Bombed by GMAT

Question

Hi everyone

My name is Gurpreet and I am from india.......

I gave my GMAT on 8th sept monday and got a very score of 470...........
Though i dont find where i went wrong i was pretty much confident of scoring more than 700

I had prepared for this beast for allmost 8 months and i was very calm during my exam, there was no sign of nervousness.

Even from my personal experience I found that both QA and VA was quite easy but still i couldn't score..........

Can anyone in this world tell how this gmat does the scoring, because i found that the after the first question the level of difficulty kept increasing.

But at the end when i saw my score i almost felt dead. Morever this was my second attempt

My individual scores were QA-28 and VA-30

I dont find mock usefull now becoz i used to score well on those bloody gmat prep..........

Whatever may be the reason but now i have failed and to me it seems that i am the most duffer guy on this planet.............

can someone please tell me how do i improve my score. I need a 700 badly........

Leverandon · Answer

Sorry about the score.

You may or may not already know this, but I'll run through how the GMAT is scored.

The computer begins each section by giving you a question of medium difficulty. If you get it right, you get a slightly harder question. If you get it wrong, you get a slightly easier question. All along, the program is essentially trying to determine what your score is. Thus, the earlier questions matter a whole lot more than the later ones. This is because if you miss a medium level question you beging to get easier ones and it takes a very long time to build up enough to get a hard one that will drive your score up. On the other hand if you get the first few right and start getting hard questions, by the middle of the test, if you miss a couple of hard ones, it won't matter all that much because you will already have received and answered correctly many medium and hard level questions.

This leads you to the strategy of spending proportionally more time on the first questions than on the later ones. With verbal, this was very easy for me. I had been finishing practice tests a good half an hour before time was up, so I could afford to really slow down the first few questions (especially the sentence correction ones, my weakness) and be absolutely sure that I got all of the first few questions right. This strategy really paid off for me. I scored in the 97th percentile for the verbal. For math, this was a little harder for me, because I am several years out of math classes. I did the same strategy, but ran out of time on the last three questions and had to guess. This does seem to be that big of a problem though, because by the tail end of the test, it basically already knows what your score is and getting the last couple wrong will only result in a minor downward adjustment compared to the major downward adjustment in score that results from getting the first few wrong. In the end, I scored in the 70th percentile on math, which wasn't terrible. I got a composite score of 710.

Thus, I highly recommend playing to the test and spending much more time on the first few questions to be sure that you get them right and then picking up speed and completing the rest of the test at a normal pace.

Hope this helps. Feel free to message me if you have any more questions.

gurpreet07 · Answer

Hi

Thanks for a nice reply but I concentrated on the first 15 questions and I found that the questions were getting tougher but I don't know why i got screwed up....

Can u please suggest me some way to improve my maths I am not able to go beyond the 35 mark.............

please help me i really want to touch that 700 mark...........

marshpa · Answer

Well I think, this strategy might actually work against test taker at many times. Reason now many people are complaining about the low score due to experiemental questions and random guessing last 3 questions.. suppose for, in the first 15 questions you get 3-4 experimentals and in the last 10 you get none experimental?? So where you would like to spend time more? GMAC says pacing is very important..so better to distribute the time evenly in the entire paper. Although it is true that gmat gives you question depending on the your performance on previous question. But during the testing process gmat continously corrects its score range.

Leverandon · Answer

Interesting...I hadn't thought about the experimental factor. I remember seeing a flowchart somewhere (might have been in one of the Kaplan books) that showed exactly how much getting the first questions right are worth compared to later questions. It was stark. Thus, I adjusted my methodology to focus on the first few questions. This paid off in spades on the verbal (since I got a 97th percentile and still finished with 30 minutes to spare) but admittedly I had to guess on the last three math questions. I still think that they way the program works though, the last questions only marginally affect your score while the first few determine it. I am interested in knowing how many experimental questions are on the exam. Then again, I'm never taking the GMAT again...

As far as math goes, its not my strong point (as the 44, 70th percentile indicates). The math is all stuff that I learned in high school and I have feeling that if I were to time travel back to 10th or 11th grade and give this test to my 16 year old self, he'd get in the 90th percentile in math. Since I decided to become a social science major in college my "math sense" has dissipated and I simply didn't have time (I'm also studying for the LSAT) to really delve into math prep. That being said, the math part is definitely learnable and I was able to improve my score there quite a bit. You need to analyze what your weakness is. First figure out if its problem solving or data sufficiency. Are you having trouble finishing on time or are you simply getting things wrong? Are word problems the issue? Almost all of the word problems on the test are of very specific types. Take the free practice test on www.mba.com (again if necessary) and see what you are getting wrong...just like the B-school cases that you will one day tackle, you need hard data so that you can analyze what the problem is. Then we can tackle a solution.

aspirando · Answer

i got 97th percentile on verbal as well. to be honest i couldn't tell anyone how to do so well on verbal- it's just years of reading and writing and natural facility with whatever skills they supposedly are testing. i don't even know.

i need help with math but i'm sure people in 97th percentile in quant would tell me the same thing i say about verbal. some people are good with numbers, some people are good with words. i'm not sure any amount of gmat studying can ultimately make up for that. hopefully i'm wrong though.

gurpreet07 · Answer

HI

Thanks for such a nice reply... I think my weakness is DS questions and that is not because I don't know the concepts , it seems that its just due to some tricks and pitfall associated with DS questions....

I am not able to move after 35 mark range bcoz of this DS and even I realize that in real world, probably this is what we have to do after doing our MBA.

anyways but i won't stop trying, this time I am going to study more intelligently and smartly
rest I leave upto god and my luck................

MMBBAA · Answer

I think if you studied for 8 months and got this score then it's just not for you. Sorry.

Leverandon · Answer

That is not a constructive response. In life, there is always a solution you just have to find it. Unfortunatly, data sufficiency is something that I never really "got" on the GMAT. I'm sure there are others on this site who did better on quant than I did and can give you advise on DS.

gurpreet07 · Answer

Hi

I dont care about those type of person who try to demotivate others. I know i did my best and even if I had scored less that doesn't means that I am a duffer............

Rest there are some good people around here and as u said "In life, there is always a solution you just have to find it", You know I am realy impressed by the way you look at the life.....

Rest i'll try to give my best again bcoz nothing is impossible and this time i'll make it big

Thanks for the motivation................

MMBBAA · Answer

Constructive question attracts constructive response. 
You came here for a pat on the back, not constructive commentary.
I understand that you are demoralized by your score, but a pat on the back will diminish you, not uplift. 
If your studied for 8 months and got that score, then surely your strategy was no good. 
If you are not a duffer, as you put it, then wipe your nose, forget about your score, and plan your study strategy for next time. That would be worthwhile.
Regards.

gurpreet07 · Answer

Hi

thanks for such words you have reinitiated that hidden fire in me....... 
I suppose you are telling a truth that my strategy was not good and boss let me tell u thats why I was here to talk to different people and analyze where i was wrong and what could have been a better approach..

Thanks to u for motivating me again by saying those harsh words..... after all its for my betterment, but take my words, now whenever i'll take the exam i'll make it big......

Thanks & Regards

aspirando · Answer

gurpreet:

i believe you were the original poster. i also note you say you are from india, and thus, a non-native english speaker.

first of all, i salute you for your efforts. clearly, you are trying to better yourself, like the rest of us. what compounds the difficulty for you is that you are applying to programs and taking a test in a foreign language.

so, IGNORE people like "MMBBAA." they are obviously lacking in...ahmm...insight. to say an MBA is "not for you" because you got a bad GMAT score is simple-minded and dim.

you are from india. the GMAT is in a foreign language for you. i would LOVE to see mr. MMBBAA (whatever that means, does he have a stutter?) get a 700 on a GMAT in Indian. Get my point?

You are clearly a thoughtful fellow, given that you are posting on this site and trying to get an MBA halfway around the world to better yourself. I commend you and sincerely believe that if you put your mind to it, you will achieve your dream.

Remember this: the only thing keeping you back is you. People who tell you you can't do it literally have no clue, not one iota of an idea, of what they are talking about. Work smart and work hard. Don't give up.

Think of the application process as a journey. It could last a year. It could last 5. No one has the same story and if we all did, that would be pretty damn boring for all of us, right? Just work hard, and enjoy the journey. Because you will get there if you don't give up. I promise you that.

MMBBAA keep your dimwitted responses to yourself or take them to another site.

gurpreet07 · Answer

Hi

First of all many thanks for writing such a good motivational reply.... I understand that MMMBA has written some harsh words, but I think he is right on his point... after studying for 8mnths I scored just 470.... I mean I couldn't even touch the mean score...........

But that person has again rekindled the hidden fire in me........ I will take the GMAT again with a better study plan and hope this time i get a could score.........

Rest people like you are realy helping hand for person like me.......I just won't give up my dreams bcoz of this **** GMAT...

I need to prove myself and will, by cracking GMAT.......

Thanks & Regards
Gurpreet

billyjeans · Answer

I think going over some fundamental in math will help you raise your score significantly!
Don't let some people's comment discourage you. Lets think of it this way, the lower your score is, the more potential you have to improve upon! Again, I would recommend you to emphasis on fundamentals of math and verbal part. I would recommend you go over Princeton Review Math section, if you are unclear of what they said about a specific topic, then research and study further. And for verbal, start with the Manhattan GMAT review SC. Honestly from 470 to perhaps 650-700 range is the easiest part!

gurpreet07 · Answer

Hi

Thanks for the suggestion...
I'll definitely put my 100% efforts this time to improve my score..

Thanks for the word of encouragement......

Audio · Answer

Mate, the one thing that I retain from your post is that you were convinced that you were going to score heavily. That leads me to think that either you really don't know the theory well enough, or that you don't pay enough attention to the question formulation or the potential traps of that question, such as taking 0 into account for counter-examples, etc.

Do you score heavily when you are home? Do you answer all the practice questions correctly? What material are you using? Maybe your problem is in those points.

Do you score heavily when you are home? Do you answer all the practice questions correctly? What material are you using? Maybe your problem is in those points.

Tarmac · Answer

What were you scoring on your GMATpreps?

gurpreet07 · Answer

In the first test it was 650 and in the second it was 700 
and I can even understand that some of the questions were known to me earlier but still the overall performance was decent...

Can you suggest me how should I got about GMAT now........ I have started to prepare again..
Just need some changes in my study pattern

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