Not going to have a happy new year.

Question

I bombed. 570 (35M 34V). I guess i freaked out and choked like usual. The day before the exam, i felt the best i ever felt. Although i did not get as much sleep as i normally do, i dont want to use that as an excuse. 


AWA
I thought i did the best here than i ever did even though i only practiced it a few times while taking practice exams.

Quant

Here is where i screwed up. The first 10 questions were EASY. I had one simple combinations question. Somehow i just had serious timing issues. I did ok until around question 20, then just messed up the rest. The difficulty level is og. I felt i do deserve better judging by my practice test scores. 

Verbal
I KNEW that i scred quant and it did have an affect on verbal. 
Had two 70 liners, one 60 liner, one 50 line RC. I had many SC's, some were really tricky. The CR's were ok. I had one bold face. 

Overall i just messed up 

Here are my practice scores in order


PP1-470 didnt know anything
Kaplan Book diagnostic-520
PP1 again- 570 (didnt go over answers the first time)
Kaplan CD diag-570
Kaplan CD cat 1-520
Kaplan CD cat 2-540
Kaplan CD cat 3-590
PP2-690 (halfway done with og)
PR cat 3-690
PR cat 4-620
PR cat 1-610
PR cat 2-600
Paper test 28-720
Paper test 31-660
Paper test 37-660
Paper test 42-640
Paper test 52-640
Paper test 55-680
gmatprep 1- 640 (43M, 34V)
gmatprep2- 660 (46M, 35V)
Kaplan CD cat 4- 38 math, no verbal


Anyway, im really tired of this, I feel i deserve better than what i got. I started working in ibanking a few months ago and Im not sure an Mba is even right for me, I took on this gmat just to see if i could score well. Even though this did not matter for the time being, I still feel like S**T. I dont cope well with failure whatever that faliure may be in. Im going to take a break from this for a few weeks to reassess my goals. I may take it again in jan but am not sure. However, i do thank all of you for participating in this forum and helping me out. It is much appreciated.

gamjatang · Answer

I guess you have the same problem as I do. I finished gmat last month, and am still not sure whether mba is necessary or not. I hope you take a good rest and find the right way.

Anyways, judging from your works in this forum, I think that you surely deserve a lot higher score than what you got now. Don't let the break be too long, and come back soon.


Bst rgds, 
Lee.

TeHCM · Answer

Joemama, do not despair! I definitely feel that you do not deserve this score and I'm positive timing and stress played a large part in this.

You did study alot and the best thing to do now is to enjoy your New Year's and know that you tried your best under the circumstances. After New Year's, start fresh with your goals, whatever it may be.

Whatever you decide to do, we'll all support you! :cool:

BTW, what were the levels of the DS? How about quant, was it comparable to GMATPrep?

tkkoh · Answer

Hey man,

I'm not sure how I can encourage you, but don't give up. Take some time off and come back again. The GMAT monster can be conquered. 

And don't think of this as a failure. Cos it is not.

Take care!

Bhai · Answer

Sorry to hear about your GMAT experience. I hope something good will come out of it.

joemama142000 · Answer

thanks guys for the encouragement-Tehcm, gamjatang, bhai, tk. Ill be sure to consult with some of you experts if i do decide to retake it. And it will have to be with pearson's software which i do not like. The problem is that i think ive exhausted most of the "valuble" material. I dont think many other materials can truely be trusted especially in verbal. I never thought that i would score this low in math. Usually my math skills are much better than verbal. I guess the problem this time was that In the beginning, i expected the questions to be harder. I started double cheking and it ended up wasting mroe time than i should have. to be honest, i only got up to question 30. with 5 mins remaining. TeHCM-A few questions in quant were tricky. However, i think that the majority of quant was easier than kaplan and alot easier than gmatprep. But then again if it were so easy then why did i score so low? When i was taking gmat prep my brain was working harder. Ill have to admit though, It feels like i am getting more and more slower on math section. I remember when i took the first practice exam, i finished with no problem. As i studied more, I began to dwell on each problem in order to see if there were any other alternatives.-especially in DS. I honestly expected at least a 45 in quant. Also, how can on actually guage how what level they are at? My goal was to get 7**. However, i only achieved that once in my practice test and ended up gettin g much lower. If my level is truely at 570 what can another month of studying do? considering ive been at this for a while now. I really just dont know. 

gamjatang and tk, your posts were very inspirational. Ill be sure to consult you guys. Tehcm-good luck

TeHCM · Answer

Thanks Joemama.

Also, this score doesn't mean anything. As what Paul or whoever is it that said it takes at least 3-4 tries to get the score that you want. If this is your first time, its definitely nervous knots. 

Anyways, just don't think about it now and enjoy the rest of the holiday!!

bewakoof · Answer

Hey this is not the end of business school world.. My opinion.. you should not give up, specially now. If this challenge was supposed to be so easily defeated, a lof of people all around the world would not be scared of it.. We have examples among us, duttsit and nakib.. Two wonderful and really smart students choked in their first attempt. Besides that you will find numerous examples of people doing good in their second attempt may be they are better prepared then or may be there isnt a pressure of doing well, since you've already been defeated once. I dont think you should give up, not until you defeat GMAT. I have seen you posting and I think you are very capable of getting where you want to..

vivek123 · Answer

joemama142000,

Do not think too much, it was a bad day!

Do not give up, probably you can think of taking again within a month or so, but enjoy new year eve. There are always ups & downs but never give up!

All the best to you, always!

Best Regards,

joemama142000 · Answer

Thanks for the encouragement guys. I will probably be back. Have a happy new year.

laxieqv · Answer

Again, my friend, GMAT doesn't reflect one's true ability ...Please don't let it make you doubt if you can go for MBA or not! It's just like a visa ...a kind of administration process to get an entrance. It is NOT a ruler to assess your intellectual capability. Just take some rest, come back and get GMAT conquerred. Good lucks to you!!

chriswil2005 · Answer

Whenever I feel defeated by something, I always remember this quote and I think it was Thomas Edison who said it, "I have not failed, I have merely been rejected 10,000 times". You have not failed, you have only been rejected once. I took the GMAT 4 times and got a score of 710 on my most recent one. Don't give up, you can do it.

andy_gr8 · Answer

Why i feel that my story is similar to yours..I studied hard, did all those materials that everyone recommends...but still when it comes to the real one, we cudnt do much... I had been following your posts for some time and was suprised by the amount of questions you post.. It really inspired... I am thinking of taking the beast again...Let me know if you too are looking for it.

joemama142000 · Answer

thanks friends for your support. I hope you guys had a happy new year. Although i was not able to enjoy mine, i figured that i will never get out of this "depression state" until i conquer this test. Im going to give it 110%. Currently im analyzing what has been wrong with my studies. And this is what ive concluded. Chances are my percentage for RC and CR will not change much. It hovers around 75%. And i think that is due to years and years of not reading novels and not paying attention in english class. SC is supposedly my greatest strength in verbal however, it also flucuates. Sometimes 90% sometimes 60%. I believe it is that way because i truly do not have a solid grasp of english grammar. Ive done the og, went over the sc's with a fine comb and mgmat with fine comb. I believe that i mastered the typical errors taught in the guide. However, my exam had many SC's without a clear answer. My approach this time is to actually learn english grammar from the start and analyzing each sentence that way. I am noticing that english grammar rules are almost limitless, especialy in the idiom dept. I have much respect for those who do not speak english as thier native language and can master the SC. I will be focusing mostly on SC while trying to increase my speed in RC and CR.
For math i have kept an error log, i will go over my error log and attempt some problems on this forum as well as some challenges. I actually blanked out on the real exam when i was slow in figuring out what 6*9 was. I am aiming for end of january. Anyway ill be around, let me know if you need help with anything.

scorpioguy · Answer

Joemama

You might be able to increase your RC and CR hit rates by using a grid. It helped me a lot in increasing my CR hit rates. Also another thing you might want to think is to get OG10 (assuming that you completed OG11) and solve questions in that.

haddy74 · Answer

Good spirit dude. 

SC is the real problem. Just like you, I have also mastered all typical errors in SC but still, given the fact that English is not my first language, I make mistakes when I have to choose the final answer. I am so frustrated. I have done every thing. I have done almost 500 questions from 1000 SC document, already done OG11 twice, did GMAT Manhattan SC book twice, read Spidey notes for 5 times but still nothing is happening. I am not a bad student. I have always been a very good student throughout my academic career. Therefore, it is frustrating. I guess it is because English is not my native language. I mean seriously speaking, I can lecture a class about noun-pronoun errors, subject-verb agreement, subjunctive sentences, dangling/misplaced modifies, use of relative pronouns, parallelism etc but still, I end up making new mistakes every time I attempt SC problems scoring between 13 and 15 out of 20 . I have a detailed error log too which I repeat every other day. I mean I have done very thing that has been recommended by experienced Gmaters. 

One other thing, make sure you guys know that OGs SC problems do not reflect the current SC problems in the real GMAT. I have heard that current GMAT SCs are too long with no clear choice. My biggest problem is idiomsâ€¦..Anyway, just wanted to share my frustration with you guys. And joemama, I totally agree with you when you said in your post that:

â€œAnd i think that is due to years and years of not reading novels and not paying attention in English classâ€

scorpioguy · Answer

Joemama and Haddy

I also used the grid approach while practising the SC. Like I mentioned in my post earlier - using a grid helped me to concetrate on the choice on hand.

Also, while doing SC once you have narrowed the choices to 2 or 3, try reading the question stem with the narrowed choices in place of the underlined part. This might also help.

joemama142000 · Answer

scorpioguy, 

what kind of grid are you referring to? Can you send me an example? During my break i started writing ABCDE each answer, however, i dont think it helped me much because i did not practice doing it. It further confused me more because i was used to writing out ABCDE after before reading each question.

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Not going to have a happy new year.

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