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22 Apr 2005, 07:17
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I may have different circumstances from a lot of other people posting on the board. I've been out of college 15 years, got a wife and two toddlers. I decided at this late date to attend a small local college because they offered a specialized program I wanted to move up in my career in the same field.
I assumed with my years of on-the-job experience in the field and my loads of well-respected references, that admission to this small school would be merely a formality. However, I was informed that my 20 year-old freshman and sophomore grades in biology and chemistry - before I realized perhaps medical school wasn't for me - were so bad, it was holding up my application. I was informed I needed to take the GMAT's (a given), and do relatively well (Uh, oh).
So, with my wife and kids and job still around, I started to take things seriously, and studied for about three or four weeks to get ready. This board was a gret asset (for the recommendation of Kaplan's, although I was never able to get the OG), and basically did math problems 12 hours a day for a month. I thought, "Wow, the people on this board are really taking this GMAT test seriously. Maybe I should, too."
I hadn't done any math whatsoever for about 20 years. None. Not since my senior year of high school. But after picking up Kaplan and Barron's, I was surprised to find that I actually had an easier time with the harder questions. I knew the problem on the test would be answering the "easy" questions to get to the harder ones. Also, I was scared to death of DS. I never a repsectable score on Kaplan in the DS tests, ever.
I took the test this week, woke up early, but forgot my candy bars for break. Damn. The got caught in particularly bad morning traffic. Damn. Stress levels are high just trying to get to the test center. Damn. It says to arrive 30 minutes before the test - I walked in 15 minutes before, frantically, convinced I'd been locked out.
No. Thankfully, the entire situation was very laid back. The test started with me, when I showed up. The breaks could've been as long as I wanted - the administrator had to enter a password to get from section to section, so the test didn't start on its own as I feared. (My first break, I ran to the bathroom, got a candy bar and ate it, went outside, got some air, came back, and ten minutes had gone by. It was scared 5 minutes had ticked off my math section, but that wasn't the case.)
The AWA was pretty easy. Could've used five more minutes, but it was fine.
The math was my biggest challenge, and of course most of my early questions on the test were DS, my nemesis. A respectable start, I quickly took a nosedive. There were a couple hard questions interspersed with easy, but after awhile I got the distinct feeling the test was feeling sorry for me and offering me softball questions.
I was convinced I hadn't gotten any right at all. Maybe I never got up to the "hard" question level, but what I was presented didn't seem like Kaplan questions at all. There were only three or four actual word problems - the kind I was good at - and a few very complicated geometry questions that I figured would be the "unscored" ones. Aside from picking up the D=RT and pi-r-squared again, I could almost say the Kaplan math didn't help me, because the majority of questions I faced weren't like Kaplan. Obviously, I'm not indicative of everybody, maybe I failed so miserably, I never got to the "hard" questions that Kaplan covers.
I knew my bread and butter was Verbal, so I inteneded to make up for my score here. The usual stuff was here - Kaplan and the other books were good examples of the stuff seen here. Although, perhaps because I was doing well, some of the choices RC questions were deceptively similar to one another, i.e. you could eliminate all but two, and the two remaining were so similar you really needed to take your time.
So I finished, and could not believe I had to sit through 18-20 survey questions before I got my score. My head was swimming, my heart was pounding as I tried to remember personal facts from 15 years ago.
So I got my score - 610 - much better than I thought while actually taking the test. My math was 38, 50% - WHAT? I was shocked - I thought I had done so poorly on the math that the test was practically giving me the answers, but I was actually average! Wow, the people that score high on the math must really study and know what they're doing, but I studied nothing but math for almost three weeks, and fell flat on my face.
So, I did what I could do. Hopefully, it's enough to get into the local small college. Thanks for your help.
I assumed with my years of on-the-job experience in the field and my loads of well-respected references, that admission to this small school would be merely a formality. However, I was informed that my 20 year-old freshman and sophomore grades in biology and chemistry - before I realized perhaps medical school wasn't for me - were so bad, it was holding up my application. I was informed I needed to take the GMAT's (a given), and do relatively well (Uh, oh).
So, with my wife and kids and job still around, I started to take things seriously, and studied for about three or four weeks to get ready. This board was a gret asset (for the recommendation of Kaplan's, although I was never able to get the OG), and basically did math problems 12 hours a day for a month. I thought, "Wow, the people on this board are really taking this GMAT test seriously. Maybe I should, too."
I hadn't done any math whatsoever for about 20 years. None. Not since my senior year of high school. But after picking up Kaplan and Barron's, I was surprised to find that I actually had an easier time with the harder questions. I knew the problem on the test would be answering the "easy" questions to get to the harder ones. Also, I was scared to death of DS. I never a repsectable score on Kaplan in the DS tests, ever.
I took the test this week, woke up early, but forgot my candy bars for break. Damn. The got caught in particularly bad morning traffic. Damn. Stress levels are high just trying to get to the test center. Damn. It says to arrive 30 minutes before the test - I walked in 15 minutes before, frantically, convinced I'd been locked out.
No. Thankfully, the entire situation was very laid back. The test started with me, when I showed up. The breaks could've been as long as I wanted - the administrator had to enter a password to get from section to section, so the test didn't start on its own as I feared. (My first break, I ran to the bathroom, got a candy bar and ate it, went outside, got some air, came back, and ten minutes had gone by. It was scared 5 minutes had ticked off my math section, but that wasn't the case.)
The AWA was pretty easy. Could've used five more minutes, but it was fine.
The math was my biggest challenge, and of course most of my early questions on the test were DS, my nemesis. A respectable start, I quickly took a nosedive. There were a couple hard questions interspersed with easy, but after awhile I got the distinct feeling the test was feeling sorry for me and offering me softball questions.
I was convinced I hadn't gotten any right at all. Maybe I never got up to the "hard" question level, but what I was presented didn't seem like Kaplan questions at all. There were only three or four actual word problems - the kind I was good at - and a few very complicated geometry questions that I figured would be the "unscored" ones. Aside from picking up the D=RT and pi-r-squared again, I could almost say the Kaplan math didn't help me, because the majority of questions I faced weren't like Kaplan. Obviously, I'm not indicative of everybody, maybe I failed so miserably, I never got to the "hard" questions that Kaplan covers.
I knew my bread and butter was Verbal, so I inteneded to make up for my score here. The usual stuff was here - Kaplan and the other books were good examples of the stuff seen here. Although, perhaps because I was doing well, some of the choices RC questions were deceptively similar to one another, i.e. you could eliminate all but two, and the two remaining were so similar you really needed to take your time.
So I finished, and could not believe I had to sit through 18-20 survey questions before I got my score. My head was swimming, my heart was pounding as I tried to remember personal facts from 15 years ago.
So I got my score - 610 - much better than I thought while actually taking the test. My math was 38, 50% - WHAT? I was shocked - I thought I had done so poorly on the math that the test was practically giving me the answers, but I was actually average! Wow, the people that score high on the math must really study and know what they're doing, but I studied nothing but math for almost three weeks, and fell flat on my face.
So, I did what I could do. Hopefully, it's enough to get into the local small college. Thanks for your help.
22 Apr 2005, 15:37
Kudos
Bookmarks
very good explanation!!, thanks!
I have my test scheduled in 3 weeks, and to be honest...
I am scared as hell!!>...
haven't studied mcuh tough, just trying to do some excesices while at work, and on weekends, take a full lenght test..
if I reach 610 for my first attempt, I will be satisfied!...
but in fact I would need something closer to 700 to have a chance to my dream schools!...
great score! and I really respect the fact you are going through all this at your age and with a family on your back!..
I have my test scheduled in 3 weeks, and to be honest...
I am scared as hell!!>...
haven't studied mcuh tough, just trying to do some excesices while at work, and on weekends, take a full lenght test..
if I reach 610 for my first attempt, I will be satisfied!...
but in fact I would need something closer to 700 to have a chance to my dream schools!...
great score! and I really respect the fact you are going through all this at your age and with a family on your back!..
congrats & best of luck 
