I have just arrived from the test centre and although my head is aching badly, I can’t keep myself from writing my GMAT experience here on this forum. The reason behind this insanity is that I consider GMATClub my GMAT buddy. Here, I have received invaluable advice, got very good study material, and most importantly found a companion during my GMAT journey.
Firstly, the scores: 700 q45v40
Let me take you through the journey (promise to keep it short, but quite a lot happened.). I started preparing for GMAT in December 2011, and with one month of Quant practice,
my GMATPrep Scores were 680 Q49V33.
For the next few months, being unemployed, I was able to give a few hours almost every day to my studies. I concentrated more on Verbal. The material I used were:
OG10,11; PowerScore CR Bible,
MGMAT SC,RC and
MGMAT number properties and inequalities.
By February I had a job and the amount of time I could give my studies decreased a bit. But I kept my focus on Verbal because my Verbal scores had remained in the 30-34 range for quite a while. By the time March arrived, my RC efficiency was down in the drain. I was touching 30-40% efficiency in RC during early March. That is when VeritasPrepKarishma advised that I practice 3-4 RC passages every day. I took her advice, and made sure I practiced 4-5 passages every day. I also concentrated on CR and used Powerscore Bible as my guide. Sc was not as great a problem so kept my focus on the other two.
During the month of March, I took 4
MGMAT tests and 1 GMATPrep. Here are the scores, in the order I took them:
MGMAT1:650 q46v33
MGMAT2:700
Kaplan: 700
MGMAT3: 700q48v37
MGMAT4:680: q48v34
GMATPrep: 690 q47v36
In the last 10 days I worked out 3RC passages,5 Cr questions and 10 Sc questions daily. I also continued practicing Quant in addition to working a little bit on AWA. I was struggling with keeping pace in the Quant Section and was a bit worried about it.
On the test day:
After finishing my AWA, I took my 8 minute break. I went outside, took a walk, came back and when there were almost 20 seconds left for the Verbal section to start, I pressed RESUME. And what do I see? A stupid windows screen asking for the Device Manager’s password. I raised my hand and waited for the instructor to come. I could see the clock eating away time from my Quant section. Tired of holding my hand up, I knocked on the glass door loudly and fortunately, a passerby(not an employee) saw me and ran to alert the instructors. By the time the instructor arrived, I had lost around 2 minutes of my time, add to that the time the instructor took to enter his password, and leave the room. Then by the time I realized what was going on, I skipped the instruction screen and came to my exam screen. I had lost some 3 minutes of my time and started to panic. I don’t even remember what the questions were like in the beginning and during the middle of the exam I was some 9 minutes behind the target time of 2 minutes per question. I raised my hand to ask for a new scratch sheet and again tired of holding up my hand, I knocked on the glass door loudly, and the lazy instructors arrived. I had lost my confidence and the thought that I had struggled with the Quant timing during my practice test kept popping up in my head and somehow with great effort I was able to keep my emotions of anger, worry and fear at rest while I wrote the exam. Henceforth I stopped looking at the time and concentrated. But by the time I reached the end I was in panic state again and was reading and guessing since I had no time.
I took my eight minute break after Quant, kept my feelings to myself, didn’t share them with the instructors/management outside, and utilized the time to motivate myself. I went to the washroom, spoke to myself in the mirror, and asked myself to give all that I have to Verbal since it was my only hope. I took an extra scratch pad in advance to be safe (and prevent the arm-ache that I would have experienced) and started my Verbal. I kept giving myself little pep talks whenever I felt scared. I finished within time and got my scores.
After the exam I went to speak to the management outside and they asked me my score and reacted as if I was a geek to complain about my scores because in their 4 year career at the centre, they knew of only one other person who got more than 700. I lost it that time and told him that he is nobody to pass comments on my scores or how perfect I want them to be. His senior informed me that he, himself was informed too late about the issue and although could have added a few additional minutes to my Quant to my time, didn’t do so because he didn’t want to disturb me further. Typing all this here makes me realize how ridiculous the entire staff was. I told him I will file a complaint with mba.com(somebody please guide me with this) and he said he will too inform VUE that it was their fault.
Dear GmatClub members, I do not know if I should retake the exam or not because firstly, I didn’t expect my scores in Verbal to be this great, although I believe that the hard work I put in has paid off. Secondly, it is a lot of money (financing it myself) to retake the test and also, is I analyze the schedule I have planned for the next couple of months, I am extremely busy at work and would find no time whatsoever to prepare. But when I think about what my score could have been had my Quant had stayed at 48-49 and my Verbal at 40, I feel very depressed, angry and cheated.
Please guide me one last time at this apparent last stage of the GMAT journey. Guess I haven't reached my destination yet, please hang on a little longer.
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02 Apr 2012, 08:40
117 GMAT RC Passages.docx [458.88 KiB] 
