need some guidance regarding my re-preparation.

Hoping for a reply soon. I really need your help guys!!!
Rahul
P.S: Sorry that the post is so long!!!

[StaceyKoprince]

I'm sorry it's taken us a while to get back to you! We've been a bit swamped lately.

I have heard people report problems before with the screen freezing, and occasionally someone reports that the time kept running (though it's not supposed to). Yes, you should absolutely file a complaint with everyone you can think of (the testing center, GMAC). If they can confirm the problem, they should offer a free re-take at the least.

For others reading this: think in advance how you want to handle the situation if something like this happens to you. At some point, you would decline to continue with the test - eg, it finally starts working again and, instead of having the expected 60 minutes left, you have 5 minutes left, or something ridiculous like that. What is the cut-off point for you? Decide ahead of time so that you don't feel pressured to keep going if you really shouldn't.

Another thing that's concerning me is that you took a bunch of practice tests leading up to the real test. MGMAT's official position is no practice tests within 3 days of the real test, and I'm even more strict: I tell my students no practice test within 5 days of the real test.

You run a very real risk of tiring yourself out, and it looks like that's exactly what you did. Your last two practice tests showed a big drop. That plus the quant timing problems... well, fatigue and stress don't help you to peak on test day.

It's really important to try to figure out why your score dropped on your last 2 practice tests because that might help you figure out part of what went wrong on the real test. This is going to take some work, but you need to figure it out so that you can prevent it from happening again. As far as the screen freezing, you'll have to hope it doesn't happen again, but do know what you're going to do if it does and you lose time again. How much is not a big deal, and how much is too much? (That way, at least, if you do lose 2 minutes, you'll have already told yourself it's not a big deal to lose a couple of minutes, and so it won't stress you out quite as much.)

Okay, re: figuring out what happened on that last practice test, do the analysis described in this article. Unfortunately, GMATPrep doesn't give you data, but you can analyze on your MGMAT test, and you can also try to do what you can with the GMATprep test. If you'd like, come back here and share your analysis with us and we'll tell you whether we agree. :)

http://www.beatthegmat.com/a/2009/09/23 ... tice-tests

(In future, time yourself on every question when you take GMATPrep tests. Use an online timer or one with "lap" timing capability so that you don't have to stop to write down the time after every single question.)

Re: making verbal more of a strength, we need more data from you as to your strengths and weaknesses. So, do tell us what you discover when you do the above analysis. That will help us to recommend appropriate things for you.

Most of your test scores were well within normal standard deviations (30 points on the real test, 50 points on our test).

You dropped on the last two tests

You can still take both GMATPrep and MGMAT CATs with repeats as long as you follow a few guidelines to minimize the chance of artificially inflating your score via question repeats. First, anytime you see a problem that you remember (and this means: I know the answer or I'm pretty sure I remember the answer, not just "hmm, this looks vaguely familiar..."), immediately look at the timer and make yourself sit there for the full length of time for that question type. This way, you don't artificially give yourself more time than you should have. Second, think about whether you got this problem right the last time. If you did, get it right again this time. If you didn't, get it wrong again. If you *completely honestly* think that you would get it right this time around if it were a new question (even though you got it wrong last time) because you've studied that area and improved, then get it right this time.