HI Experts,
I appeared for my first GMAT experience yesterday. My score 660 (44 quant, 38 Verbal)
I need to improve my score from 660 to 730 ideally in 1 months time as my target school Deadline is 2 months from now.
My study plan before appearing for my 1st GMAT.I've cleared CAT (Indian MBA exam) with 92%ile 5 years back).
I've a demanding 10+hrs job so I studied for approx 1.5 hrs on weekdays & 3-4 hrs on weekends over the last 3 months.
Books/resourcesGMAT
OGMGMAT Quant books (no 1 to 5)
Veritas for CR & RC Concepts
MGMAT SC book (didn't study advanced concepts)
I was confident of Quant section as i was able to get 95% of the quant Qs in
OG right, even for the rest 5% i knew the concept just made some silly errors.
For verbal, I was not confident. I used to clear
OG with 70% accuracy. SC & CR were areas where i needed to improved & RC i was relatively confident about.
Towards my last 10 days of prep I was extremely bored of the prep since I was able to get most of the Qs right & just wanted to get over with GMAT.
Prep tests:GMAT Official prep tests only
17th oct Test 1 680 36V,47Q
23rd Nov Test 2 670 35v, 46Q
14th dec Test 3 720 37V, 50Q
20th dec Test 4 690 34V, 49Q
27th dec Test 5 700 38V, 48Q
Test Day
Sequence of exam Verbal Quant IR AWA
I was appearing for a competitive exam after 5 years so i got extremely panicky in the exam & started sweating profusely.
It took me about 10-15 minutes into verbal section to stabilize myself.
After that i was a bit confident in the section & performed fine as per my preparation.
Towards the end I had about 10 minutes for 10 Qs so i had to rush it a bit.
I attempted the whole verbal section with last 2-3 Qs being pure guesswork.
Quant:
I was a little skeptic of my verbal score so i thought I may have to take gmat again since my target score is 720+ & with my verbal performance I knew my score may go down below 700.
Anyway I gave Quant my best shot, I started confident, was able to work through all Qs, knew all concepts, was careful not to make any stupid mistakes etc.
In the first 20 mins i followed a good pace & had completed about 10 Qs.
The next time i checked the clock i only had 10 minutes to do 10 Qs. So i obviously panicked.
I was not able to concentrate a lot here onwards & my attempt must have been a mix of guesswork.
I completed the section but I'm sure the last 10 Qs would have been a grave mistake.
Dilemma:
The deadline for my target school application is in 2 months so I need to retake GMAT & get 720+ in the next 1 month.
Do you think I need to work on my concepts again & hence this will require a lot more time or could my bad performance be a case of bad day/exam anxiety.
How do you suggest I move forward? What areas to address & how to address them?
Should i wait & apply for the next round of applications or keep the apps out of the equation for now?