Events & Promotions
|
|
GMAT Club Daily Prep
Thank you for using the timer - this advanced tool can estimate your performance and suggest more practice questions. We have subscribed you to Daily Prep Questions via email.
Customized
for You
Track
Your Progress
Practice
Pays
Not interested in getting valuable practice questions and articles delivered to your email? No problem, unsubscribe here.
Apr 3001:30 AM EDT
-02:30 AM EDT
At one point, she believed GMAT wasn’t for her. After scoring 595, self-doubt crept in and she questioned her potential. But instead of quitting, she made the right strategic changes. The result? A remarkable comeback to 695. Check out how Saakshi did it.
Apr 2912:30 AM EDT
-01:30 AM EDT
Learn how Kamakshi achieved a GMAT 675 with an impressive 96th %ile in Data Insights. Discover the unique methods and exam strategies that helped her excel in DI along with other sections for a balanced and high score.
May 0111:00 AM PDT
-12:00 PM PDT
Free- full-length test + 15 concept videos + 150+ short videos + study plan!
May 0306:30 AM PDT
-08:30 AM PDT
Verbal trouble on GMAT? Fix it NOW! Join Sunita Singhvi for a focused webinar on actionable strategies to boost your Verbal score and take your performance to the next level.
28 Nov 2013, 12:31
Kudos
Bookmarks
People grab your tissues, it's a sad one. After a couple of beers I feel a lot calmer! 
Background
Greek, 30 y/o, 9 years in UK, MSc degree in ComSci from top 10 uni, working as a software dev for ~5 years.
I used to be crap in math in highschool. Really crap. When I started studying quants for the gmat I remember not knowing which one is the area of the circle,” 2pr? Or 2pr^2?” (<---- I know!). Don’t let me start with number theory… “what’s a prime?”. So I needed to cover A LOT of ground. Literally, that ground was the so called ground 0. Verbal was about the same, since the first times I was trying to do SC, all the answers seemed correct! You’ll see below that this has gotten somewhat better!
Started to study for the GMAT last year, about September, amongst other stuff (foreign language, gym and work) and I thought “well that should be enough!”. Little did I know. It went like this for a couple of months where I decided to drop the language and gym. Then along came xmas. Went home for holidays, quitting any gmat-like activity. Came back after xmas, and took me a few weeks to get back on track with studying, setting me back to level 0. Started once more with MGMAT material until Easter when the same with xmas happened. Came back determined. Started waking up 2 hours before work and studying, then go to work etc. Weekend tried even harder. But this was wearing me out so much and the 2 hours before work became 1.5 then 1 and then I just couldn’t anymore. Went for summer holidays for a couple of weeks. Work wasn’t going too well anyway, so my plan was to quit and concentrate on gmat from late August. (the company was bought and started to being torn down to pieces so that was a good move). I thought that this was a very good chance to concentrate really hard on the gmat!
So decided to go book by book through the MGMAT guides, number properties, algebra etc…same for verbal, doing all the exercises this time. One thing that set me back was trying really hard to understand combinatronics questions from gmat club. Although I did understand them, it took me about a week to digest them, though I didn’t know that this was “on the hard side”.
Spend about a month for quant, keeping my study log and a light error log. Did OG13 questions as well, the free stuff from veritas, but mostly gmat club. I did some gmat club quant tests too, with quite poor performance, ~20%, but I though these were hard ones so “what’s the point? I’m not shooting for 700+ !”. I realized that “I can’t do every single question that exists out there, nor I can learn every single theory or way, though I think I know the gmat’s principles now!”.
I also subscribed to gmatpill, watched the videos there, did a few exercises.
For CR, I sadly discovered CR bible a bit too late, mainly because people were suggesting that it’s on par with MGMAT. Well, I got news for you. It’s not! Powerscore CR it’s THE BIBLE. Mark my words. I even started to like CR reading this book! W00t!
1 week+ before
I took a GMATPrep and I got a 680! Although overly inflated, with about 1/3 repeats. Good pacing though.
5-days before
I stopped going out, drinking any booze and eating anything weird. Last 5 days was the last straight line.
Since I had depleted my study materials, I decided to gauge myself with my last MGMAT, without AWA/IR, and I got my highest score so far: 640. I wasn’t even trying too hard! I thought, if I can get a relaxed 640 in MGMAT (which I consider hard) and a 680 in GMATPrep, I should definitely be able to get a 650 in the exam. That boosted my confidence even more than the 680. SC no mistake!
2-4 days before
Did some relaxed study, like 10-20 questions for each quand and verbal spread throughout the day.
1-day before
Did nothing. Woke up a little earlier in order to go to bed earlier too the night before the test. Watched a couple of movies, cooked, surfed, talked to my folks, easy life!
Exam day
So today at 12:30 I had my exam.
In the morning I was somewhat stressed, despite the previous days relaxation and confidence. However I somehow seemed to be able to overcome this and focus on my confident side!
I went to the test center at around 11:50, where everything went smoothly, I handed in my passport and palm read, and then when I though I can munch something before I went in I was called to go in (early). I said, I want to eat something and go to the toilet before I start, I start at 12:30 afterall. They said that a) eating is not allowed in this area, b) I need to lock my items and walk in otherwise the computer will lock (?). Somehow I negotiated a quick munch and a sip of water and went in. I didn't have much appetite the whole morning, I barely ate half a sandwich in the morning and drunk my coffee.
Ladida...a bunch of T&C, and then onto AWA. It was an ok argument, with flaws. I think I managed a 5-6. Can't say I stressed too much, but not too little either. Used chineseburned template which I practiced a couple of days before and a few other times in my practice tests.
Then, onto the IR, which I think it was equal or easier to the GMATPrep’s level. I think I skipped one question after reading it and thinking it for like a minute. 12/12 was a pie chart with 1 minute left…You can imagine.
Then I got a message popup asking if I wanted to take my break, Yes / No. I click yes, and the countdown begins. Now, the people who have already taken the test already know what I’m about to say!
I raise my hand but no one seems to come! I raise my other hand after half a minute but still! (seems like both hands were equally useless!
). After about a minute, a lady walked in and asked if I wanted to take my break, whilst telling me that “oh you shouldn’t have pushed it…”. Well thanks for nothing! Rushed out, went downstairs, and started “trying” to eat my sandwich and sipping some water. Had a sip of Lucozade as well, but I didn’t like it (yeah, I don’t drink Luco).
Went up, passport check, sat 2.5 minutes late! Panic kicked in a little. The lady signed me in.
First quant question was like “what the f?”. It was a question about 4-5 lines long similar to this:
a-ladder-of-a-fire-truck-is-elevated-to-an-angle-of-60-and-134073.html
however involving a kite, it’s tail (separate variables) the distance of the rope of the guy holding it, the angle etc etc… I think I read it 3 times to get what it meant (while the time was quietly passing by…)
I think I did some calculations and picked an answer. Second was easier. I don’t remember thereafter. However this is my breakdown:
I don’t like DS. Seemed like half of them were HARD DS. I had 3 probability, 2 of them DS, seemed convoluted so I thought I must be doing ok! A few weird one with roots, and overall it felt like half of them was my weak spot: FPDs. But the ones full of variables like “what was in terms of x the amount that…” and so on. I consider those to be on the hard side anyway.
Then a few geometry, both DS and PS. I remember a geometry PS said:
There is a cylindrical tank where water is being pumped at a rate of 3ft /minute. It’s height is increased by 0.1 ft/minute. What is the radius of the tank. (feel free to answer on this question).
After rushing through some quants I ended up with 10 questions left and like 26 mins! I felt I was doing ok though, or at least moderately. So I paced down and dedicated something like 3 mins / answer. I finished with about 0 secs left. At this point I didn’t know how I did, but judging from the amount of weird questions I saw, I thought I was about 43-45.
Raised my hand (without making the same mistake again) and went out, toilet, water etc…Went back in but time ran +20secs…I was like WTH?! But somehow didn’t worry that much.
Verbal was a good mixture of SC, CR and RC as expected. SC is my stronger side. I must have made one or none mistakes. CR was ok, I got everything: boldface, evaluate, weaken, strengthen, draw a conclusion, explain the discrepancy, but no assumption (?). RC were a WTF again. I remember a passage about pollen and cross-pollination and how the antagonist plants are more fruitful from others…really, REALLY convoluted vocabulary. I remember reading the 2nd paragraph and at the end I hadn’t understood a thing! I tried to compensate by going back and re-reading but to no avail. The answer choices were like 3 lines each too! So I thought with a good performance in SC and ok performance in CR I must be hitting the hard passages! All in all what I remember from verbal was “what the hell is that passage saying? I just don’t understand!”, and eventually because of time constraints, giving up.
I saw a few times the remaining time and remaining questions, I had a good pace, however and the end I ended having time for less one question. So I rushed through a CR, and then answered a SC. That was the 41st. Went through all the bla bla, statistical data…Do you want to report your score? Yes.
IR5 Q39 V31 Total: 580
I was petrified. My reaction was like this.
Without the vomit. I felt I let myself and everybody who believed in me down. I went out the room, got my draft printout couldn’t speak much. I was gutted. I started drifting thinking “I’m stupid, I’m useless, some people are not made for the gmat and I’m one of them! 3 months down the drain!” and all that stuff. After I made a couple of phone calls I calmed down, but until that time I just wanted to die! Literally! When I managed to put myself together I arranged to go for a dinner with my fiancé, and rush home and share my experience. That’s right. If you’ve read thus far a) good for you and b) here’s a piece of candy for you: I finished my GMAT a couple of hours ago!
Lessons learned
I didn’t get tired throughout the test, stamina was ok, mainly because I’m used I long hours in front of a PC. I was stressed though.
Guys, quant was hard. It was surprisingly hard. That’s what I thought. I’ve read somewhere that GMAC has started to increase the difficulty because Indian people seem to excel, and so to try and counter this. I don’t understand, we’re kids of the same god, aren’t we?
Verbal was ok, apart from RC which I thought it was hard.
Further steps
I’ve exhausted MGMAT, Kaplan’s Premier, OG13, and quite a few GmatClub questions, to the point I remember by heart a few of them from each book. I think I know the basics, since every time I try to solve something like sub-600 or 600 question I get it right. Also from OG13, I get about the first 80 without mistakes, or with 1 mistake. I feel that if I go once more through the basics I’m gonna do the last scene of that video!
I had already considered the possibility that this won’t go well, so at the back of my mind I’ve always had a possible date, end of Jan, beginning of Feb.
The question is how do I go from now on? I’m considering getting a private tutor, though I’m not sure if that’ll help. Also, I’m out of work, trying to focus on the GMAT (didn’t help much, did it), so longer time without a job and adcoms might start wonder what I’ve been doing all that time, etc.
So folks, I don’t know whether it was a bad day…the test felt overall difficult but not 580-difficult! If I was to re-assess myself I’d say a 640 maybe.
By the way, I thought I’d write it this debrief in word, just in case my browser gets stuck half way through, or something fails to load, and my computer got stuck! Today must be someone else’s day cause it definitely ain’t mine! :D
Background
Greek, 30 y/o, 9 years in UK, MSc degree in ComSci from top 10 uni, working as a software dev for ~5 years.
I used to be crap in math in highschool. Really crap. When I started studying quants for the gmat I remember not knowing which one is the area of the circle,” 2pr? Or 2pr^2?” (<---- I know!). Don’t let me start with number theory… “what’s a prime?”. So I needed to cover A LOT of ground. Literally, that ground was the so called ground 0. Verbal was about the same, since the first times I was trying to do SC, all the answers seemed correct! You’ll see below that this has gotten somewhat better!
Started to study for the GMAT last year, about September, amongst other stuff (foreign language, gym and work) and I thought “well that should be enough!”. Little did I know. It went like this for a couple of months where I decided to drop the language and gym. Then along came xmas. Went home for holidays, quitting any gmat-like activity. Came back after xmas, and took me a few weeks to get back on track with studying, setting me back to level 0. Started once more with MGMAT material until Easter when the same with xmas happened. Came back determined. Started waking up 2 hours before work and studying, then go to work etc. Weekend tried even harder. But this was wearing me out so much and the 2 hours before work became 1.5 then 1 and then I just couldn’t anymore. Went for summer holidays for a couple of weeks. Work wasn’t going too well anyway, so my plan was to quit and concentrate on gmat from late August. (the company was bought and started to being torn down to pieces so that was a good move). I thought that this was a very good chance to concentrate really hard on the gmat!
So decided to go book by book through the MGMAT guides, number properties, algebra etc…same for verbal, doing all the exercises this time. One thing that set me back was trying really hard to understand combinatronics questions from gmat club. Although I did understand them, it took me about a week to digest them, though I didn’t know that this was “on the hard side”.
Spend about a month for quant, keeping my study log and a light error log. Did OG13 questions as well, the free stuff from veritas, but mostly gmat club. I did some gmat club quant tests too, with quite poor performance, ~20%, but I though these were hard ones so “what’s the point? I’m not shooting for 700+ !”. I realized that “I can’t do every single question that exists out there, nor I can learn every single theory or way, though I think I know the gmat’s principles now!”.
I also subscribed to gmatpill, watched the videos there, did a few exercises.
For CR, I sadly discovered CR bible a bit too late, mainly because people were suggesting that it’s on par with MGMAT. Well, I got news for you. It’s not! Powerscore CR it’s THE BIBLE. Mark my words. I even started to like CR reading this book! W00t!
1 week+ before
I took a GMATPrep and I got a 680! Although overly inflated, with about 1/3 repeats. Good pacing though.
5-days before
I stopped going out, drinking any booze and eating anything weird. Last 5 days was the last straight line.
Since I had depleted my study materials, I decided to gauge myself with my last MGMAT, without AWA/IR, and I got my highest score so far: 640. I wasn’t even trying too hard! I thought, if I can get a relaxed 640 in MGMAT (which I consider hard) and a 680 in GMATPrep, I should definitely be able to get a 650 in the exam. That boosted my confidence even more than the 680. SC no mistake!
2-4 days before
Did some relaxed study, like 10-20 questions for each quand and verbal spread throughout the day.
1-day before
Did nothing. Woke up a little earlier in order to go to bed earlier too the night before the test. Watched a couple of movies, cooked, surfed, talked to my folks, easy life!
Exam day
So today at 12:30 I had my exam.
In the morning I was somewhat stressed, despite the previous days relaxation and confidence. However I somehow seemed to be able to overcome this and focus on my confident side!
I went to the test center at around 11:50, where everything went smoothly, I handed in my passport and palm read, and then when I though I can munch something before I went in I was called to go in (early). I said, I want to eat something and go to the toilet before I start, I start at 12:30 afterall. They said that a) eating is not allowed in this area, b) I need to lock my items and walk in otherwise the computer will lock (?). Somehow I negotiated a quick munch and a sip of water and went in. I didn't have much appetite the whole morning, I barely ate half a sandwich in the morning and drunk my coffee.
Ladida...a bunch of T&C, and then onto AWA. It was an ok argument, with flaws. I think I managed a 5-6. Can't say I stressed too much, but not too little either. Used chineseburned template
which I practiced a couple of days before and a few other times in my practice tests.Then, onto the IR, which I think it was equal or easier to the GMATPrep’s level. I think I skipped one question after reading it and thinking it for like a minute. 12/12 was a pie chart with 1 minute left…You can imagine.
Then I got a message popup asking if I wanted to take my break, Yes / No. I click yes, and the countdown begins. Now, the people who have already taken the test already know what I’m about to say!
I raise my hand but no one seems to come! I raise my other hand after half a minute but still! (seems like both hands were equally useless!
). After about a minute, a lady walked in and asked if I wanted to take my break, whilst telling me that “oh you shouldn’t have pushed it…”. Well thanks for nothing! Rushed out, went downstairs, and started “trying” to eat my sandwich and sipping some water. Had a sip of Lucozade as well, but I didn’t like it (yeah, I don’t drink Luco).Went up, passport check, sat 2.5 minutes late! Panic kicked in a little. The lady signed me in.
First quant question was like “what the f?”. It was a question about 4-5 lines long similar to this:
a-ladder-of-a-fire-truck-is-elevated-to-an-angle-of-60-and-134073.html
however involving a kite, it’s tail (separate variables) the distance of the rope of the guy holding it, the angle etc etc… I think I read it 3 times to get what it meant (while the time was quietly passing by…)
I think I did some calculations and picked an answer. Second was easier. I don’t remember thereafter. However this is my breakdown:
I don’t like DS. Seemed like half of them were HARD DS. I had 3 probability, 2 of them DS, seemed convoluted so I thought I must be doing ok! A few weird one with roots, and overall it felt like half of them was my weak spot: FPDs. But the ones full of variables like “what was in terms of x the amount that…” and so on. I consider those to be on the hard side anyway.
Then a few geometry, both DS and PS. I remember a geometry PS said:
There is a cylindrical tank where water is being pumped at a rate of 3ft /minute. It’s height is increased by 0.1 ft/minute. What is the radius of the tank. (feel free to answer on this question).
After rushing through some quants I ended up with 10 questions left and like 26 mins! I felt I was doing ok though, or at least moderately. So I paced down and dedicated something like 3 mins / answer. I finished with about 0 secs left. At this point I didn’t know how I did, but judging from the amount of weird questions I saw, I thought I was about 43-45.
Raised my hand (without making the same mistake again) and went out, toilet, water etc…Went back in but time ran +20secs…I was like WTH?! But somehow didn’t worry that much.
Verbal was a good mixture of SC, CR and RC as expected. SC is my stronger side. I must have made one or none mistakes. CR was ok, I got everything: boldface, evaluate, weaken, strengthen, draw a conclusion, explain the discrepancy, but no assumption (?). RC were a WTF again. I remember a passage about pollen and cross-pollination and how the antagonist plants are more fruitful from others…really, REALLY convoluted vocabulary. I remember reading the 2nd paragraph and at the end I hadn’t understood a thing! I tried to compensate by going back and re-reading but to no avail. The answer choices were like 3 lines each too! So I thought with a good performance in SC and ok performance in CR I must be hitting the hard passages! All in all what I remember from verbal was “what the hell is that passage saying? I just don’t understand!”, and eventually because of time constraints, giving up.
I saw a few times the remaining time and remaining questions, I had a good pace, however and the end I ended having time for less one question. So I rushed through a CR, and then answered a SC. That was the 41st. Went through all the bla bla, statistical data…Do you want to report your score? Yes.
IR5 Q39 V31 Total: 580
I was petrified. My reaction was like this.
Without the vomit. I felt I let myself and everybody who believed in me down. I went out the room, got my draft printout couldn’t speak much. I was gutted. I started drifting thinking “I’m stupid, I’m useless, some people are not made for the gmat and I’m one of them! 3 months down the drain!” and all that stuff. After I made a couple of phone calls I calmed down, but until that time I just wanted to die! Literally! When I managed to put myself together I arranged to go for a dinner with my fiancé, and rush home and share my experience. That’s right. If you’ve read thus far a) good for you and b) here’s a piece of candy for you: I finished my GMAT a couple of hours ago!
Lessons learned
I didn’t get tired throughout the test, stamina was ok, mainly because I’m used I long hours in front of a PC. I was stressed though.
Guys, quant was hard. It was surprisingly hard. That’s what I thought. I’ve read somewhere that GMAC has started to increase the difficulty because Indian people seem to excel, and so to try and counter this. I don’t understand, we’re kids of the same god, aren’t we?
Verbal was ok, apart from RC which I thought it was hard.
Further steps
I’ve exhausted MGMAT, Kaplan’s Premier, OG13, and quite a few GmatClub questions, to the point I remember by heart a few of them from each book. I think I know the basics, since every time I try to solve something like sub-600 or 600 question I get it right. Also from OG13, I get about the first 80 without mistakes, or with 1 mistake. I feel that if I go once more through the basics I’m gonna do the last scene of that video!
I had already considered the possibility that this won’t go well, so at the back of my mind I’ve always had a possible date, end of Jan, beginning of Feb.
The question is how do I go from now on? I’m considering getting a private tutor, though I’m not sure if that’ll help. Also, I’m out of work, trying to focus on the GMAT (didn’t help much, did it
), so longer time without a job and adcoms might start wonder what I’ve been doing all that time, etc.So folks, I don’t know whether it was a bad day…the test felt overall difficult but not 580-difficult! If I was to re-assess myself I’d say a 640 maybe.
By the way, I thought I’d write it this debrief in word, just in case my browser gets stuck half way through, or something fails to load, and my computer got stuck! Today must be someone else’s day cause it definitely ain’t mine! :D
DefyingGravity
28 Nov 2013, 12:38
Kudos
Bookmarks
I scored 80 points lower on my first official GMAT than I did on my last few practice tests, so I totally understand how you feel. At this point, I'd recommend you take a week off from studying to just relax and regroup. Then restart your studying and give it another go. Trust that you can do it! I did.
Posted from my mobile device
Posted from my mobile device
28 Nov 2013, 12:50
Kudos
Bookmarks
DefyingGravity
Hey! Well, how well did you do afterall?
My problem is not that I don't trust I can do it. The problem is that I overly trust myself and when it comes to apply it I somehow don't perform...
