Scored 620

Question

I sat for the GMAT yesterday and scored 620, Q41 and V35. Kind of depressing... My goal was to hit 650 or better, although 640 would have been good and 630 would have been acceptable to me. I think I did quite well on the Quantitative, but I am surprised that I did not do better on Verbal especially since my language is English. To be fair, I did spend almost all of my prep time on the quantitative side of things. I underestimated the difficulty of the verbal.

Anyways, I would like some advice on what I should do. I was thinking of maybe studying for another 3 weeks and then re-taking. Although, I am worried about how a second gmat score will be viewed by the schools that I apply to. Specifically I am not sure if a second gmat score would be viewed favorably if it is is higher, or if they would just ignore it and look at my current 620 score. I am applying to Phd programs.

If I do re-take, how would you suggest I prep? The following is the study materials that I currently have:

Kaplan GMAT Premier 2012
Kaplan GMAT Math Workbook 6th ed.
Kaplan GMAT 800 8th ed.
OG 12th edition
MGMAT Foundations of GMAT Math 4th ed.
MGMAT Word Translations 4th ed.
MGMAT Number Properties 4th ed.

Any advice I would greatly appreciate. I would really like to be done with this whole GMAT thing. But, I guess that is life...

bb · Answer

Sorry to hear about falling short just 30 points.
The gmat standard error/variation is about 40, so chances are you can get 660 in a month.

I think your verbal score is quite good. It is 73rd percentile whereas your quant is only 58th.
I would work more on the Quant but would also try to improve your verbal since it seems to come pretty easy. The fastest way would be getting Kaplan Verbal Workbook (fastest) or if you don't mind spending a bit more time the MGMAT guides do the trick as well (just takes longer).

If I were in you rshoes, I would get:
1. MGMAT Roadmap - cheap little book that helps you figure out best practices
2. Kaplan Verbal workbook

I would revisit the MGMAT math books esp the number properties one and also take a look at my review of the Kaplan Math Workbook for the question numbers to pay special attention to (even if you solved them correctly).

This should be more than enough to guarantee you a 650+ in 31 days..... er, well, you will need to put time into it as well, not just buy the books

happy holidays!

happy holidays! https://gmatclub.com/forum/download/file.php?id=14620

rsampson · Answer

BB,

Thanks for your very constructive advice and words of support. I really appreciate it! I will take your advice and do exactly as you suggest.

Also, where can I find your review of the Kaplan Math Workbook for the question numbers to pay special attention to. Should I just do a key word search on the forum for Kaplan Math Workbook review? I will try that...

Also, thanks for advising me to take a more balanced approach to my studying on the verbal and quantitative. Apparently you're thinking that I still need to work on the quantitative, but at the same time spend more time on the verbal since it comes easy to me.

One last observation, when I was taking the test I should have suspected that something was wrong since virtually all of the math problems that I got seemed surprisingly easy to me.

Happy holidays to you too!

Thanks again! I will post back again soon.

bb · Answer

Here you go: https://www.amazon.com/review/R145GKA5BT ... ive=390957

Also, don't judge your performance based on the perceived difficulty level - I thought my questions were pretty easy too and I got Q49. For V42, I felt I failed and got every question wrong as I was not sure in probably half the answers.

Happy Holidays!

rsampson · Answer

Thanks for the link for the question numbers in the Kaplan Math Workbook to pay special attention to. Also, thanks for the advice on my perceived difficulty level of the test. I guess you are right, the last Manhattan GMAT practice test that I took last week before the real test I thought I was doing terrible on, but I scored 630 on that practice test. So, I should just ignore my perception of how I am doing as I am taking the test because you really can't tell until the test is over.

Thanks!!

Thanks!!

rsampson · Answer

I took the GMAT for a second time yesterday(Friday). I got a 640(40q/38v). The 1st time I took it in December I got a 620(41q/35v). This is a good improvement, but I was shooting for 650 or better. Does anyone have suggestions on how I can improve? I've heard about keeping a log and I've heard about something from MGMAT called arch. Would one or both of those help me? If so, where do I get them and exactly how do you use them?

Any advice I would greatly appreciate. Thank you.

I was also wondering if taking a prep course online or in-person from MGMAT would help. I've read that some people say that they are not that useful if you are already very disciplined in your study habits. I am very disciplined in my study habits. I study 2 hours a night monday thru friday and at least 3 hours per day on Saturday and Sunday. Understandeably, it is making my wife mad...

It seems like the quant section was harder the 2nd time than the 1st. In my previous posts you can see what I've been using to study up to this point. I am getting discouraged and wondering whether I should invest the time in giving it a 3rd attempt.

I can say that I have taken many Information Technology certification exams in the past and the prep materials for those were great. Basically, you take a computerized prep test and it not only scores your test to show you how you are doing, but precisely shows you your weak areas so you know where to focus your studies. In my opinion, the practice tests I've used from MGMAT do not do that as well as they could. But, to be fair the MGMAT prep tests do give a pretty good indicator of how you will score on the real test.

Related to that, I've gone through the MGMAT CAT test twice now. Should I ask them for a complete reset of these tests if I decide to prep for the GMAT again?

Any advice I would greatly appreciate. Thank you.

keithrichards · Answer

OG Archer is a MGMAT product - it's a bunch of things rolled into one. It has the MGMAT explanations for OG 12 questions (with the occasional video explanation that I never found all that helpful), it's an answer and error tracker for OG 12 and the OG Supplements, there's a cool statistics interface showing your results across different question categories, etc. Costs maybe $15. Just Google "OG Archer" and it'll be the first thing you see. I liked using it.

For additional support, I can't recommend enough two video courses that I used - I'm going to do a more detailed write up once I've finished my applications. The first one is GMAT Prep Now, the second is Dominate the GMAT. Google those up (I can't post URLs since a member has to have 5 posts before posting URLs). They were both of huge help to me. I didn't even have high-school math (got "D's" in even the lowest stream math courses), and those two courses and a lot of hard work got me to a 47 Q.

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