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Apr 2912:30 AM EDT
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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.
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Apr 3001:30 AM EDT
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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.
May 0111:00 AM PDT
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May 0306:30 AM PDT
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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.
31 Dec 2014, 02:13
Kudos
Bookmarks
I have a very sad story, which is really demotivating& Frustrating . Little about myself, i am an Indian Engineer working in middleast for last 12 years.I was really happy with my jobs ,and now i feel that my nature of job is getting saturated and that some management tools can help me to grow further in the management domain.When i realize this fact, i started to think of doing MBA.Here comes my main issue- GMAT; knowing that i need to spend considerable amount of time and effort for the preparation , i started the preparation from the basics. I spent almost 5 years for the preparation , tried wit different test preparation stuff, hoping that i can get atleast 650 score,but still i could not achieved my target score.
My mock scores:
Economist Gmat tutor:
Aug 8 2014: 590 Q(45) V(28)
Aug 15 : 610 Q(47) V(28)
Aug 31 : 630 Q(44) V(34)
Sep 24 : 590 Q(44) V(29)
Oct 2 : 630 Q(50 V(28)
GMAT Exam(5th Attempt): 570 Q(39) V(31)
Again i studied for another almost 2 months and my mockups were:
Veritas(paid mocks)
Dec1 : 680 Q(48) V(35)
Dec3 : 680 Q(49) V (35)
Dec5 : 680 Q(49) V (34)
Dec13: 680 Q(47) V(37)
Dec17: 710 Q(46) V(41)
Needless to say that i took GmatPrep official Mockup multiple times, and my score was fluctuating from 600 to 670.
My last gmatprep retake On Dec 20 was 710 Q(49) V(38)
GMAT Exam 6th attempt : 590 Q(45) V(27).
My Actual GMAT Score:
Sept 2010: 470 Q(35) V(21)
Feb 2011 : 500 Q(39) V(19)
Oct 2013 : 500 Q(43) V(17)
March 2014:550 Q(45) V(21)
Oct 2014 :570 Q(39) V(31)
Dec 2014 : 590 Q(45) V(27)
MY Preparation materials:
Used only OG 10, 11, 12 for first two GMAT Exam.
Before 3rd Exam:
Manhattan all strategy guides.
All OG books.
E-gmat course.
Before fourth exam:
Apart from above , i added Magoosh preparation (Verbal only)
Before fifth and sixth:
enrolled Economist Tutor full course, and i covered 90% of the coursework.
Apart from all the study material that i mentioned above, i was using Gmatclub forums regularly and used to solve lot of quants & Verbal questions carefully; Moreover i purchased all Manhattan mocktest and the question banks and went through multiple times.
Now, Frankly speaking, i am ready to go for another one more attempt, but i am little bit concerned about this. i don't whether is it really worth taking Gmat 7 times, and what would be the response from the MBA schools admission committee. Moreover, i don't know what to do.
My mock scores:
Economist Gmat tutor:
Aug 8 2014: 590 Q(45) V(28)
Aug 15 : 610 Q(47) V(28)
Aug 31 : 630 Q(44) V(34)
Sep 24 : 590 Q(44) V(29)
Oct 2 : 630 Q(50 V(28)
GMAT Exam(5th Attempt): 570 Q(39) V(31)
Again i studied for another almost 2 months and my mockups were:
Veritas(paid mocks)
Dec1 : 680 Q(48) V(35)
Dec3 : 680 Q(49) V (35)
Dec5 : 680 Q(49) V (34)
Dec13: 680 Q(47) V(37)
Dec17: 710 Q(46) V(41)
Needless to say that i took GmatPrep official Mockup multiple times, and my score was fluctuating from 600 to 670.
My last gmatprep retake On Dec 20 was 710 Q(49) V(38)
GMAT Exam 6th attempt : 590 Q(45) V(27).
My Actual GMAT Score:
Sept 2010: 470 Q(35) V(21)
Feb 2011 : 500 Q(39) V(19)
Oct 2013 : 500 Q(43) V(17)
March 2014:550 Q(45) V(21)
Oct 2014 :570 Q(39) V(31)
Dec 2014 : 590 Q(45) V(27)
MY Preparation materials:
Used only OG 10, 11, 12 for first two GMAT Exam.
Before 3rd Exam:
Manhattan all strategy guides.
All OG books.
E-gmat course.
Before fourth exam:
Apart from above , i added Magoosh preparation (Verbal only)
Before fifth and sixth:
enrolled Economist Tutor full course, and i covered 90% of the coursework.
Apart from all the study material that i mentioned above, i was using Gmatclub forums regularly and used to solve lot of quants & Verbal questions carefully; Moreover i purchased all Manhattan mocktest and the question banks and went through multiple times.
Now, Frankly speaking, i am ready to go for another one more attempt, but i am little bit concerned about this. i don't whether is it really worth taking Gmat 7 times, and what would be the response from the MBA schools admission committee. Moreover, i don't know what to do.
31 Dec 2014, 14:04
Kudos
Bookmarks
Hi jp001,
I came across your post on another GMAT Forum (and responded to it there), so I've decided to paste that response here too for convenience:
You've provided a lot of information, which is good - it helps to diagnose what's been going wrong for you on Test Day (it's actually a combination of factors). As it stands, you're not that far away from scoring 650+, but you're not going to get to that level if you continue to study as you have been.
Based on what you've described, I have a few questions/suggestions:
1) When you took your CATs, how often were you taking the ENTIRE CAT (including the Essay and IR sections)?
2) Since you've been studying for so long, how many of these CATs did you take more than once?
3) What time of day did you take these CATs and what time of day were your Official GMATs?
4) What day of the week did you normally take your Official GMAT?
5) On Test Day, did you ever have pacing problems in the Quant or Verbal sections? Did you finish early or have to rush just to finish? Did you have to guess on a bunch of questions at the very end (or did you ever leave any questions unanswered?)?
6) How long was the ride from your home to the Testing Center?
Here are the immediate issues:
First, it's almost a certainty that you weren't taking your practice CATs in a realistic, Test-like fashion. ALL of those scores are "inflated" which means that you chose to do things in a way that did NOT match Test Day. This can include, but is not limited to, skipping sections, pausing the Test, taking a Test repeatedly, inconsistency in days/times that you took the Test, seeing questions that you had already answered, etc.
Second, many of the questions that you would have answered during your frequent visits to BeatTheGMAT and GMATClub are questions that appear on practice CATs. When you came across those same questions during a CAT, you consciously (or unconsciously) already knew the answer. The result is that you didn't need as much time to answer the question (or finish the section), your stress levels were lower, any pacing problems that you have would have been less of a factor, etc. - the sum total being that this contributed to the "inflated" scores that I mentioned above. As such, you rarely received a true assessment of your strengths and weaknesses, so you didn't know what to focus on during your studies.
Third, there's some kind of "block" or "disconnect" for you when you're studying Verbal. You've used the MGMAT Books, the E-gmat Course, Magoosh Verbal and Economist - none of any of their products or materials appear to have helped you "break through" your Verbal block. The V31 in October, 2014 is an outlier which you weren't able to match in December, 2014. Either none of those products are good enough to help you OR you're not using Verbal training materials correctly. This might mean that you're not doing enough work, it might mean that you're not following the strategies/tactics, it might just mean that at the end of the Official GMAT you're too tired to remember your training... but something is clearly off.
Fourth, since you've been at this for so long, you've developed a series of "bad habits" - they're just how you respond to the Test. It's going to take some time to break you out of these bad habits, so you should not be scheduling another Official GMAT too soon. You're also going to need to invest in a GMAT product that is rigorous with its teachings and you must train to follow those lessons without deviating. If you think "I don't need to take notes", then you're making a mistake. If you think "I can just do this in my head", then you're making a mistake. If you think "I don't like grammar, so I'll just pick the answer that sounds like how people talk", then you're making a mistake.
Thankfully, all of these issues can be fixed. The GMAT is a predictable, standardized Test, so you CAN train to CRUSH it. You just can't do things "your way" any more.
GMAT assassins aren't born, they're made,
Rich
I came across your post on another GMAT Forum (and responded to it there), so I've decided to paste that response here too for convenience:
You've provided a lot of information, which is good - it helps to diagnose what's been going wrong for you on Test Day (it's actually a combination of factors). As it stands, you're not that far away from scoring 650+, but you're not going to get to that level if you continue to study as you have been.
Based on what you've described, I have a few questions/suggestions:
1) When you took your CATs, how often were you taking the ENTIRE CAT (including the Essay and IR sections)?
2) Since you've been studying for so long, how many of these CATs did you take more than once?
3) What time of day did you take these CATs and what time of day were your Official GMATs?
4) What day of the week did you normally take your Official GMAT?
5) On Test Day, did you ever have pacing problems in the Quant or Verbal sections? Did you finish early or have to rush just to finish? Did you have to guess on a bunch of questions at the very end (or did you ever leave any questions unanswered?)?
6) How long was the ride from your home to the Testing Center?
Here are the immediate issues:
First, it's almost a certainty that you weren't taking your practice CATs in a realistic, Test-like fashion. ALL of those scores are "inflated" which means that you chose to do things in a way that did NOT match Test Day. This can include, but is not limited to, skipping sections, pausing the Test, taking a Test repeatedly, inconsistency in days/times that you took the Test, seeing questions that you had already answered, etc.
Second, many of the questions that you would have answered during your frequent visits to BeatTheGMAT and GMATClub are questions that appear on practice CATs. When you came across those same questions during a CAT, you consciously (or unconsciously) already knew the answer. The result is that you didn't need as much time to answer the question (or finish the section), your stress levels were lower, any pacing problems that you have would have been less of a factor, etc. - the sum total being that this contributed to the "inflated" scores that I mentioned above. As such, you rarely received a true assessment of your strengths and weaknesses, so you didn't know what to focus on during your studies.
Third, there's some kind of "block" or "disconnect" for you when you're studying Verbal. You've used the MGMAT Books, the E-gmat Course, Magoosh Verbal and Economist - none of any of their products or materials appear to have helped you "break through" your Verbal block. The V31 in October, 2014 is an outlier which you weren't able to match in December, 2014. Either none of those products are good enough to help you OR you're not using Verbal training materials correctly. This might mean that you're not doing enough work, it might mean that you're not following the strategies/tactics, it might just mean that at the end of the Official GMAT you're too tired to remember your training... but something is clearly off.
Fourth, since you've been at this for so long, you've developed a series of "bad habits" - they're just how you respond to the Test. It's going to take some time to break you out of these bad habits, so you should not be scheduling another Official GMAT too soon. You're also going to need to invest in a GMAT product that is rigorous with its teachings and you must train to follow those lessons without deviating. If you think "I don't need to take notes", then you're making a mistake. If you think "I can just do this in my head", then you're making a mistake. If you think "I don't like grammar, so I'll just pick the answer that sounds like how people talk", then you're making a mistake.
Thankfully, all of these issues can be fixed. The GMAT is a predictable, standardized Test, so you CAN train to CRUSH it. You just can't do things "your way" any more.
GMAT assassins aren't born, they're made,
Rich
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