A disappointing 710

Hi guys,

I took on the beast again (for the second time) and was really disappointed with myself. I scored a 710 (Q50, V35).

First of all, it was a tough decision for me to take it again as I had already got a 700 (in my first attempt on Oct 31, 2011) with a Q50, V34 break-up. The real reason for my disappointment is that I wasted more than a month and a half of essay writing time to take the exam. I am disheartened as verbal again ditched me despite spending the past one and a half month to improve my verbal skills. In-fact, I registered for the exam only after I was confident that I had improved my verbal. Below are my verbal scores before I registered:

1. MGMAT 1 (Sep 16,2012) - 37
2. MGMAT 2 (Sep 23,2012) - 38
3. GMATPrep New version (Sep 25,2012) - 40. Overall score - 730
I have always scored a Q50 in all my tests, so Quant was never a surprise or a problem for me.

The last time I took the exam was day before yesterday and I scored a 730 with a V40. I was hoping for at-least 730 today. I had even scored a 750 (with V42) in one of my GMATPreps.

Coming to the exam:

I used the following sources for my preparation:
1. GMAT Club - This was the biggest source of my preparation. I visited / read through and saved the links for a number of discussions. I would specially like to thank Souvik, e-GMAT, daagh and other experts on GMAT Club for their superb posts. I think this forum is a boon for all the MBA aspirants. Great job BB. I cannot thank you guys enough.
2. MGAMT SC Guide - Read it once again, there were a lot of concepts that I had forgotten / not paid attention to the last time.
3. OG 12 - I didn't feel the need to buy the OG 13 as only a few questions are different from OG 12. I did all the SC questions and most CR questions.
4. Verbal OG - Did most SC questions and a number of CR questions.
5. MGMAT forums - I did read through a few discussions on the MGMAT online forum and they were really helpful. For those of you who don't know, you don't need to be a MGAMT customer to read through these discussions.

I also did not spend a single minute on quant.

Coming to my experience today:

Center: The GMAT center in Delhi (Green Park) is great, no problems there. Though I thought the lady there was a little too "formal" compared to the guy who was there the last time I took the exam. However, the best thing about this center is that it is 10 minutes walking distance from my place.

Exam:
AWA: The AWA was straight-forward, though I was a bit short on time an could have planned my time a little better. I think this was not much of a problem as I still wrote 5 paragraphs and more than 300 words.

IR: I would say most of it was a cake-walk. I would suggest, just do the sample questions available on mba.com and that is all the practice you need.

Quant: Like always, quant was not much of a problem though I was a bit short on time. I completed the questions with only about a minute left. Generally, I complete the quant section in about 65 minutes.

Verbal: This is where all my focus was. Verbal is always the dragon for me. Like in the video games, you have to get past the obstacles (read the AWA, IR and Quant) to get to the real dragon.
I think I did a good job initially, and started getting relatively tough questions from question number 7-8 onward. I got a long RC within the first 10 questions. I was doing fine until question 32-33, till then I had about 17 minutes left. I had already got a bold-face question, that too with pretty long bolded portions. I had even got a full underlined SC question (supposed to be relatively tough). Overall, I had got a number of tough questions and I knew I was doing good as I was consistently getting the tough questions. I think this is where I lost the plot (around question 32-33), I got a long (really long) and confusing RC (with four questions) and I spend a lot of time on that. I think that is what killed me. Had I realized it then, I would have just quickly done the RC and focused my attention on the remaining questions as I know that the penalty tends to be little higher if last of your questions are incorrect while if some of your middle questions (until 35-36) are incorrect, the penalty tends to be a little lower. After that, I was always running against time, I had to do the last two of my questions in less than two minutes. My last question was practically a guess. I think this is what hurt me.

I am still ruing my mistakes. It is still hurting, probably time will heal my wounds
Though, I am still tempted to register again and at-least score a 730. Only to satisfy myself.
I think the only thing that I have achieved and am happy about is that in the past month and a half, I have improved my SC skills significantly. Though it is not reflected in my scores.

I think I need a little time to think about these things. I think I should get going with my Stern and HKUST applications as I have too little time left (both have to be completed by mid-Nov). It would be great if somebody can help me with the HKUST applications, it is little difficult to find people applying to HKUST. I will post my college related questions in a separate post.


Let me know in case you guys have any questions. Happy to help.
Finally, thanks again GMAT Club for all the support and guidance that I have got through you.

Thanks,
Dhruv