Nightmare come true

Question

HI guys,
I took the princeton review course for GMAT prep and have been working on it since 23rd Oct 2004. I worked out 70% of the OG and all of the Princeton Review books. 80% of the online material was also covered by me. I gave a PowerPrep, Princeton, Princeton, Princeton, Princeton, PowerPrep and Princeton Tests. The last two tests were given after doing all of the above mentioned things. Following are my acores according to the order of the tests given above: 470(M39,V16),470(M39,V17),550(M44,V22),520(M39,V23),570(M42,V26),510(M47,V15),500(M35,V25). Surprisingly, I got a shocking 370(M39,V6) on actual GMAT i gave on 7th Feb 2005. Atleast I should have got average of the above mentioned scores (540), then why did I scored so low after 3 months of practice????

Hjort · Answer

This is unfortunate news. The mean of the practice scores seems closer to 510 to me, but this is still remote from 370.

How did you feel about the verbal section during the test?
Did you complete the AWA during your practice tests?

Paul · Answer

I see that you got a similar Q score than that in your practice test. The problem might indeed be that you were drained by the time you reached verbal, hence the sub-par verbal score. Make sure you practice with AWA included in your practice test to build up on your stamina. Do not take for granted that because you got X in your practice tests that you should get about the same in the exam. As I used to say, more than 25% of your score is determined by your mental stamina, how well-rested it is, on G-day.

faizaniftikhar83 · Answer

hi, thanks for replying.....yes i didnt practiced the awa section :oops:

. but i wasnt tired a single second while i was giving my gmat. but, i wasnt able to understand a single word that came on the screen in verbal secton. it looked to me as if ants were walking on the screen. i knew all the techniques to get the questions, but comprehending even a single line was troubling me...for instance, if a question is of five sentences, my concept of first sentence wud start fading. so i have to read it again. ps..when shud i retake gmat to get 650 plus. ive heard alot abt kaplan...wat do u say

Antmavel · Answer

Hi, I've got 570 and I've taken the gmat a second time to be disappointed again :evil:

I've realized that it's important to take some time to master the basic concepts. Before you try to find the answer to some complicated problems, you should check one by one all the basic concepts (powers, ratios, percentage, ...) because you will certainly have to solve problems like this before reaching any probabilities question. after I've taken 2 Gmat tests I decided to wait for 6 month and to take my time to understand clearly all the concepts, doing 1-2h daily for 6 month and taking time to solve the problem. 1st : solve the problem 2nd : solve the the problem with time limit 3rd : solve the the problem with time limit without looking the answers (no picking numbers strategy and no lucky choices), it will help you to realize if you're good or not, but during the exam you can clearly use this technic, just learn how to do without it I've seen that you've got a 47 in Quants in one Gmat so you should just take some time to work on it and try to keep this level...your problem is clearly in verbal, 6 in Verbal at a Gmat is very surprising but it doesn't mean you can not improve it. According to your profile, I advise you to study very hard the quant section and then try to improve as much as possible the verbal one but first be sure you can not score below 45 in Quant...and if you can do something good in Verbal it's done...I think it's much harder to improve verbal skills than quant skills so it would be my strategy if I were you :wink:

I would add that when you say that you don't understand why you score so low after 3 months of practice : I don't think 3 months is so long, some people take a year to study all the concepts and some can just spend 2 weeks before reaching 700...take time and always check yourself, visit this website everyday and try to answer every new question within 2 mn and see if you can do it...that's a good test in my mind.

faizaniftikhar83 · Answer

ive completed princeton review book and almost completed ETS OG....wat shud i do next to improve my score...my target is 50 im maths and i know i can acheive it.One more thing. I also get careless occassionally which is the reason why some of my maths questions get wrong.

In verbal, my only problem is lack of understanding quickly....plz want suggestions on improving that also

thanks in advance

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