Ok took my GMAT today. Felt calm and confident. but what happened today was totally unexpected... 640... Q47 V31... I am very pleased with my quantitative since I had to guess on about 3-4 questions, but overall I had thought I did ok. not as good as the score was though. Verbal... I am speechless. This is my strongest subject and I was totally shocked to see a 31. All my practice CAT's, with the exception of my very first have been 34 V+... in fact my last 3 were 38, 37, 39... I don't understand it. I wouldn't have been suprised if my Q was low, but my verbal???????? Its so strange. What sucks even more is that I can't quite pinpoint on what went wrong! I didn't feel rushed (except at the very end last two questions). I didn't feel anxious or lost. In fact I felt pretty confident on the verbal. The only thing I was somewhat unsure of were the SC's. When I think about it, all the SC's were much different than what I am used to. Unfortunetly I can't be sure... Well Im taking me next test 1 month from now. I am a fighter so its in my nature to be stubborn and not quit. I already have some plans on how to improve: Q: GMATClub Challenges (finally can do these now) Review MGMAT Q books just to keep myself brushed up on the basics. V: Here is where I would appreciate some input. I can't figure out what went wrong here. I have a suspiscion that I did poorly on the SC's but I am unsure. SC 1000's and practice on GMATClub. For CR and RC i don't know what else to practice. I have exhausted the OG and V OG. I want to thank everyone who did help me to get to this point. Ioiio, Ywilfred, Killersquirrel, singh_amit19, Ferihere, beckee529, laxieqv, and to many others who have helped me to reach this point. A 640 is not terrible. In fact I think b/c of my Q, and my GPA, I can probably go anywhere minus the Ivy Leauges. I have to admit my first practice test was with Kaplan 3 months ago and I scored a 400... actually I didn't score this. I gave myself extra time and didn't even finish the test. I rounded up to what I thought I would have gotten... Regardless of a massive point increase, a 640 is not good enough for me. Its not reflective of my true abilities. I know I can do much better (especially on the VERBAL!) and Im going to give it another try!!! Again, please advise on how to keep my steam going. Motivation isn't a problem, but making sure I use the correct study materials is!!!

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WTF?!?!?!

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gowani

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02 Oct 2007, 10:48

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GMATBLACKBELT: it's a fluke! take is again and i'm sure your score will increase.

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02 Oct 2007, 11:25

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GMATBLACKBELT, you are definitely not V31 material. You seem to have a good understanding of basics. I would suggest not rusing to give the second GMAT. But you might be working against application deadlines... so I dont know.

Just practice more. I have a bad memory hence I am going to practice the OG questions again (even though I have gone through them once). See if that works for you.

I am confident things will work out great for you.

solidcolor

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02 Oct 2007, 23:50

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Amit05

Hey chap,
Buck up...
I guess you underestimated Verbal and that is what most folks do.. including me.. See the equation goes this way, if you get 10 wrong in Quant, you are still over 40 but if you get 10 wrong in verbal, the score comes down drastically.. hence the margin of error is very less in verbal..So it is very important to make sure there are no silly mistakes in SC.

RC is another silent killer and most of the people get most wrongs here because of its stealth nature. All of us undermine RC and then face the consequence.. This is also evident by looking at the number of postings in RC on verbal forums..Out of 4 RC's even if you get 1 ans wrong in each of them, there r 4 wrongs and 2-3 mistakes in SC and CR each and you are doomed.. Are you 100% sure that you correctly answered all the Q's in 4 RC's ?If not then there is work for you..

Get up .. Get goin ....

You made really good points for those whose V scores are unexpectedly low.

Thank you.

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03 Oct 2007, 07:14

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I woud definitily recommend going through the OG twice.

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03 Oct 2007, 09:41

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Hi,
I remember your answers in math section, you were doing good. Since you have good skills on both verbal and math (I understand that from the previous posts), and probably the test results that you took before actuall are not close to the real gmat. It is quite possible that it was the psycological state that affected your score.
It may sound againist 'no rush' principle, but this is fact, psycologists have observed that some level of stress is GOOD for the test taker. The reason is that tress helps to concentrate. Actually there is optimum level of stress, too little is just as no good as too much. If you draw a graph with score on the Y and stress on the X, you will get upsidedown U, correlation b/w stress and test performance. In fact, very few people are on the first side of the curve, and thus there is little publication that would say 'raise your stress level before exam'.

It may sound funny. But I have exprerienced it myself; 'too much confidence' sometimes leads to careless mistakes, eventhoug skills are good.

Challanges are defentely good for practice.

RVD

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03 Oct 2007, 20:51

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bjpenn, you definitely look like you should be scoring a 40 on verbal, not 31. it happens to the best of us so my recommendation would be for you to relax, take a day or two off (playing halo 3 is nice) and then get back into it again. practice timing yourself and keeping yourself comfortable and calm. i think you'll be seeing 700+ next time.

RVD.

financeguy

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04 Oct 2007, 01:50

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The same happened to me when I took the GMAT for the first except I prepared for a week only and scored a bit better than you.

Its called OVER-CONFIDENCE and trust me that GMAT very accurately identifies your potential and if you have scored 640, you should give atleast 2-3 months in order to imprve your score (I assume that you are looking at 700+).

Unfortunately, over-confidence, too much motivation and extra-excitement only damages your score rather than helping you. GMAT requires consistent work over a reasonably long period of time before you can see any improvements in your test taking ability. It doesn't come overnight and there are not short-cuts unless you are 700+ breed from the first time around.

Hope this helps

KingKREEP

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04 Oct 2007, 02:38

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financeguy

It doesn't come overnight and there are not short-cuts unless you are 700+ breed from the first time around.

There is no such thing as "700 breed".

GMATBLACKBELT, prolonging your GMAT study period for too long might lead to a burn-out. So with your strong basics in place, I would say you can give the GMAT again in about 1 to 2 months. All the best!

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04 Oct 2007, 02:55

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KingKREEP

There is no such thing as "700 breed".

I thought so but was proven wrong when I read so many 2 weeks study 700+ score posts on this forum. I myself scored 680 in my first GMAT attempt with less than 30 hours preparation from Princeton Review and I am not exceptionally good at anything so it's not too hard to blieve that there are guys out who would score a 700 with a week or so of preparation time.

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04 Oct 2007, 11:48

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My friend scored 770 with two weeks of preparation. She practiced from the material that comes with GMATPrep (the Q and V review) and did the two practice tests. Other than that she had no prior experience with CAT format tests. To me, it seems like there are definitely some 700+ people out there that just "get it."

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04 Oct 2007, 12:21

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Quote:

To me, it seems like there are definitely some 700+ people out there that just "get it."

And then you have people like me, who was never good at math in the first place and hadn't taken a math class in 12 years! Yeah, that pre-calc class I took first quarter of my freshman year in 1995 wasn't going to do me much good, so I pretty much had to learn everything over again. On the other hand, I use reading and writing everyday.

So, I guess my point is that if you are an engineer or someone else who uses math all the time, and considering that most people read and use language all the time (so those SC & RC skills are easier to brush up on), you probably have a heads up on folks whose skills are rusting and falling apart.

Although, I'm sure that there will be someone out there who never took a math class in their life and has a job that requires no reading and writing who will study for 2 weeks and get a 750 just to prove me wrong!

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I feel there is too credit associated with the 700+ scorers. Let me chip in with my 2 cents. Whether you are a math whiz or a wannabe NY times editor, you stilll need to understand the patterns GMAT tests u on. GMAT concentrates on tricks and nothing but tricks. That is why you find math whizzes stuttering in verbal and verbal gurus gun shy of maths. More often than not you find ppl who understand the patterns cracking the test. This is irrespective of whether ppl prepared for a few weeks or a few months.

When I started my GMAT preparation, this was the golden rule I observed. please note that I am neither an engineer nor a verbal whiz. Just an ordinary alert joe working in the trenches.

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04 Oct 2007, 14:47

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Wow. Everyone thanks for the plethora of responses. I never expected to get so much feedback.

Just wanted to show my appreciation to everyone.

subhen

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04 Oct 2007, 16:18

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GMATBlackbelt,

You deserve much more than 640. I am sure you can do better in a month's time. Your fundas are pretty clear. GMATprep simulates the real exam best. You might be better off doing the GMATprep tests not just once or twice but as many time as possible till you start seeing far too many repeat questions in Quant.

Best of luck buddy & report to us the good news in a month's time.

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04 Oct 2007, 16:35

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you dont soud or write like an ordinary joe...for what its worth and your humility is admirable..but you are a smart guy..

GMATBLACKBELT: my dear friend..from what i see, you are pretty well rounded gmat test taker..however, i have only seen your abilities on quant and SC..and some CR.. i have no clue how you did on RC..

if you are like me..RC is my nemisis..and will easily bring your verbal score down..

dahcrap

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13 Oct 2007, 00:24

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Well Got my AWA's back... at least these are 5.5's... bah. Gimme 60 more points and il take a 3.5.

Toploader

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15 Oct 2007, 09:25

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Hey dude, give my [url=https://www.gmatclub.com/forum/t53944 debrief thread[/url] a read. I suspect that you might be in the same boat as I was! If so, PM me and I'll help out all I can.

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I just took it today and ended up with a v score of 41. And SC was, and is, my weakness.

To work it out, I found that going through the OG Verbal book and simply reading all of the "answers" helped tremendously!

The "instant feedback" received by reading the problem, doing the analysis, then immediately seeing what the correct answer really helped me to get these down. I felt really good during the test that I actually understanding the grammar issues.

Also, for SC I found the Kaplan 800 book to be very good. The questions are crazy hard, but the explanations are very good. If your're out of drilling questions, I hear the Kaplan quiz bank is good too, hard, but hard is good!

Anyhow, SC is what I struggled with through verbal. I'd take the Prep tests and get 10 SC's wrong and all CR and RC correct. I was pissed! Another option, pick up a copy of a "Gregg" reference and study the rules of grammar. I found that to be helpful as well. Finally... I used a grid to help me out.

I'd write A,B,C,D and E vertically down the board then draw a table. On each SC problem, I'd zoom in on the first grammatical error I could find. Immediately, I would scan the questions and put an X next to those that have the error. Simple strategy, but it helped me a ton!

Another thing... read - a lot! If you can get a copy of McKinsey or some other "high end" publications, read them. You'll get a "fell" for what is right...

Good luck! And thanks for your help on the forums. I'm not an "active" poster, but when I have, you've come to my aid right away! Thanks again - best of luck to you!!!

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