Please Guide me!!

It sounds to me as though you may have had a timing issue. I would recommend that you spend time studying the OG12 (these are the most recent questions) as well as building on your foundations through books such as the 8 manhattan GMAT guides. You need to practice under timed settings, and make sure that you have the ability to answer quant questions in 2 minutes or less, and NEVER spend more than 3 minutes on 1 questions. Also, CR quesitons should take roughly 2 minutes, and SC should take roughly 90 seconds. A RC passage should take you approx 2 min per questions (this INCLUDES reading the passage). If you end up having 5 minutes left in a section and 10 questions to go, you just gave away 100+ points! Trust me, that is not enough time, and even if you got every other question right, you will not get a 700, and maybe not even a 600.

So work on your timing, work on your foundations for quant and verbal, and work on practice tests to make sure your timing is perfect. You should ideally have about 15-18 min left in the last 10 verbal questions, and 20 min left for the last 10 quant questions. Make sure you are on track, and if you are not, make an educated guess on a question or two to put your timing back in-line... You need to give full attention to EVERY question you have the ability to answer.

You've got this, don't let a 360 kill you. Honestly, that low of a score will be totally overlooked as a "Bad Day" if you are able to do significantly better on test day. If you have not taken the GMATprep tests from www.mba.com, I would recommend using these as practice tests since they will be the best estimate of how you will do on test day. Good luck, and come back to let us know how you do.

Relax, study hard, practice under timed conditions, and be honest with yourself... and you'll get through the GMAT journey. Good luck!

Hi GMATLA,

Thanks appreciated.I will follow as you said and keep posted with the updates of my preparation in later half of the month.I am taking my second gmat on feb 11th, i will see to that i do follow your advise and move accordingly.Thanks once again.

Vaishnavi

If I were you, I would reschedule my GMAT appointment and not rush to take my next GMAT.

I would spend time analyzing what went wrong and then work hard on each of these issues for a couple of months.

What was your breakup between quants and verbals?

On verbals, I would suggest you take the e-GMAT course and enroll for it. It's relatively cheap and the instructors would be able to guide you during your verbal preps. It's tailor made for Indians.

Also, go through, re-read the MGMAT SC book cover to cover and internalize the rules.

Go through the Brutal SC, CR documents on GMATClub - and also the verbal notes by whiplash, Gayathri, spidey etc - all are free downloads here.

On quants, I would suggest you go through the GMATClub Free Online Book and the various discussion threads on quant here - please, please review each question you got wrong and understand them.

Once you have studied thoroughly for a month, start taking tests again:

Take the GMATPrep practice tests at least twice.

Other than the MGMAT tests, I would suggest you take the free Kaplan, Veritas, Knewton, PlatinumGMAT free tests as well.

Do let me know if you have questions.

But my advice would be: Please don't rush to take the GMAT again until you have realized and worked on what your problems were the first time around.

Santanu

Hi Santanu 76

Yeah i am not rushing up..i have planned to reschedule my gmat exam as you said..i am on gmat club and started preparing from scratch so that i understand the concept well from base.e-gmat is the one which i have to enroll ..as i already mentioned i have done kaplan ,but knewton and veritas are the once i have to take.Since i met with an accident on the day after i wrote gmat,i have not been able to start my preparation as of jan 11th.i have started on jan 11th, and the university which i am planning to apply for has the last application deadline as march 26.So wen do you think i can re write my exam.

Talking about my tests now, i did gmatclub verbal 6 papers and i got around 85-90 percentile in each tests.I am able to write CR,SC but not RC(not as good compared to CR,SC), may be i don understand how to proceed or answer these questions.

Wat is the best GMAT test date you suggest for me?

Vaishnavi

Since the deadline for the schools you want to apply to is March 26, I think you need to take the GMAT latest by Feb end. On your verbal preps, I am not talking of the GMATClub Verbal tests - I am talking of the Brutal SC, CR documents and SC and CR guides by whiplash, Gayathri and Spidey, that you can download here: download.php

I would advise you to go through the GMATClub SC, CR and RC and PS, DS discussion threads, which are broken down into 700-level questions and 600-level questions. You can find these links here: viewforumtags.php

I would suggest that you go through the 600-level threads first and then attempt the 700-level threads. Also, please go to whiplash's profile and download all the verbal documents you'll find in her signature. In short, taking tests is fine, but more important is building your foundation by understanding the explanations and internalizing them.

Thanks

Santanu

Hi Santanu 76,

Thanks Santanu i will follow wat you suggested for me. I have decided to take my test on feb 27th.I will contact you if i have any doubt.Thanks for suggestions Santanu.Thanks again.

Hi Santanu 76 and GMATLA ,

I have only few days left for my real GMAT test.I planned to take the test on feb 25th, i am done with basic concepts and finished doing 10,11 and 12th edition of OG. I have also done few of gmat club questions.i did with all the suggested books by santanu and GMATLA.

if there are any other suggestion from your sides, i am planning to take one full length tests to see where i stand now.I need your advice please.

Vaishnavi

Just to confirm:

You have gone through the GMATClub Online Maths book, the DS and PS documents by Bunuel, the verbal guides by whiplash, Gayathri as well as the Brutal CR and SC documents by whiplash and the SC discussion thread on this forum - right?

If you have and hopefully, if you are feeling a bit more confident about your concepts, I think it's a good time to take a GMATPrep mock test.

Do let us know how it went.

Also, remember, always, ALWAYS have a tab on time - guess and skip a question if you cannot understand how to solve it in the first minute, max in the first 90 seconds.

Hi santanu 76,

Yeah i have completed ,but i still have fear to face the mock tests.Since my first GMAT went very bad i am not able to regain the confidence that i had earlier (how much ever i practice). Even if i get 2 out of 10 question wrong now, i feel that i wont be able to do my GMAT well...

As you said this Monday (US central time) i will give my first mock and let you know how it went.Thanks Santanu 76.

Vaishnavi

Probably this post won't win me kudos, but I think I need to be a tad blunt here. GMAT is a microcosm of actual MBA life and the difficult professional life post MBA - it tests how well we can manage time and stress and come out with flying colors. I think this timid and scared approach of yours won't help you one bit - you need to dust yourself off, take the GMAT head on and face it. And please, please think logically - missing 2 out of 10 questions cannot lead to a bad score - but having a muddled and confused and scared mind does. I can be a good samaritan and say that everything will be okay. But I think it's better if I don't do that and really ask of you to stop feeling self pity, self doubt and go ahead and take the mock tests fearlessly. If you continue with your current frame of mind, it might impact your next GMAT as well.

Hi santanu 76,

Thanks a lot,you words means a lot to me and i will face GMAT brave this time as you said. of course this earns you a kudos.

one kudos to you

Vaishnavi

I didn't write this post to get a kudo... was simply trying to say that I need to be blunt to get you to be a little bit braver..

Thanks anyways and do let us know how today's mock went...

Hi Santanu 76,

I wrote Gmat(gmat prep) today and score 630(Q 40 and V 36).

When i reviewed the exam for incorrect answers i found out that i was doing well in PS but DS had mistakes,that too while reviewing,i read the question first and understood what the answer must have been.That means i know the answer but while writing i have made mistakes .

For example i came across a question
Each person in a certain group supports only one of two candidates R and T. Of the people in the group, 45 percent support Candidate R and the rest support Candidate T. How many people in the group are in favor of a flat tax ?

(1) Of the people in the group who support Candidate R, 58 percent are in favor of flat tax

(2) Of the people in the group who support Candidate T, 22 are in favor of a flat tax.

while doing test i had written C as my answer,but when i read question slowly again i answered it was E and was the rite choice.

Like this i had made mistake and i was able to complete quants 10 mins ahead of time.

Coming to verbal....

I seriously have to improve a lot

My problem was in Sentence correction and RC i got 4 wrongs ( the toughest once -long passage).

Sentence correction had the highest questions wrong.

Critical Reasoning of all i got 2 wrongs, 1 in weakening and 1 in assumption.

Hi Satanu 76,

I also analyzed what is wrong with me.My concentration was at the peak in the start while doing quants and till i reached 21 question in verbal,but later it started to fall all of a sudden.I was able to finish quants in time but verbal had to rush up towards end(i.e i had 10 question left and 8 min),though most of the answer in the last were correct (around 8), i felt bad for this approach.If i had time from first or concentrated more i would have done even better in verbal

Note : i wrote with Awa though it was not score in the test.

Vaishnavi

That's a clear improvement, good show!

A few points:

- Yes, I agree that time management is crucial - it's easier said than done - you should strive for better time management in verbal

- Which test did you take? Was it the GMATPrep 1? Have you taken GMATPrep before? That might inflate the score a bit.

- Do take the other available free tests as well - Knewton, Kaplan, PlatinumGMAT, MGMAT - dont bother about the score because various companies have various scoring algorithms - concentrate on the strategy and the number of errors you get.

- Would suggest you start taking two mock tests a week from now on - with a spacing of 3-4 days between each.

- You have around 17 days to GMAT, would make sense to take 5-6 mock tests in total and analyze each thoroughly.

Santanu

Hi Santanu 76,

Yes i took GMatprep1 which had completely different questions in the pool, infact i downloaded it again and no such question were repeating.Last time wen i prepared i did take Gmatprep but i didnt solve all the questions from the pool,instead took one test and left...

Yeah sure as you say...

I wrote a paper base test today ..it was OG paper based test,i downloaded and got around 700..but since its paper based never mind ,just not to waste time i did..

Ok as you said will do it..and report .Thanks

Hi,

I am lacking in Reading comprehension a lot.How to do it well and get better score in verbal..
wat are important startegies for Rc..?? Wat is the maximum time by which i must complete a passage...cos when i viewed i take almost 15 mins to complete one Rc passage on a whole,its a bit too long way to go, and cos of this i am not able to finish verbal in time.