Hello experts, I am Nikhil. Right, at this second, I am in a BIG big dilemma, and i am absolutely lost on how to proceed from where i am standing right now.
I am extremely hopeful that experts on this wonderful community will spare some time and guide me, rather rescue me from the fall. I will try to cut the daily soap stories and stick to the core of the issue, so that i don't waste anyone's precious time.
I have been preparing for GMAT for 2 years now. As I wasn't in a hurry to take the exam, so i took this much time to appear on exam, and finally appeared today. But after devoting this much time, I was stunned to see 560 on the screen. I gave a good amount of serious time to GMAT in last 60 days, in which i covered
MGMAT books, all
OG Guides, all Aristotle Guides,
MGMAT CATS, GMAT Preps and what not.
My Average Score stayed around 660, Quant (47) and Verbal (34) for all the above tests. And on the actual GMAT i got 560 : Quant (45) and Verbal (23). Being an Indian, i am a non-native speaker of English, but i know for sure that i am not this terrible at it to get a meager score of 23.So where did i go wrong ? Were the Manhattan tests or the
OG Guides or the GMAT Preps less accurate ? It can't be a coincidence that my average on the practice tests is 34 on Verbal, and on actual it would shrink to 23. And let me share with you that during the Verbal portion i wasn't exhausted or tired to an extent that would have affected my score.
I honestly think none of the available prep companies provide Verbal questions that could match up the actual GMAT questions difficulty level. I found only Knewton and Aristotle to be a good source for quality questions, didn't get chance to go through Knewton in detail earlier, but now will definitely do so.
So where did i fail ? I have a false hope that someone will come up and point out that there is a bug in the GMAT scoring algorithm which is responsible for the recent low scores on GMAT. And it has been happening across multiple test takers. But let's get real, chances of this happening is really low, because people are getting the magical number now and then.
So here am i, who now badly wants a 700 on the screen, even if it means to get the score with bug in place.
It was a miserable moment, when GMAT slapped 560 on my face, how dare it do that. And now my sole objective is to get 700, not a number less. Only then my revenge with GMAT be completed.
So experts, please enlighten me with your wisdom. I am ready to put in everything that 700 demands. Please point me to the right strategies, to right forums, suggest me the best Verbal prep courses and advise me anything if you would like. I have read good reviews about
e-gmat and Veritas, will consider opting one of them.
Since most colleges deadlines begin Mid/Late -September, i have time till August End or Early September to beat this nasty GMAT.
Finally, i am not stumped because i failed to get 700, my true goal for 1st attempt was around 660, i am stumped to get extremely low scores on Verbal.
For quant, i know where i lack, and i know how i have to improve, so not much worried from quant side. I dreamed of writing my debrief today, ending up asking for help. :\
Following are the details that might be helpful to you for evaluating my case:**********************************************************************************************************************
Some information about main areas in Verbal:
1. RC - Accuracy Rate - 30% (i.e. 3 right questions out of 10, under timed) - 40%(i.e. 4 right questions out of 10, in untimed environment)
2. CR - Accuracy Rate - 60% (i.e. 6 right questions out of 10, under timed) - 80%(i.e. 8 right questions out of 10, in untimed environment)
3. SC - Accuracy Rate - 70% (i.e. 7 right questions out of 10, under timed) - 90%(i.e. 9 right questions out of 10, in untimed environment)
A crucial weakness that i know i have is if that i have to read a dense paragraph, i will have to read it 3-4 times on average to grasp its meaning.
And under timing conditions, this weakness affects both RC and CR pretty badly, as it consumes a lot of time. Also Dense Word Problems in Quant.For RC - i have my own strategy, clearly which failed today. I read entire paragraph once, and then jump to question, and then for specific questions, i try to skim the passage to get the answer.
For CR - i start with removing the wrong answer choices first.
For SC - Aristotle Grail, i believe is the best book. Aristotle's tips work well for me.
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Thanks,
Nikhil
P.S: Please let me know, if you need any other information that would prove useful in evaluating my case.
close
16 Jul 2013, 16:39
