Almost there: what to do with 690?

Question

Guys, today I took the test and my official score is 690 (88%): Q47 (77%) V38 (83%), AWA 6.0 (91%)

My impressions:
AWA: nothing special

Quant was somewhat easy: in the second half of the test, I was doing 15 min (!) ahead of the schedule. Then I noticed that fact, I started to slow down because I was afraid I was not doing good and was missing questions. I finished 7 min ahead of the schedule. If you're serious about getting great Quant score, GMATClub test are the must to have: in most of these tests I scored in 60%.

Verbal... GMAT just owned me. CR is my strongest G-skill: in the preparation tests and questions banks, I will miss 1 CR question out of 20-30. But GMAT CR questions that I saw were... out of blue - I have not encounter such types of questions in my preparation (kind of formal logic instead of lame real-life situation question in the OG12). That took my time and toll on my score. SC questions were also long and tough. On top of these, one of RC passages was everybody's favorite feminism. Literarly, I was hobbling through verbal: in one moment I was 10 min (!) behind and had to speed up. But, that was definitely not my day: the last 3 questions were CR and I did not have to read them. BUSTED. In my verbal preparation I used Manhattan SC, RC, and CR; also Aristotle Prep RC99, CR, and SC grail. I also used OG12 and Verbal2 books, but those are useless for CR and RC sections, which are nothing similar to the real GMAT questions.

I started my preparation in early October 2010 and took a lot of practice tests with the following results:
04.10.10 GmatPrep test1: 610 (Q42, V33) <<< my first diagnostic test
29.10.10 Platinum test: 610 (Q41, V36)
18.11.10 MGMAT CAT test 1: 650 (Q44, V35)
04.12.10 MGMAT CAT test 2: 680 (Q44, V38)
11.12.10 MGMAT CAT test 3: 700 (Q47, V39)
18.12.10 MGMAT CAT test 4: 660 (Q45, V35) << lost timing and was terribly late in both sections!
25.12.10 MGMAT CAT test 5: 650 (Q47, V32)
05.01.11 MGMAT CAT test 6: 730 (Q48, V42)
15.01.11 GMAT prep test 2: 750 (Q48, V45) + AWA
22.01.11 MGMAT CAT test 1 (retake): 740 (Q47, V45) + AWA
23.01.11 Kaplan Test 1 + AWA: 700 (Q51, V38)
29.01.11 Kaplan Test 2 + AWA: 630 (Q41, V37)
30.01.11 Kaplan Test 3 + AWA: 800!!! (Q 55, V 54) <<< no duplicate questions, yet I got 800!
31.01.11 GMAT Prep 1 Retake + AWA: 730 (Q49, V41)
06.02.11 GMAT Prep 2 Retake + AWA: 740 (Q50, V41)

As you see, my quant has reached the level of ~Q48 and stayed there consistently throug the latter exams. However, my verbal was floating back and forth, reaching its miserable level today, at the G-day :cry:

Now, I have two questions:
- shall I retake the test? I am targetting the top-15 USA schools and the median score in them is 700-710

- any hints on how much time I need to boost the verbal? I am struggling especially with RC and, as the real test has shown, with some CR questions.

Now, I have two questions: - shall I retake the test? I am targetting the top-15 USA schools and the median score in them is 700-710 - any hints on how much time I need to boost the verbal? I am struggling especially with RC and, as the real test has shown, with some CR questions.

AmrithS · Answer

Almost Pregnant? :D

lol

Anyway... here are a few things that you must think about:
1. GMAT doesn't allow you to re-take the test in the same month
2. The deadlines for the final round of Fall '11 intake ranges from mid march to early april...
So if you're aiming for Fall 2011, a retake wouldn't be the best thing to do

ibbys · Answer

Really impressed with your improvement in Quant.

I know you asked about tips for verbal, but can you elaborate more on what you did for Quant? Were the Club Tests all that you used?

For Verbal, a lot of people turn to LSAT materials as they are more challenging (RC and CR). Only thing is is that you must weed out LSAT specific questions/concepts that are not tested on the GMAT. A lot of people mentioned using Kaplan LSAT materials.

afyl128 · Answer

Well done on the score!

It sounds like you scored slightly below expectation on quant and verbal.

You probably got unlucky on the CR questions to be honest, because if you can do those MGMAT CR questions (that I
think are way more nonsensical than anything that GMAC can come up with) 
But it sounds like one of your biggest problems is timing on the verbal.

Can you do SC in 1 min on average? 
Do you take notes for CR and RC. For me personally taking notes kills too much time on CR and RC so I practice without. 
Because if you were struggling on timing its sure to throw off your whole score, verbal is a lot about having the time to go through text on RC and having time to think on CR.

southernstunna · Answer

Retake that thing. All of your practice scores were higher. It sucks to cough up 250 bucks again, but I think there's a good chance you will ameliorate your score.

AN225 · Answer

Thanks! I decided to retake the test - 690 is not only decreasing my chances, it is also damaging my self-esteem that I ended up at the lowest end of my trial tests. So, in 1.5-2 months I gonna take the test again.

desiaggie1980 · Answer

That's the best decision; most schools go by the highest.

Posted from my mobile device

AN225 · Answer

I am dedicated to improve my Verbal score, which is trailing mainly due to inconsistent RC performance. Therefore, I am going to try various sources to boost by RC skills (and some SC skills along, as those require reading of quality stuff).

Action plan RC:
- I will try those Phill's pills for RC. There are some questions which make me staring at them as a deer - I need to get the logic of how to disqualify incorrect but plausible, attractive answer choices.

- I gonna try Total GMAT Verbal by Jeff Sackmann. His Math book is great and rather clear (discounting his obscession with probablity and combinatorics

- All those video lessons available at the BTG - I'll go through them

- There are some compilations of LSAT RC/1000RC passages floating around - I'll try them, why not? Extra reading won't hurt

- And... daily reading of my favorite art and feminism articles

Action plan CR:
- I will use LSAT CR materials for 'logic' and inference questions. Also, some of questions in the beatthegmat and MGMAT question banks represent this weird bizzare type of CR questions that nailed me at the real test
- surfing through GMATCLUB CR forum looking for 'my' favorite questions

Action plan SC:
- reading good stuff (BB's list)
- sleeping with MGMAT SC book

- Brutal SC list
+++
I am going to retake the test towards the end of March, then I'll post my detailed debrief on relative usefullness of various sources.

- Brutal SC list +++ I am going to retake the test towards the end of March, then I'll post my detailed debrief on relative usefullness of various sources.

akshathbs · Answer

i think you had bad day ..just retake ur gmat without changing too many strategies , u'll be good for a 700+

Matt1177 · Answer

Yep, you took a correct decision. You should retake.
As for RC, you have to excell SC and CR sections. Try to spend less than a minute for SC, and around a minute for CR. This way you will be able to spare some time for RC. BTW, I am also using this method, because RC is difficult for non-natives.

goalsnr · Answer

Matt,

Can you pls share your tips for solving CR and Sc in less than a minute? My accuracy rate is good but I take about 2 mins for CR and about 1 1/2 for SC.

anushabarrela · Answer

I see that you r good at quant..can you share how your quant plan was from the beginning? And what books did you start with etc etc? I have 2 months ahead of my test and hoping to get a good score !

Thanks ahead !

hoogets25 · Answer

am I missing something here - on the pregnant part?

AN225 · Answer

Ok, guys, some answers:
1. 'almost pregnant' is a Russian idiom, intending to describe something that is almost good or finished, but in fact it is not! In that case it was my irony: if I received 710s, I would be pacified and focused on cracking the TOEFL.

2. MATH. Ok, I started with the MGMAT books, however I quickly found some of their explanations tooo murky - their anagram method, for example, makes 0 sense for me. As soon as I realized that flaw, I bought Total GMAT Math by Jeff Sackmann. His book is also funny in some parts, but material is presented much more clear than most of concepts in MGMAT books. Also, Jeff's book contains ~300 unique problems of various difficulty.
On top of that, I was solving questions in both banks: of Beatthegmat forum and GMATClub test. Math-vise, 
GMATClub tests are fantastic: if you can correctly answer 28-30 questions of that set you gonna hit the real test at Q48-49 mark. Initially, the verbal part of GMATCLub tests looked lame and out-of-score for me because I paid too much attention at OG12 and V2 verbal questions... that a mistake! Those official questions are not near close to convoluted, perverted CR questions you'll face at the real test. So, I recommend to pay attention at Verbal banks of both GMAT Club and BEATTHEGMAT forums (the CR questions of the latter seemed especially weird for me, now I understand they were pretty close to the real CR quetsions).

3. Yes, I can do virtually any CR under or around 1 min - virtually any CR from OG12/V2 or from Aristotle CR bank. But most of the crazy CR questions of the real test took me around 2 min and yet I still was not sure with that I was answering.

4. My tip for CR questions: don't jump to the question. You read the situation first while trying to picture yourself what is going on! It is important: you shall not just read, you shall to imagine yourself the process which is going on and interconnectivities involved. In roughtly 70% of questions I'll know the correct answer (s) even before reading the question stem and answer choices!
As for boldfaced questions, find the corresponding recording of Thursdays with Ron at mgmat site. Ron - the 800 mgmat instructor - explains in a simple way how to tame those scary beasts.

Matt1177 · Answer

Matt,

Can you pls share your tips for solving CR and Sc in less than a minute? My accuracy rate is good but I take about 2 mins for CR and about 1 1/2 for SC.

Goalsnr:
 
Well, this is something that comes with practice. I cannot recommend any other methods here. When you do hundreds of those problems, you will start noticing what is wrong and what is right very quickly, believe me.

Matt1177 · Answer

Vorski:

You are scaring me a lot by saying that real CR is different and tougher, especially with my very close g-day in mind.

AN225 · Answer

You are scaring me a lot by saying that real CR is different and tougher, especially with my very close g-day in mind

Matt, the most of OG12 CR questions are real-life situations with lame assumptions. What I faced at the test is logical inference questions in CR, which caught me unarmed - I could not chose between 2 viable options.

Matt1177 · Answer

Anyways, thank you very much for your opinion. Forewarned - forearmed. I will be practicing some LSAT log reasoning staff next days. Some people say it is tougher.

AN225 · Answer

Guys,
I just received my official report (3 days after the test). My AWA is ... 6.0 (91%)
Thanks Chinese_burned for your excellent AWA guide. In total, I wrote around 4 AWAs - not that much to simulate mental fatigue (solving several gmatclub tests in a row i don't care), but to practice AWA skills.
Also, I suggest you listen to MGMAT Ron's recording on how to write AWAs
https://www.manhattangmat.com/thursdays-with-ron.cfm

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