Hello everyone! I am in dire need of good advice right now. For those willing to go through my long GMAT Experience below, My target score is 730+ as I belong to one of the highly represented group in MBA Applications (Indian). I have taken 3 attempts at GMAT over the course of last one year but still have been unable to reach my target score. Below are GMAT scores along with the date of exam in brackets:
1. GMAT 1: 680 Q50 V31 (6th Oct 2016)
2. GMAT 2: 650 Q50 V25 (6th June 2017)
3. GMAT 3: 660 Q48 V32 (27th July 2017)
1st Attempt: To be fair, I had not prepared much for this attempt. For Verbal preparation, I bought Online Verbal course from
e-gmat and for Quant I followed Manhattan Quant Guides and GMAT Club Math Book. I hardly prepared for 1.5 months prior to the attempt and took three Practice Tests:
GMAT Prep 1: 650, GMAT Prep 2: 700 and Manhattan Free CAT: 680 (I don't remember sectional break-ups well but do remember that I scored Q50 in all the three CATS).
Test Day: Though I was disappointed on not being able to reach my target score, I realised that I had not invested proper study time for this attempt, so decided to retake after a few months with full-fledged preparation and I cancelled this score.
2nd Attempt: Due to work commitments, I was not able to start my prep before mid- March 2017. Verbal: Again, I started my prep with
e-gmat and went through all the video lessons. Then I focused on Manhattan SC and
PowerScore CR Bible to strengthen basic skills which I gained through
e-gmat course. For RC, I focused mostly on
e-gmat course and
Manhattan RC guide. For practice I completed almost 80-85% of
OG 2015 in all the three sections and also timed while attempting the same to gauge whether my doing good enough timing-wise or not. Also, regularly I came to this forum to practice and attempt a few verbal questions posted in QOTD and verbal forum. Quantitative section is my strength and hence I once again followed the same materials that I used for Attempt 1 to prepare for Quant. This time though I downloaded some practice questions compilations from this forum and every once in a while I took-up one or two sets to practice and gauge my preparations. I took 5 CATS this time:
GMAT Prep 1: 710
GMAT Prep 2: 750
Veritas Prep Free CAT: 690 Q49 V36
GMAT Prep Exam Pack 2 Test 1: 740
GMAT Prep Exam Pack 2 Test 2: 700
Test day (6th June 2017): I was pretty confident of my preparation this time. AWA, IR and Quant sections went pretty well as expected and I thought during the break that now I just have to score well on Verbal to get a good score. But I guess this thought was the reason I screwed in the next Section: as soon as the Verbal section started, I was not able to focus on the exam well and each of us know that to score well in the Verbal Section, full concentration is prime requirement. Throughout the section I was not able to concentrate dunno because of exhaustion or exam centre environment or what but I ended up attempting all the questions not to the best of my ability. At the end score flashed 650 Q50 V25 IR8 and I knew I had screwed up at the last section, hugely disappointed I again cancelled my score.
3rd Attempt: I decided to take GMAT in end week of July 2017 as I was in good flow and had prepared well for the exam. For Verbal I quickly went through notes of
e-gmat, Manhattan SC and
PowerScore CR which I prepared during my last attempt. For practice I adopted a different strategy this time because I realised that to be in flow with the pattern and structure of the questions asked in GMAT, focusing mostly on Official Questions is better. I practiced questions in timed manner from Verbal Review 2016 and
Official Guide 2015. This time I also prepared error-log during my practice. For Quant I prepared a bit less this time, mostly I followed the same materials and strategy that I had followed during my last two atttempts. CATs that I took prior to the exam (although GMAT Prep 1, GMAT Prep 2 and GMAT Prep Exam Pack 2 Tests 1 and 2 scores may be a bit inflated as I had taken the previous attempts just 3-40 days before):
GMAT Prep 1: 720 Q50 V38 IR8
GMAT Prep 2: 770 Q50 V44 IR8
GMAT Prep Exam Pack 2 Test 1: 770 Q51 V44 IR8
GMAT Prep Exam Pack 2 Test 2: 730 Q50 V39 IR8
GMAT Prep Exam Pack 1 Test 1: 710 Q50 V36 IR7
GMAT Prep Exam Pack 1 Test 2: 720 Q50 V38 IR8
Note: All with Verbal-Quant-IR-AWA Sectional order.
I prepared error-log for these too and revised through the same 2 days prior to the test day. During the review of these tests, I encountered some good stuff from GMAT Experts such as Ron and GMATNinja and took notes of the same.
Test day (27th July 2017): Even more confident than any of the last two attempts, I started off with Verbal section and as I was attempting the questions, I had pretty good concentration and also was "feeling" much better. Timing-wise I can say that I attempted first 36 questions in ~71-72 minutes and then went through swiftly through last few questions, a strategy that GMATNinja discussed in this forum. Then came Quant, after first 5-6 questions, to my surprise, suddenly the level of the questions had increased a lot so early and I ended up taking too much time to solve questions. With the exception of 1-2 questions here-there, level of the questions was pretty difficult and I had not much time left to solve last 7 questions. I went through quickly to attempt all the questions in time and this was the phase where I screwed up in Quant, as evident in attached ESR. IR was also a toughy but I knew I will score at least 7 as I was confident of solving around 7-8 questions correctly. AWA went very well. I was very excited to see my final score, but the disappointment, very big one this time, reappared on the screen: 660 Q48 V32 IR7
. I was devastated and once again cancelled my score. I bought ESR and am attaching it here for reference. I don't where I went so wrong in Verbal to end up getting just 32, when I see the number of questions correct/incorrect, I cannot make-up how such low percentiles I have got in CR and SC. I had screwed up Quant but still not expected just 660
.
I am pretty much low on confidence right now but I want to fight. My question is how to proceed and what strategy to follow in order to reach my target score now. I aim to take next attempt in Oct/Nov 2017.
Attachments
ESR Quant3.PNG [ 33.71 KiB | Viewed 2095 times ]
ESR Quant2.PNG [ 22.33 KiB | Viewed 2100 times ]
ESR Quant1.PNG [ 23.62 KiB | Viewed 2101 times ]
ESR Verbal2.PNG [ 29.66 KiB | Viewed 2106 times ]
File comment: ESR- July 2017
ESR Verbal1.PNG [ 38.76 KiB | Viewed 2101 times ]