GMAT score - 620
Debrief: My first real test was several years ago and did not involve
MGMAT or any online forums. I used other materials and scored a meager 520. After some research I found out about
mgmat and online forums including GMATclub. I ordered the
mgmat materials about 4 yrs ago. It took several months to get the materials in me; needed to reread the materials few times. I also found out about JSackman math book and powerscore CR, used them too. I was close to taking my test over 2 years ago, when things in life threw me off balance completely.
After several rough periods like that, I started taking the
mgmat sample tests few months ago. I was scoring anywhere from 620 through 690 in the tests. Once I felt comfortable I scheduled the real test. I did not sleep well the night before and woke up with a headache on the test day morning. Pills helped mask the pain. The AWA section did not take all 30 mins; then over to the IR - I did the easy questions, but did not spend time on harder questions.
When I got to the math section, I got questions that looked too easy. I thought I was underperforming or I had gotten good at answering the questions. When some questions looked like they might take little too long, I skipped them. I started getting easy questions and I thought maybe I was getting even medium level questions wrong. A combinatorics question popped up; maybe it is not that bad after all. Skipped that question anyway. Many questions looked close to the practice questions. Oddly enough, I did not feel the time pressure which I always felt in all mock tests, esp in the math section. I finished the math section with almost 3 mins to spare.
After my break I got to the verbal section. I felt the questions were easier than the ones I see in forums or other places. I was able to see 'patterns', esp in CR. For some questions 2 answers looked appealing. After some questions, I could not spend time to verify answers because I was losing time. I skipped some questions or rushed through some questions. Some SC were not very easy, but that could be because I did not want to spend too much time on them. I got a boldface CR question, so felt I was doing OK. As in practice tests, I got 4 RC passages and as I did in practice tests, I skipped the last RC passage (I still got decent scores in several practice tests) - tried rushing through it in under 1.5 mins for the passage and questions inclusive. Headache did not help either. I felt the time pressure for the verbal section. So I rushed through some of the section to 'catch up'. During the practice tests I had more time pressure on the math section usually.
Apart from the time issue of not having enough time to verify answers, esp difficult ones, another issue was when I asked for an extra scratch pad the test conductor took about several seconds to respond which was too long for me.
breakup of the real test - 620; 43Q/32V. Please give me tips on what I can do to boost my verbal and possibly math too, so I can score > 660.
I have rescheduled the test again in 5 weeks. After a small break I am going to give 2 practice tests; got one free
mgmat test left. I did not take any gmat prep tests. After the practice tests I am going to do some analysis on the questions. I really felt that reviewing the answers in
mgmat tests helped a lot.
Ram.