Long GMAT Debrief: 780 (49Q, 51V, I8)
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Updated on: 15 Aug 2014, 12:14
In May of 2014, I decided to accept the challenge. Less than a year removed from getting my B.Sc. in Business from The Johns Hopkins University, I decided to embark on the daunting task of getting into a top business school with under 2 years of work experience. August 2015 entry, here I come.
I had done well in school (3.93 GPA, honors), but I knew that my college performance would not be enough to offset my lack of post-college work experience (1 year internship at Morgan Stanley Wealth Management + 1 year of full-time job TBD). A great performance on the GMAT would be crucial.
I had originally planned to submit my applications for my top three and only choices (Harvard, Columbia, Wharton) in Round 1 (I have since decided to wait until Round 2 to improve my resume), and so I knew I needed to take the test by August. Three months of preparation seemed the norm, and I had always been very good at standardized tests, so the time limit did not daunt me.
I started by signing up for the Kaplan GMAT On Demand program. I had tried to read through the Princeton Review Prep book on a whim about a year prior, but found it really difficult to absorb the information via reading. I have had great experience with video studying (Khan Academy), and Kaplan provided a flexible schedule to learn the material. It seemed the perfect choice.
The Kaplan program breaks down the studying in 13 weeks. I moved at a slightly faster pace to accommodate a slightly condensed timeline (May 21-August 11). The program lays out a very clear course syllabus. Each week, for the most part, I watched a lesson on a GMAT Topic, did a bunch of practice questions, reviewed the written session summary, and took a practice CAT. I was very consistent in maintaining that schedule. Every week, I would plug into my calendar all the tasks I needed to complete by week's end. I am a major procrastinator in general, so I actually impressed myself by rarely letting any item run overdue by more than a few days.
I found the lesson videos very enlightening. I expected to approach the exam like any other standardized test, but came to appreciate the Kaplan method for approaching various questions. The quantitative section required an especially different approach from a regular math test, as they constantly reminded me, but I found it hard to forget years of test taking habits, and never really perfected the approach. I did improve, however, and that helped me feel more comfortable as I went along.
As far as the content was concerned: By the end of the program I felt a lot more comfortable with the math concepts. I hardly remembered geometry or statistics, but by the end of the program I felt like I could answer any questions they threw at me. I still got tripped up by little mistakes and question stem tricks, but my confidence was way up. For verbal, I never really felt comfortable. If anything, the lessons and quizzes forced me to be super critical in my analyses of arguments and reading passages. They did hammer home the importance of what the questions are asking, and knowing what the test-makers are looking for, but there was no new subject material to learn, per se.
As I went along, I took 11 practice CATs. I will give you the results here:
5/21 CAT 1 720 (Q50, V44, I7) *Diagnostic
6/06 CAT 2 730 (Q49, V45, I7)
6/13 CAT 3 740 (Q50, V45, I7)
6/20 CAT 4 760 (Q51, V42, I8)
6/29 CAT 5 760 (Q51, V45, I8)
7/06 CAT 7 740 (Q50, V44, I8)
7/24 CAT 6 750 (Q50, V44, I8) *At Test Center
8/04 CAT 8 760 (Q51, V45, I6)
8/07 CAT 9 750 (Q50, V45, I8)
So, I saw pretty solid improvement from the start of my studying, up to a point. I ranged between Q50-Q51 for my final 7 CATs, and I ranged between a V44-V45 for my final 5 CATs.
I also took two GMATPrep CATs:
7/20 CAT 1 780 (Q50, V48, I8)
8/08 CAT 2 780 (Q50, V47, I8)
After taking the test, I noticed that the Quant section was slightly harder than the Kaplan tests, but also more strictly scored (I got 33/37 correct on the GMATPrep CAT 2 and only got Q50, despite getting Q51 with far worse accuracy on Kaplan's CATs). I also found the verbal section to be much much much easier. On the Kaplan tests, the difficult questions forced me to make judgement calls about what seemed like two correct answers, to decide what is more correct. I never faced that on the GMATPrep test. They were always clear cut, and while I made exactly two errors on each, I felt like they could be overcome, if I focused really hard on test day.
I stressed a lot about what exams are more representative of the real test, but I came out with a pretty clear expectation:
I would get 50-51 on the Quant, and 45-51 on the Verbal. I was super-confident about the Quant going in because I always considered myself a math guy, and I had been very consistent in practice. I still studied a ton of quant questions, going as far to take a quiz of 99 questions the day before the test to make sure I was sharp.
I was hoping the Verbal would be clear cut. If it was like the GMATPrep questions, I felt confident of making no more than 2 mistakes, for a 47-48, with a hope of nailing all 41 questions for a perfect score.
So basically, I knew I would do well in Quant, and I dreamed of having the perfect Verbal storm and hitting the 800. If you asked me for my target score, it would have been 770 - Q50, V47.
Test Day
I woke up at 7:00am for a 11:30am test date. I had a pretty bad sleep, to be honest. I went to bed at 6pm, hoping to wake up very well rested. Unfortunately, I woke up at 8pm, and could not fall back asleep until closer to midnight. However, the rest was adequate because I had slept well the night before. I made a small breakfast, scrambled eggs and some fruit, but I usually skip breakfast so it was a conscious effort to build energy. Then I showered, changed, and hung around my house for a but, tried to pass the time until I had to leave by reading a book. I wanted to make sure I was 100% awake for the test, so I also took a walk outside in the summer sun, and tried to get my notoriously slow-starting body to awaken.
I drove to the test center, about 45 minute commute, and arrived around 11am, 30 minutes early. I had a little snack and half a water bottle in the car, so I was feeling comfortable. Not hungry but not overstuffed. I knew what to expect from taking a practice test in that facility before, so that was a weight off my mind. I highly encourage everyone to take a practice test at the exact testing location, it was a huge help. I even knew the proctor from my prior visit. I signed in, got my seat at the test booth, and started the test.
It looked exactly how I expected. For some reason, right when I started the test, I felt my left index finger start to swell. It seemed like an allergic reaction, and I immediately thought about the palm scanner, and if I had gotten pricked or something. This distracted me for a few seconds, until I decided I would just have to play through it, and hope it did not explode all over the computer.
I read the AWA prompt, wrote down the conclusion, evidence, and assumptions on my noteboard, and started to type. For some reason I did not have a great writing flow at the start, so after writing paragraph 1, I glanced at the clock and saw 20:00. Time to move. I breezed through the next 5 paragraphs, and finished with 5:00 remaining. I knew it wasn't written as well as I would have liked, so I did some editing, re-writing some poorly constructed sentences as quickly as I could. I got everything done, but did not have time to click the NEXT button before time ran out. Whew.
Next section, IR. I was feeling a bit flustered from the close-call on editing the AWA but forced myself to re-focus. The IR questions seemed relatively easy compared to the practice tests, especially the two-part analysis questions which traditionally gave me the most trouble. I finished the section, and I knew I had an 8.
I decided to take a break. I never took breaks in my practice exams, and I wonder if it was a mistake to change my routine, but I still felt tense and rushed, so I decided for it. I went outside for about 4 minutes, grabbed a water, got bored of pacing around the waiting areas, and decided to just get on with it.
I started the first few quant questions very slowly and methodically, knowing a mistake at the start would be difficult to recover from. But eventually I got into a flow. Until around question 12. It was a geometry question, and I couldn't even fathom how to find the answer. This really flustered me because I felt like I should know how to do any question, and it was only the execution that mattered. I ended up guessing after wasted a good deal of time. The rest of the section felt like a blur. I remember being frustrated quite a few times, thinking that the questions were far too easy at this point in the test, and I must have made a good deal of mistakes. This made me feel even more rushed, and without realizing it, I was not focusing enough on the questions. I was trying to move quickly, for some reason, and when I finished and saw 15 minutes on the clock, I knew I had screwed up. I usually finished with under 10 minutes in the practice tests, and I knew I did not finish early because I did exceptionally.
OK, I thought, the 800 is out of the question. I may have screwed up the quant section pretty badly. But now I have to salvage this with my verbal section. I did not take a break, because I did not want to stew on my past performance. I started the first question, read the prompt, predicted the answer, eliminated every other choice, and suddenly I was in the zone. On a couple of questions I had to pause and really think about it, but the correct answer always came to me. I finished the section with 5 minutes left. I traditionally finished practice with 10 minutes left, so I knew I had nailed my strategy of slowing down a bit to avoid careless mistakes. I felt like I may have gotten them all right, but expected 1 or 2 mistakes nonetheless.
I skimmed through the post-exam questions, and then my score appeared:
Integrated Reasoning : 8 - 92nd percentile
Quantitative : 49 - 79th percentile
Verbal : 51 - 99th percentile
Total : 780 - 99th percentile
I wasn't expecting the score to pop up when it did, so it all kind of hit me at once. I was immediately thrilled with a 780. I also noticed a perfect score on Verbal, which made me feel like I really hit my goal of getting all 41 correct. And I saw a 49 on quant, but was surprised to see 79th percentile. I had expected a 49 to be closer to 90. It seemed like an ugly mark on an otherwise great score.
I left the test center feeling like I should be happy. 780 was above my target score, and V51 was like pitching a perfect game. Celebration-worthy.
But 79th percentile on quant. I knew I could have done better, should have done better. But most importantly, I felt like it killed my chances of going to my top-3 (and only) MBA Target Programs in 2015. These programs would want someone in the top 10 percent in both areas, and I was not even in the top 20 percent in quant.
I would have preferred to lose a few points on Verbal and get a Q50 so both scores could be above the 90th percentile. Even if it meant dropping to a 770 or 760 or even 750. I just felt like an admissions officer would take a 760 Q50-V46 before a 780 Q49-V51. Especially because of the percentile rank.
So, major mixed feelings for me. I am proud of the overall score, but I feel like I missed my chance to get into my programs. I am considering waiting for a couple more years to get more work experience before applying to MBA programs. I am even considering a re-take. Not to improve on 780, but to get rid of that 79th percentile that makes the entire report seem ugly to me.
I know, I have high expectations on myself, maybe even impossible expectations. But my goal was not a number, it was a feeling. I wanted to feel confident about my application, and I feel like this GMAT hurt me more than it helped me.
If anyone has any advice for me on how to approach the next few months, in terms of applications and re-takes, I would be glad to hear it.
Of course, I am sure I left out tons of information about my experience, so if you have any questions, I encourage you to ask away and I will do my best to answer.
EDIT: After having some time to digest the score, I realized that I was unfairly harsh on myself for the Quant score, and that despite the skewed percentile, Q49 is a great score, especially when paired with the V51. See my later posts for further updates on my post MBA process.
Originally posted by
AlexanderS on 11 Aug 2014, 16:08.
Last edited by
AlexanderS on 15 Aug 2014, 12:14, edited 1 time in total.