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Louis14
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Congrats on taking your time and waiting for when you are ready and not jumping the gun. 👍

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Louis14
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Congrats on taking your time and waiting for when you are ready and not jumping the gun. 👍

Posted from my mobile device

Thanks so much, sir. I remember you taught me a very valuable lesson when I posted on this forum about how unnecessarily dense MGMAT mocks were. It really helped! Thank you. I wish to payback to this great forum, and in the coming weeks and months, I hope I'll be able to contribute to it in my little capacity.
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Congrats for your good score. We're waiting for your long debrief. Good luck for the application.
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Congrats for your good score. We're waiting for your long debrief. Good luck for the application.

I wasn’t initially sure if my score deserved a debrief but thank you for your comment. I think my story can help some folks and perhaps inspire a few others. I’m on to it!

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Congrats for your good score. We're waiting for your long debrief. Good luck for the application.

I wasn’t initially sure if my score deserved a debrief but thank you for your comment. I think my story can help some folks and perhaps inspire a few others. I’m on to it!

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680 is definitely a good score. Most importantly, v34 is appreciable score. you can write something on verbal score.
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I just posted my debrief. Sadly, there is little about Verbal because I never really studied for it. My GMAT preparation was almost entirely about Quant.

https://gmatclub.com/forum/my-17-months ... 41224.html
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Congratulations, Louis14! Glad to hear that we could help a little bit.

For whatever it's worth, I think you're in the right general ballpark for an MSc in finance. If I remember correctly, the average scores for LSE's MSc are in the 680-700 range, and generally speaking, finance Master's programs of various sorts tend to take the quant section WAY more seriously than the verbal. So maybe an extra point or two would help on both sections, but if the rest of your profile is strong, you'll have a shot.

Congratulations again!
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Congratulations, Louis14! Glad to hear that we could help a little bit.

For whatever it's worth, I think you're in the right general ballpark for an MSc in finance. If I remember correctly, the average scores for LSE's MSc are in the 680-700 range, and generally speaking, finance Master's programs of various sorts tend to take the quant section WAY more seriously than the verbal. So maybe an extra point or two would help on both sections, but if the rest of your profile is strong, you'll have a shot.

Congratulations again!

Thanks, sir! Huge fan of yours, and especially of your cool and tempered demeanour that shows up in your interviews.

Sir, do you think my Quant score is a bit on the lower side?

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Louis14
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Congratulations, Louis14! Glad to hear that we could help a little bit.

For whatever it's worth, I think you're in the right general ballpark for an MSc in finance. If I remember correctly, the average scores for LSE's MSc are in the 680-700 range, and generally speaking, finance Master's programs of various sorts tend to take the quant section WAY more seriously than the verbal. So maybe an extra point or two would help on both sections, but if the rest of your profile is strong, you'll have a shot.

Congratulations again!

Thanks, sir! Huge fan of yours, and especially of your cool and tempered demeanour that shows up in your interviews.

Sir, do you think my Quant score is a bit on the lower side?

Posted from my mobile device
Thank you for the kind words, Louis14! I might seem cool and tempered on camera, but in real life, I may or may not be a complete lunatic. ;)

You're mostly targeting finance programs in Europe, correct? I'm a little bit more familiar with MFin programs in the U.S., and the very top ones here usually expect something in the 49-51 range on quant -- so you're maybe a bit low for those. In general, European graduate programs are (wisely) less test-obsessed than their American counterparts, so I doubt that your application will get eliminated because of a 48Q, but if you think you're capable of squeezing out another point or two without ruining several months of your life, I would go for it. But again, you're in the right ballpark, so don't kill yourself over it.

I hope that helps a bit, and keep me posted!
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Congratulations, Louis14! Glad to hear that we could help a little bit.

For whatever it's worth, I think you're in the right general ballpark for an MSc in finance. If I remember correctly, the average scores for LSE's MSc are in the 680-700 range, and generally speaking, finance Master's programs of various sorts tend to take the quant section WAY more seriously than the verbal. So maybe an extra point or two would help on both sections, but if the rest of your profile is strong, you'll have a shot.

Congratulations again!

Thanks, sir! Huge fan of yours, and especially of your cool and tempered demeanour that shows up in your interviews.

Sir, do you think my Quant score is a bit on the lower side?

Posted from my mobile device
Thank you for the kind words, Louis14! I might seem cool and tempered on camera, but in real life, I may or may not be a complete lunatic. ;)

You're mostly targeting finance programs in Europe, correct? I'm a little bit more familiar with MFin programs in the U.S., and the very top ones here usually expect something in the 49-51 range on quant -- so you're maybe a bit low for those. In general, European graduate programs are (wisely) less test-obsessed than their American counterparts, so I doubt that your application will get eliminated because of a 48Q, but if you think you're capable of squeezing out another point or two without ruining several months of your life, I would go for it. But again, you're in the right ballpark, so don't kill yourself over it.

I hope that helps a bit, and keep me posted!

HAHA. Well, that makes you even cooler! Because you cover it up REALLY well then! 👏

I want to ask you a question, sir, regarding verbal, because I most genuinely think that there’s no one else on this forum who can give me a better word on Verbal preparation. Sir, deadlines are coming close very fast. If I am to retake the GMAT, I’ve gotta do it in two weeks at max. Sir, is it possible to squeeze four to five points out of Verbal in this time period? If yes, could you please briefly share the main steps I need to take it that direction? I actually never studied for Verbal as such. That V34 came purely naturally. I think apart from a point or two on Quant, a four to five point increase in Verbal can put me in a great spot.

All eyes on your word, sir!
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Louis14

I want to ask you a question, sir, regarding verbal, because I most genuinely think that there’s no one else on this forum who can give me a better word on Verbal preparation. Sir, deadlines are coming close very fast. If I am to retake the GMAT, I’ve gotta do it in two weeks at max. Sir, is it possible to squeeze four to five points out of Verbal in this time period? If yes, could you please briefly share the main steps I need to take it that direction? I actually never studied for Verbal as such. That V34 came purely naturally. I think apart from a point or two on Quant, a four to five point increase in Verbal can put me in a great spot.

All eyes on your word, sir!
Yeah, that's one of those lamentably unanswerable questions. Four or five points doesn't sound like much, but it's a LOT on verbal (or on quant), and everything needs to fall into place absolutely perfectly for you to gain that many points in just a couple of weeks.

Think of it this way: the #1 thing that drives your verbal score is your ability to read with precision. If you struggle to understand the EXACT meaning of a sentence, paragraph, or passage, you'll have a hard time on the whole section, right? You won't become a fundamentally better reader in just two weeks.

The only way that you can make a big jump in that period of time is if your current approach to questions is fundamentally flawed in some way: you're reading too fast on RC, for example, or you're relying primarily on your "ear" in SC, instead of analyzing the sentences systematically. So if you're making those sorts of fundamental errors -- or if you're simply not all that familiar with verbal question types -- then it's possible that you could make gains quickly. In theory, weak grammar foundations could provide some low-hanging fruit as well, but that's less common than test-takers would generally like to believe. :)

You might want to check out this video to get a sense of the types of things that can (and can't!) be fixed fairly quickly on verbal. The video is meant for potential private tutoring students who are starting in a much worse position than you are, but it might still give you some food for thought.

I hope that helps a bit, and good luck with everything!
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Louis14

I want to ask you a question, sir, regarding verbal, because I most genuinely think that there’s no one else on this forum who can give me a better word on Verbal preparation. Sir, deadlines are coming close very fast. If I am to retake the GMAT, I’ve gotta do it in two weeks at max. Sir, is it possible to squeeze four to five points out of Verbal in this time period? If yes, could you please briefly share the main steps I need to take it that direction? I actually never studied for Verbal as such. That V34 came purely naturally. I think apart from a point or two on Quant, a four to five point increase in Verbal can put me in a great spot.

All eyes on your word, sir!
Yeah, that's one of those lamentably unanswerable questions. Four or five points doesn't sound like much, but it's a LOT on verbal (or on quant), and everything needs to fall into place absolutely perfectly for you to gain that many points in just a couple of weeks.

Think of it this way: the #1 thing that drives your verbal score is your ability to read with precision. If you struggle to understand the EXACT meaning of a sentence, paragraph, or passage, you'll have a hard time on the whole section, right? You won't become a fundamentally better reader in just two weeks.

The only way that you can make a big jump in that period of time is if your current approach to questions is fundamentally flawed in some way: you're reading too fast on RC, for example, or you're relying primarily on your "ear" in SC, instead of analyzing the sentences systematically. So if you're making those sorts of fundamental errors -- or if you're simply not all that familiar with verbal question types -- then it's possible that you could make gains quickly. In theory, weak grammar foundations could provide some low-hanging fruit as well, but that's less common than test-takers would generally like to believe. :)

You might want to check out this video to get a sense of the types of things that can (and can't!) be fixed fairly quickly on verbal. The video is meant for potential private tutoring students who are starting in a much worse position than you are, but it might still give you some food for thought.

I hope that helps a bit, and good luck with everything!

Thanks for this extremely insightful response, sir. I've read a lot in my life, so I am familiar with reading lots of passages. I do, however, read the RC passage in this manner: I'll start reading the paragraph and skip everything that counts as details. Usually this translates into reading just the first two to three lines of each para. I've been told that this way I can save tons of time and if I wanted to answer any detail question, I could always come back anyway. Sir, I'm not very comfortable with this strategy as it seems that eventually it takes more time than otherwise. But, irrespective of my comfort, do you think it's the right strategy to follow in RC?

Sir, one more thing. I invariably end up making blind guesses in the last eight to nine questions on Verbal, and this also happened in my real GMAT. I think this time management issue in verbal is killing my scores. Do you think this could be the culprit in keeping my scores lower than my potential score?

Thanks for the video, sir! :please:
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Hi Louis14,

It’s been a long road my friend, so congrats on a very nice score!! Do you have an idea of the schools to which you’d like to apply? Have you reached out to any admissions consultants here on GMAT club?

You’ve been there with me since day one! I owe you so much! Thank you, my friend! You’re a great mentor, and a great person! The world needs more kind people like you. You’ve all my respects!

As far as schools are concerned, London School of Economics and Imperial College London are my foremost priorities in the U.K. I’m not going for an MBA, but rather a Master in Finance. I plan to pursue an MBA down the lane. I haven’t reached out to any adcoms because I was too occupied with GMAT prep, and also because I don’t know where they exist. But I’ll try to find them.

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Since this post I see you are planning to retake the GMAT, correct?
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Hi Louis14,

It’s been a long road my friend, so congrats on a very nice score!! Do you have an idea of the schools to which you’d like to apply? Have you reached out to any admissions consultants here on GMAT club?

You’ve been there with me since day one! I owe you so much! Thank you, my friend! You’re a great mentor, and a great person! The world needs more kind people like you. You’ve all my respects!

As far as schools are concerned, London School of Economics and Imperial College London are my foremost priorities in the U.K. I’m not going for an MBA, but rather a Master in Finance. I plan to pursue an MBA down the lane. I haven’t reached out to any adcoms because I was too occupied with GMAT prep, and also because I don’t know where they exist. But I’ll try to find them.

Posted from my mobile device

Since this post I see you are planning to retake the GMAT, correct?

That's correct.
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Louis14


That's correct.

Perfect. We will continue to PM.