700 (Q46, V40)

Question

Hello

I just got out of the test center, my score is as follows : Q 46 (75%) V 40 (89%) Overall 700 (90%) I am very happy with the score. I do plan to apply to schools in the top 10 and obviously with the general average being 720, I am facing the dilemma of retake, but honestly I don't think its worth it. The only reason I contemplate a retake is my GMATPrep scores : Test 1) Q 48 V 42 - 720 Overall Test 2) Q 48 V 47 - 760 Overall Anyhow I don't think I am going to retake is it's best to invest my time elsewhere. Also English is not my native language so I'm still happy with the score in general Please feel free to ask any questions if you are interested Mega thanks to the founders and members of this seriously great community. This is definitely one of the best resources for GMAT study in specific and B-School applications in general, I am confident that there would be a lot less high scores if it weren't for the GMATclub, so cheers to you guys

akaydee · Answer

kuharido,

Congratulations!!!

You did well. I think you should concentrate on your application now.

How would you rate the difficulty level of the quant questions on the real test vs those in the GMAT prep/OG? Any advice for somebody like me who is trying to get a Q 46-47 score? Any help from you will be much appreciated (It would be great if you could share any flashcards/materials that you used during your preparation.)

Hussain15 · Answer

Congrats on a great score!!

Few queries, What materials did you use?? How many CATs? what was your verbal strategy??

kuharido · Answer

Hey thanks guys, appreciate the input

@akaydee  : Let me address your concerns in bullet points as I think that might be clearer

- For Material and flashcards, I have made a lot notes, on A4 paper in black ink, mostly hand written. But to be honest the value of the notes weren't the notes themselves, sure they helped me write a summary of everything to revise before the exam, but their effectiveness lies in the fact that when you make notes, you develop a better understanding of a topic, and tend to commit it to memory much more than just reading, at least for me, that's what I learned since school days

- Difficulty of quant section ? You know honestly that's a tough nugget to answer, because even if you try to recreate 100% identical exam conditions, the exam will always be different. So for sure when someone wants to judge the difficulty they will be a little biased. I've seen a lot of people posting how the GMAT has been getting harder. I can't say that those are very accurate, but I can't say that they are rumors either. If you look at paper tests from way back, the questions are actually much easier, so the exam in a way would evolve. Also you could tell from my quant breakup that on the practice tests I had a higher quant (48) and lower on the real exam (46) but that could very well be nerves getting the best of me. However I do remember that the very first quant question on the real exam seemed like a much more computationally intensive question than any first 1-3 questions on my practice tests. But then again a lot of people get very close scores to their GMAT prep score. So I really can't definitively say if the quant is harder, but my impression was yes, but just by a bit. It's very possible that this particular version of the exam was like this, after all even GMAC says you are score is accurate within +/- 20 or 30 points of your ability, so its definitely something that could differ from test to test. I would say depending on many things (how you are feeling, whether you are in the zone, day, the version of the test, luck, the planets ... etc) if you do GMATPrep (first time around with no previously seen questions), my impression is that you will be within +/- 20 points in general of the overall score, and +/- 2 points on each of the Quant and Verbal scores

- For advice for you to get your score to 46/47, which I think is a good range, it depends on how much you are scoring now. I know this advice is kind of annoying but it is the truth. But to give you motivation, my first quant score with little review and almost no practice was 40, on GMAT Prep exam, after thorough review and practice, I got 48 (on second exam, not retake)

@Hussain15  : Thanks man. My material is exactly this :

- Princeton review (old edition from 2007 I think) : Mostly has strategies and light review, finish it and get some practice going on but its nothing really if you are considering higher scores, unless you are a genius and a light review is all you need

- MGMAT Books : Best there is, period. All quant books are good, Verbal, I bought the three (SC,CR,RC) didn't open the last two, read SC a couple of times. Just flipping through the CR and RC books made me close them, they deal too much with technique. I think if one is having challanges CR and RC they might be useful, but honestly i don't know

- OG12

- Web content : GMAT Club (awesome) and KHAN Academy, great website, the guy is an HBS grad and he did this website and he basically has short 10 minute videos teaching everything from Math to Physics, there is a section completely devoted to OG11, he solves every PS and DS problem in the book, very cool

By the way OG11 and OG12 have some repeat questions in case you thought otherwise, about %65 more or less are repeats

As far as strategy, I mostly practiced questions from the official guide, and for SC learned the rules and common tricks the GMAT test writers seem to love (Hello pronoun reference)

One really important thing is to work on your stamina as the Verbal is the last section in the exam. I heard this and scoffed at it, believe me an hour of essays makes a big difference then just doing Quant and Verbal on practice tests, and even if you do the whole thing these is still the nerves part, so don't underestimate this factor. Halfway through the verbal I got this uncontrollable urge to just rocket through the questions to find out my score, I almost couldn't take it anymore thinking I bombed everything. So practice focusing !

gurpreetsingh · Answer

Congrats great score!!

Have you prepared any document citing patterns that Gmat repeats?

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