Thanks Arun for your suggestions.
1. In quant, I usually have problems in DS. Most of my mistakes in practice tests were in DS. But I was surprised to find that DS on the actual exam was not that tricky. I failed to recognize 2-3 pattern questions in PS towards the end of the quant section and spent more time on these questions. Because of this I had to guess 2-3 questions which were wrong (now that I solved them at home). On reflection, I approached DS with more "respect" on the exam because I was expecting them to be more harder than they actually were and relaxed a bit for PS questions.
2. In verbal, I started slow cos I dint want to make many mistakes in the first few questions. As I mentioned, SC is my strong suit but I got a few awkward questions in between where I spent more time. I feel that I did not "attack" the verbal section and was relaxed when approaching the first 20 questions. I had around 34-35 minutes left for the remaining 21-22 questions. I did not get a chance to prethink answers on CRs. I just tried to eliminate all the out of scope/opposite/extreme answers and pick one which I thought was best. For RCs, retention was a problem.
On my practice tests too, I finish the sections just in time. I believe my underlying approach to RC and CR needs to change as speed is affecting my accuracy on these questions. I dont want to take any more chances since this is going to be my final attempt. I am looking at going for either the
e-gmat or the gmat-pill verbal courses (atleast for RC and CR). From the reviews looks like the RC gmat-pill is good although a bit expensive, whereas the
e-gmat CR course seems better. Any suggestions?
arun@crackverbal wrote:
Hi,
A few points:
1. Your Quant is a 78th%ile and Verbal is 84th%ile. I am not sure how avoiding a few silly mistakes can get you to a 50 but if you are confident then good
But just a change in Quant scores can mean 700->730 jump - a score good enough to make it to any bschool in the world.
2. Don't worry about what happened on the real test as its hard to guess. Instead look at your problem areas based on your GMATPrep tests. Maybe even the practice questions you solved. You will need to have a laser sharp focus on the areas that trouble you and try to come up with a test-day strategy to fix that.
3. At a 500 level it is concepts, at a 600-level it is application but at a 700 level it is all about strategy. So I would be interested to know how you split your time across the questions. As you mentioned you were rushed in the Verbal section. Even a small change in timing and it can mean a variation of around 2-raw scores.
4. GMAT has a standard variation of +/-29 points. What this means is that you can take the test again with NO prep and see an improvement to 730 (or a drop to 670). So my recommendation is to review your approach and take it once more to see how it goes.
All the best!
Arun