From 480 to 670 in 6 years - isn't it too long!

Hi,

My GMAT experience may sound too much , but some stories are different! This one better works for non-native English speakers. I took GMAT today for the fourth time in my life and I finally scored 670 (89%), Q 47 (82%), V 35 (77%).

My story started in 1998 when I took it for the first time without any preparation, just knowing the format. The score was 480. Very disapointing. A year later I went through some questions from OG, wrote several essays, learned some English as I am not a native speaker. I took it again in 1999 and got 570. Wasn't happy at all. But somehow I got a scholarship and went to Canada to get an MBA in an second-tier school. Spent there 3 wonderful years (if I only could return to that time), and went back home, knowing that I want to do a PhD. So, I started preparing for GMAT again in fall 2003, went through 9th ed. of OG (the only one I had at that point), and thought I was ready for anything. Right! At the test I panicked, saw very difficult questions, had no clue how to solve them (those were combination/permutation ones), and left with only 630 (Q42, V34).

I knew that it was not the end! One year later I tried once again - two months of studying Verbal section and 6 days for Quantative part. I went through OG (60% of it), Princeton Verbal Workout, used Gmatclub.com courses in Math, and some other stuff I got from Internet. When doing questions, I noticed that I had only about 5-10% of errors in Verbal, and my Math errors were only due to not paying attention to proper calculations. I felt I was performing better then previous times. I think Princeton Workout helped with the Verbal part a lot. However, when the D-day came, I was able to improve my Verbal score only by 1 and Quanth by 5 scores. I have to say that many of the Verbal questions looked like they had 2 answer choices that could work. It confused me several times, and as a result my Verbal score isn't so good. And those "bold" CR questions weren't very nice. By the way, two days before the real test I took PP 1 and got 700 (V40,Q47). Based on that I hoped that will be able to improve the Verbal part significantly, but it didn't work for some reason.

I think I am done with GMAT. It was too tiring for me. I have to admit that I learnt a good lesson - We all have limits, and although we can push them, they won't go too far! Perhaps, it sounds pessimistic a bit, but I have to admit that my abilities were always somwhat average, and I can't ask for too much.

I hope that I will be able to get to a relatively good PhD program in UK with full funding (as I really need it).

Good luck to all of you! And remember, if you really want something, you can make it! You CAN push the limits! Hope my story will help some of you!

If you have any comments or questions, will be happy to hear them.

Alex.