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11 Sep 2015, 21:18
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Well today I took my GMAT test and I still can't believe I did so bad. First a little bit of background info about me. I'm an assistant manager in California, I'm originally from Mexico and I've been living in the U.S for the last 5 years. This year, after putting aside the goal of doing my MBA for a couple of years, I decided to get serious and start studying for the GMAT.
So first thing I did was buying the Kaplan Premier 2015 book back in January, I started studying it for a 4 or 5 hrs per week initially and around June I decided to establish a calendar and dedicate at least 1-2 hr per day and couple of hours on Sat/Sun. During this time I realized I was going to need to do my TOEFL exam, since my last TOEFL was back in 2009.
So for the most part during my prep I was feeling pretty good, my initial diagnostic test was 500, so it wasn't that bad. Consider that I'm thinking to enter an online MBA program that requires an average of 550. So I thought 50 points wouldn't be that difficult. During my preparation I realized I was doing much better in the Verbal part than Quant, so I tried to focus more on this part. I bought the Math workbook of KAPLAN and solved most of the book without that many problems.
Last Saturday I did my TOEFL and I felt pretty good. So I had a week in between the TOEFL and the GMAT and I just needed to complete the last 2 chapters of my GMAT book, AWA and CR, and revisit some difficult topics like sufficiency and some probability questions.
So yesterday, I went to work, reviewed some of the flashcards and did a couple of exercises of CR, went to the GYM to clear my head, watched some TV and went to bed early. I asked for the day off at work since I had to travel to the testing site, which is 2 hours away from where I live, arrived 1 hour earlier and I read a magazine while waiting, registered in, palm scanned and ready. Before the exam I had a mild headache but nothing out of the ordinary.
THE EXAM
Since I studied for the TOEFL too, I found the AWA not that hard. I felt I was able to explain why the argument was not convincing with good and clear logic.
The CR part was somewhat hard, there were some graphs that didn't make that much sense, but I decided not to worry since this was not counting for my score. The last question I was not able to answer it because I ran out of time. Took my break, went to the restroom, ate some trail mix I had in the locker and got back to my testing station.
I was feeling pretty confident for Quant, when the first question popped on my screen I thought "OK, this a mid level question I should be able to get it right" but I was not able to figure out how to approach it, I started to worry about taking too much time, so I guessed the answer and I continue with the next one and next and so on. The questions were feeling mid level, then harder and suddenly I started noticing super low level questions, I worried and look at clock and...oh...the horror. I had 45 min and 12 questions left. I went way too fast on the first questions, so I decided to make a conscious effort of not panicking and try to get as many answers as possible of the 12 left, with more calm. The end of the Quant part arrived and I took my break went to restroom, drank some water and came back to the test room.
I knew something didn't go as planned on the Quant section, so I decided to be more careful with verbal. I took my time, some of the questions appearing on the screen were hard, so I was happy but towards the end of the section I got really tired....in the last question I had 3 min left but to be honest I just guessed it because I just wanted to get out of the testing site. At the end of the test I was having a big headache and my eyes hurt, nonetheless I was feeling optimistic since my initial scores were around 500, there was not reason to believe that I couldn't get 550.
Then the scored appear, 470...35% Quant and 55% Verb, something like that. But I was sure that was a 470 on the screen. So when the question came up, I decided to cancel my score., I thought it was better to retake and leave this bad score behind.
So this is what I think went wrong.
1.- Physical and mental fatigue, during my prep I was working 11 to 13 hrs everyday. Plus I had been working on my house, I did a bunch of DIY work in order to refinance it to lower my payment and get some extra cash to pay for my future MBA tuition.
2.- Studying for 2 exams. GMAT and TOEFL ibt, I took about 2 weeks out of my prep of GMAT to study for TOEFL.
3.- Not doing more mock full exams. I only did 2 full practice tests, most of my prep I did each section separately.
So my questions for this community are.
I have read that Manhattan is a good source to prepare for GMAT, should I switch to this course? I still have some quizzes left of KAPLAN.
What other strategies or strategies do you have to overcome this bad outcome? Any suggestion or comments are welcome.
Best regards
So first thing I did was buying the Kaplan Premier 2015 book back in January, I started studying it for a 4 or 5 hrs per week initially and around June I decided to establish a calendar and dedicate at least 1-2 hr per day and couple of hours on Sat/Sun. During this time I realized I was going to need to do my TOEFL exam, since my last TOEFL was back in 2009.
So for the most part during my prep I was feeling pretty good, my initial diagnostic test was 500, so it wasn't that bad. Consider that I'm thinking to enter an online MBA program that requires an average of 550. So I thought 50 points wouldn't be that difficult. During my preparation I realized I was doing much better in the Verbal part than Quant, so I tried to focus more on this part. I bought the Math workbook of KAPLAN and solved most of the book without that many problems.
Last Saturday I did my TOEFL and I felt pretty good. So I had a week in between the TOEFL and the GMAT and I just needed to complete the last 2 chapters of my GMAT book, AWA and CR, and revisit some difficult topics like sufficiency and some probability questions.
So yesterday, I went to work, reviewed some of the flashcards and did a couple of exercises of CR, went to the GYM to clear my head, watched some TV and went to bed early. I asked for the day off at work since I had to travel to the testing site, which is 2 hours away from where I live, arrived 1 hour earlier and I read a magazine while waiting, registered in, palm scanned and ready. Before the exam I had a mild headache but nothing out of the ordinary.
THE EXAM
Since I studied for the TOEFL too, I found the AWA not that hard. I felt I was able to explain why the argument was not convincing with good and clear logic.
The CR part was somewhat hard, there were some graphs that didn't make that much sense, but I decided not to worry since this was not counting for my score. The last question I was not able to answer it because I ran out of time. Took my break, went to the restroom, ate some trail mix I had in the locker and got back to my testing station.
I was feeling pretty confident for Quant, when the first question popped on my screen I thought "OK, this a mid level question I should be able to get it right" but I was not able to figure out how to approach it, I started to worry about taking too much time, so I guessed the answer and I continue with the next one and next and so on. The questions were feeling mid level, then harder and suddenly I started noticing super low level questions, I worried and look at clock and...oh...the horror. I had 45 min and 12 questions left. I went way too fast on the first questions, so I decided to make a conscious effort of not panicking and try to get as many answers as possible of the 12 left, with more calm. The end of the Quant part arrived and I took my break went to restroom, drank some water and came back to the test room.
I knew something didn't go as planned on the Quant section, so I decided to be more careful with verbal. I took my time, some of the questions appearing on the screen were hard, so I was happy but towards the end of the section I got really tired....in the last question I had 3 min left but to be honest I just guessed it because I just wanted to get out of the testing site. At the end of the test I was having a big headache and my eyes hurt, nonetheless I was feeling optimistic since my initial scores were around 500, there was not reason to believe that I couldn't get 550.
Then the scored appear, 470...35% Quant and 55% Verb, something like that. But I was sure that was a 470 on the screen. So when the question came up, I decided to cancel my score., I thought it was better to retake and leave this bad score behind.
So this is what I think went wrong.
1.- Physical and mental fatigue, during my prep I was working 11 to 13 hrs everyday. Plus I had been working on my house, I did a bunch of DIY work in order to refinance it to lower my payment and get some extra cash to pay for my future MBA tuition.
2.- Studying for 2 exams. GMAT and TOEFL ibt, I took about 2 weeks out of my prep of GMAT to study for TOEFL.
3.- Not doing more mock full exams. I only did 2 full practice tests, most of my prep I did each section separately.
So my questions for this community are.
I have read that Manhattan is a good source to prepare for GMAT, should I switch to this course? I still have some quizzes left of KAPLAN.
What other strategies or strategies do you have to overcome this bad outcome? Any suggestion or comments are welcome.
Best regards
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