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Old 05-20-2008, 05:12 PM   #6 (permalink)
lurkman
Eager!
 
Join Date: Apr 2008
Posts: 99
lurkman just joined TestMagic.
Nick_AAPL,

Congratulations. I had a similar experience on GMAT. I also scored 690 (Q45, V39) and I also did not finish the test.

My nemesis was the Quant section (reached #35, before I ran out of time). It was embarrassing because Quant is my strength. But I never got the pacing strategy figured out during my prep and I paid the price for not having a strategic guessing strategy worked out, well in advance.

Such a strategy must include an allowance for the time it takes to guess. Guessing involves at least three steps:

(1) Making a guess after eliminating one or two answers (to increase your chances); not just blind guessing

(2) Click on Next

(3) Click on "Confirm your answer"

A good guessing strategy must figure out how long it takes to do these three steps; then, on the test, as you near the end, multiply the number of questions remaining by this Time-Needed-for-Strategic-Guessing and execute the strategy if you have only enough time to guess.

I found out from my GMAT PREP test experience (btw, I also scored 710 on both my GPREPs) that even guessing needs time: I did not finish GPREP1 because I finished only 29 quant questions and had less than a minute remaining. I guessed 6 blindly and ran out of time because there wasn't even enough time to guess the remaining.

So my experience mirrors yours very closely: I had a short prep time (4 weekends and some evening time after work), I had identical scores as yours in both the GPREP tests and my final GMAT, and I did not finish.

FYI, my debrief was posted here: http://www.urch.com/forums/just-fini...0-q45-v39.html (GMAT 690, (q45, V39))

If I were to do it again, I would take a few weeks to nail the timing strategy, get comfortable with finishing both sections, before re-taking the test.

Congratulations again.

I feel your pain on missing the 700 mark; it was there for the asking, yet elusive. Such is life.

lurkman
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