720 to 690. Lesson for everyone. Need advise from retakers.

Question

Dudes,

Never underestimate the opponent. I strictly went by the notion that if I knew every concept in OG, it would suffice. But GMAT has apparently raised its difficulty level. More in the range of MGMAT CATS and GMAT Club TESTS.

I gave my first GMAT 5 yrs ago and scored 720. Aimed at crossing 750 this time.
I scored 710 and 750 in my GMATPreps.

Scored the following in my practice CATS.
GMAT PREP 1 720 (1 month ago)
MGMAT CAT 2 680
MGMAT CAT 3 690
MGMAT CAT 4 700
MGMAT CAT 6 740
GMAT PREP 2 750

Actual GMAT 690 47 38

The quant gave me a shock in the real GMAT. The questions from 5 to 15, just blew me off. The difficulty level of the questions were in no way comparable to the difficulty level of the OG Qs. They were actually in the range of the GMAT Club Tests and the MGMAT CATs. Scored a 47 in Q. My lowest till now.

In Verbal, SCs were a lot tougher than all the practice material I have tried. OG is just too simple. One RC was deadly. Nothing in OG compares to it. It was a very convoluted RC with 4-5 paras. I underestimated RCs and did not prepare properly. Scored a 38(I guess) in Verbal

Overall score of 690.

I was like Mike Tyson in the Lennox Lewis Fight. Had a lot of hype but under prepared. Under estimated the opponent and got badly bruised.
One thing is certain, GMAT has raised its difficulty level.

Need to prepare more holistically for Quant. Prepare for the tough questions and be prepared for all surprises.

Its been a wonderful learning lesson. It hurts my ego to give up. I will not. I want a 750.
I need to brush up my quant and prepare better for tougher quant, RCs and CRs. For RCs, I will go with the RC99.

Any tips from retakers on the strategy to prepare for the retake, when you have exhausted all material, is welcome.

adhithya · Answer

even i felt the same,the quant on gprep and og is way too easy.Sc is more meaning based and RC is more convoluted.Both of us are in the same boat wrt issue,not sufficient and represenetative practice material.
well,I would suggest u take a gmat course such as knewton..I think knewton changes their questions regularly to meet the current gmat difficulty level.So,atleat u will a new question pool and new cats to practice
NOt sure,whether this is the best strategy,just putting my 2 cents.Iam planning to start knewton course from nov1

Raghavender · Answer

Adhithya,

I have already taken Knewton's course. I found it to be a duplicate of OG's qs. Just minor tweaks here and there, not significantly different.

I am planning to go through all MGMAT's quant books, all the GMAT CLUB Tests and RC99. I am planning to tweak my schedule, midway.
What is your plan?

-Raghu

Raghavender · Answer

Forgot to mention, I am planning on taking the e-gmat course too.

deepak0201 · Answer

Hi Raghu,

Took my GMAT but verbal screwed up because of difficulty level. Do you have any idea on the source of 700-800 difficulty level questions.

OG's questions do not have that level of difficulty.

----------------------------------------

Raghavender · Answer

For the SCs, I would recommend hitting the MGMAT Forums>GMAT Prep Questions. These were the closest to GMAT's qs. 
MGMAT's CATs also are pretty similar to actual GMAT's Qs.

mayansd · Answer

I too found verbal in GMAT OG easy, bought gmat verbal handbook and it helped.

Difficulty levels may vary for quant and verbal in gmat. for me, in Oct 2010 gmat first attempt I found quant easy and verbal difficult, and in my gmat 2nd attempt (august 2011) I found verbal not that difficult and quant lil bit harder (even though I am an engineer and consider my math skills to be good).

@raghvendra if you are applying to B schools this year gmat 2nd attempt may take up some of your apping time (applications need a looot of time too, I am in the midst of them). also your work ex. is manufacturing which is a scarce application pool. i indirectly know some mfg. guys who got into top B school with 650/680 gmat score (ISB). so weigh these things with your gmat score if you are apping this season.

Raghavender · Answer

Hey Mayan,

Thank you for your reply. I appreciate it. Your success story certainly provided inspiration to me.

I have applied to ISB last year. One of the points they made during my rejection feedback was that, as my undergrad GPA and Masters GPA are not spectacular, I need to raise my GMAT score to atleast 740 to be competitive in the pool. So, I have decided to give my GMAT once more by Nov 10th, and if the score is above 730, I will apply this year. Else I will have to apply next year.

What schools are you looking at?

After using up all the practice material during the first attempt, what did you specifically practice on for your second attempt?

-Raghu

mayansd · Answer

Hi Raghu,

I am applying to the schools listed in my profile. In R2 I will be applying to some more lower ranked b schools (Ranked 10-20 in US).

I focused on my weak areas in my GMAT 2nd attempt. After one GMAT experience you will get to know which questions are tough and which are easy. I found GMAT OG a bit easy so went for GMAT verbal handbook, which helped. also to practice harder problems, I bought LSAT books. and at gmatclub.com you can always find more questions segregated by difficulty level.

I also revised everything i studied in my first attempt. It helped me improve on my common errors and have a better grasp of the concepts I read/solved before. 
Good luck!

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720 to 690. Lesson for everyone. Need advise from retakers.

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