Disappointed with a 650 (Q43,V37)

Hi everyone,

Not too thrilled with myself today. Took the GMAT and got a 650. Maybe I was being overambitious but I really expected to get above 700 and above.

I prepared using the OG - did it cover to cover as suggested. Also used Kaplan 2005 as well as IMS notes (IMS is a coaching centre for GRE/GMAT/CAT etc in India). Was really confident of my performance on the practice tests as I had been consistently scoring reasonably well. Here were my scores :-

Kaplan 1: 600
Kaplan 2: 610
PR 1: 720
IMS 1: 650
IMS 2: 660
IMS 3: 670
PP 1: 760 (after OG)
PP 2: 760 ( " )

The test started with two essays of average difficulty. After that the first six or so quant questions, the level of difficulty went through the roof with complicated set theory questions then it went back down to basic and then back again. It was weird and difficult - most of the problems very Kaplan-esqe i.e they were not so difficult but took a lot of time to solve. Got quite demoralised at the end of the quant section.

Verbal started off easy and stayed very easy throughout. I don't know why it didn't even increase in difficulty - I'm sure I was getting answers correct as they were obvious sentence errors and things. Got four RC's, about ten SC's and about 7 CR's (lot of the logically complete this stuff) - never got tougher at all - very basic - very simple - stuff you could actually lift from the passage - literally. So I thought atleast verbal would compensate for the poor quant showing, but it was not to be. Final scores :

Quant Scaled Score: 43 Percentile : 70
Verbal Scaled Score: 37 Percentile : 83
Total 650 Percentile : 84


My tips:

- Don't trust the scores on the prep tests. I would reckon that none of them are truly as "adaptive" or crazy as the real GMAT is.

- Do the OG but remember your quant section may go to hell if you think it will remain at the basic level at which OG handles quant.

- Your experience may be very different from the next guy/gal so don't unnecessarily kill yourself over low scores. I've not been able to find any data about how the GMAT score is actually arrived at and how your pattern of questions can be compared to what the next guy got.

Anyway, I don't think I want to do the GMAT again - am going to apply with these scores. A big thank you to everyone on this forum....

Warm regards and best wishes to everyone.
Conal

P.S Has anyone heard of the GMAT having a bad month ? Two of my friends gave it this month in Mumbai (Bombay), India and only scored 490. Quicker than you can say "conspiracy theory", I'm outta here