Dear All,
I took the test yesterday and scored poorly : 650 (49Q-31V)
Quant was rather easy except a couple of weird questions of number properties and 2 prob questions. I guess I probably screwed one of them (11th I guess) and did one or two mistakes on top of that. My first proba questions was the 5th one, the last one was the 34th one.
It is below my objective but correct, finished the test with 13 minutes left and did it at a real slow pace.
Verbal was a nightmare. It began with 3 rather easy SC + 1 CR. Then a first set of 4 RC questions + another set of 4. It blasted my timing and I never succeded in fixing this problem. For the last 20 questions I had only 30 minutes left...
CR was ok, similar to
OG except 2 BF questions.
RC was horrible except one interesting article, theoretical physics oriented, which was probably not scored.
SC was really disappointing : I tried to detect usual tricks and less usual ones I learnt here but without success. Majority of questions was totally underlined with nothing except wordiness... I always chose the one which sounded good, with a 31 I probably have ear troubles...
I can not provide anybody with verbal prep advices.
On the maths side you have to deal with 2 ennemies : first is timing, second is complex questions.
To avoid the first one I did a really simple stuff : since i started my math prep (except readings in kaplan's books), I always write all questions stems and afterwards my answer PS / way to answer DS on paper, trying to do all of that in a decent timing. Writing the stem enables a better understanding, writing your answer is a perfect
error log and if you keep a 2mn / question average you will be comfortable on D day. I sometimes finished with 30 minutes left with a good score and I guess it is due to this prep.
Regarding complex questions this forum is a huge help. I particularly focused my last days on reading probs questions from this forum & reviewing my gmatclub challenges error logs.
PR hard math questions are also good but answers are sometimes wrong...
I started my prep 3 months ago with 1.5 month relax and the remaining 1.5 more intense.
Material : Kaplan home study book and lessons book, Kaplan verbal workbook,
OG, ETS paper tests, PR.
Previous results were in a 640-740 range depending on the mood, with a 685 average. I did not take the powerprep tests after reviewing the
OG as it is not relevant.
I can not dedicate this poor score to anybody but I would like to thank all of you guys for your help, time, tricks, and obviously the founders of this site which is more useful than any material.
I will have the toefl test next week, and then I will decide my app strategy and whether to retake the test and when.
Take care.
Frederic