700 (Q49 V36) experience + Retake advice please!

Question

I have been a passive but grateful user of this forum for the last five months, and now that I have taken my first GMAT I want to share my experience for others’ benefit and hopefully get some good tips on how to prepare for a second take.

Let me start by saying that I am overall satisfied with a 700, but I am set on trying to improve my score (more on this later).

My background : non-native speaker, from Europe. 4y international work experience in different sectors, now consulting.

Preparation :
5-6 months, roughly 1h per day during weekdays + 5-10 hours in the weekend (with CATs in the last 2 months). Since the beginning I knew my very weak area was Quant, and 95% of my study time was dedicated to that… so hopefully I can give some hope and motivation for the ‘Poets’ out there like me who freak out as soon as they see a root… with hard work, you can reach your goal (Q49 might not be an amazing score for many, but I am extremely satisfied with that). Really guys, when I started my study I could not remember basic exponents rules etc…

Resources used :
  OG 13 
 MGMAT Math Foundations: my savior! I have spent at lest the whole first month on this, but was worth it! It may seem a lot of content when you start, but understanding well the basic concepts will help you move thru the Quant guides quicker 
 MGMAT Quant guides…twice! Skipped some of the advanced contents 
 MGMAT Verbal guides: I have read them all quickly, but SC is the only one which I have actually ‘studied’

Tests:
  25/1 GMAT Prep1 710 Q45 V41 
 8/2 MGMT Cat 1 640 Q43 V35 
 22/2 MGMT Cat 2 680 Q44 V38 
 1/3 GMAT Prep2 710 Q48 V38 
 8/3 MGMT Cat3 670 Q41 V40 
 15/3 GMAT Prep3 720 Q46 V44 
 22/3 GMAT Prep4 660 Q45 V35 (bad !!!)

24/3 Real GMAT 700 Q49 V36

Debriefon the real test :

Quant : clearly I am happy with the result, 49 is the highest score I have ever reached. I did not have the feeling that I was doing particularly well during the exam though… I think I might have been lucky with my educated guesses!
Strategies/tips that worked for me:
  Focus on being ‘perfect’ on the easy/medium questions and key basic content 
 Do not stress about very complicated/long questions: they take long to learn and too long to solve during the test 
 Spent a bit extra time on the first 5-10 Qs 
 Catched-up with time during the rest of the exam with quick educated guesses or complete guesses on questions that seemed to hard (still, it is hard to pass on questions without trying hard… but at the end is worth saving time... I also want to improve on this!)

Verbal : the sad note of the exam… not sure what went wrong, I felt I was doing ok…probably a few too many SC errors… time management could have been better, normally in simulations I did not have to rush on the last Qs, while on test day I had to. I feel I can always solve a Verbal questions, thus I never really guess here… A few tips from me:
  RC is usually my forte. Personally, I really engage with the passage and read it thoroughly, taking notes (I don’t go back to them, but it helps memorizing and understanding the passage). Then, I can almost answer Qs without reading again, or at least I know exactly where to look for the answer 
 CR and SC: no particular advice… for SC, I try to follow the standard approach of looking for errors in the stem before checking answers, and then trying to split answer choices to leave the decision between 2 or 3 options

AWA : Not much to say, standard flawed argument. Only advice: try not to write too much, but rather ensure to have enough time at the end to review and correct mistakes (Still waiting for the results)

IR  (6): Not a great score mainly because my first two questions were very long (or it was just me?) to solve and I had to almost guess blindly the last 3-4. 
Good way to warm-up your ‘quant side’ of the brain…

Other test aspects :
  Food & drinks: very important to recharge! I went for Gatorade + Sneaker + banana… my only problem is try not to drink too much, as by the end of both sessions I had a very annoying urge for the toilette! 
 PAD + markers: I found this very, very annoying compared to pen and paper:
The tip of the marker was very big thus I had to pay much more attention to handwriting. And it was getting dry every moment I was not using it, thus I wasted many seconds trying to make it work properly again
   -The pad was not very clean, thus writing from past users was somehow distracting on the sheet background
   -I wrote my timings on the front page but had to switch back to it every time I wanted to check, wasting time… any advice on this?

Retake: please advice!!! 
700 is not a bad score but is not competitive at top schools. While I will not stress myself if I do not improve it, I want to give it another try to make my application more attractive (I consider my profile average on the other aspects).

Now I need to make a study plan for the next 4-6 weeks and would really benefit from the gmatclub community and experts advice on strategy and resources to use

Objective : maintain my score in Quant while improving Verbal

Strategy/material :
  Quant: How to ensure I do not ‘loose ‘it? (Q49 is my best score so far) 
 Verbal: any specific source you recommend to reach 90+ percentile (I already scored above 40 in many on my CATs) 
 Which materials should I use for studying? Going through MGMT guides again or new ones? 
 Which exercises/CATs to use? I feel I benefit a lot from official content, while I am skeptical about MGMT CATs… but I have already finished exercises in OG13 and the 4 GMAT Prep test!

Finally on retaking:

PROS:
  I know I can score much higher in Verbal 
 I had a bad test day experience with the pad… not a big difference, but maybe I can gain 10-20points by being more prepared 
 I will have a better mental attitude from already knowing the test center environment + being less stressed (worst case, I have a 700 in the bag) 
 I have time (plan to apply next fall) 
 I don’t have a profile that stands out, I assume some extra GMAT points could be helpful for top schools)

CONS:
  I am scared I could go much worse in Quant (again, I feel I have been lucky). Actually on this: how would it impact my application slightly improving total score (710,720…) but with a lower Quant score? (My profile is not Quanty at all and I believe it is important for me to show Adcom I can handle quant) 
 Time: need to put on hold school research/mba events etc for another month 
 If the result is less than 700, schools will see it (is this a problem at all?)

Thanks a lot for reading this and for any comment/answer, looking forward to them!!!

bb · Answer

Congratulations on the score!

If you are applying to a top 10 school, then 700 is a fairly average score that will do just fine. 750 will not improve your chances that much. A stellar set of essays with great profile and experience would do much more good for you.

If you feel that improving the GMAT is the best thing you have going and that's the best use of time at this stage (which that may be so), you can try some of the courses that offer money back guarantee - that will be low risk. Some offer as much as 50 and 70 points (but be careful and read fine print carefully!) best-gmat-course-how-to-choose-167728.html (if you don't achieve your score, you get your money back)

My suggestion again would be to find other ways to make your application stand out. You can visit this year's (Class of 2016) application threads and see the charts of those who got admitted (here is Tuck for example) and their GMAT scores... they are all over the place.

Here is Kellogg:

Joe00 · Answer

Hi and thank you!

I know that GMAT is not the only part of the application that matters… but I feel would not be such a big investment for me to try to improve, and 700 is below average for top 10 US schools. (thus probably between me and a similar profile with a 750, Adcom would pick the latter all the times…)

While it is probably a bit early to start working on my essays, I am not sure what other aspects of my profile I could really improve in a 4-5 month time.

For sure I will keep focusing on my current job and hopefully do something significant/get a promotion between now and September, but what else?

I know my extracurriculars are weak, but I don’t feel like engaging for a short time in a new volunteering activity or similar only for the sake of my MBA application…

bb · Answer

I would highly recommend doing Toast Masters. I have not finished my CC "qualification" but having done 4 speeches, I have seen a substantial improvement in structure, organization, and speaking (essay and interview skills), which would be highly valuable for your profile in terms of what you write about and also in terms of putting an additional item on your leadership credential. This is a no-brainer and the only thing that will keep you from doing it is your fear. The only issue with Toast Masters is that it is a perishable skill. You have to keep doing it to stay sharp.

Second suggestion is to think about what you are passionate about (what you have been passionate about) - anything at all and engaging in that (i.e. you don't have to feed homeless; it could be less benign, and something more fun that builds your personality and makes you memorable) - this can be fitness, sports, activity, travel, etc. Make a goal, and achieve it.

Third, see here: extracurricular-activities-what-you-can-do-143183.html

Bottom line: you can get A LOT done between now and October or January (R2 deadline). Tons of accomplishments if you are not distracted by the GMAT 2-3 hours per day. Think of what you could achieve if you used that time and energy elsewhere? Did I convince you?

Joe00 · Answer

Thanks for the suggestions… Great tip on Toast Masters! I am surprised there is actually a CLub in my city.

I do have a lot of passions, but hard to translate into measurable mba-material activities I think… I already backpacked for months in various parts of the world, and I do practice a lot of sports but without any ‘official’ leadership role… bottom line: I have things to talk about that prove I am not one-dimensional, but not necessarily something I can least as a major achievement or an example of leadership.

Did you convince me? Partly ☺ ! I can probably do both things, improving my profile and retaking GMAT (also depending on how much time I have from work… being a consultant, workload demand can vary a lot..)

fallen85 · Answer

I will definitely go for it man, it cant hurt doing it one or two more times, just dont lose focus on the other part of the applications which are extremely important too. Also take into account your times and job, It is a very different scenario if you are applying for fall 2015 or 2016.... either case I will do the GMAT one more time at least

I'm also a Int. applicant and just when through the whole process in the end I got into a top ten school but one big take away of this year was that the applicants pool is growing in both quantity and quality, as there is more prepared people that went through this kind of processes for undergrad school and haven't stop improving since then..... Personally I don't buy the whole "hollistic" thing, while I do think that you have to do stellar essays, resume, etc... the GMAT is the most important part of the application especially in these times. (taking aside the geographic and ethnic part, which plays a bigger role but you cant do anything about it).

good luck!

chromium73 · Answer

I will play devils advocate here.

I applied with a 700 in 2011 and got rejected with no interview from HBS, Wharton, Columbia and MIT 
I applied with a 760 this year and got accepted to Wharton, Booth and Fuqua. I got waitlisted at MIT and an interview invite from Columbia.

Not a whole lot else changed about my profile.

Kristaincarry · Answer

What Should be the Total Score
GMAT prep test 1 - 670 (Q34, V26) => 510
GMAT prep test 2 - 740 (Q50, V39), IR - 7 => 720
GMAT prep test 3 - 760 (Q50, V41), IR - 8 => 740
GMAT prep test 4 - 750 (Q50, V40), IR - 8 => 730
GMAT Real 760 (Q51, V41), IR - 8 => 750

PPanzer · Answer

Hey Joe

I think it´s a tricky question wether you should take a second Gmat because you broke the 700s border and you could do worse on the second Gmat. 
I think, first you have to ask yourself wether you are stable on quant because 49 is a really good score, isn´t it. You also had 45 and 46 on the Gmatprep shortly before your test.
Then you should consider as a non-native speaker, which I also am, that there is always a chance of getting some verbal questions, in which you don´t know 1 or 2 important words and then you just can´t get them right. My verbal scores always varyied way more than my quant scores.

But I also want to encourage you because I had issues with the pens in my first gmat, too, and then in my second Gmat I didn´t have these issues because they gave me two well working pens in the beginning of the exam. In my first Gmat the first pen didn´t work well, then I had to raise the hand to get another pen, which didn´t work well either, yet I finished with that pen then because I didn´t want to lose more time or get more distracted.

Regarding how to improve your verbal, my advice is that you focus on timing. My experience is that my verbal scores in the mocks and in the actual tests where always higher when I didn´t get under time pressure in the end. If you answer 2 or 3 wrong in a row in the end of the verbal section your score imo goes significantly down.

Anyways, I think it´s a 50/50 decision. Up to you. Good Luck anyways!

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700 (Q49 V36) experience + Retake advice please!

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