660(Q:50,V:29) -- GRE HISTORY REPEATS AGAIN

Question

depressed about the score is an understatement. 
this has been my lowest in english.

i dont know where i went wrong. while doing it i felt yeah, i am getting lot of it right...i was like good good.. waav, i cant believe i am doign so well in english... but when i saw the scoreeeeee.. it hurt.. like anything especially seeing the math score.. the overall score is such, that i dont know if i should give it again, or just reconsider my career options. i was leaving ms in financial engineering as an option till now. 

Question is will this score be enough to do Ms in finance?

Last night I was visualizing that I would give a detailed report of my strategy, but looks like what good will it do to benefit others when my verbal score is so low................ 

I scored
PR1: 660 (M:49,V:33)
PR2: 700 (M:49,V:36)
Gmat Prep Test1: 660 (M:46,V:36)
Gmat Prep Test2: 720 (M:49,V:38)
Power prep1: 740 (M:47,V:44)
Gmat prep1 (reinstall) 720 (M:49,V:38)

Covered OG page to page twice, covered princeton general, princeton verbal, princeton math, kaplan general, kaplan verbal, kaplan math, kap800, mgmat (entire 7 series)

All I can say is Math, as long as you do Kap800, Kap Math workout, MGMAT series, and OG, and practice couple of gmatprep tests you are very very fine.................
I found the paper easy.. I just had to spend 2 seconds before I attempted the problem in analysing what it is asking.
Every DS problem I rewrote in equations.
I got a Probabilty, sequence, you name it every type of problem except parabolas..... 

When I saw the probability question, I knew that I was doing well.. because in gmat prep 2 i got a probabilty question too............. rest of the gmat preps i did not get.. so i kind of had a feeling i was doing good in math..

but man oh man.. what a bummer the verbal section????
why i say gre history repeats>>> i got 2030/2400 in 1999. 800 in Anal, 800 in quant, and 430 in verbal 
well i am down to the same boat now. I just cant seem to imprve my communication skills probably............ oh well god does not give everything to everyone.. you win some, you loose some..

So the question to the poll is.. 

1) What do I do? Retake it?
2) IS this score good enough for Californai Berkley where they have financial engineering program?
3) Is this score good enough of University of Chicago part time?
4) Can I get into ultra-elite schools with this gmat for full time mba?
(Undergrad from University of Melbourne, GPA 3.95, Ms in Computers Science, GPA: 4.0, 5 years work experience, got 3 promotions in 5 years.
Career Goal: Open a financial service back in India, and run it from USA. Joint venture with my brother. Also have dads steel business to run as a side.) I know I have lot of options back in India.. 

Anyone any advice.. i will appreciate it.. I will give a detailed analysis of what i did for math.. 

So near, yet so far. Thats all I can think of. This just keeps happening to me, MY ENGLISH GETS ME DOWN.

giddi77 · Answer

Dude, First of all congrats on you good show. Given that you are the one of the only 5-6 GMATClub members who have scored 50 or more in Quant since the beginning of this year, you should feel proud of yourslef. :good

Agree that not having a good Verbal score sucks. But you are the best judge of your situation. You might have had a bad day in Verbal. May be if you put some more effort into Verbal you will defenitely get a better score. So cheer up! Give it an another try... you will defenitely do well. Please do share your prep strategies for Quant. It will help a lot of us.

willget800 · Answer

Detailed Quant Review: Books Prepared: 1) OG 2) Kaplan General Book 3) Princeton General Book 4) Kaplan GRE/GMAT Math workbook 5) Princeton Math Workbook 6) MGMAT series 7) GMAT Club Forum 8) Extensive use of search button on this gmat forum, if I wanted to sovle DS problems for 1 hour, I would just search them. If I wanted geometry, i would just search geometry, then probability etc.. did all of that one by one.. Targetted each weak area by doing a search and practicing 25 probelms. in the end all of them became strong points! I did not do any of the challenges(not that I encourage you all not to do it, but I just did not feel the need of it). Before I attacked each problem, this was my thought process: 1) Read the question carefully. 2) Rewrite the question in terms of algebraic equations. Assigned variables/ rewrote the probelm to what its asking. 3) For the Sets, always drew diagrams. 4) For DS, always drew the picture for the set of numbers the problem belongs: eg: x,y are different positive integers, is x < y? this is what i would do in the paper: X,Y ==> {I}, X <> Y. I would draw a box around it. a big one, and then start plugging values For 1st stmt X Y x

willget800 · Answer

guys, i am depressed, going out to eat taco bell, will come back and think more logically than emotionally.....................


aaaaaaaaaaaarrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh


v 2999999999999999999999999 lowest i have scored..
i had a 80% hit ratio in OG!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I just ran out of time for the last few questions on Verbal... but still.. 29.. does not explain it.

SimaQ · Answer

Good score!!! Quantitative astonishing score!!!!!

All i know that people usually get admitted to London Business School Msc in Finance with the range of scores of 650-690.... You are really a competitive candidate.... 

Congrats once more!!!

selene · Answer

Congrats for your score :king

remgeo · Answer

I was waiting for your post. 
Feel sorry for you. You definitely deserve a better Verbal score. But dont lose heart. You should be really proud of your quant. I think 660 is a competitive score. Good luck with your apps.

joemama142000 · Answer

congrats will, dont frown, 660 is a good score. Excellent math score.

am100 · Answer

As I said in my earlier post, your score is competetive for UChicago PT. Take a shot. I would also retake the test in 30 days. It will get you to 700 atleast.

shampoo · Answer

You have a very good score, especialy your math score is just amazing. As you have said, this is your lowest verbal score, I am sure you were just having a bad verbal day. Somedays my hit ratio in verbal is 90%, and some days it drops to 60-70%, not sure why.

Again, great job and goodluck with your apps.

chiragr · Answer

Well, looking at your caliber your score is unjust to you, and I am sure you can do better! And you know that very well â€¦

Why I am being so blunt because I am exactly in same boat as you--I am confident about scoring 50 in quant but very suspicious about my verbal performanceâ€”I have also scored 720(Q50, V37) in GMATPrep Test 2 like you, So I know what you are going through. Off course my verbal caliber does not permit me to advice you, but I can share what I am thinking and doing at present, it may help you and you can also share your strategy with me and collectively we can improve.

I have basically two problems in verbal from scoring point of view

A) Big variation in test score. I have scored 35+ in some cases and have struggled to cross 30 in other! (you seemed better than me!)

B) My absolute caliber, that means my command on Grammar, Vocab/idiom and reading, and what I can reach in un-timed condition.

So I am trying to attack both problems separately.

Now, to solve problem of fluctuation in score, I have identify two specific reason for fluctuation
(A) Time pressure and
(B) Some time I get lucky or vice versa

Time Pressure
-----------------
1) I take lot of time in reading comprehension, this causes time pressure, which in turn reduces my comprehension and hit rate in CR and SC
2) More over some time I donâ€™t understand some SC or CR questions, and I end up spending big amount of time over here causing same time pressure

So actually if I donâ€™t have time pressure (un-timed tests) I relatively score in same range, but now question is how to solve this time pressure issue?

My goal is to accept that I can not finish all questions. Specifically I am banking on skipping one whole RC, which will free up enough time to finish RC,SC and other RC properly. But which RC to skip thatâ€™s a tough question and tougher one is to have courage to give up that three to four question!

But to find out this and try to optimize my score by understanding how algorithm works! If I have better idea about algorithm I could really skip some questions and improve hit rate in other! To understand algorithm better I have initiated, seemingly unsuccessful, thread.

https://www.gmatclub.com/phpbb/viewtopic.php?t=29068

Getting Lucky:
------------------
That happens for various reasons such as sometime question are within my vocabulary range, I already know idiom, RC are familiar subject or for various other reasons. So in short it directly relate to my absolute caliber.

To resolve this I really have to improve a lot which is not really feasible in test prep manner still I have divided this in three separate parts.

1) Trying to improve Grammar,
For this, I started reading some grammar sources on web started understanding what is noun, verb, adjective, modifier etc. Manhattan GMAT Book is extremely helpful in improving grammar.

2) Vocab : I gave up on vocab as I donâ€™t think I can really improve much in next few weeks, though if I have to do it next time I will surely attack this field. But at present I am planning to concentrate on idiom list and usages because they looks like sure shot, particularly people like us who are good at logic if our pattern recognization works it we can easily finish SC with idiom in couple of min.

3) Reading: From last week I am concentrating on reading, I figure I donâ€™t know how to readâ€¦ wearied haaaâ€¦. But lot of time I have to read complex sentence twice just to understand what is written, this takes time and ultimately time is the one which kills us in exam, to improve this I read a book â€œThe Elements of Styleâ€

OasisNYK · Answer

I think you can take it again and get a 700. Verbal is a funny thing, to me it sounds like you did not have the stamina for the verbal section after killing the math. 

Maybe sit down and do a couple more full length tests - do the essays and the math + verbal. Were you tired during the section? Could you focus?

I def think you are right there.

willget800 · Answer

Chirag,

Thanks a lot for your advice.. I definitely feel the same. I think lot of time, the grammar that I got right, was because it fell in my range of verbal knowledge. Overall I think there was definite improvement since I began my Verbal quest.... But I think the main issue was in my practice tests, I was always down to 2 options. Maybe the time I got a good score, it was because I picked the right option, and the other times I did not pick the right option. In the final test, i just kept picking the wrong option.

I agree with you, we need to start some verbal warrior topic to strategize better.

Oasis,

I don't think stamina was an issue. I had done like 5-6 full tests.. 

I have decided to take a break for a week now on gmat. Lets see how it goes from here. I am currently out of town on vacation. Will take one more day off, get back to work.. and then reengergize myself.

Thanks everyone!

OasisNYK · Answer

WillGet - 

The week off will help you a lot - I did the same thing and I am back at work studying again. 

So it if wasnt stamina it was just an off day - I still think you have every reason to be confident you can hit that 700 mark. 

Best of luck.

Dilshod · Answer

Hi willget800,

You are lucky: I also scored 660, although the breakdown was Q50, V31.
So, you received the same score, though your verbal score is a little bit lower.

does anybody know, why is it possible to receive the same overall score, with different breakdowns?

willget800 · Answer

Doesnt the score depend on the percentile though? I had 56% percentile in verbal... did you have a higher percentile in verbal? i had 95% in math..

this scares me more now.. i thought initially going from 29 to 35 uin verbal might get me in 700.. but that does not seem to be the case seeing from your score..

anyone any idea?

Dilshod · Answer

Hi,
sorry, I don't remember the percentile, however I do remember that verbal percentile was somewhere between 61-65. But I'm almost sure that it doesn't affect the score. It is just merely for statistics.

by the way, I know someone who scored 680 with Q50 and V31.

willget800 · Answer

i just got my awa.. got a 5.5... i am suprised..

was wondering if that has any value? can i atleast claim that look verbal is not really an issue.. i just had an off day?

or the awa does not really offset the let down in verbal?

willget800 · Answer

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