I just took my GMAT today and I feel the need to write about it. While I am no math genius (although I strive to be one!), my test scores were consistently at least 42Q (and I expected more) and due to some silly mistakes, not in my math but my organisation, I messed up my quant exam.
I can’t believe how many silly things occurred during my quant section. First of all, I started with 73 minutes instead of 75 as I entered two minutes late (those break minutes seriously fly, and remember to take into account the time it takes to get checked in!).
However those 2 lost minutes do not compare to my second, fatal, error: I messed up in my exam pad organisation completely. I have a system where I label each page (64/56/48/40/32/24/16/8/0) and do 5 questions on the first page and 4 on each of the rest. Every page I then fill up each quadrant so that I know my time position EXACTLY. However I believe I messed up a multiple of 8 which led to having a blank page in the back. Imagine my panic, being so concerned about perfect timing, when I realised my system suddenly made no sense.
When I realised this I lost my calm and spent a lot of time trying to figure out what was wrong. As I am extremely minute with my timing I was completely disoriented and was doing problems in 30 seconds (After all my practice exams, developing my 1 minute sense, doing hundreds of practice problems, etc!!). Somehow when I looked up the clock I had 30 minutes left and was at Question 31/37! This is in contrast of my practice exams where I always stuck within 2 minutes of my ‘net time’. I took a deep breath and did the 8 questions very slowly, finishing with 8 minutes left, but the damage was done. I was sad to see a 38Q as the last question would definitely have been a “hard” one (it was really cool and combined three of my favourite topics, exponents, factorials and divisibility(prime factors)), but maybe it was an experimental question or something.
That said, I am very happy with my verbal score, especially having English as a second language, and I suppose I should be proud of my progress as I started from 580 (37QV32) - and have had a gradual increase over the past three months. I have my next exam booked in 3 weeks, and I’ll use this opportunity to try to improve my quant, and make sure I know my freaking multiples of 8!! I will make sure I reap the rewards of all the insane studying I have done with a proper, well-deserved quant score next time!
Thanks for reading, I had to vent this out of my system. Any advice or comment is appreciated!
Edit
Not 100% if this will be read but I need to share some crazy data:
https://i.imgur.com/H7tLtKQ.pngI scored a 48 on Data sufficiency and 32 on problem solving... I think this is greatly due to my messing up but I guess it really shows what I could score!
My Verbal score is also interesting, I had no idea my RC was so relatively weak:
https://i.imgur.com/rCGE7L8.pngAlso a couple of test-day things I wish I had known (In the London test center at least):
-I wasn't allowed to take water into the exam.
-I was allowed to gobble down my pasta-chicken-cheese bake during the break.
-The time started as soon as I entered, so you can't go earlier to fill up your pad, but you have a minute of instructions for both the verbal and quant section. You can also ask for a new pad if you finish earlier and fill it up for the next section. I may do that during -The last 2 min's of IR for quant next time although I think I can get the process down to a minute with some practice.
-They provide ear plugs, which when coupled with the headphones provide awesome noise cancelling. Make sure to thin them out with your fingers and then squish them so they shape up in your ears.
-You have to keep track of your own time, so make sure to take a mental note and come back a minute or two earlier so that no seconds are lost (I lost 30 seconds of my verbal because of the time it took to talk to the security and read my palm).
-While obvious for most, you use a mouse in the exam. I used a trackpad during all my practice test so it was slightly different, but not a problem at all.