wjm2020 wrote:
I just took the GMAT for the 3rd time... Result? Frustration.
I'd like to get some opinions on whether or not I should take the GMAT for a fourth time. I'm applying to UVA (Darden), Carnegie Mellon (Tepper), Ohio State (Fisher), Penn State (Smeal), and Indiana (Kelley). More detail below, but scores are: 1) Cancelled ... 2) 620 38Q/37V... 3) 630 36Q/40V.
Background:
I took it for the first time this past summer. I was foolish enough to think that I'd put a few hours a week in for roughly 2 weeks and rely on my history of strong standardized test taking abilities. Suffice it to say, I cancelled that score.
Shortly thereafter, I began preparing more seriously. I purchased an online prep course and hunkered down. I took the GMAT again on December 4th and scored a 620 (38Q / 37V). Relative to my practice test scores, this was disappointing; so I got home and immediately rescheduled. I knew I had more in me. I really dug into quant, and felt as though I made progress. I was a bit dismissive about spending any time on certain subtopics prior to my 620 exam (in educational psychology they call this the "illusion of knowing something"), but I wasn't going to allow that to happen again. I was getting 46-48Q on
Veritas Prep practice exams...
Test 3 - I got a 630 (36Q / 40V). Somehow, after spending zero time on verbal and all of my time on quant, I improved my verbal score, and completely choked on quant. I'm feeling completely dejected. I also feel as though I could walk back into a test center tomorrow and get that 46 on Quant because I know the material and know the strategies. I took college level calculus/stats.... My career isn't super math intensive, but I'm also not by any means incompetent. Some additional context is that I have some pretty ugly anxiety issues, and I certainly think that's factoring into my choke-job on test day (I've had to overcome it in a variety of other contexts though, so it's no excuse). Verbal comes pretty naturally to me so that's less of a concern. I also got a 6 on integrated reasoning as well as a perfect score on the AWA last time (and anticipate something similar this time around). I'm also 31 years old, so time isn't on my side based on what FT program demographics look like.
Should I take the GMAT again? How soon (given that I'm applying now)? Will most schools take my new scores after I submit my application?
Thanks in advance!
I can only speak from personal experience, but I too got pretty anxious during my first GMAT attempt and became bogged down by a couple of answers that I'd realised were incorrect. It doesn't seem like your grasp of the subject is a problem and I think most of it is down to acclimatising yourself to that pressure-cooker situation.
I'd suggest giving more practice tests before your next attempt, I gave around 10-12 before my best attempt just to get myself comfortable with the clock running down on the side and at the same time learning from the silly mistakes I was making. Managing time was a huge issue for me and I found that I'd get stuck on a couple of questions, mainly because I knew I could solve them and didn't want to make an educated guess- but this ultimately would derail my test and throw me off my game. There are always multiple ways to solve questions in the Quant section, and you will face situations where you end up approaching the question with a longer, more time consuming and calculation-heavy method; in this scenario, you'll probably end up wasting more than 2.5 minutes on the question and my suggestion to you in these cases would be to either abandon the method you're using at the 50-60 second mark and figure out a simpler method in the next 15 or just make an educated guess.
Also I don't know if you've been able to complete all questions in the Quant section, but that has to be of utmost importance especially if you want to see the kind of jump in Quant that you're targeting. As I've alluded to earlier, time management is key, and from what I've observed the last 2-3 questions are pretty simple, so you wouldn't want to miss out on them or not have enough time to solve them correctly.
Get yourself comfortable with the test-room environment, I believe that more practice tests can and will help you overcome the anxiety issues you're facing. And then go ahead and give it another shot!
Hope this was useful! Good Luck!