gorgeouzmale wrote:
Hello,
I always wanted to write a good debrief of my successful GMAT experience. Alas, that never happened so far. I have written GMAT twice and have scored subpar in both the attempts. The first time I took a whole bunch of books BARRONS, KAPLAN, OG12, VERBAL and QUANT REVIEW, POWERPREP CR and MANHATTAN SC and gave equal importance to every book. I took all the CAT of KAPLAN, MANHATTAN, POWERPREP and GMATPREP. I was scoring around 640 on KAPLAN and MANHATTAN CATs and around 710 on POWERPREP and GMATPREP CATs. Finally, when I gave the official GMAT on April 04, I scored 640(V35,Q43,E6.0). I was pretty dissapointed, but was determined to do better the second attempt.
I enrolled for the full GMATPILL study program with the +50 point guaranttee. I had little more than a month for preparation and wanted to give the second attempt before the new IR section was introduced. I had a solid one month preparation, in which I only used OG12, VERBAL and QUANT REVIEW and GMATPILL videos. I again took MANHATTAN and GMATPREP CATs. This time I was scoring consistently above 730 on CATs. I even wrote few GMATCLUB quant and Verbal exams. I was scoring around 25-30 on the quant exams and around 35 on the verbal exams. When I gave the second official GMAT on Jun 02, I scored a dismal 600 (Q37,V35). I was very dissapointed.
I want to give GMAT again. But, I dont know what I should do to score above 700. I still dont know what mistake I did during the preparation for my second attempt.
Seniors/Experts, Please advice on how should I go about preparing for my next attempt. I want to score high. Kindly, help.
I cannot guess what went wrong during your second GMAT attempt but I can suggest what you should do for a successful third attempt.
Verbal: You are a consistent V35. First find out how you perform individually in each section. Are you very good in SC but CR takes you down? or is RC your downfall or are you average in 2 sections but good in the third... on those lines. Thereafter, there are two ways of going about improving - work hard to become above avg in all 3 sections or exceptional in 2 and avg in the third one. That should help you touch 40 in Verbal. Once you decide you have to work hard on one particular section, you should get a book focusing on only that section with relevant theory and strategies... Focus on that section for a few days till you intuitively start following a particular strategy and know exactly what to do when you get questions from that section.
Quant: It's a little surprising that your score in Quant actually dropped quite a bit. I will assume that you are a Q43 and that the 37 was an aberration. Q 43 implies that your basics are good. You just need to focus on advanced applications. I would suggest you to check out Veritas advanced word problems book. It is meant for people in the lower 40s range and helps them reach higher 40s range. Also, check out my blog. It might give you some ideas on how to deal with advanced applications.
close
10 Jun 2012, 16:23
