So i just sat through the 4hrs of hell for the first time today

Question

Hi guys first time poster so apologies if i ramble So i took the GMAT today and unhappy is an understatement Lets get the scores out the way 660 Quant 46 Verbal 36 Ok now MY GOAL is to get into any of the top 50 schools in europe these include in order of preferences Insead LBS HKUST (i know this isnt EUR) IE IESE SDA Bocconi IMD Imperial Rotterdam BACKGROUND I finished my undergrad two years ago from one of the best universities in my country (Australia) my Resume doesnt have BCG or Mckinsey on it nor have i done charity work in Africa My GPA was was **** 2.1 (but I never cared during uni and had personal things going on) I did however land a job in one of the biggest multinational FMCGs straight out of uni worked in their corporate finance division. Worked there for a year now im involved with a startup (not my own) but working for them Extracurricular activities nothing stellar just led a few clubs at University Cultural diversity have lived and studied in 3 different countries Done a bit of charity work yada yada SO OVERALL IM NOT EVEN CLOSE TO CREME DE LA CREME WHEN IT COMES TO MY PROFILE HENCE I NEED TO HIT THAT ELUSIVE 700+ GMAT TO STAND A CHANCE TO GET IN TO THESE SCHOOLS Ok so back to my exam QUANT This section i found it more challenging that all the practice exams I did (only really did 3 practice exams from the GMAT prep software but more about my preparation later in this thread I followed the quant strategy outlined by one of the posters the what if scenario how last 8 questions are irrelevant 1st 10 are very important etc Where i went wrong here (not that i think it affected my score all that much) was i spent 10 minutes and no im not bullshitting i did actually spend 10 mins on the 2nd question because i wanted to get everything correct in questions 1-10 and yes i gave up at the end so im fairly sure i got it wrong I spent 6 minutes on question 8 and yes i gave up again since i wasnt getting anywhere with that either Im fairly sure i got everything else right in the first 10 questions After the first 15 or so questions i just answered the rest depending on time remaining, overall the later part of my test i went through it strategically skipping questions which looked hard playing to my strengths etc Ended up with a 46 which i was not expecting (I was averaging 45 in the 3 GMAT preps I did) and considering i got question 2 wrong I thought my score will be lower but i guess god was on my side today oh how I wish he came to my aid in Verbal! Honestly though other than the fact I took 16 mins for 2 questions (question 2 and 8) i manouvered through the rest decently and was not overly disappointed with my score Verbal Ok so time to talk about verbal and where do I start I was averaging 39 (once again Ive only done practice 3 tests) but in the real test I got 36 and yes when I saw my verbal score tears may or may not have rolled down my eyes I dont know where I went wrong I thought I did better than all the practice tests I had done even in SC (which is by far the worst more on this later) MY PREPARATION I studied for 3 weeks studied = on average 20hrs a week i would say I know this is by no means enough time and all you 750ers study for longer but considering I was averaging 45 maths 39 verbal in my practice tests I though +-20 points on a good day in the test will get me over that 700 score obv it turned out to be -20 and it wasnt a good day

As for my actual preparation I extinguished a lot of downloadable free (piratebay) resources on the net the only thing I paid for was the OGGMAT book which is pretty useless other than the fact that it has plethora of questions HELP REQUIRED Verbal So my sentence correction is pretty poor On average I always got at least 7 wrong in all of my practice exams and i daresay it got repeated in my actual GMAT but my RC and CR are generally decently accurate so I thought this would make up for the fact that i cant correct a sentence if my life depended on it but obviously in the exam my RC and CR were not as accurate as I thought they were or maybe I got 10 of the SCs wrong instead of getting 7 wrong I dont know what happened but i feel that there is way more room for improvement in verbal for me than quant SO HOW DO I GET MY SC SCORE UP? I dont think any amount of studying from my side on my own is gonna do this so I daresay I will have to enrol in a course? buy a book? what should I do?! All i need is a 40/41 in verbal and what I have in quant for that 700 1. Can you guys pls tell me what you would do in my position to get your verbal score up? keeping in mind I really only think SC is what is lacking? 2. 36 equates to 80th percentile in verbal 46 equates to 64th percentile in quant should I be focussing on getting my quant score up? I really dont know which score I should be looking to increase? the reason I say verbal is because I always get half my SCs wrong and Ive read incremental increase in verbal increases overall gmat greater than incremental increases in quant? 3. Im planning to sit the GMAT again within the next month is this too soon? How much time does it generally take to move up 40 points? LAST QUESTIONS I PROMISE Circling back to the schools im looking to get into Considering my not so stellar background and my equally unstellar (is unstellar even a word?) GMAT score i know there is no point in even applying to INSEAD or LBS or is there?? also what about the rest? Schools listed below one more time (even though Insead and LBS are top preferences I would honestly be happy with any of the ones listed below) Insead LBS HKUST (i know this isnt EUR) IE IESE SDA Bocconi IMD Imperial Rotterdam Does anyone have any personal experience getting into these schools with a 660 GMAT score or can direct me to a resource I can get this info? If any of you read all this please know that I honestly appreciate you reading all my jargon and if given a chance I will buy you a drink! But in all seriousness any help is greatly appreciated!

pepo · Answer

Definitely you can get into IE, Rotterdam or (maybe) imperial with not stress.
I have many many firends who got into IE without any particular work experience or high GPA or high GMAT. They were just ok guys...
Furthermore, the fact that you are Australian will play in your favor (even more if your post MBA goal is to come back to Australia OR to return to your former employer).

let me know if you need more info about.

WayneHam · Answer

based on your own breakdown, your quant needs work and quant is much easier to improve than verbal. Also you keep saying you only need to improve your SC on the verbal which should simply your studying significantly. Also from what I've read+/- 20 on test day is pretty much always -.

Also maybe if you just skipped that second question your quant score would have been much due to having more time to answer the other questions? My problem the first time was timing on the quant. I worked that out to just move on when i couldn't get it in 2 minutes or stick with it if I could maybe get it in 3 minutes, then always keep track of how much time i had left. After that my quant went up a lot, although not to a very high score but good enough for a 710

MK1480 · Answer

My 2 cents:
GMAT is just one part. I have read in admissions section about a guy who scored nearly 600 and got admitted into LBS. But, what 's important is - you should be able to express your desire why you would like to get into these top schools in your essays (application)! In fact this applies to most schools.

greenzie · Answer

Answering your questions:

1. I'm also interested in knowing the answer to your first question as I am struggling at SC as well (probably SC is my worst section of all). This is quite surprising as I have always thought that I'm pretty good at grammar (I'm not a native speaker though)

2. You probably need to up your Q score a little bit (above 70-75% IMO) but in the end your V score correlates more to your total score apparently. Read this: verbal-is-more-important-than-quant-24881.html

3. Are you applying for next year? Then I'd say do it in April instead of March (just my take)

You definitely have a chance in some of the schools like Rotterdam. I am going to their open day in 2 weeks as I am based in the Netherlands. If you want, I can try to find out their student profile or average GMAT. Pm me if you want me to find out about something from them.

BTW, which uni did you go to and what was exactly your grade? I went to Sydney Uni and got a 73 (high credit). Even though 73 doesn't seem amazing (and actually it isn't haha) but I know that I was in the top 20% of the class, which is not too bad.

Hope this helps

AjiteshArun · Answer

I have no idea how the whole "first 10, not last 8" thing got started, but it is  wrong . Pace yourself so that you  finish  each section without having to guess madly towards the end. 16 minutes on 2 questions is not likely to work out well for you. Even if you get them right, they could have been pre-test questions (the ones that don't count).

absauce · Answer

Any ideas what way i should go about improving my quant but more importantly my SC?

absauce · Answer

I am aware of essays being an integral part of the application process but i havent found a better quantifiable measure of acceptance to top b schools than the GMAT so far.

WayneHam · Answer

can't give you any good feedback for SC. I only used the OG and I the explanations didn't make any sense to me as a native english speaker. I just ignored them because they were confusing and tried to get an idea of why it was correct based on the other options and kept it in mind for future questions. For quant my issue was timing so I got that under control and my score went up by 11 points in 5 weeks. I just went over all of the quant questions because there was a lot I didn't know then for the test, anything I couldn't get in the time or close to the time allotted per question, I moved on.

absauce · Answer

I cant post links but if you search timing strategies in the forum theres a what if analysis on the gmat prep software.

But u make a fair point i never thought about those questions being pre test questions will have to be more mindful about that going forward

WayneHam · Answer

I've read this too but my understanding was not that the later questions didn't count, which wouldn't make sense since you would get a good score even if you got them all wrong, but because it gauges how hard the rest of the test will be. So if you want an 800 you'd need to get those right. I never cared because I was never worried about an 800. The obsession with an ultra high score on here is almost comical. It's often propagated by either a low gpa or being an Indian IT male. I'm not saying it doesn't have its benefits though, especially for scholarships.

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AjiteshArun · Answer

I just went through that post. A lot of work seems to have gone into coming up with those scenarios, and I'm not going to get into whether the conclusions drawn are correct or incorrect. My advice remains the same: pace yourself and aim to finish the entire test without having to rush through the last 8 (or 10) questions. The people who can get  every single question  in the first 28-30 correct are extremely unlikely to mess up towards the end.

absauce · Answer

. The obsession with an ultra high score on here is almost comical. It's often propagated by either a low gpa or being an Indian IT male. I'm not saying it doesn't have its benefits though, especially for scholarships.

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my incentive to score high in the gmat stems from my lack of work exp+low gpa. i feel a high gmat could potentially diminish that. Also there is this sense of accomplishment when u join the 700 club

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So i just sat through the 4hrs of hell for the first time today

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