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sandeepnerli
Joined: 17 Aug 2009
Last visit: 13 Mar 2012
Posts: 22
Own Kudos:
Given Kudos: 8
Location: India
Concentration: General Management, Finance
Schools: Babson (A) Smith (D)
GMAT 1: 580 Q49 V21
GMAT 2: 650 Q49 V29
GPA: 3.85
WE:Information Technology (Computer Software)
23 Nov 2010, 06:11
Kudos
Bookmarks
Hi,
I gave my second attempt on GMAT last week and again scored a dismissal 650(Q49, V29). My first attempt was horrible which I ended up scoring just 580(Q49, V21) back in June 2010.
Here is the debrief -
After my first attempt, I joined Knewton online course. The best part of the course was the quality of the questions in the practice tests (mostly low - mid difficulty). The course went well side by side with the OG practice till mid of October. Largely I could see the accuracies improving in Verbal in all the three sections. Now I feel what hit me hard was the lack of sufficient hard verbal practice, set aside OG and OG - Verbal guides. I think even Knewton lacks sufficient hard verbal questions.
Throughout my practice I ended up making lots of silly mistakes on the Verbal which I think I recovered most of it by the time I gave my actual GMAT. I had scheduled the GMAT on 20th of November (9.00 am) and just a week before laid my hands on ARISTOTLE RC. I guarantee you guys that the RC questions are really representative of the actual GMAT RC's you would encounter.
Here are the practice scores on the Knewton tests
Knewton 1- 650 (Q49, V29)
Knewton 2 - 610 (Q45, V29)
Knewton 3 - 650 (Q47, V32)
Knewton 4 - 640 (Q46, V31)
Knewton 5 - 660 (Q46, V34)
MGMAT Diagnostic 670 (Q47, V35) - was really exhausted on that day and got 18q wrong on math
Gmat Prep1 - 660 ( Q49, V30)
Gmat Prep2 - 680 ( Q49, V34).
TEST DAY
The AWA sections went well and I could comfortable finish both the essays within 45 minutes (thanks to my typing speed
). Had half of the chocolate bar and started the Math section. To my surprise, the questions' difficulty was most of the time easy - medium till the first half of the math section. Then I encountered some difficult DS questions, which I'm sure I have got them wrong. Last 10 questions were also a piece of cake. Throughout the section I kept watch on the time and again to my surprise I had 25 minutes left before the last question. I decided to take an unscheduled break of 10 minutes had the rest of the chocolate bar and some REDBULL energy drink. I answered the last question which was something like
(-2)^-1 + (-3 - 1/20 = ?
Rejected the optional break for Verbal
Verbal section, first 10 question were of something mid- high difficulty level and I was already thrown off balance. Just kept Calm and answered the rest of the questions with 2 long passages and some really difficult CR answer choices and almost similar SC answer choices which all of them seemed correct. I thought that I had screwed up by VERBAL again, but some where in my heart knew that the responses were somewhat better than the previous exam. So I was expecting a score of around 30 - 31 in verbal.
Finished the most boring experimental section in 15 minutes and pressed the REPORT SCORES button and saw 650 (Q49 - 86th percentile, V29 - 53rd Percentile) Overall 79th percentile.
I thought that my scores never went up in the tests because more fine tuning was need for verbal and hence I scored the same kind of score in actual GMAT.
Advice
For the past three months of practice after my first GMAT, I only practiced verbal, but the intensity was slow. So I would recommend to put judicious and conscious effort in verbal - especially for non - native speakers. You need at least 3 months of full practice in verbal - by then you will be able to find out the distinct patterns in the answers and questions. Its just a matter of time.
I think I know now why native speaker students score something around V > 40 with ease. Their ears trained already to identify the patterns in questions and after all GMAT is a standardized test. You have to master the content tested on GMAT. When you are up to that level, you see a question YOU SMILE AND SAY - AUTHOR CANNOT TRICK ME, BECAUSE I KNOW WHAT KIND OF OPTIONS YOU ARE GOING TO PROVIDE AND WHAT IS THE CORRECT ANSWER before moving to answers.
Materials used -
Knewton course practice materials - Truly said, it gives you only sufficient practice to score in the range 650 - 700, not above that
OG and OG Verbal - A must have for practice
Aristotle SC & RC 99 (I wish I had more time to practice these)
GOLDEN RULE - PRACTICE MAKES MAN PERFECT, SO PRACTICE PRACTICE PRACTICE.
Now I know this pushes me up to the 80th percentile overall, I'm totally confused to attempt again to get past 700 or apply to the colleges ranked 25-50 and then attempt GMAT based on need. Please advisel
I'm planning to apply to the following colleges
Schulich - Canada
Indiana Kelley - US
Maryland Smith - US
IOWA Tippie - US
NUS - Singapore
NANYANG - Singapore
I would have applied for higher ranked colleges if had got a 7** score, but I'm running out of time and I cannot afford another month or two to give another attempt.
Thanks
I gave my second attempt on GMAT last week and again scored a dismissal 650(Q49, V29). My first attempt was horrible which I ended up scoring just 580(Q49, V21) back in June 2010.
Here is the debrief -
After my first attempt, I joined Knewton online course. The best part of the course was the quality of the questions in the practice tests (mostly low - mid difficulty). The course went well side by side with the OG practice till mid of October. Largely I could see the accuracies improving in Verbal in all the three sections. Now I feel what hit me hard was the lack of sufficient hard verbal practice, set aside OG and OG - Verbal guides. I think even Knewton lacks sufficient hard verbal questions.
Throughout my practice I ended up making lots of silly mistakes on the Verbal which I think I recovered most of it by the time I gave my actual GMAT. I had scheduled the GMAT on 20th of November (9.00 am) and just a week before laid my hands on ARISTOTLE RC. I guarantee you guys that the RC questions are really representative of the actual GMAT RC's you would encounter.
Here are the practice scores on the Knewton tests
Knewton 1- 650 (Q49, V29)
Knewton 2 - 610 (Q45, V29)
Knewton 3 - 650 (Q47, V32)
Knewton 4 - 640 (Q46, V31)
Knewton 5 - 660 (Q46, V34)
MGMAT Diagnostic 670 (Q47, V35) - was really exhausted on that day and got 18q wrong on math
Gmat Prep1 - 660 ( Q49, V30)
Gmat Prep2 - 680 ( Q49, V34).
TEST DAY
The AWA sections went well and I could comfortable finish both the essays within 45 minutes (thanks to my typing speed
). Had half of the chocolate bar and started the Math section. To my surprise, the questions' difficulty was most of the time easy - medium till the first half of the math section. Then I encountered some difficult DS questions, which I'm sure I have got them wrong. Last 10 questions were also a piece of cake. Throughout the section I kept watch on the time and again to my surprise I had 25 minutes left before the last question. I decided to take an unscheduled break of 10 minutes had the rest of the chocolate bar and some REDBULL energy drink. I answered the last question which was something like(-2)^-1 + (-3 - 1/20 = ?
Rejected the optional break for Verbal
Verbal section, first 10 question were of something mid- high difficulty level and I was already thrown off balance. Just kept Calm and answered the rest of the questions with 2 long passages and some really difficult CR answer choices and almost similar SC answer choices which all of them seemed correct. I thought that I had screwed up by VERBAL again, but some where in my heart knew that the responses were somewhat better than the previous exam. So I was expecting a score of around 30 - 31 in verbal.
Finished the most boring experimental section in 15 minutes and pressed the REPORT SCORES button and saw 650 (Q49 - 86th percentile, V29 - 53rd Percentile) Overall 79th percentile.
I thought that my scores never went up in the tests because more fine tuning was need for verbal and hence I scored the same kind of score in actual GMAT.
Advice
For the past three months of practice after my first GMAT, I only practiced verbal, but the intensity was slow. So I would recommend to put judicious and conscious effort in verbal - especially for non - native speakers. You need at least 3 months of full practice in verbal - by then you will be able to find out the distinct patterns in the answers and questions. Its just a matter of time.
I think I know now why native speaker students score something around V > 40 with ease. Their ears trained already to identify the patterns in questions and after all GMAT is a standardized test. You have to master the content tested on GMAT. When you are up to that level, you see a question YOU SMILE AND SAY - AUTHOR CANNOT TRICK ME, BECAUSE I KNOW WHAT KIND OF OPTIONS YOU ARE GOING TO PROVIDE AND WHAT IS THE CORRECT ANSWER before moving to answers.
Materials used -
Knewton course practice materials - Truly said, it gives you only sufficient practice to score in the range 650 - 700, not above that
OG and OG Verbal - A must have for practice
Aristotle SC & RC 99 (I wish I had more time to practice these)
GOLDEN RULE - PRACTICE MAKES MAN PERFECT, SO PRACTICE PRACTICE PRACTICE.
Now I know this pushes me up to the 80th percentile overall, I'm totally confused to attempt again to get past 700 or apply to the colleges ranked 25-50 and then attempt GMAT based on need. Please advisel
I'm planning to apply to the following colleges
Schulich - Canada
Indiana Kelley - US
Maryland Smith - US
IOWA Tippie - US
NUS - Singapore
NANYANG - Singapore
I would have applied for higher ranked colleges if had got a 7** score, but I'm running out of time and I cannot afford another month or two to give another attempt.
Thanks
23 Nov 2010, 21:08
Kudos
Bookmarks
I think 650 aint a bad score. What is your profile like ?
sandeepnerli
Joined: 17 Aug 2009
Last visit: 13 Mar 2012
Posts: 22
Own Kudos:
Given Kudos: 8
Location: India
Concentration: General Management, Finance
Schools: Babson (A) Smith (D)
GMAT 1: 580 Q49 V21
GMAT 2: 650 Q49 V29
GPA: 3.85
WE:Information Technology (Computer Software)
23 Nov 2010, 23:17
Kudos
Bookmarks
I have an engineering background with 7.6/10 academic score. Currently I'm working in an IT industry and having more than 2 years of full time experience.
Some sort of achievements outside of work.
Some sort of achievements outside of work.
