Long GMAT Debrief: 780 (49Q, 51V, I8)

Question

In May of 2014, I decided to accept the challenge. Less than a year removed from getting my B.Sc. in Business from The Johns Hopkins University, I decided to embark on the daunting task of getting into a top business school with under 2 years of work experience. August 2015 entry, here I come.

I had done well in school (3.93 GPA, honors), but I knew that my college performance would not be enough to offset my lack of post-college work experience (1 year internship at Morgan Stanley Wealth Management + 1 year of full-time job TBD). A great performance on the GMAT would be crucial.

I had originally planned to submit my applications for my top three and only choices (Harvard, Columbia, Wharton) in Round 1 (I have since decided to wait until Round 2 to improve my resume), and so I knew I needed to take the test by August. Three months of preparation seemed the norm, and I had always been very good at standardized tests, so the time limit did not daunt me.

I started by signing up for the Kaplan GMAT On Demand program. I had tried to read through the Princeton Review Prep book on a whim about a year prior, but found it really difficult to absorb the information via reading. I have had great experience with video studying (Khan Academy), and Kaplan provided a flexible schedule to learn the material. It seemed the perfect choice.

The Kaplan program breaks down the studying in 13 weeks. I moved at a slightly faster pace to accommodate a slightly condensed timeline (May 21-August 11). The program lays out a very clear course syllabus. Each week, for the most part, I watched a lesson on a GMAT Topic, did a bunch of practice questions, reviewed the written session summary, and took a practice CAT. I was very consistent in maintaining that schedule. Every week, I would plug into my calendar all the tasks I needed to complete by week's end. I am a major procrastinator in general, so I actually impressed myself by rarely letting any item run overdue by more than a few days.

I found the lesson videos very enlightening. I expected to approach the exam like any other standardized test, but came to appreciate the Kaplan method for approaching various questions. The quantitative section required an especially different approach from a regular math test, as they constantly reminded me, but I found it hard to forget years of test taking habits, and never really perfected the approach. I did improve, however, and that helped me feel more comfortable as I went along.

As far as the content was concerned: By the end of the program I felt a lot more comfortable with the math concepts. I hardly remembered geometry or statistics, but by the end of the program I felt like I could answer any questions they threw at me. I still got tripped up by little mistakes and question stem tricks, but my confidence was way up. For verbal, I never really felt comfortable. If anything, the lessons and quizzes forced me to be super critical in my analyses of arguments and reading passages. They did hammer home the importance of what the questions are asking, and knowing what the test-makers are looking for, but there was no new subject material to learn, per se.

As I went along, I took 11 practice CATs. I will give you the results here:

5/21 CAT 1 720 (Q50, V44, I7) *Diagnostic
6/06 CAT 2 730 (Q49, V45, I7)
6/13 CAT 3 740 (Q50, V45, I7)
6/20 CAT 4 760 (Q51, V42, I8)
6/29 CAT 5 760 (Q51, V45, I8)
7/06 CAT 7 740 (Q50, V44, I8)
7/24 CAT 6 750 (Q50, V44, I8) *At Test Center
8/04 CAT 8 760 (Q51, V45, I6)
8/07 CAT 9 750 (Q50, V45, I8)

So, I saw pretty solid improvement from the start of my studying, up to a point. I ranged between Q50-Q51 for my final 7 CATs, and I ranged between a V44-V45 for my final 5 CATs.

I also took two GMATPrep CATs:

7/20 CAT 1 780 (Q50, V48, I8)
8/08 CAT 2 780 (Q50, V47, I8)

After taking the test, I noticed that the Quant section was slightly harder than the Kaplan tests, but also more strictly scored (I got 33/37 correct on the GMATPrep CAT 2 and only got Q50, despite getting Q51 with far worse accuracy on Kaplan's CATs). I also found the verbal section to be much much much easier. On the Kaplan tests, the difficult questions forced me to make judgement calls about what seemed like two correct answers, to decide what is more correct. I never faced that on the GMATPrep test. They were always clear cut, and while I made exactly two errors on each, I felt like they could be overcome, if I focused really hard on test day.

I stressed a lot about what exams are more representative of the real test, but I came out with a pretty clear expectation:

I would get 50-51 on the Quant, and 45-51 on the Verbal. I was super-confident about the Quant going in because I always considered myself a math guy, and I had been very consistent in practice. I still studied a ton of quant questions, going as far to take a quiz of 99 questions the day before the test to make sure I was sharp.

I was hoping the Verbal would be clear cut. If it was like the GMATPrep questions, I felt confident of making no more than 2 mistakes, for a 47-48, with a hope of nailing all 41 questions for a perfect score.

So basically, I knew I would do well in Quant, and I dreamed of having the perfect Verbal storm and hitting the 800. If you asked me for my target score, it would have been 770 - Q50, V47.

Test Day 
I woke up at 7:00am for a 11:30am test date. I had a pretty bad sleep, to be honest. I went to bed at 6pm, hoping to wake up very well rested. Unfortunately, I woke up at 8pm, and could not fall back asleep until closer to midnight. However, the rest was adequate because I had slept well the night before. I made a small breakfast, scrambled eggs and some fruit, but I usually skip breakfast so it was a conscious effort to build energy. Then I showered, changed, and hung around my house for a but, tried to pass the time until I had to leave by reading a book. I wanted to make sure I was 100% awake for the test, so I also took a walk outside in the summer sun, and tried to get my notoriously slow-starting body to awaken.

I drove to the test center, about 45 minute commute, and arrived around 11am, 30 minutes early. I had a little snack and half a water bottle in the car, so I was feeling comfortable. Not hungry but not overstuffed. I knew what to expect from taking a practice test in that facility before, so that was a weight off my mind. I highly encourage everyone to take a practice test at the exact testing location, it was a huge help. I even knew the proctor from my prior visit. I signed in, got my seat at the test booth, and started the test.

It looked exactly how I expected. For some reason, right when I started the test, I felt my left index finger start to swell. It seemed like an allergic reaction, and I immediately thought about the palm scanner, and if I had gotten pricked or something. This distracted me for a few seconds, until I decided I would just have to play through it, and hope it did not explode all over the computer.

I read the AWA prompt, wrote down the conclusion, evidence, and assumptions on my noteboard, and started to type. For some reason I did not have a great writing flow at the start, so after writing paragraph 1, I glanced at the clock and saw 20:00. Time to move. I breezed through the next 5 paragraphs, and finished with 5:00 remaining. I knew it wasn't written as well as I would have liked, so I did some editing, re-writing some poorly constructed sentences as quickly as I could. I got everything done, but did not have time to click the NEXT button before time ran out. Whew.

Next section, IR. I was feeling a bit flustered from the close-call on editing the AWA but forced myself to re-focus. The IR questions seemed relatively easy compared to the practice tests, especially the two-part analysis questions which traditionally gave me the most trouble. I finished the section, and I knew I had an 8.

I decided to take a break. I never took breaks in my practice exams, and I wonder if it was a mistake to change my routine, but I still felt tense and rushed, so I decided for it. I went outside for about 4 minutes, grabbed a water, got bored of pacing around the waiting areas, and decided to just get on with it.

I started the first few quant questions very slowly and methodically, knowing a mistake at the start would be difficult to recover from. But eventually I got into a flow. Until around question 12. It was a geometry question, and I couldn't even fathom how to find the answer. This really flustered me because I felt like I should know how to do any question, and it was only the execution that mattered. I ended up guessing after wasted a good deal of time. The rest of the section felt like a blur. I remember being frustrated quite a few times, thinking that the questions were far too easy at this point in the test, and I must have made a good deal of mistakes. This made me feel even more rushed, and without realizing it, I was not focusing enough on the questions. I was trying to move quickly, for some reason, and when I finished and saw 15 minutes on the clock, I knew I had screwed up. I usually finished with under 10 minutes in the practice tests, and I knew I did not finish early because I did exceptionally.

OK, I thought, the 800 is out of the question. I may have screwed up the quant section pretty badly. But now I have to salvage this with my verbal section. I did not take a break, because I did not want to stew on my past performance. I started the first question, read the prompt, predicted the answer, eliminated every other choice, and suddenly I was in the zone. On a couple of questions I had to pause and really think about it, but the correct answer always came to me. I finished the section with 5 minutes left. I traditionally finished practice with 10 minutes left, so I knew I had nailed my strategy of slowing down a bit to avoid careless mistakes. I felt like I may have gotten them all right, but expected 1 or 2 mistakes nonetheless.

I skimmed through the post-exam questions, and then my score appeared:

Integrated Reasoning : 8 - 92nd percentile
Quantitative : 49 - 79th percentile
Verbal : 51 - 99th percentile
Total : 780 - 99th percentile

I wasn't expecting the score to pop up when it did, so it all kind of hit me at once. I was immediately thrilled with a 780. I also noticed a perfect score on Verbal, which made me feel like I really hit my goal of getting all 41 correct. And I saw a 49 on quant, but was surprised to see 79th percentile. I had expected a 49 to be closer to 90. It seemed like an ugly mark on an otherwise great score.

I left the test center feeling like I should be happy. 780 was above my target score, and V51 was like pitching a perfect game. Celebration-worthy.

But 79th percentile on quant. I knew I could have done better, should have done better. But most importantly, I felt like it killed my chances of going to my top-3 (and only) MBA Target Programs in 2015. These programs would want someone in the top 10 percent in both areas, and I was not even in the top 20 percent in quant.

I would have preferred to lose a few points on Verbal and get a Q50 so both scores could be above the 90th percentile. Even if it meant dropping to a 770 or 760 or even 750. I just felt like an admissions officer would take a 760 Q50-V46 before a 780 Q49-V51. Especially because of the percentile rank.

So, major mixed feelings for me. I am proud of the overall score, but I feel like I missed my chance to get into my programs. I am considering waiting for a couple more years to get more work experience before applying to MBA programs. I am even considering a re-take. Not to improve on 780, but to get rid of that 79th percentile that makes the entire report seem ugly to me.

I know, I have high expectations on myself, maybe even impossible expectations. But my goal was not a number, it was a feeling. I wanted to feel confident about my application, and I feel like this GMAT hurt me more than it helped me.

If anyone has any advice for me on how to approach the next few months, in terms of applications and re-takes, I would be glad to hear it.

Of course, I am sure I left out tons of information about my experience, so if you have any questions, I encourage you to ask away and I will do my best to answer.

EDIT: After having some time to digest the score, I realized that I was unfairly harsh on myself for the Quant score, and that despite the skewed percentile, Q49 is a great score, especially when paired with the V51. See my later posts for further updates on my post MBA process.

getsunny · Answer

Wow! A V51 is super awesome man. Congrats on the score!

AlexanderS · Answer

Thanks.

After sleeping on it, and doing some research, I am definitely feeling a lot better about the Quant percentile rank. Apparently, Q49 used to be in the high 80s, and recently the results have skewed towards more successful quant students, driving it down to 79. My understanding is that Q49 is still a really strong score, regardless of percentile, and probably won't hurt me as much as I thought. I am still disappointed because I think I could have done better, but I am not discouraged as much.

As far as the verbal goes, I am still thrilled about the V51. Its a great feeling to know I really executed well on that section.

getsunny · Answer

yes, I think your Q49 is still really good and you have nothing to worry about. You should not just focus on killing the essays and recommendations, as they would have a bigger impact in the success of your applications.

Also, can you please describe the strategy that you followed for the different sections of verbal? As in, how you approached different question types within CR, SC and RC. I know this might be time consuming to type out, but would be very helpful to someone like me who is trying to improve on verbal for a retake. Thanks!

AlexanderS · Answer

Sure.

CR:

First thing I did was read the question to figure out what I am looking for (assumption, inference, etc.) Then I would read the argument. I would say 75% of the time I got an idea of the what the answer should look like, but I did not spend a ton of time trying to exactly predict the answer choice. Many of the arguments had many flaws and many inferences, and I did not want to focus on finding a specific one, in order to avoid getting trapped by a tempting incorrect answer choice. But I did know what I was looking for.

I went through all five answer choices, one by one. In looking at the answer choice, I would first determine if it was out of scope - and if it was I wouldn't bother finish reading it. Then, if it was in scope, I would think about whether it was a logical answer to the question. I repeated this process for all five answer choices, and I almost always had three or more obviously incorrect answers. In the earlier part of the exam I usually could eliminate all four wrong answers in my first pass, so I just clicked the correct answer and moved on - usually under 90 seconds per question.

In the later part of the exam, I was usually left with two answers that seemed correct, or at least not obviously wrong. I would spend 30-60 seconds thinking about the question and the passage and the answer choices I was considering, and usually it became clear. It was a slower process than eliminating wrong answers, but when I really focused on it, I could think like a test-maker and understand which answer choice truly fit best. Having banked time from the easier CR questions, I felt really comfortable taking my time and picking the best logical fit.

SC:

I started by scanning the sentence in question, not really reading the content, but looking for patterns. I was trying to identify what mistake the question was testing. Very often it was pretty obvious, especially when it came to agreement between two different words in the sentence. If there was a list of three things, I knew I had to check that the structure was parallel. If there was a dependent clause, I knew I had to check to make sure it referred to the correct subject. If nothing jumped out at me, I would scan the answer choices for differences, and by then I could always figure out at least one major mistake I had to identify.

Again, I methodically worked through the answer choices, looking for definitively incorrect answers rather than for correct ones. The first error usually allowed me to eliminate 2 or 3 answer choices. This elimination was less obvious than in CR, because I really had to make sure I was applying the grammar rules correctly, but still fairly simple. Then I would compare the remaining answer choices, looking for differences. If there were three choices left, one or more of them almost always had a obvious error (different than the one that eliminated the original answer choices).

For the hardest questions, I was left with two possible answers. When I ran into these challenges, I found that while the answer choices were not definitively wrong, they were not definitely correct either. To find the correct answer, I looked for the less egregious sin. If one sentence was awkward and I had never seen words being used in that way, while the other one had a questionable agreement error that I was not sure if was truly of violation of grammar laws - I thought like a test-maker. I knew that they knew that I would be having this conundrum, and so it became obvious that the awkward structure was a trap to have me ignore the real error. I made sure to confirm, to the best of my ability, that there was a real error in the answer I decided to eliminate. Finally, and this goes for both easy and hard questions, I read the sentence over, replacing the underlined portion with my answer choice, and made sure it sounded correct and more importantly, that it avoided all the errors I had identified in the other sentences. The easier questions usually took me under 60 seconds, with the harder ones ranging to 120 seconds. However, by banking time early, I felt confident about taking my time when I needed it.

RC:

I read the passage pretty slowly, which was counter to the Kaplan method for RC, but it worked better for me. I usually took three minutes per passage, give or take depending on the length and complexity. I made sure to keep in mind what the overall goal and tone of the author was. That almost always shows up as a question, and you cannot go back and search for details for a general question like that. I did not want to be influenced in my interpretation of the passage by the questions or answer choices, so I always made sure to think about that in my first read through. As I read, I would jot down the logical structure of the passage, while making sure to take a mental note of the details. So if the first paragraph discussed reasons for whale extinction, I would write down: "Whale extinction - scientists say 3 reasons" and I would make sure to understand those reasons in my head. I went through the rest of the passage in this fashion. As a side note, I almost never looked at my notes, but writing it down helped me to take stock of what I was reading and to reinforce my understanding of the logical flow.

My approach to RC questions were different than CR and SC in that I was now predicting and searching for correct answers rather than eliminating wrong ones. Having read the passage slowly and having understood it on a broad and detailed scale, I could usually predict the answer choice with near certainty. If I could not do so, the correct answer jumped off the page pretty quickly. I would still make sure to go back to the passage to double check my answer and find definitive evidence for it, but I could do that pretty quickly, again, having read the passage in depth to start. Finally, I would quickly scan the other answer choices to make sure they were incorrect, and quickly move to the next question. On average, these questions took me between 30 and 45 seconds.

The only RC questions I spent a lot of time on where the more general questions about the passage. Again, I always identified the topic and purpose while reading, but I did run into some questions with two or more attractive answers. In that case, I would slow down and think about what the passage is really doing. Then, I would analyze every word in the answer choices I was considering. There could be two identical answers, with the only difference being the use of the word "analyze" in one and "argue" in another, and that would be enough. When I really understood the purpose, I could find answer choices that exaggerated or misstated it, even slightly. That was enough to eliminate, and find the correct answer. This extra step added around 30 seconds, but again, banking time on the easier questions helped me afford that.

bb · Answer

Don't have any hurt feelings. Q49 may be 79th percentile but Q51 is not that great either - only 97th percentile and that's the highest score. Q50 is 88th percentile. These are not small scores, they have just been eroded and inflated. Just to give you an idea, 10 years ago Q49 was 92nd percentile. Don't worry about it, Anything above Q47 is a solid quant score, even though that's 68th percentile.

NoHalfMeasures · Answer

First of congratulations! 780 is an incredible score!

FWIW though, the only way your quant score might hurt you at top3 is if you tell them in your essays that you plan on to go to work for a marquee financial institution in a quant heavy job after you graduate. Otherwise, I think you're at a great position to make it to top3.

Congratulations again and good luck!

gmatbugsme84 · Answer

Wow. Congrats. Amazing score...

Don't fret about the quant score. Just concentrate on your applications. Its more important to think about questions like why MBA? Why now? Why ___ school? Your leadership experiences? Etc.

chetansood · Answer

with a 780 and a perfect on verbal, You have something quite unique about you, just sell that.

Q 50 - 51 is more common as compared to a V51, to be honest you are the first person I have come across who has that score.

Best of luck :-)

AlexanderS · Answer

Thanks for the kind words everyone. I definitely have come to realize that my partial disappointment with the score is just my perfectionist nature coming to the forefront, and was completely baseless. As more time passes, I feel more and more that it is a great score, and one that I am very proud of.

I have spoken with some MBA consultants who strongly encouraged me to get one or two years of work experience before applying. I am definitely going to consider taking that route. Despite my solid academic record, the top schools are looking for proven employment track record, so they can be confident that their alumni will be happily employed and the recruiters will be pleased with their employees.

I will see if I can land a full-time job, and then evaluate from there if I am going to make a push for Round 2 applications.

I will see if I can land a full-time job, and then evaluate from there if I am going to make a push for Round 2 applications.

gmatbugsme84 · Answer

You are already talking about post-MBA goals! This is in the right direction of thinking. A couple of years of work experience will surely help you build a great application (the work experience will give you fodder to use in your essays and interviews - most top institutions definitely look for this). While internships are "somewhat" valued, full time work-ex will is valued more heavily. Usually, all institutions look for around 3 to 7 yrs of experience (quality AND quantity), with the sweet spot being 4-5 years.

All the best for your R2 applications.

deepanshumadan · Answer

Guys,

This is my first post on GMAT Club but i have been actively using this forum to solve questions and take learning from experiences shared by folks including Alexander. Congratulations on nailing the GMAT!
I have a problem that i would like to get a solution to. Kindly help if possible.

I had taken the GMAT last year and scored a 550. For 8 months after that i went back to work dejected and thinking of not taking the GMAT again like most people getting a pathetic score like mine may feel.

Anyhow i for the last 2 months have been focusing on nailing this demon and have managed to score in a range of 650-710 on various tests but the graph has not been consistent. I assessed all my papers and realized that in MGMAT tests (quant only) i scored in a range of 40-47. This was when i got 15 questions wrong. The assessment showed me that from 29-37 i guessed all answers because i had wasted too much time in believing that first 15 questions were critical to the score and hence messed up the paper. In a non-test environment i timed myself on the same set of questions that i had answered incorrectly and realized that on an average i had solved 33-34 questions under 2.5 mins and in the exam i was able to solve on 18-20 with stupid errors.

Now i have come to a point that this may be my last attempt at GMAT and i am lost in the tonnes of material available. My weak topics are inequalities and geometry.

Can you please suggest ways to improve my quant score and any materials that may be helpful?

I will be obliged with any help on this.

Regards,
Deepanshu Madan

m3equals333 · Answer

amazing score, congrats. I agree with you that the GMAT algorithm seems to be allowing less and less room for error (one way to see this firsthand is to compare scoring on the GMAT Prep Free Exams - at least a couple years old by now, to the scoring on the GMAT Prep Exam Pack 1 - probably less than a year old. The difficulty level is pretty much on par between the two, but the newer Exam Pack 1 is curved much harsher...in one of the quant sections, I answered the first 15-17 correctly, then missed 3 widely dispersed questions and ended with a string of right answers and scored 50...I was stunned that this was not enough for a 51.

Maybe the quant section will soon move up another notch in difficulty, causing the scale to go back down a bit.

Maybe the quant section will soon move up another notch in difficulty, causing the scale to go back down a bit.

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