660 - 2nd Time

[jjomalls]

Dont remember the exact breakdown, but Q/V scores were almost identical (at 80% each).

Unlike the first time, I was better prepped for the Quant this time around. Using Ursula's grid (it was perfect) for the Official Guide, as well as some problems from this site, I was able to raise my quant score by 25% from the last test. Pretty standard stuff - % change problems, tricky absolute value, tricky mean/median/sd, coordinate geometry. No work , speed, or mixture problems. One easy probability and one very tough combination problem. However, if you KNOW the Official Guide (and not just the answers, but the concepts, and the 'methodology' behind ETS's thinking) then an 80%+ quant for you is definitely do-able.

After the quant section, I read through my scratch paper. I figured I had gotten 8-10 questions wrong (all after the first 10), and thought that probably 1/3 of them were experimental. I knew that, if I did well on verbal, I'd be home free.

Verbal seemed like a joke once again...or so I thought. I was convinced I had only gotten 1-2 questions wrong total for Verbal. But then the score of 660 showed up, with only an 80% in Verbal. I was shocked. To this day I still cannot figure out where I went wrong. I had read that getting a verbal/math question wrong very early on can hurt your score by 50-60 points - and I truly think this happened to me.

My Practice:
PR CAT 1: 650
PR CAT 2: 650
PR CAT 3: 700
PR CAT 4: 690
PR CAT 5: 710
Kaplan 1: 610

I also used the Crack-GMAT math tutorials and exercises, which I thought were great.

I got a 640 the first time around, with a 92% in V and a 57% in Q. I knew I had to boost the quant bigtime, so I did. However, I'm kicking myself for dropping 10+% in verbal.

I'm leaning toward taking it again ASAP. I want to break 700 (I'm targeting the top-10), and feel I'm literally only 2-3 questions away. 660 is in the ballpark, but I want some more insurance.

I've pretty much done all the prep I can do in math - now I need to do some more verbal practice problems.

Any advice? Does 3 times (And hopefully not 4) look bad to the schools?

[ursula]

That's an impressive improvement on the quant! While the drop in verbal may be disappointing, I suspect it won't hurt you all that much. Having reached a 92% verbal on your first run should indicate to an admissions committee that you have excellent verbal skills - even if you dropped a bit on the second try. Now your quant score is also in the ballpark, and you actually have the kind of balanced Q/V result that most schools are looking for.

If you were able to get both the Q and V together in a single sitting, you'd probably crack the 700 mark. However, there are no guarantees, so I would only go for a third run if there is truly a benefit. Maybe you should post your stats and other details in the Ask Admissionconsultants thread to get some feedback.

If you do go for a third attempt, I would strongly recommend keeping a narrower focus during the exam. In particular, I think it was a mistake at the end of the quant section that you tried to figure out where you stood at that point. You should just use the 5-minute break to clear your head and get ready to focus 100% on the verbal - you shouldn't spend the break revisiting the section you've just completed!

By the way, I really don't believe that a single wrong answer, even early in a section, will produce a 50-60 point swing in your score. I think your lower verbal score was more likely due to a loss of concentration which resulted in a couple of missed questions. Any energy you spend during the exam (or during the breaks) thinking about your score, or about which questions you got wrong, or about which questions were experimental, is energy you should be directing 100% towards the question you are working on at any given moment. It's just like in golf, where you need to be able to focus all your mental energy on the current shot - regardless of whether your last shot landed in the water, or whether your last shot was a hole-in-one.