BIG GMAT CHANGES: Select Section Order on the GMAT starting July 11

Thanks everyone who has posted the feedback after the addition of new options.
I am going to stick to the old format as I feel the Awa and IR are warm ups for me. I have tried practicing IR, unable to see an improvement, so I am not expecting to crack it. I would rather use it to warm up and get to real work once it's over. Also, I believe I won't be able to wait for the score once quant and verbal are done, old habits die hard!

Though I had thought of hitting verbal first, am going to stick to the older format. The thought of jumping into the SC ocean right at the beginning looks daunting to me now!

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I don't think my level of preparation was any different to that of the previous attempt. On the contrary, my morale was very low after the disastrous score. I had to work very hard to gain back my confidence.

I still think something was wrong with the algorithm immediately after go-live of the order levels. During the 2nd attempt in which I scored 530, I kept on thinking I am getting low difficulty questions, but I concentrated on the exam and didn't spare it much thought. However, the end result showed that I was indeed right to worry. It happened with both the sections, quant and verbal.

Anyway, I suggest that you give all your mocks in the order you are comfortable with. This way, you will be able to stimulate the real-time test and check how you are preforming.

Hope I have answered all your questions!

Cheers.

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Hi Everyone,

I gave my first attempt at GMAT today in the following order Q>V>IR>AWA and scored 720 (Q49 V39 IR7)
My GMATPrep scores are as below:

GMATPrep 1 - 710 (Q48 V39) (traditional order) Neighbours disturbed me during this test and as a result ended up not answering one question in quant
GMATPrep EP1 Exam 1 - 690 (Q47 V38) (V>Q>IR>AWA)
GMATPrep EP1 Exam 2 - 680 (Q49 V34) (Q>V>IR>AWA)
GMATPrep EP2 Exam 1 - 660 (Q44 V37) (Q>V>IR>AWA) No idea why my score tanked in this one. Maybe because I was burnt-out with over preparation.

Overall I felt that the exam today was more or less similar to the GMATPrep. Even the scores say so.
I am afraid of the AWA score as I was exhausted by then and feel that my essay was not up to the mark.

Hope this information helps.

Cheers!

Congratulations on a high score!! :D

As soon as you said 'neighbours disturbed me..' I immediately thought 'Must be from my country '.. Then i looked at your profile on the left and yes, you indeed are from India
heartiest Congratulations on a good score by the way.

How can I put this new feature to practice? I am not sure if I should stick to the original format or start with Verbal first. If I do start with verbal first on the GMAT exam, I am anxious if that would affect my score negatively because I didn't practice with Verbal first.

Thoughts?

Hi pra1785 ,

You should not change the order unless you have practiced the new order atleast 4 to 5 times.

Please note that changing the order at the last moment can actually screw everything. I would suggest BE AWARE.

Hi,

Does the GMAT prep software give the option to chose order? I am not sure if the software is updated..... how were you able to take gmat prep tests with that order?

Hi,

Just to understand, how can it mess up everything as long as you know the stuff ? would it really matter?

Hi!
Well of course the software is updated.
Open GMATPrep and the "update" option pops up. We can update the software without disturbing the existing test data.
Else, go to mba.com and re-download

Took the test today 710(Q48,V40,IR8). I am happy that it crossed 700/but was aiming 750. Anyway the order I chose was Q-V-IR-Awa.
The exam felt just like GMAT prep, with some really easy ones freaking me out a bit! And I scored 48 in Quant, which isn't a good score. Thank God for verbal, it just saved me.

Awa shouldn't come back too bad! Fingers crossed.

I shall post a debrief soon.

Thanks GMaTCLUB!

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So you din't stick to "traditional" order
Congratulations! 710 is a good score
And IR 8! You were frightened of IR (as per your last post). Good one!

I did not know that! I did not get the updated option
I wasted both my test now without knowing this

Thanks for updating me though and congrats!

Thanks Akshay!!

The order was more of a last.minute change as I was too sleepy and didn't know if I will survive after one hour of Awa and IR! I thought mostly we practice without IR and AWA and jump to quant. So it didn't sound like a big leap, a risk I took which I definitely don't recommend without preconditioning in the practice tests!

IR looked pretty doable, I was myself surprised at the questions and thought there must be a catch...but score says there wasn't!

Thanks again!

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So I finally got around to taking the GMAT with the select section order feature--I chose Verbal, Quant, IR, AWA as the order of my sections, and I scored a 750 composite (Q50, V42, IR 8, 6 AWA).

My debrief: https://gmatclub.com/forum/gmat-tutor-debrief-finally-cracked-q50-q50-v42-ir8-750-composite-248190.html#p1916781

The new changes will likely provide more flexibility to the candidates:)

I wonder whether a year from now we'll see the GMAT introduce the option to take the exam over multiple days!