It seems that my world is ended. :(

Hey ... i can understand what u must be feeling .... even i had got V-20 in my first attempt GMAT....had 550 overall and 47 in maths.

I tell u don't feel so dejected... take it as a positive appotunity

when i had got this score, i was thinking of taking exam within 1 or 2 months...
but tell u what then i thought if i can not improve my verbal in last 5 months of preparation how will i improve in 1-2 months...

Then i decided i will prepare for next few months untill i get good score.... i read a lot of foreign author book .... solved a lot of questions.. solve OG 10,11,12 (12 - twice)
Cr 1000, Cr bible, ... a lot of RC practice... 1000sc, kaplan premier, kaplan 800

I had only one aim to score 800 in my next attemp and i was preparing accordingly
I took Kaplan tests, Gmat club tests, Peterson's tests, 800gmat tests, MGMAT and GMAT prep tests...
And when i took Gmat i dint score 800 but i did scored 760
I saw my score on the screen and i just started laughing, persone sitting next to me was looking at me and was wondering why this guy laughing
Some people can make it with so much less preparation because they are already good in maths and english.... and people like us need a lot of preparation because we are not already good....but yes we can improve....
It needs only one thing and that is dedication and confidence. I had confidence thats why i spent time behind this... i made it possible...

Now its all upto you ... what u have to do and what u want to achive ...
If u want to score well then there is only one strategy and that is PRACTICE
If u r ready to take such a extensive preparation then go for it ...

Hi SoniaSaini,

I understand your feelings. It is obviously difficult to focus properly on gmat prep while working at the same time. Moreover, the verbal is definitely difficult.

I think your prep material were good enough, what I suggest to help you is the following:
-first: don't get discouraged, if your score is not high enough for your targets, consider retaking it, but keep enough time to work on it, maybe schedule it on the end of your next vacations. Now, you have the experience of taking it once, it is very valuable to arrive on d-day knowing what will happen.
-second: keep an error log for you to track the mistake you ve done. This is a great tool to improve your score.
-third: try to read as much as you can on your way to work, before going to bed, etc... this can help you improve RC skills, as well as halp you improve your english level.
You can also consider watching movies or documentary, which is a fairly fun way to listen to english.

I wish you all the best, and please don't feel disheartened, the most important thing now is to learn from your results, and improve that.
Let us know if you need more help.

Cheers

Thanks a lot vyassaptarashi/drisss.
You both are correct and agree with you.same thing I was thinking that how can I improve my verbal score When I did not improve last 6 months. Yes,I took coaching class for verbal. but as we know what happens in coaching class. Any ways,I'll more concentrate on CR and RC part now.

I've given my kudos both of you.

You're welcome, good luck with your prep
cheers

Hi Soniasaini,

Dont feel so low. Nothing is impossible. But let me give my honest opinion here. Going through your post, one can find a lot of grammatical errors. I am neither a Verbal pro nor a native English speaker. I am just trying to let you know where you can work. Your material is the best one can get for Verbal. May be you need to have a long term plan and include reading good fiction books into that plan. You will find what books to refer to on this site.

Second, quantity doesn't matter in GMAT. I learnt it the hard way. I used to do tons and tons of SC,PS,DS for the sake of doing it. I never used to bother to look into the wrong answers and didn't maintain error log. The result was, I didn't get my target GMAT score in my first attempt. Right now preparing for GMAT 2. Now, even if I do 10 SC in a day, I make sure that I completely break down the SC to the basics, review each of the 5 options and try to know why each option is wrong. So, concentrate on quality of preparation.

People on this site answer the SC questions giving importance to minute aspects. Try to participate in those discussions on the SC forum. I found them very useful. Makes you think as if you are solving an arithmetic problem. That though process is very much imp for non native speakers like us.

Hope my blabbering will be of some use to you.

don't worry about it man. the verbal is a hard portion of the GMAT. if it makes you feel any better, schools are more focused on the quant than on the verbal. but i would still suggest you study and retake it. you can do better most definitely!

I think Sonia might be a lady...

Thank you so much mattapraveen. I've given to you Kudos.
I'm trying to cheer up my mood but no success. Just some stupid thing is running in my mind that If I would have invested that amount I could have saved my tax. any ways. I will not give up now.I'll get my dream score another 2 months.

But When I saw drisss note I got smile .Thanks a lot driss. Yes,I'm female.

hehe: that would be an excelent critical reasoning question :p
Good luck Sonia, just keep us posted if you need further help.
Cheers

Glad my words are of some help to you. Thanks for the kudos.

Hi sonia,
You seem to have the right set of material. However,if your posts are anything to go by, I see major scope for improvement in your Verbal skills. As mattapraveen said, read some of the non-GMAT related books .That's the way to start .Refer to "GMAT Fiction" forum.

I think you should focus on try trying to understand how gmat works. Its not about doing 1 million questions, its about getting to the bottom of the logic and understanding of GMAT. Spend more time working out why your answers are wrong and the other answers are also wrong. Remember, especially with the language sections, its not about the right answer, its actually about killing the wrong answers, and the only one left is right!

Best of luck, and don't give up hope. I went up 130 between gmat writes, so huge improvements are possible when you really figure out GMAT is looking for!

You might want to consider going through e-gmat SC course. It costs $USD39. It goes through the basics of SC through a slide show presentation. Unlike the many books we have, it gives plenty of examples and also good no of questions to solve.

They have couple of slides which you can access for free. Check them out. I found it impressive.

Regards

Hey Sonia,
Don't loose heart, Low GMAT score is not the end of the world, No matter how much you have put your heart into it, and did not get the expected result, its just a road bump on your way to a higher score,
Look at it this way you scored lower 1st time and this gives you the motivation to reach your desired score.
I have heard a teacher say If someone master a concept in 30mins, and it takes you 10 hrs to do the same, it doesn't mean you are dumb or slow, it just means you are HARDWORKING!!
There are a lot of people here who can give you expert advice on study materials etc, I just wanted to boost your confidence, remember that's the first thing you need before any books etc
So cheer up, take a break for a day or two, and start preparing again, All the best!
watch this if you are still feeling down:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1k08yxu5 ... re=related

Thank you very much for helping me a lot.
It's really good to be a part of GMATclub. Gmatclub people are really very awesome and helping.

hey, i am really sorry for you!!! i am sure you were unlucky and you had a bad day!! don t let you down from such a test!!! keep think positiv!! life goes on and i am sure you will have your revenge!!! **** happens some times!!!
wish you all the best!!!

Hey supereco87,I'm trying to get out from that bad day.

I'm making a list of my books,which are mentioned below.Please let me know Do I need to add more?
1.OG's 10,11 and 12 (I've done many times but will do again )
2.SC grill, MGMAT SC.(have done only 1 time)
3.MGMAT CR.(done 1 time)
4.RC-99 .(1 time)
5.1000 SC,CR and RC.(I did only 500 SC and from CR only 5 tests.did not touch RC)

Online tests,
1.Obviously GMAT Prep
Gonna start GMATClub online test.Just wanna ask to you should I buy MGMAT online test? (pretty expensive $66.will they wroth for me?)

Everyday Plan is:
50 SC,30 CR and 4 RC
50 PS and 50 DS

On Weekend,
1 online test and will check my errors

Please evaluate.
Look forward to hear from you soon!!
Thank you very much in advance.
Sonia

don't forget to read a lot!!! That is very important to improve the verbal skills, really. You can't learn to run before walking properly. You have to take this step by step.
good luck

It surely hasn't! Let me share you my story.

First... please take a look at my scores:
GMAT 1 (2006): 540
GMAT 2 (2007): 460
GMAT 3 (2007): 430
GMAT 4 (2009): 570
GMAT 5 (2009): 690

For the first GMAT I enrolled myseñf in the Princeton Review. I dedicated lets say around 3 hours a week. But did not took the exam seriously as I did not used any practice test.. I trusted my common sense (a major fault in this exam) I ended up blowing my score but I did not learned my lesson.

For the GMAT 2 and 3 I was sure that something had happened with me and that probably I made some careless mistakes that surely could have brought my score down. I took again the test and received a big dissappointment as you can see and just took one practice test two days before the GMAT and did not even finished it.

For the GMAT 4 I had learned my lessson... This exam could get tough if you don´t practice a lot so I needed to fully dedicate myself to practice! I sacrificed a lot of my social life... I committed to study 5 hours on weekdays and around 15 hours on the weekends for 6 months. but something went wrong... I only brought my score up to 570. Again, I did not use any practice test!

With this score I decided to apply to BSchools in 2009 - I was so exhausted with the GMAT - that I convinced myself that I could create a killer application and that my global working experience will offset this low grade. I hired an admissions consultant to help me with the process and to give me tips on what to do to "break" the system and get accepted... Unfortunately this very expensive and did not worked the way I wanted it to work... I got dinged from Kellogg, Ross, Tuck, Berkeley and waitlisted at Mendoza just to eventually got dinged.

Early in 2010 I simply didn't know what to do !!! I did not wanted to practice for the GMAT again! The past years were a nightmare and there was no way out! I lost my girfriend because I did not pay much attention to our relationship and at work things started to get complicated as well... I started to lose myself in the process of sending (more like "begging") adcoms my profile just to hear something good from them... I wanted any school to tell me "Your profile looks great! be sure to apply"... Believe me I sent an email to all the top 50 schools in the world!

I then decided to look for a school that did not demanded a GMAT as a requirement to grant an admission... I ended up excited by the fact that Madrid's IE program has its own admissions test! To tell you the truth I nailed the test and was later admitted to the MBA program.

I was ok with my IE admission but something about it was not right (althouth its a great school!)... My goal had been always to study at the US or the UK and I had drifted away from my goal because of this monster (the gmat)...

I started then to deeply think that I did not wanted to live my life thinking "what if I had taken the test a fifth time?"... So after taking my time to make this relevant decision.... I then enrolled in the Manhattan GMAT boot camp at NYC in the summer of 2010. This would be very expensive (I am from Latin America), but I kept thinking "WHAT IF" this works?

I simply can tell you that this decission was the best I've ever made in my life! They break up the GMAT not into two main topics... they go way much deeper in their study guides! and apparently the way they break up the test works for my mind structure because on August 2010 I increasen my latest score 110 points! just in time for the early rounds at Duke and Tuck!

I now think back and understand my faults which I would like to share with you:
1- Take this test seriously (I know you have)
2- Dedicate time to practice
3- Don't just start going through the problems... you will end up making the same mistakes again and again! What is needed is to fully understand the concepts! (for me, the MGMAT boot camp was my saviour)

Please do not give up! I am one of those scary stories with a happy ending! don't become one! Its too stressfull! I saw your post and wanted to share my experience with you. You can do it! You have to think what strategy could work with you as you are the person that knows you the most...

Let us know how the next test goes!

Good luck