GMAT First Attempt - 650 Q49 V30 - Debrief of a mediocre guy

Question

Hey guys,

Today I appeared for GMAT got 650 Q49 V30. Verbal betrayed me, completely. I did well in my recent GMATpreps (latest) getting 710 Q49 V37 and 690 Q49 V34, but today was not my day, as far as verbal is concerned.

Just got AWA results - surprisingly I got 5.5. It means I am good at writing stuff. :D

Frankly speaking, I am not very dissapointed with my score, mainly because, during the exam I felt that I will see something like 580 at the end of the exam, and also, this is my first attempt (and I have been bad at competitive exams, which mostly require you to mark answers; I have been bad at marking questions even after solving them correctly, strange, but true with me). But still I wanted and expected 700, specially after recent GMATpreps. I strongly felt that my quant did not go well during the break.

Materials that I used:

1. OG 13 and 12
2. MGMAT SC, Aristotle SC and e-gmat SC (really good refresher)
3. CR Bible, e-gmat CR (I think I was not able to use it to full, may be because of lack of time)
4. GMATClub Tests (helped me to get Q49)

I was not nervous during the exam, and tackled it quite easily. But I am sure that it is CR which pulled me back because in SC I used to get almost all questions correctly, specially after taking e-gmat course.

I am not sure whether I will reappear for GMAT. My target colleges are mostly IIMs from India, ISB, Great Lakes and XLRI. I am not sure whether I can get them. I had already thought that I will prepare for PMP, and now I am not sure. I will post my details in other section for evaluation.

I might prepare for GMAT, as advised by bb, and take up Knewton/GMATPill and get a raise of 50 some points

or get money back. Will that be a good deal? Any advice.

I need some rest guys...I don't wanna look at books for some days, past 2 months have been very hectic.

best regards,
V.

or get money back. Will that be a good deal? Any advice. I need some rest guys...I don't wanna look at books for some days, past 2 months have been very hectic. best regards, V.

vix · Answer

Arey yaar, say something, why is everyone so silent here. This silence is killing me, is my score that bad? Or am I just feeling it? :D

bb · Answer

Errr... what is your question?

If you are asking then the answer is Yes - it will be a good deal as you don't lose anything if that does not work, just make sure you take every exercise!

yogesh1984 · Answer

All right Vix, let me chime in & give you my 2 cents/paisa on your situation!

A very basic appraoch first- please work on your week points. As you mentioned that you are looking to overcome CR, RC more than SC's. My personal experience has been that  more often I could not get the right option or eliminate a seemingly irrelevant option just because I could not make out what the option means  (read- lack of vocabulary & habit of not reading dense materials). Ask yourself how good you are at reading & comprehending lets say editorials (it's not that it will help you directly, but habit of reading editorials helped me immensely on RC, & to some extent on CR- for my preps I used The Hindu's!). On CR- there are many kind of questions.. identify your weak one's again- off late I see lot of questions on Assumption, Strengthen/Weaken, Main point, Evaluating Arguments (in the order of the frequency they appear on exam). I must also confess that when you reach @40 in the verbal section, it is the CR, which becomes quite deadly compared to RC's, SC's.

So what I would do if I were in your situation-

* Identify not only your weak areas but also the areas where ROI is best!. Please learn to ignore some arcane stuffs such as- I did ignore evil CR's, which were in range of V40+, complex P&C problems. 
* More often I see folks spending sleepless nights over not able to break the hard questions and spending quite inordinate # hours on extra hard questions. Consider a situation- you are consistently scoring in the range 700 (+/- 20 points), still you are charmed enough to try extra hard & some super duper advanced one's. I mean what's the point? Ask yourself if you are scoring in the range of 700 or lets say 650, how on earth do you expect the test to throw a 750+ Q at you ? so to sum up know your ability and master those range of questions first, then move up step by step. 
* Since you have not mentioned categorically what's the main problem in CR- is it simply you are not able to follow the logic, meaning problem? I would wait for your clarification on this...
* For RC- as I mentioned earlier in my experience the one's vocabulary & reading habit is a big determinant. So again I'll hold myself before giving any opinion unless you be specific about what’s the issue in your case.

Also one more thing about enrolling in a course just because it has a guarantee money back policy- I am sorry to say but I would like to differ with BB here. Course is not going to be different if you only take the part where you need help. I did the same mistake for signing up on Gmat pill for whole course, where as I needed more help on SC, RC only- on which it did help. Actually RC's method clicked for me, I would say. So do a cost benefit analysis for yourself & decide accordingly.

if you have specific questions, please shoot them up...

P.P.S.- all the points mentioned above are just my views & based on little experience I have had during my prep. your case/situation may be different, so it all may/may not work for you or anybody else.

AbhiJ · Answer

When you see a CR problem, you must know exactly how to attack the problem. Common wrong option; better create a 3-4 page cheat sheet.

CR can be improved by studying Powerscore CR chapter wise and solving the corresponding question from the list.
List is at the bottom of page that opens on clicking the link below.

https://www.powerscore.com/crbible/question_ref12.cfm

Knewton will help on the Verbal, however you must see the ROI. I would suggest to go through e-GMAT CR /e-GMAT SC once again. Take a new series of tests.

vix · Answer

Hi Yogesh,

Thanks for your insights. To find answers to my CR related questions, I

just looked at my unofficial error log for CR. Following are my observations

for questions from OG13.

Questions 1-40
Wrong 3/40
Types - 1W, 2A

Questions 41-80
Wrong 10/40
Types - 2W 3I 2A 1S 1E 1BF

Questions 81-124
Wrong 19/44
Types - 4W 2I 4A 6S 3BF

As you can see, in the latter part I got more wrongs, but I never guessed

my answers. In the harder part of the book (last 60), I am equally weak in

all types of questions. Actually, I started to feel that I am too dumb for questions in the last 25 questions, because I really struggled tackling them. But I did get some of them correct, and none were guesses during my practice. I did e-gmat, but its method is time consuming and I did not have time to learn it and use it to gain confidence.

About RC, you will be surprized that I was doing really good in my last week, in OG13 and on GMatprep tests. That's why I got 37 and 34 in my verbal there. Actually, I have been always up and down in RC. Sometimes I got 12-13 on 15 questions correct, while other times I got 6-7 on 15 correct. I was not able to comprehend this trend. May be on GMat day, I got most wrongs than corrects.

I am still thinking on what course to take. But methinks that the above analysis can help me to reach some level.

thanks again,
V.

vix · Answer

Hi Abhi,

Please gimme and example of cheat sheet that you mentioned. I did go thru CR bible, but not in the recent times. I am confident in SC but I need to focus on CR and RC more.

Thanks for the list provided. I will certainly follow it once I restart.

thanks a lot,
V.

yogesh1984 · Answer

Couple of quick thoughts- * you said you never guessed ? did you do the same on the test day? please do not be a puritan! even people with higher score do make educated guess in need...overall you do not lose by making an educated guess. * you said it looks like you are not doing good enough in all kind of problems (esp. at the end of OG13)- no easy way out is all I can say, CR is the one of the area prob. where you can improve till a point by using certain innovative techniques but then it all becomes as if you have it or you do not have it. Nothing to lose hope here- If I were you I would take it easy, go back & see the explanations for those so called "hard one's". You should approach such "hard problems" to grill the thought process within yourself. Last but not least on CR-I have not had much different story. I would get about 3-4 incorrect out of 11-12 Q's of Gmat prep tests. So my 2 cents would be to consider this- try hard to improve on easy & middle level Q's and go easy on hard one's (as per your categorization). What I mean by going easy is- do not look them as getting right/wrong but first step would be to just learn the process of working on such problems. Take it step by step. * Variation in RC - Oh boy That's quite a serious variation! I do not know why should you bother much on CR, given this situation in RC. I wrote in my first debrief on repercussions of getting RC's wrong (just check that out, it has compounded effect all I can say!)- This RC thing should be first priority on list for you to figure out... many things could be there- during my early mocks I would get dried up after q25 on verbal, so I could not focus on RC no 3,4 much...do you give up when you see a dense passage, which is full of some arcane stuff & has words almost never heard off (generally this sort of passage comes on No 3 or 4)? do you consider your vocab good enough to tackle most of the RC's ? Do you think you engage too much/enough while reading the passage ? many possibilities out there but unless you see for yourself & pin point the problem, nothing much can be done! So all the best for your analysis & preps .... oh well before I end up I would like to comment on the blue part esp.- never let that creep in your head, you are as good as others at least for this test. I went through similar phases (during my second phase of prep, but I persisted, went the long way & rest is the history ..period!, again I am quoting from my own debriefs

) and always remember this Ham honge kamyab- we shall overcome, & so you too!

vix · Answer

Yogesh yaar,

You used a word such as puritan, which I had forgotten meaning of. After googling it I realized that I am not. Actually, for CR I used to select a choice which looked most optimal at that time and it could possibly be shell game choice. When it comes to I have been quite impatient (only CR), may be that is the reason I got many wrongs there. Also, I think I am bad even at making guesses. My expectation went hight only when I scored 710 and 690 on gmatprep. I had also scored 690 on mgmats, but never considered it standard. Now I have started to believe that I gave 2 much of time on SC and quant and not to CR and RC, and so is the result. I am going to start working on CR as you have advised, and I am hopeful for gaining confidence in that.

I do not give on RC when it is dense, but still I have to read it 2 times atleast, or I get lost while reading it, so I restart it. Normally, in my first 2 passages I am good and get 5/6 correct, but on latter ones I struggle. They mostly consist of questions which are about inference from the passage, I find them very difficult.

Thanks for showing confidence on me and saying - '...as good as others at least for this test'. I did take myself to be dumb when I was not able to clear the JEE. But GMAT still looks getable (God knows).

And thanks for the link of the song, I had almost forgotten it.

regards
V.

ps: I think I will go thru ur debrief again to dig some ideas from it. Many thanks!!!!

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