I'm really finished this time 780 (Q50, V51) AWA 6.0 UPDATED

Pelihu,
Congrats!! Great excellent inspiring story and thanks for sharing.

Good luck and all the best,
MRD.
"We aim above the mark to hit the mark"

Pelihu, first and foremost I would like to extend a warm congratulations to you on your truly exceptional performance. You not only broke into the 99th %ile, but you tipped the scales towards GMAT perfection (~99.6%). Clearly, you have become THE authority within this forum. By all means, please continue to provide your value added insights to other struggling members who strive just to break the 600 mark, myself included.

On a non-related topic, I would also like to personally thank you for your consideration at the top of this thread. You and I had Yin-Yang results last month; whereas you blew the lid off the exam and went ionispheric, I imploded and sunk to the Mariana trench of GMAT hell. Therefore, I am very sorry to have posted so late. After last month's disaster, I spontaneously took a couple weeks off and went horseback riding deep in the hinterland of Australia to do a little soul searching and build up enough confidence to attempt to overcome this hurdle once again.

Your signature says it all: sometimes when you lose, you really do win.

Nevertheless, your raw, unwavering determination has served as a great inspiration for others here to push ourselves to new limits. For the greater sake of everyone applying this round, or any other time, please continue to update us (on this thread) on your application process, and if possible, try to become an MBA ambassador for others who aspire to follow in your footsteps.

All compliments aside, I must honestly say that I am slightly disappointed that you did not hit the almighty 800. You, of all people, definately have the aptitude of doing so. It would have been a epoch-making achievement that so many people have been looking forward to reading about. This is not to say that you need to or even should retake, because as you said, you were firing on all 12 cylinders that early fall afternoon. I guess it's just human nature to be curious as to what it takes to reach the pinnacle (a Q51/V51 or a Q52/V51??). At what point does the bell curve once again touch the x-axis?

One final request, if I may. Provided that it doesn't breech your confidentiality agreement with GMAC, could you possibly jog your memory and enlighten us with the kinds of questions we can expect towards the upper bin? Honestly, is the OG (and it's supplementary guides) really representative of the difficulty level of Q/V 40+ problems? The word on the street is that the OG caps off around the 600~650 level and that anything beyond that is essentially "no man's land." In your opinion, is there any validity to this rumor?

Good luck with your applications and all of your subsequent b-school related future endeavors.

Your friend and fellow member,

Matt

MATT, thanks a lot for the post. Like many others, I am happy to see that you are back to give it another try. This gracious message is just another indicator of why so many people here like you and want you to do your best.

I will definitely continue to update my application status as I go through the process. I have been posting in "The B-school Application" forum recently. Currently, I'm going to information sessions and visiting most of the places that I would like to apply to. I am targeting my applications R2 and will be shortening my list based on the advice of Paul from accepted.com (blog also here at GMATclub).

You know, I don't know what score you need to get 800. I'm assuming it is 51/51 - I believe Rhyme confirmed with GMAC that currently the highest available score is 51 for both Q & V. Kevin said the same thing and I think those sources are reliable. I really cruised through the verbal section on test day - I finished with 20 minutes to spare and every answer just seemed so clear. I think that the difference between 50 & 51 on Q is probably 1 or 2 questions, so it's easy to sit back and wonder "what if". An extra 2-3 more minutes at the end might have made the difference, but that's probably the case for almost everyone. The honest truth is that without further preperation, 50 is probably the high end for me on Q; a 51 would require some good fortune.

Regarding the type of questions, let's see what I can remember. On the quantitiatve side, I would agree that the OG and GMATprep probably do not have questions at the highest difficulty level. For a small handful of questions, you will probably have to be creative and think on-the-fly during the exam. This might not be the case for people with substantial math backgrounds, but for others like myself, you might need to make up some stuff along the way. I should leave the analysis to the math gurus, as there are others here at GMATclub that have score 50-51Q.

Now for the verbal, I do remember that I did not have any boldface CR questions. I think the prevailing belief in the verbal forum is that these questions are indicators of high scores, but that wasn't the case for me. I did have one extremely long RC (scrolled for almost 2 pages), but I found the questions to be exactly as expected. I think that as you work with official practice questions, you start to get a feel for the types of questions they will ask following RC passages. Since you can only see one question at time, it helps to be able to guess what they will ask later so you can focus your concentration while reading.

The SC questions did get to be very difficult, with multiple clauses and diverse answer choices. For example, on some simpler SC questions, you might get 2 basic answers with some variations in verb tense and modifiers. In the most difficutl SC questions, you'll actually get 5 distinct answer choices that use different language and are formed with different modifiers and verb tenses. It can be time consuming to work through these types of problems, and you need a good grasp of the basics to narrow the field and focus in on the right answer.

I do not recall any serious challenges from the CR questions this time around. I will disclose that CR is probably my strongest of any area tested on the GMAT. The LSAT tests CR, and law school is like one big 3 year practice session for CR. For those trying to improve their verbal scores, I would highly suggest focusing in on CR. I believe, especially for non-native speakers and those with non-rigorious english backgrounds, CR is the easiest of the 3 verbal question types to master. That's just my personal opinion, but I feel that CR has elements of logic, reasoning and quantitative skills and does not require extensive review of rules.

In addition to the OG, I did find the supplementary guide to be useful. I will also suggest the old paper tests. It seems that very few people use these old paper tests, but outside of the OG and GMATprep they are the difinitive source for REAL questions. They will help you get a feel for question types and even right & wrong answer possibilities. I believe that as you are building your foundation for the exam, practicing with REAL questions is paramount. Once you are very familiar with real questions, it can be useful to use other sources like the SC1000, CR1000 the PS & DS question sets and the challenges. Also, by the time I took the exam the second time, I had gone through each of the GMATprep tests 3 times, and while there were definitely repeats, it was still a very effective way to prepare. I have heard some people say they want to save the GMATprep for 2 days before the real exam or something like that. I think that is too late to really learn new things based on the results. There's not harm in taking the GMATprep early and often - it is the best way to help you figure out what you need to work on.

It's great to see you back. We are all rooting for you and I'll be happy to help however I can.

Wow I haven't been here for a while and so many good news are coming. Big congratulations pelihu on a fantastic score!

first and foremost, congrats on your amazing score. You blew the test out of the water!

I just recently took the exam and got a 650 Q44 V 35. I have been trying to get a feel on the board for how I should strategize my second attempt on the GMAT because I definitely would love to score 750+ (which I think with enough preparation and practice is possible for myself). One of the mistakes I made in the first round was not doing any practice exams before. Not sure what I was thinking, but I thought doing the OG book and supplemental stuff would be enough to get me on basics.

First, what is your opinion of a class like GMAX. I work a lot so maybe the flexibility and back to basics online class approach would help solidify my understanding of the materials. I guess from what I've read you did the SC1000 and other supplements. Do you think just making sure I do pretty much every CAT i can get my hands on including the GMAT paper tests would be enough to set me over the top? You have so much STREET CRED so I'll do everything you tell me to do haha

THanks for your time!

First of all, thanks a lot for the compliment Hong Hu. Hopefully I will be following your great result from last year to a great school this admissions season.

Wingsauce, I'll try to give some tips on how to prepare for your second attempt. First, I don't really have much opinion on GMAT classes. I didn't take any, and my personal feeling is that they are geared more towards people scoring in the mid-ranges; they are probably great at helping people improve from 550 to 600+. There are some programs that are geared towards high-scorers, like Manhattan GMAT and Veritas, but I have no experience with them.

You definitely need to utilize the GMATprep software. They are just like the real thing, and doing them will help you get a feel for how real GMAT questions are asked, and what to look for when solving for the answers. The paper tests are also great because they are real GMAT questions - just don't worry too much about the scoring rates when you take them.

I would suggest working with the OG, GMATprep and paper tests almost exclusively. Remember, the additional official verbal and quantitative official guides are good sources for real questions as well. You can take the GMATprep again and again - you will see some repeat questions but there are enough new questions to make it worthwhile. I also found that going back to the OG about 3-4 weeks later was very useful. Just target the questions that appear later in each section when you go back through it as they are the hardest.

I turned to the SC1000 and CR1000 after I was consistently scoring 46-50 on the GMATprep verbal. These question sets are very useful if you want to practice in volume, but are not as useful if you are still trying to learn the skills. My answers would sometimes conflict with the answers given in the SC1000 and CR1000 - and when that happened I would just ignore them. You should not use these until you are really confident that you have a solid foundation of basic rules and skills. In hindsight, this effort was mostly a waste (for me) because the difference between a 44V and 51V was only 10 points in the final score (for my score range) - and it takes a lot of effort to do it! I think I might have been better served working a little more on the Q.

Finally, the real difference for me between my first attempt (730) and my second attempt (780) was execution on test day. You should really give some thought to this if you want to do your best. The first time, I didn't sleep that well (unfortunately this is hard to control), and since I felt a little tired and knew it would be a long test, I made the mistake of drinking some extra coke, and eating some candy bars before the exam and during breaks. I ended up with a huge head-ache at the end and wasn't able to concentrate. I also didn't practice the AWA at home, but the hour spent on this cost me some energy at the end of the exam.

The second time around, I slept a little better the night before and was more relaxed. I didn't load up on coke or candy bars, and instead had some rice crackers during the break (I did drink some coke during the second break). You need to find out what works best for you though. On my first attempt I had problems with my pen throughout the math section, and with about 5 minutes to go I ran out of ink. I really let it bother me too much, so part of my prep for the second attempt was to decide in advance that nothing would bother me. I asked for an additional pen prior to starting the exam and they denied me, but I let it go and just relaxed.

If you really want to score 750+, theres' one more thing I think you should consider on test-day. When you get close to the end of the verbal section, it's easy to lose focus not because you are tired, but because you are excited to see your score. As I did the GMATprep, I found that with 3-5 questions to go, less than helpful thought started to enter my head. I started thinking "it's adaptive, so the last few questions aren't worth much" and "I killed the test I want to see my score now!" and ended up speeding through the last few questions. You need to prepare yourself in advance not to do this - it could cost you a few questions.

Finally, in terms of scoring strategy, I think it's a must to get 50 or 51 Q if you want to break 750. Scoring higher than 45V will not help your overall score that much. Plan your prep accordingly. If you can get 45-47V consistently in practice, focus your further efforts on Q.

Awesome pelihu!

Congratulations

Pelihu,

Man, I can't agree with this statement more. In the end, it may actually only be worth an additional 10 points (who really knows?). But when there's a few questions left, you begin salivating. hahaha

Also I very much agree about law school being a place where you eat, breathe and live CR/RC. I have a friend who decided to go for MBA/JD after his first year of law school. He was a Carnegie Mellon alum who was very good in math, but stunk in verbal. He scored poorly on LSAT (70th% i believe). He ended up with a 710 and a higher verbal than quant.

hey P,

thanks for the insightful post. I understand I need to focus on these materials but teaching myself the "tricks" or "concepts" isn't something I'm very good at. Personally, I can excel at something if I understand 'why' and going through those resources the first time, which I did at least focus on the OG materials, I looked at the info every time i sat down and felt like i was reading a foreign language.

I need to learn the concepts that are tested. I think once I understand the material i can then go over OG stuff and see the "tricks" over and over again.

I don't know what I'm going to do :\ haha

Dear Wingsauce23,
You are correct that the basic concepts must be learned before any tricks or strategies are functional. I was glad that you asked about GMAX. I'll try to answer your question here.
The GMAX Online course teaches the basic concepts and takes you all the way to GMAT-level questions. Recently, we have seen scores of 750 and 740 from students who used only our course and the material we provide and suggest. There is no substitute for excellent teaching, and everyone seems to agree that this course is among the best anywhere. Try a few of the demo lessons here on the gmatclub site (see the review under "test prep reviews" on the top right of the home page and scroll down until you find the links) and see what I mean. In addition to the lessons, students receive 3 adaptive tests, more than 100 pages of material to download, and lots of homework. Also, our students have the superb benefit of being able to access the gmat club challenge tests.
The flexibility you mentioned is very important: sometimes you feel like studying in the middle of the night, and other times in the afternoon. Whenever you want to take a lesson, it is available for you. Moreover, you can keep a lesson on hold, if you must leave in the middle, and come back to it when you are ready to study again. Since there is no need to travel to your lessons, you save time that you can use for studying or doing homework.
The GMAX Online course is also available as a CD Kit, with no difference in the course at all, except for the reduced need for the internet - you only use the internet to log in to the lessons, and any internet connection is fine for that.
One more, very important, point. When you buy a course, you have enough licenses to take each lesson more than twice. For the full course of 30 lessons there are 90 views! Also, there is no time limit for the course at all! Not three months, not six months, not even a year! Once you own it, you can take your lessons for as long as you need to.
There is a good reason that GMAX is well-known internationally.
Regards, and good luck with your studying.
Leanna
Director,
https://www.gmaxonline.com

wow

not only am i impressed that someone scored a 780, but also that someone got a 51 Verbal score!

Wow.......you are the man

Pictures or it didn't happen.

Wow !! 51V is awesome

... you all do realize this thread is 4 years old?

Yeah yeah yeah...

OMG haha why are you tempting me to retake?? I just took it for the first time a couple weekends ago and got a 730 (Q47, V42) AWA 6.0. The funny thing is that I was really really nervous for the quant section because it almost seemed like a crapshoot whether I would even finish that section. I had a bunch of my friends praying for me about that specific issue, and the quant turned out to be much more manageable than I expected. I finished the section with a couple guesses at the end, and some of my problem areas (advanced probability and combinations/permutations) didn't show up on there.

However, the verbal was much harder than I expected. I think I shot myself in the foot a bit with pacing. Pretty much every practice test I took, I finished the verbal section 10+ minutes early. I decided on test day to try to even out the pacing more and check my answers more thoroughly. I guess I wasn't paying close enough attention to the time though because I timed out before finishing the last question. First time I had ever not finished verbal.

I was thinking that I was done with the GMAT (wanting to burn the books and such), but then my parents were suggesting that if I had finished the verbal my score might have been significantly higher. Any idea how much not answering the last question would affect your score at this level? The thing is though that if I were to retake, I would risk doing much worse on quant. I wouldn't even know what to focus on because I still feel much less confident on quant than verbal.

Maybe it's not worth the time and risk for me because the highest I've gotten has been 750 (2x), and sometimes I end up with scores in the 600s. Too bad I can't just retake the verbal portion!