GMAT in a few hours!!

good luck !!

Good luck. we are eagerly waiting for your good debrief.

hey good luck!

My prediction (provided you dont panic in the real environment):

You will get a score between 690 & 730. Best of luck!!

Let us know how you ended up.

I want a debrief whether you get your score or not, don't punk out

Hey guys!

First of all, I wanna thank all of you who wished me well... it is always cool to know that there are many people who have been in the same spot and who know how all this experience is...

Unfortunately, I did not meet my goal... I've got a 660 (43Q,38V), which is ok, but definitely not what I was trying to get...

Let me start with a debrief of the whole scenario and of the exam:

The location was comfortable... no external noises or anything like that, the registration process went very smoothly and the AWA section went ok considering that I had just typed one argument essay and that was about it regarding my essay preparation... I think I have standard writing abilities so it was the part that I paid the least attention to... I think it went fine... we will see when the score report comes back and hopefully it won't bite me in the butt...

I started the Quant section and I believed I did a couple of early mistakes, but generally speaking I felt comfortable with it... DS questions were tougher as I expected... I saw some complicated questions but not that many... a couple of averages, a couple of geometry problems... I guessed probably 4 of them... obviously I did some mistakes, that's why I did not get to the high difficulty level questions and that's why I just scored 43 in that section... maybe I misread the stems or just fell into the traps, but I really thought I had done better there, for me it was surprising to see that 43 when I felt I had done better than in the GMAT Prep exams in which I scored 48 & 47.

In the 8 minute break I was excited because I had caught traps in three or four questions right before confirming the answers, and the last question I got to solve it in the last minute and I think I nailed it... my confidence was way up... then I got back in the test center...

I really felt I bombed the verbal section... seriously, I felt it was worse than advertised... SC & CR were tough since the first ones... and the passages were nightmarish... by midway of the section I was already thinking of retaking the test... that bad I thought I was doing... I had read that bold statements were the new trend for difficult CR questions in the GMAT, and since I was not seeing any, I thought I was doing poorly... so when my split showed a 38, which was my score in the GMAT Prep tests, I was really surprised... I really thought I was gonna get a 30 or something...

I believe that my failure in the verbal section had a lot to do with falling behind the pace in the first 5 questions... after that I really could not regain the time I had lost and ended up with 13 questions left with 10 minutes in the clock... I feel I rushed and probably my 700 slip through my fingers right there, since I was doing better than I was thinking. Generally speaking, I felt tired during the exam.

I have a couple of advices from my personal experience, and I had read about them before, but for some reason I thought I was superman or something like that, and I did not follow them when I should have...

1. Do not try to cram everything in the last three or four weeks... I "studied" at a slow pace the first two months, doing some problems here and there, going to my Kaplan sessions but not doing my homework... then, when I signed up for the test at the end of April, then the fun began... I started to do problems like crazy (mostly Kaplan's, since I wanted to save the Official guide for the end), by the beginning of May I had done just one CAT... so I went through many Kaplan problems, 14 CAT's (including 2 extra Kaplan's and three GMAT Prep's) and online workshops in roughly a month. Man I should tell you, this is not the way to go. In the last ten days I tried to suck everything the Official guide had, and obviously, it just was not enough time, I was sleeping and average of 4 hours during the weekdays, overslept in the weekends to try to recover, gave up exercising and working out, I just threw away my daily routine to focus 100% in the exam. Now that I have experienced this, I truly believe it is not the way to go.

2. Sleep well. Man I am still tired and exhausted from the exam, from Saturday to Sunday I slept only 5 hours, and then I wanted to leave Sunday off to detoxify for the exam, but I couldn't... I felt that I still had many things to cover and I ended up studying until 6 pm on Sunday when I finally gave up... I watched a baseball game (Twins won!) and went to bed, but by the time I fell asleep it was almost 1 am... since I had to wake up at 7, that gave me about 11 hours of sleep for two mentally exhausting days... so catch some sleep... otherwise it is probable that the GMAT will make you pay for not doing it, as I did in the verbal section... I would like to stress that point.

3. Somebody recommend me to have a red bull during the test... which I did after the essays... man I think it was a mistake... normally, caffeine starts to kick in in my body after some minutes, but this time, I really felt that I had drunk a large amount of coffee by the time I started the verbal section. So, the feeling was kind of mixed up... a little bit of headache, mentally tired but with physically energized... I did not like the result... I did it in order to compensate for the lack of rest of the last couple of weeks, but I think it was counterproductive. Proper rest and an structured study schedule must be 10 times better than what I did.

I plan to retake the test in a couple of months, but I have to start planning my schedule since this moment. I wanna get back to have a semi-normal routine... giving me some time to exercise and occasionally go out to have some beers without the guilt of giving up study hours. I also gave up my little league coaching and I would like to retake that, kids are gonna start the tournament soon... anyway, I believe I am not far away from my target... so I wanna plan a structured schedule that focus in the tough questions and the proper techniques to master these questions. I do not feel that I have to go through to complete study books again, but to refine my strategies and attack my weaknesses. Kaplan offers the higher score guarantee so I am counting on having three extra months of practice material form them. I also have the GMAT Club sets that came with the Ipod app and that I did not have the time to practice. I have not touched the Kaplan 800 book that is sitting in my desk. The additional Quant and Verbal complements of the Official Guide are brand new, building up dust in my bookshelf. So I think that I still have material to be busy with for a couple of months.

Any other suggestions to improve those 40 points are welcome. I hope this debrief helps out some people in the things they MUST NOT DO before an exam.

I hope to post another debrief in a couple of months, this time with the details about a successful study schedule that can help out people to get the score of their dreams.

Any other questions about the test experience, just let me know... I will be more than happy to help.

Take care fellas...

thanks for sharing!! do you mind telling what school you are applying for?

just so you know, my first attempt was also 660 (Q44, V37). I felt like that up to that first attempt, I've been "worshiping" the test, putting it on top of a pedestal. I pretty much got mind so wound up with GMAT that I didn't really do much of my "normal" stuff that I'd do on a daily basis, such as exercising and etc. I knew I could've done better with quant section and I knew it was an anomaly for me to get a Q44, seeing that most of the quant sections have been above at least a Q45 on my CAT. I re-registered for the test and I really started prepping my quant section for an entire month, but this time I found time to do some other stuff to keep my life "normal". Voila~ I came out with a 700 on the second attempt. It's not the best score out there, but I'm keeping it for my application. I wish you the best in reaching your goal!!

thanx for sharing

I think your few early mistakes in Quants did you in. Just 2 - 3 Wrongs would have brought you down to 43. Maybe if you had them right you could have hit 46, 47. We will not know that exactly. But, I am saying from my experience in GPREP. Early mistakes cost a lot. In GPREPs, my scores range from 42 - 47. I have always felt I am a definite 46+ quant level guy. But between 42 and 47, its just a few silly mistakes or just a few wrongs in 1 - 20 Questions that brought me down. I think in a months prep you should be OK to hit 700+.

Btw, V-38 is an excellent score.

All the best.

Kudos to you for the debrief!

Thank you for sharing your experience. Though it was a negative one, it is very helpful for others to avoid doing the same mistakes.

As far as your score is concerned I believe you lack fundamentals. Try to relax now for a couple of weeks, make a new plan, and get back to studying.

Posted from my mobile device

Thanks for the advices and the good wishes.

To the people that is asking about the schools I wanna apply to:

LBS, Tuck & Yale SOM, are my top priorities. For schools outside the top ten I am considering Manchester & Babson.

My background:

- Mexican citizen.
- 29 years old.
- Electronic & Communications Engineer.
- 89/100 as an undergrad. I believe that translates to something like 3.5 GPA.
- 5 1/2 years of work experience as a field engineer, project engineer, project manager & facility supervisor for General Electric, British American Tobacco & Rockwell Automation.
- International experience. I actually have a working visa for the US.
- Little league coach, fund-raising participant for different causes, and math & english teacher for underprivileged kids. The teaching I have not done it on a regular basis, but I believe it counts for something

My interest fields are social entrepreneurship, consulting & general management.

I have read from many sources that the chances to get into a top-business school depend a lot in the competition that one is facing. I mean, if I apply, I will be competing against the Latino applicant pool, not against the Americans, Europeans, or against the increasing pool of Indian & Chinese applicants. I wonder how true this statements are, maybe it would be a good topic to discuss, if it has not been already!

If that is the case, I wonder what my chances would be with a lower GMAT... I mean, I don't wanna settle with a 660, I definitely want to increase it. But I have heard from a consultant that specializes in Latino applicants (mainly Mexicans), that schools have different requirements that are considered "good enough" depending on the country background & degree of the different pools. I don't know what the average GMAT is for Latino applicants, but I've heard it is lower that the average of top applicants. I know that Indian & Chinese scores are way up, specially in the quant split, but I also know that there is a fierce competition for the spots reserved for them, since many are qualified but no program can have such a homogeneous class conformed basically with people from those particular countries. For me, I am understanding this comment from the consultant as a supply and demand relationship. Since there are not many applicants from Latin countries compared as those from other backgrounds, the requirements seem to be less stringent, still with a tight competition, but not as tight as it is for the American pool and the Asian pool.

It might seem unfair for some people, but I guess it is how the business schools reflect when they say they are trying to shape a "diverse & heterogeneous class".

I don't wanna state it as a fact, and I would like to get your different impressions about it and maybe start a topic about this kind of things that could clarify the perspectives that any of us could have.

I am still shooting for the >700 score... don't wanna settle for less...

Let me know what you think...

By the way: get-paid-100-to-take-a-gmat-practice-test-conditions-apply-92414.html

You can get $100 if you take a Knewton test within 7 days.

If you have a will to improve, then definitely go for it.

I wish you good luck and I hope you cross the 700+ barrier.

What ever I do no "relaxation GMAT technique" works on me. I panic and i go in to trance during real GMAT test. I gave test today and I score Q50, v28. I have never scored so low in verbal. I have no idea or even recollection of what really happened.
Guys any suggestion ?