Brief Debrief (20190920 - 760: Q50 V42) - Updated 10/5 with GRE scores

Updated 10/5/2019

Two weeks after taking GMAT test, I sat for the GRE general test yesterday afternoon.

I got 168 in Verbal, 169 in Quantitative. As for AWA, I did not really prepare for it. So, I guess it will be 4. When I took official mock tests from ETS, my AWA is always 4.0. (Note on 10/16/2019: I got 4.5, which probably indicates that the human reader was more impressed with my writing than the e-rater.)

In mock tests, I was able to hit 170 for both sections. Thanks to a bad move I made with just 10 seconds before the first Quantitative section timed out, I changed a correct answer (for the very first question because I reviewed from the back to the font) and doomed my hope of 170 in Quant.

I guess my GMAT and GRE quant scores both show that I am one point away from the highest score. But for GMAT, I went to the test with the expectation of hitting 50 only.

My experimental section is verbal. I still could not figure out which one is for the experiment.
> I do feel that the first verbal section has some unusually tough questions, including the very first question that includes a word I have never seen before.
> But I also feel that the third verbal section is the easiest. So, go figure.

There is no lifetime limit on taking GRE test, so I can always try to improve my score next time. But I will give me some time to relax.

Good luck to all of you. This will be the very last update to this post.

Updated 9/24/2019: Thanks for your interest in my debrief!
I just got the official report from GMAC: My AWA is 6.0 (88%). I feel that GMAT's scoring rubric is much more lenient than that of GRE. In GRE, a score of 4.5 has 82 percentile, which is comparable.

I am not a typical GMAT test candidate (see below), and my preparation timeline is elongated. Although this is the very first GMAT attempt, I got started almost at the same time I joined Gmatclub.

> I did purchase GMAT courses from Magoosh at the beginning of this journey (and they were kind enough to extend my 1-year access by 1 month, which I appreciated.)
> Thanks to the Magoosh purchase, I also got access to Gmatclub CATs for 6 months. There are many good questions.
> I have purchased almost all GMAT books on the market. Some day I should take a picture of all my books. I use them for reference and research purpose.
> I need to explain that my ultimate goal is to offer Test Prep classes for GMAT / GRE / SAT (My score is 1550) / TOEFL (My score is 114) / etc. I already got my master degree in Computer Science. And I worked in IT industry for over 18 years after that.
> The most important source of preparation is official GMAT questions. I do recommend that you purchase, if possible at all, all the practice tests and books from GMAC. (Right after the test, I ordered their most recent book of advanced questions.) They are not cheap but invaluable. After taking those official questions, you can find myriad discussions on gmatclub.
> I also recommend that you follow GMATClub's Project SC Butler (https://gmatclub.com/forum/project-sc-b ... 81043.html). The official explanation from Generis is super informative.
> Reading extensively goes a long way to help improve verbal scores. For me, I read New York Times & the Wall Street Journal the most. (Read all kinds of articles including opinions, science, or even arts. I rarely read sports though.) I also read / listen to the Economist but not as often as I should. In addition, I read books but mainly for entertainment.

I totally enjoy taking those standardized tests. Testing, as well as test preparation, offers a respite from the convoluted world where many try in vain to find answers. Standardized tests also reward the dedication and hard work, something that is not necessarily the case in reality.

I hope to take GMAT a second time in the future when I have a shot for a better score. Thanks again for your interest!

===== Original Post =====

Just some quick notes after I took the GMAT test for the first time this morning.

(1) My sequence is Verbal + Quant + IR & AWA.
(2) Verbal: Difficulty level and feeling (and even score) are very similar to official mock tests. I took practice three 2 days ago and also got 760. I do feel that there are too many SC questions and quite a few of them are tricky questions in that Either more than one options are inviting Or the choice I ended up choosing is not ideal. RC and CR are as expected. My strategy is to maintain the momentum and I do have 4 minutes left for the last question, which is also SC question. Wow. That is a tough one. I changed my choice at the last 10 seconds.
(3) Quant: These days a score of 50 is only 85 percentile! So many test takers manage to get 51! Well, I did prepare to receive 50 because there are quite a few challenging questions in mock tests. So I am prepared to guess one or two questions to maintain the momentum, knowing that I can still secure 50. It turned out that I can definitely answer each and every questions! And I still have the momentum. I had 20 minutes remaining for the last 5 questions. And, despite taking great time to make sure I get each of the last 5 questions correctly, I completed Quant 10 minutes ahead of the time. This is rather unexpected. (I did take one manhattanprep mock test and got 51 in quant). Anyhow, I totally enjoyed those relatively easy questions. It is just that I did not get 51. Maybe I made some mistakes at the very beginning, which set the difficulty upper ceiling for my session. Curious.
(4) IR: Not too difficult. Not too easy. I did get an 8.
(5) Writing: I did not really prepare for it. So, I guess it will be between 4 and 5.