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gmatroad2 · 2009 March 16th, 03:29 PM

Hi everybody, I finally did my 4th attempt on this test and I got just 590!!!

Here are my results:
1) december 2007: 520 (v23, q38 awa5)
2) january 2008: 490 (v22, q35, awa5)
3) august 2008: 600 (v29, q44, awa5)
4) march 2009: 590 (v25, q46, awa ?)

So, I've spent practically 2 years on this test (and a lot of money) and results didn't come to me. I just need at least a 650. The verbal part is really freaking me out!!! I'm starting to think that it doesn't have sense to continue wasting my life on this.

As a matter of fact, I've been admitted on 4 universities, 3 in UK (top 200) , 1 in US (top 100), but without financial aid it will not be possible for me to support my studies so, I need at least a 650 on GMAT to compete for an scholarship.

I did OG10, OG11, powerprep, GMATprep, 800score tests, manhattan online, some Kaplan tests, private lessons and other stuff a couple of times. My quantitative score was always 44 on GMATprep last month, so I got surprised to get a 46 in my fourth attemp. But my verbal part.... it killed me. I was getting pretty difficult questions so I supoosed that I was doing things good, but unfortunately, I got only a 25!!! I've never got such a low score at least in the last two motnhs when I started to prepare the test again. The last verbal test I did was a Kaplan and I got a 31 (it is supoosed that Kaplan is more difficult than real test, so I was confident...)

I'm in the group of people that think that GMAT prep is not as accurate as real tests and that your score can decay 50 points, which is my case. Moroever, I think that the verbal part on the real test is now much more difficult than GMATprep. I feel that right now I'm much more prepared for the test and the kind of questions I got on the real test in my first attemp were much easier than the questions I faced this month. Probably, if I had the preparation I have now, I would have got a 650 on my fisrt attemp...

In conclusions, I think that the prep. material (Official Guide 10 and 11) are not representative of the real test level anymore. These questions are easier at least for the verbal part. Thus, Gmat prep contains questions from OG10 and 11, so GMAT prep is also out of date. For math, I suggest to be concentrated on the last 100 questions of critical reasoning and PS, the first questions are a waste of time if you have a quant background.

Now, I think that if you got 700+ on GMAT prep, you will not have troubles on real GMAT (there are houndreds of posts here to show that). But if your Gmat prep is in between 620-670, consider the possibility of getting a 580-640 on real GMAT. I think that GMAT prep is biased in that range of scores. The questions you will see on the real test will be more difficult for that range than the question you saw on GMATprep.

In the end, I would like to mention that, at least for me, this test is unfair (I think that long before I started my preparation, so my scores didn't change my opinion). Why is it unfair? Well, on my point of view, a smart exam has to have a very important feature: "the capacity to teach you". That is, after taking a good exam you must learn, after all, this is the aim when a student finish a course (I'm know what I'm taking about because I'm a profesor).

Beleive me that GMAT doens't care about what you have learned. They just give questions based on and arbitrary algorithm that is a black box. What kind of smart examn is that? Moreover, after taking the GMAT 4 times, I don't know what are my weak points on verbal because there is no feedback, you don't know what questiones were wrong in order to focus on that and improve your score. I don't know why such a kind of thing is allowed, the consumer must have the right to know about that.

For example, in my case I know that I need to improve my verbal part but the whole part? I don't know what to do, it appears that doing more questions is a waste of time. I've been focused on each of the questions I got wrong, analysing and reading the correct answers, but again I failed.

gmatroad2 · 2009 March 17th, 01:57 PM

Any advice, please?

danger009 · 2009 March 17th, 02:29 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by gmatroad2

Any advice, please?

What can be easily judged from the pattern is that u have been consistent in quant and thy verbal part is actually killing u. u need to judge thy weekness in that.
u are still missing on that. i bet if u don't catch up with that, it would be no good even going for the 5th attempt. get to the basics of the verbal part and practice

gmatroad2 · 2009 March 17th, 04:53 PM

Thanks for your response, you are right but my doubt is that I'been working hard on verbal, including taking private lessons, on average I solved correctly 75% of OG10 and OG11 so I don't know why I got such a mediocre score. I know that it quite difficult to achieve a 40 in verbal but, I'm looking for at least a 35. I got that score in Gmatprep, and as I noticed in the first post I got a 31 in one of the Kaplan test (3 days before de 4th attemp). So, I'm confused about how to start again...

adi_800 · 2009 March 17th, 05:08 PM

Hi,

As per your post, your target score is 650 which means you require 48/30 or 49/29.... You are almost there in quant... With 46 in the last attempt, 48 seems nt far away... and wid avg score of thine in verbal as 25... you need to stretch a bit to get those 5 points... After going thru gmatprep, i have come to know that score of verbal comes in 20s wen one does lot of mistakes in first 10.... so probably u r losing there....

use this link to know what exact score u want to get...
GMAT Score Calculator

n Yes.... lets accept it that gmat prep/og10/og11/powerprep is not at all representative of what score u wil get there.... GMAT HAS BECOME TOUGH!! question type will b same but they have become difficult...

what i most humbly and respectfully would suggest is... wid OG 12 releasing in few days.. chk (insert demonstrative pronoun here) copy n try to get most out of it...
have you used manhattan 6 tests? After following few debriefs... it seems that bst indicator of thy score is d score one gets in manhattan tests as gmat prep is not accurate indicator..
get back to books/basics.. then practice 1000 series, OG12... give manhattan tests... n den if u have descent score.. u can go ahead n take a date.. Also indentify thy weak areas in verbal... sc is something which takes times but once u r aware of the rules, questions take less time to solve...

Regardin thy score in kaplan, kaplan tests r nt at all representative... so dont use dem...

Rest.. u r d bst judge of urself...

Best of luck!!

gmatroad2 · 2009 March 18th, 02:53 PM

Thanks for your advice adi_800. I completely agree with you that GMAT has vecome tough in verbal. I din't take manhattan tests because I read here that they are much difficult than real test. I also read that 1000 series are not representative of real questions, but you think opposite, so I'll probably try that sets. I study by using official material and I results didn't came to me so, maybe is time to study by using another approach.

gmatissimple · 2009 March 18th, 04:46 PM

gmatroad2,

First of all, it's an inspiration that one can try so many times. I am not the master of gmat. Yet, I think you can try it again following the instructions below:

Materials needed:
1. GMAT SET (There are 31 sets that are available on the web)
2. Read the official guide 10 in accordance with manhattan sc guide. What you should do is that you will follow the manhattan SC guide. Don't create your own style. It will help you to uphold your SC score.
3. For critical reasoning, you can read the critical reasoning bible. It is also available on the web. Try to finish all the sets within the time frame (41 Ques, within 75 minutes). I think one should try to visualize the probable answers of the CRs. Say, what will weaken the conclusion? You will visualize atl least two answers that can weaken the conclusion.
4. For reading comprehension my advice is to read some magazines such as NYT, Readers' Digest, Some scientific magazines. Then you can practice from the sets.

Last but not the least, practice OG10 and OG11 as whenever you read them you will see something new in those books. And finally you will learn something. And learning will bring some scores also.

Winners never QUIT and the Quitters never WIN.

cubicle · 2009 March 19th, 02:45 AM

All the best and keep faith that life has something really better stored for you,just around the corner.

gmatroad2 · 2009 March 19th, 01:31 PM

Thanks all for your advices. gmatsimple, I've already done all what you say except that I didn't take the GMAT sets.

adi_800 · 2009 March 19th, 06:35 PM

I am putting the list of official material... u may nt be aware of the material..
1. OG10
2. OG11
3. Og maths review
4. OG verbal review
5. OG12
5. GMAT Paper based tests(total 6 in number)
6. GMATPrep(as i said..may nt be representative)
Also, 1000sc is a descent material for practice...

2009 March 16th, 03:29 PM	#1 (permalink)
gmatroad2 Eager! Join Date: Jan 2008 Posts: 41	4th. attemp, now I really feel depressed, please advice!!! Hi everybody, I finally did my 4th attempt on this test and I got just 590!!! Here are my results: 1) december 2007: 520 (v23, q38 awa5) 2) january 2008: 490 (v22, q35, awa5) 3) august 2008: 600 (v29, q44, awa5) 4) march 2009: 590 (v25, q46, awa ?) So, I've spent practically 2 years on this test (and a lot of money) and results didn't come to me. I just need at least a 650. The verbal part is really freaking me out!!! I'm starting to think that it doesn't have sense to continue wasting my life on this. As a matter of fact, I've been admitted on 4 universities, 3 in UK (top 200) , 1 in US (top 100), but without financial aid it will not be possible for me to support my studies so, I need at least a 650 on GMAT to compete for an scholarship. I did OG10, OG11, powerprep, GMATprep, 800score tests, manhattan online, some Kaplan tests, private lessons and other stuff a couple of times. My quantitative score was always 44 on GMATprep last month, so I got surprised to get a 46 in my fourth attemp. But my verbal part.... it killed me. I was getting pretty difficult questions so I supoosed that I was doing things good, but unfortunately, I got only a 25!!! I've never got such a low score at least in the last two motnhs when I started to prepare the test again. The last verbal test I did was a Kaplan and I got a 31 (it is supoosed that Kaplan is more difficult than real test, so I was confident...) I'm in the group of people that think that GMAT prep is not as accurate as real tests and that your score can decay 50 points, which is my case. Moroever, I think that the verbal part on the real test is now much more difficult than GMATprep. I feel that right now I'm much more prepared for the test and the kind of questions I got on the real test in my first attemp were much easier than the questions I faced this month. Probably, if I had the preparation I have now, I would have got a 650 on my fisrt attemp... In conclusions, I think that the prep. material (Official Guide 10 and 11) are not representative of the real test level anymore. These questions are easier at least for the verbal part. Thus, Gmat prep contains questions from OG10 and 11, so GMAT prep is also out of date. For math, I suggest to be concentrated on the last 100 questions of critical reasoning and PS, the first questions are a waste of time if you have a quant background. Now, I think that if you got 700+ on GMAT prep, you will not have troubles on real GMAT (there are houndreds of posts here to show that). But if your Gmat prep is in between 620-670, consider the possibility of getting a 580-640 on real GMAT. I think that GMAT prep is biased in that range of scores. The questions you will see on the real test will be more difficult for that range than the question you saw on GMATprep. In the end, I would like to mention that, at least for me, this test is unfair (I think that long before I started my preparation, so my scores didn't change my opinion). Why is it unfair? Well, on my point of view, a smart exam has to have a very important feature: "the capacity to teach you". That is, after taking a good exam you must learn, after all, this is the aim when a student finish a course (I'm know what I'm taking about because I'm a profesor). Beleive me that GMAT doens't care about what you have learned. They just give questions based on and arbitrary algorithm that is a black box. What kind of smart examn is that? Moreover, after taking the GMAT 4 times, I don't know what are my weak points on verbal because there is no feedback, you don't know what questiones were wrong in order to focus on that and improve your score. I don't know why such a kind of thing is allowed, the consumer must have the right to know about that. For example, in my case I know that I need to improve my verbal part but the whole part? I don't know what to do, it appears that doing more questions is a waste of time. I've been focused on each of the questions I got wrong, analysing and reading the correct answers, but again I failed.

2009 March 19th, 02:45 AM	#8 (permalink)
cubicle TestMagic Guru-in-Training Join Date: Jul 2008 Posts: 873	All the best and keep faith that life has something really better stored for you,just around the corner. _ _ _ _ SIG _ _ _ _ rhymes with luck *chaNd saanse khareedne ke liye/roz thoDi si zindagi bechi* Last edited by cubicle : 2009 March 19th at 11:46 AM.

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2009 March 17th, 01:57 PM	#2 (permalink)
gmatroad2 Eager! Join Date: Jan 2008 Posts: 41	Any advice, please?

2009 March 17th, 04:53 PM	#4 (permalink)
gmatroad2 Eager! Join Date: Jan 2008 Posts: 41	Thanks for your response, you are right but my doubt is that I'been working hard on verbal, including taking private lessons, on average I solved correctly 75% of OG10 and OG11 so I don't know why I got such a mediocre score. I know that it quite difficult to achieve a 40 in verbal but, I'm looking for at least a 35. I got that score in Gmatprep, and as I noticed in the first post I got a 31 in one of the Kaplan test (3 days before de 4th attemp). So, I'm confused about how to start again...

2009 March 17th, 05:08 PM	#5 (permalink)
adi_800 Yes...I can!! Join Date: Aug 2007 Location: Pune, India Posts: 1,327	Hi, As per your post, your target score is 650 which means you require 48/30 or 49/29.... You are almost there in quant... With 46 in the last attempt, 48 seems nt far away... and wid avg score of thine in verbal as 25... you need to stretch a bit to get those 5 points... After going thru gmatprep, i have come to know that score of verbal comes in 20s wen one does lot of mistakes in first 10.... so probably u r losing there.... use this link to know what exact score u want to get... GMAT Score Calculator n Yes.... lets accept it that gmat prep/og10/og11/powerprep is not at all representative of what score u wil get there.... GMAT HAS BECOME TOUGH!! question type will b same but they have become difficult... what i most humbly and respectfully would suggest is... wid OG 12 releasing in few days.. chk (insert demonstrative pronoun here) copy n try to get most out of it... have you used manhattan 6 tests? After following few debriefs... it seems that bst indicator of thy score is d score one gets in manhattan tests as gmat prep is not accurate indicator.. get back to books/basics.. then practice 1000 series, OG12... give manhattan tests... n den if u have descent score.. u can go ahead n take a date.. Also indentify thy weak areas in verbal... sc is something which takes times but once u r aware of the rules, questions take less time to solve... Regardin thy score in kaplan, kaplan tests r nt at all representative... so dont use dem... Rest.. u r d bst judge of urself... Best of luck!!

2009 March 18th, 02:53 PM	#6 (permalink)
gmatroad2 Eager! Join Date: Jan 2008 Posts: 41	Thanks for your advice adi_800. I completely agree with you that GMAT has vecome tough in verbal. I din't take manhattan tests because I read here that they are much difficult than real test. I also read that 1000 series are not representative of real questions, but you think opposite, so I'll probably try that sets. I study by using official material and I results didn't came to me so, maybe is time to study by using another approach.

2009 March 18th, 04:46 PM	#7 (permalink)
gmatissimple Have 760+ in GMAT Join Date: Sep 2008 Posts: 660	gmatroad2, First of all, it's an inspiration that one can try so many times. I am not the master of gmat. Yet, I think you can try it again following the instructions below: Materials needed: 1. GMAT SET (There are 31 sets that are available on the web) 2. Read the official guide 10 in accordance with manhattan sc guide. What you should do is that you will follow the manhattan SC guide. Don't create your own style. It will help you to uphold your SC score. 3. For critical reasoning, you can read the critical reasoning bible. It is also available on the web. Try to finish all the sets within the time frame (41 Ques, within 75 minutes). I think one should try to visualize the probable answers of the CRs. Say, what will weaken the conclusion? You will visualize atl least two answers that can weaken the conclusion. 4. For reading comprehension my advice is to read some magazines such as NYT, Readers' Digest, Some scientific magazines. Then you can practice from the sets. Last but not the least, practice OG10 and OG11 as whenever you read them you will see something new in those books. And finally you will learn something. And learning will bring some scores also. Winners never QUIT and the Quitters never WIN.

2009 March 19th, 01:31 PM	#9 (permalink)
gmatroad2 Eager! Join Date: Jan 2008 Posts: 41	Thanks all for your advices. gmatsimple, I've already done all what you say except that I didn't take the GMAT sets.

2009 March 19th, 06:35 PM	#10 (permalink)
adi_800 Yes...I can!! Join Date: Aug 2007 Location: Pune, India Posts: 1,327	I am putting the list of official material... u may nt be aware of the material.. 1. OG10 2. OG11 3. Og maths review 4. OG verbal review 5. OG12 5. GMAT Paper based tests(total 6 in number) 6. GMATPrep(as i said..may nt be representative) Also, 1000sc is a descent material for practice...

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