LinkBack URL
About LinkBacks
650 (45Q, 34V). Disappointed.
Powerprep I (before OG): 680 (90%),
Powerprep II (also before OG): 720 (96& overall) (93%V, 90%Q)
Since then I've completed 85% of OG, getting an everage of 8.8/10 correct almost equally across the board.
First GMAT: 640 (45Q, 33V) (8/04)
Second GMAT: 650 (45Q, 34V) (10/04)
Having studied only about 20 total hours before my first GMAT, I thought 640 was a good start. Since then, over the past four months I've studied at least 100 hours. I got the 720 after doing the powerprep practice questions, and I thought I should be getting at least a 700 on the actual test. I even put together my applications, and I'm collecting recommendation letters this week! I have 3.5 yrs in Real Estate Dev't, currently managing partner of small business, and graduated from UCLA in '03 mol bio with 3.7 gpa, so all I needed was a MAGIC 7 in the hundreds digit today and I HATE the fact that I didn't get it!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
The immediate need for good results put ALOT of pressure on me. I would not suggest this strategy for anyone. I rescheduled my exam for next wednesday, because I KNOW I did miserably bad because of purely emotional/psychological reasons. At least I will head to the exam knowing that meeting round 1 deadlines is no longer possible, so i'll be much more relieved.
First of all, with respect to today's GMAT, I knew that my day in a terrible fashion when I got up, got ready, and found myself stuck in a 1hr 35 minute traffic jam while trying to take city streets to avoid the 405 (socal) monday morning rush. It took me ages to find the center because no residential or commercial building has street #s!! It was a nightmare. Plus, digestive problems that began yesterday affected my overall comfort in the test. In addition, lack of sleep (under 6.5 hrs), meager breakfast, and a less subtle sense of nervousness coming about that morning sort of bothered me.
I tried my hardest to maintain my composure and still felt overconfident, but I realized that I allowed it to break down when I saw the first few very tricky algebra DS questions (Q7-10).
To put it briefly, i think my disappointing performance might have been due to a combination of overconfidence and the immediate shock I received after the first 10 Quant problems. Looking back, I remember getting bogged down with 2 or 3 very complex algebraic problems (DS). I wasn't sure if they were experimental or not (is there any way to tell?!), but I definitely shouldn't have spent that much time on them. Its true that overall, my mistakes would've probably added up to around 8 or 9, with 1/3 experimental. Unfortunately I was not operating today with this state of mind and I just couldn't deal with the fact that a couple Quants were going to do me in. As a result, I lost precious time, and fought against the clock during the whole section. I took a walk outside and wondered whether i should cancel, but decided to focus on verbal and then decide.
Went into verbal, got 4 RC's, 2 of them back to back, all between 40 and 50 lines, and I came out thinking that my verbal performance was going to balance things out. I thought I cracked verbal, but just the opposite happened. I can't explain it because I've been doing extremely well in the OG verbal.
From now until next wednesday I have 8 days. I will be able to finish OG by this wednesday, and I will have close to a week of preparation for high-difficulty quants. Is kaplan recommended for that? And is there any particular strategy to follow for completing kaplan (known for its difficult math) before the time is up?
Thank you so much for putting this together. First time appearance today, and I found ursula's report, spreadsheet, and posts to be very informative...excellent posts from most of the others too...
Bookmarks