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11 Jan 2015, 21:14
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Background
I am a 28 year old male from Canada with a BSc in Mechanical Engineering. I've worked in the oil and gas industry for 6 years. Like most engineers, quant tends to be my strength. Although English is my native language, I have always struggled with reading comprehension growing up. My target score was 670-700, hoping to get into a one year program in schools such as the ones that Oxbridge offers. However, I had fallen short. I would consider my score to be pretty 'average'. My quant is stuck in the 46-47 zone and my verbal is nowhere near great - typical engineer right?
Books & Materials
- Kaplan GMAT Premier 2015 - I thought it gave some very good fundamentals to get to the 650 level
- The Official Guide for GMAT Review 2015 - Some people say OG is too easy, but there were plenty of difficult questions that kept challenging me
- Powerscore Critical Reasoning Bible - I heard this was the best CR book out there, so I had a good read through it
- Question banks from GMATclub
General Strategy
I started my studies in October 2014, and wrote my test in early January. This gave me roughly 3 months to study. The reason I gave myself so much time though was because I work full time, and the only time I would have time to study would be in the evenings and weekends. On top of that, I had a few business trips and going home for Christmas that would interrupt my study groove for a week at a time.
My strategy was to go through all the Kaplan material for all the basics. Then I would attempt to work difficult questions from various sources (mainly scouring these forums for question banks), and tackle the really hard ones and do LOTS of them. The reasoning was that if I can figure out how to do these questions, I can do anything. The last week I would focus on OG questions and really get a feel for timing and focus on my test writing stamina.
Test Scores
Date Test Total Q V
18-Oct-14 Kaplan CAT 1 550 40 26 - my diagnostics, I realized I had a long way to go
01-Nov-14 Kaplan CAT 2 600 44 33
15-Nov-14 Kaplan CAT 3 600 44 29
29-Nov-14 Kaplan CAT 4 650 47 38 - I was pretty ecstatic with this score, especially the verbal part as I had focused on Powerscore CR the last three days
20-Dec-14 Kaplan CAT 5 600 46 28 - After my last CAT, I thought I could only go up. Was I wrong.
03-Jan-14 GMAT Prep 1 660 47 34
07-Jan-14 GMAT Prep 2 620 45 31 - pretty accurate indicator of what was to come
10-Jan-14 Test Day 620 46 28 - it was pretty much what I had expected given my mock CAT history
Most of my scores ranged between 600-650 for the entire 3 months of studying, and I actually felt that I had essentially made no progress in that time to improve my ability. I was pretty much going into the GMAT expecting low 600's as my score, and that was what I got.
Test Day Experience
Because I live about a 3 hour drive from the test center, I drove to the city the night before my exam and stayed with my friend. Throughout school I was never a big believer in last minute cramming. If you don't know it the day before, you won't know it during the exam. So I arrived at my friend's and we played some video games so I can relax. It has worked throughout university for me to get rid of the pre-test jitters.
As for the test itself, I felt pretty calm - I'm generally a pretty calm test taker. Although I knew I probably would not get a 650+ I was hoping for, I had to try. I did the AWA and IR, using strategies to make sure I don't expend too much energy. During the quant section, some of the questions in the middle part started to feel easy - which made me paranoid that I had missed a few easy ones early one. Onto the verbal part: Despite a lot of the focus on verbal the last week, it was definitely not my best performance. The problem with Verbal for me is that I could not confidently pick the right answer (unlike Quant where you can calculate it). I was usually able to eliminate most of the wrong answers, but when it came down to two choices, it was usually a guess, leading me to get some pretty easy answers wrong. In the end, I saw my score and was not surprised, although I was worried for a bit that I would get a sub 600 score.
My Mistakes
1) Focusing too much on extremely hard quant questions. I probably wasted a lot of time hunting and trying to understand very hard questions, when in reality I should have focused on the fundamentals to get those middle difficulty questions right. For instance, I spent an entire day trying to understand advanced combinatorics and permutations, when in reality there might have been one question on that on the exam.
2) Lack of study focus. Over three months, I felt like I had not improved much at all. My biggest improvement went from my 550 diagnostics to 600 after going through the Kaplan books, which only took about two weeks to finish. I think if I wrote the test back then, I could have done pretty much the same.
3) Did not develop strategy habits during practice. Although I did go through the Powerscore CR book and read a lot of great strategies, I did not apply them when I did CR practice problems. Because of this, I did not do them during the exam and did more 'guessing' than anything. Same thing for sentence correction problems. This probably led to my demise on verbal.
4) Focus on quantity over quality studying. As I had mentioned, I tried to do as many questions as I can, and whenever I got a question wrong, I would just glaze over the answer then move to the next question. This probably was also a big contributor to no improvements in 3 months.
Going Forward
So I definitely don't have the scores to get into Oxbridge level schools, I am contemplating taking the GMAT again. I do know my verbal has tons of room to improve, so maybe one month of focused study would get me to where I need, but I would need a lot of guidance. I was planning to apply to round 4 (deadlines in March), and spend the next month putting together a quality application, however that may not be possible anymore. Since getting my score, I had since contemplated applying to schools where GMAT requirements are not as intense. I was hoping to put the GMAT behind me for good - but if I have to re-write it then I'll need to crack open those books again and sacrifice many more evenings and weekends.
Advice for me?
So any advice for retaking this exam? Especially since I just can't seem to 'get' verbal, what study materials or strategies would people recommend? How about alternative schools programs? Which programs would I be able to get into with my score?
Self Reflection
It does feel good to finally get the GMAT done for the first time. Even though I did not get the score I wanted, I did learn a lot about myself through the GMAT process. Even though it was a pain in the butt studying all the time, I did enjoy challenging myself intellectually again, especially having been out of school for a while. I also found myself looking at things and decisions more critically at work, something that studying for the GMAT just does to you
But in the meantime, I am going to take a week off from the GMAT to figure out my next steps. Thanks for in advance for reading and your advice!
I am a 28 year old male from Canada with a BSc in Mechanical Engineering. I've worked in the oil and gas industry for 6 years. Like most engineers, quant tends to be my strength. Although English is my native language, I have always struggled with reading comprehension growing up. My target score was 670-700, hoping to get into a one year program in schools such as the ones that Oxbridge offers. However, I had fallen short. I would consider my score to be pretty 'average'. My quant is stuck in the 46-47 zone and my verbal is nowhere near great - typical engineer right?
Books & Materials
- Kaplan GMAT Premier 2015 - I thought it gave some very good fundamentals to get to the 650 level
- The Official Guide for GMAT Review 2015 - Some people say OG is too easy, but there were plenty of difficult questions that kept challenging me
- Powerscore Critical Reasoning Bible - I heard this was the best CR book out there, so I had a good read through it
- Question banks from GMATclub
General Strategy
I started my studies in October 2014, and wrote my test in early January. This gave me roughly 3 months to study. The reason I gave myself so much time though was because I work full time, and the only time I would have time to study would be in the evenings and weekends. On top of that, I had a few business trips and going home for Christmas that would interrupt my study groove for a week at a time.
My strategy was to go through all the Kaplan material for all the basics. Then I would attempt to work difficult questions from various sources (mainly scouring these forums for question banks), and tackle the really hard ones and do LOTS of them. The reasoning was that if I can figure out how to do these questions, I can do anything. The last week I would focus on OG questions and really get a feel for timing and focus on my test writing stamina.
Test Scores
Date Test Total Q V
18-Oct-14 Kaplan CAT 1 550 40 26 - my diagnostics, I realized I had a long way to go
01-Nov-14 Kaplan CAT 2 600 44 33
15-Nov-14 Kaplan CAT 3 600 44 29
29-Nov-14 Kaplan CAT 4 650 47 38 - I was pretty ecstatic with this score, especially the verbal part as I had focused on Powerscore CR the last three days
20-Dec-14 Kaplan CAT 5 600 46 28 - After my last CAT, I thought I could only go up. Was I wrong.
03-Jan-14 GMAT Prep 1 660 47 34
07-Jan-14 GMAT Prep 2 620 45 31 - pretty accurate indicator of what was to come
10-Jan-14 Test Day 620 46 28 - it was pretty much what I had expected given my mock CAT history
Most of my scores ranged between 600-650 for the entire 3 months of studying, and I actually felt that I had essentially made no progress in that time to improve my ability. I was pretty much going into the GMAT expecting low 600's as my score, and that was what I got.
Test Day Experience
Because I live about a 3 hour drive from the test center, I drove to the city the night before my exam and stayed with my friend. Throughout school I was never a big believer in last minute cramming. If you don't know it the day before, you won't know it during the exam. So I arrived at my friend's and we played some video games so I can relax. It has worked throughout university for me to get rid of the pre-test jitters.
As for the test itself, I felt pretty calm - I'm generally a pretty calm test taker. Although I knew I probably would not get a 650+ I was hoping for, I had to try. I did the AWA and IR, using strategies to make sure I don't expend too much energy. During the quant section, some of the questions in the middle part started to feel easy - which made me paranoid that I had missed a few easy ones early one. Onto the verbal part: Despite a lot of the focus on verbal the last week, it was definitely not my best performance. The problem with Verbal for me is that I could not confidently pick the right answer (unlike Quant where you can calculate it). I was usually able to eliminate most of the wrong answers, but when it came down to two choices, it was usually a guess, leading me to get some pretty easy answers wrong. In the end, I saw my score and was not surprised, although I was worried for a bit that I would get a sub 600 score.
My Mistakes
1) Focusing too much on extremely hard quant questions. I probably wasted a lot of time hunting and trying to understand very hard questions, when in reality I should have focused on the fundamentals to get those middle difficulty questions right. For instance, I spent an entire day trying to understand advanced combinatorics and permutations, when in reality there might have been one question on that on the exam.
2) Lack of study focus. Over three months, I felt like I had not improved much at all. My biggest improvement went from my 550 diagnostics to 600 after going through the Kaplan books, which only took about two weeks to finish. I think if I wrote the test back then, I could have done pretty much the same.
3) Did not develop strategy habits during practice. Although I did go through the Powerscore CR book and read a lot of great strategies, I did not apply them when I did CR practice problems. Because of this, I did not do them during the exam and did more 'guessing' than anything. Same thing for sentence correction problems. This probably led to my demise on verbal.
4) Focus on quantity over quality studying. As I had mentioned, I tried to do as many questions as I can, and whenever I got a question wrong, I would just glaze over the answer then move to the next question. This probably was also a big contributor to no improvements in 3 months.
Going Forward
So I definitely don't have the scores to get into Oxbridge level schools, I am contemplating taking the GMAT again. I do know my verbal has tons of room to improve, so maybe one month of focused study would get me to where I need, but I would need a lot of guidance. I was planning to apply to round 4 (deadlines in March), and spend the next month putting together a quality application, however that may not be possible anymore. Since getting my score, I had since contemplated applying to schools where GMAT requirements are not as intense. I was hoping to put the GMAT behind me for good - but if I have to re-write it then I'll need to crack open those books again and sacrifice many more evenings and weekends.
Advice for me?
So any advice for retaking this exam? Especially since I just can't seem to 'get' verbal, what study materials or strategies would people recommend? How about alternative schools programs? Which programs would I be able to get into with my score?
Self Reflection
It does feel good to finally get the GMAT done for the first time. Even though I did not get the score I wanted, I did learn a lot about myself through the GMAT process. Even though it was a pain in the butt studying all the time, I did enjoy challenging myself intellectually again, especially having been out of school for a while. I also found myself looking at things and decisions more critically at work, something that studying for the GMAT just does to you
But in the meantime, I am going to take a week off from the GMAT to figure out my next steps. Thanks for in advance for reading and your advice!
Updated on: 08 Jan 2019, 09:32
Originally posted by MartyTargetTestPrep on 12 Jan 2015, 00:29.
Last edited by MartyTargetTestPrep on 08 Jan 2019, 09:32, edited 1 time in total.
Last edited by MartyTargetTestPrep on 08 Jan 2019, 09:32, edited 1 time in total.
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From your analysis it sounds as if you do have a pretty good handle on what you could have done better in preparing.
For one thing that thing of working on only the hardest questions on quant does not prepare you for the simple questions that use basic thing like fractions, exponents and absolute value to trick you into picking the wrong answer. Further, you say you would barely look over questions you got wrong. That definitely rocked you.
I for one play this test like a video game, doing online question bank questions one after the other, and even if I get them right, I often check out the explanations to get a sense of how others might see the questions and find answers.
As far as verbal goes, I say if you can do math, for the most part you can do verbal. GMAT verbal is very logic based. People get all caught up in rules and strategies, and while they are useful, remembering that rocking the verbal section is largely about applying logic, logic similar to math logic, can be even more useful. In a way I am not sure why people who can be logical even get CR questions wrong. Maybe it's a not seeing the forest for the trees kind of thing. RC also tends to be logic based, and SC is rather logic based too. Language in general is mostly logical and maybe if you see that verbal section as a logic test you will start doing better right there.
You could keep working at this and eventually score 800. Would that be that worth the time and energy it would take? Probably not. I just want to make clear the fact that you can drive your score up to any level you desire.
For one thing that thing of working on only the hardest questions on quant does not prepare you for the simple questions that use basic thing like fractions, exponents and absolute value to trick you into picking the wrong answer. Further, you say you would barely look over questions you got wrong. That definitely rocked you.
I for one play this test like a video game, doing online question bank questions one after the other, and even if I get them right, I often check out the explanations to get a sense of how others might see the questions and find answers.
As far as verbal goes, I say if you can do math, for the most part you can do verbal. GMAT verbal is very logic based. People get all caught up in rules and strategies, and while they are useful, remembering that rocking the verbal section is largely about applying logic, logic similar to math logic, can be even more useful. In a way I am not sure why people who can be logical even get CR questions wrong. Maybe it's a not seeing the forest for the trees kind of thing. RC also tends to be logic based, and SC is rather logic based too. Language in general is mostly logical and maybe if you see that verbal section as a logic test you will start doing better right there.
You could keep working at this and eventually score 800. Would that be that worth the time and energy it would take? Probably not. I just want to make clear the fact that you can drive your score up to any level you desire.
sarahrs
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Joined: 13 Apr 2013
Last visit: 10 Mar 2015
Posts: 118
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Concentration: General Management, Nonprofit
Schools: Cambridge'16 (S)
GMAT 1: 510 Q29 V31
GMAT 2: 590 Q32 V38
WE:Research (Non-Profit and Government)
12 Jan 2015, 16:47
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Well. You can actually apply to most European schools with your GMAT score. So if you really want to apply in March drop the chosen schools an email along with your CV get done informal feedback.
Potentially your issue is not using the right methods to learn. I switched from books to an online course and my score improved. Suggestions include magoosh and manhattan GMAT interact system.
Learning a bit more about strategy might help as well. The manhattan GMAT blog has some good tips.
Posted from my mobile device
Potentially your issue is not using the right methods to learn. I switched from books to an online course and my score improved. Suggestions include magoosh and manhattan GMAT interact system.
Learning a bit more about strategy might help as well. The manhattan GMAT blog has some good tips.
Posted from my mobile device
