Hello everyone,
I have given GMAT twice with scores of 660 in each attempt. However, the distribution of percentile has varied as follows:
-> Attempt 1: 660 - Q49 V33
-> Attempt 2:660 - Q43 V38
Attempt 1 Summary:
I was preparing for Indian CAT and was unaware of GMAT (knew that it existed but had not prepared a bit), then I came across ISB YLP and I got shortlisted for stage 2. I had about 3 months to prepare for the GMAT. While the prep was going on, I had changed my mind to pursue an MBA with work experience instead of pursuing straight out of college as I had been placed in Deloitte Consulting and mostly because of the reason that MBA with work exp. made more sense to me. My very first mock without any idea of the GMAT was of VeritasPrep where I had scored a 620. I knew straight-away that DS was a totally different game and understood that GMAT altogether was extremely different than Indian CAT. I had a poor verbal score. Due to placements season going on at my college, I had decided to work on my strengths and focused on DS (I did not know back then that this was a terrible strategy). My CR was average and RC was pretty good. I was scoring around 700 in different mocks, with 740 the highest one in LBS Mock. My official Mock scores were 660 and 710 respectively (I face issues with accuracy in SC, still persist). Gave GMAT. Got hammered in Verbal SC and CR and ended up with poor verbal, mostly due to the lack of REAL STRATEGY. I was unaware of the real feel of GMAT and was prepping without any coaching.
Attempt 2 Summary:
I had decided that I can score a lot better if I prepare verbal accordingly. First of all, I started understanding what GMAT actually tested in verbal. Completed the
MGMAT for SC, CR, and RC. While I could greatly benefit in CR ( I could feel the difference), SC was still troubling me, though it had got somewhat better. I had also prepared for DS in parallel as I knew it needed consistent practice to master. For verbal, SC was very troublesome for me as I hate remembering the rules of grammar, and I faced challenges in particular where the whole question was underlined. Nevertheless, I prepared and was able to score 680 and 710 in the GMAT official mocks, with a consistent Quants score of q49 and q50 respectively. On D-Day, got hammered in Quants (It was 2nd section, verbal being the first). I could not understand what the question was exactly asking in a few questions and got so nervous that I was unable to even understand PS question which had been my strength from day 1. As a result, I ended up scoring exactly the same - 660. Although I don't exactly understand the scoring pattern of GMAT, I do particularly understand that this 660 is drastically different than the 660 in 1st attempt.
I would like to get help from you guys on the following two questions:
1.) Is this 660 better/worse than the previous attempt? How does this score differ from the previous score?
2.) Should I consider taking GMAT again or this is the representation of my caliber and accept it as a fact (I highly oppose the lateral view, but am unsure). (Also GMAT costs around 20k INR which is a serious amt. and I am confused a lot).
Thanks in advance for your time and inputs!