EMPOWERgmatRichC wrote:
Hi abansal1805,
There are a number of different things to discuss, but we should start with your practice CATs. When these types of score drops occur, the two likely "causes" involve either something that was unrealistic during practice or something that was surprising (or not accounted for) on Test Day. If you can answer a few questions, then we should be able to figure this out:
When you took your CATs:
1) Did you take the ENTIRE CAT each time (including the Essay and IR sections)?
2) Did you take them at home?
3) Did you take them at the same time of day as when you plan to take your Official GMAT?
4) Did you ever do ANYTHING during your CATs that you couldn't do on Test Day (pause the CAT, skip sections, take longer breaks, etc.)?
5) Did you ever take a CAT more than once? Had you seen any of the questions BEFORE (re: in an online forum or in a practice set)?
There are also some issues with how you paced yourself (in simple terms, you "over-committed" to the first 10 questions in each section). With your current timeline, you only have about 2 weeks of potential study time remaining - but your Score Goal will likely require at least another 1-2 months of consistent, guided study.
1) What are the next round of deadlines AFTER January 15th?
GMAT assassins aren't born, they're made,
Rich
Dear Rich,
To help you better understand my situation, I will try to be as honest and precise as possible in answering your queries.
1) I took the entire practice tests in the following order: Quant, Verbal, IR, and AWA.
I saved the AWA question for practice later and skipped writing it.
2) Yes, took them at home. (The pad provided during the test sorta threw my note-taking strategy away especially for Verbal RC)
3) Took them at the same time every day for 4 days consecutively before the test.
4) Paused only in case of an emergency, else I did not.
5) Did not take any CAT more than once. I did take the 2nd Practice Test with GMAT Prep and the score was 720. Unreliable since I had seen a lot of questions in the Verbal Section before. Else, I took exams with Veritas, Princeton and
Experts Global averaging around 650.
The next round of deadlines is only tight due to ISB on 15th January and that is also the last round.
If not, my primary choice of program is Masters in Financial Engineering at Nanyang Tech. and the deadline for the same is 28th Feb. (Sorta requires a very high Quantitative Score)
Lastly, some of the other programs that I am highly interested in are due on 1st April.
I totally agree with your point of requiring 1-2 months of consistent studying.
Studying the whole situation, what sort of recommendation would you provide me?
PS: I have PM'd you my ESR
Thank You