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whoknows · 2006 November 12th, 09:13 AM

Finally ..........

My GMAT sojourn comes to an end. I had taken my first GMAT in Sep and scored appalling 620. One month later took it in 1st week of Nov and scored a competitive 730. Was planning to apply for fall' 07 and decided to give the exam before Nov 30 but was finding no motivation. Finally started doing some practice test in verbal (7 in total) and gave Prep GMAT 4 times:

Prep GMAT Test 1 - 710 (CD from my 1st exam)
Prep GMAT Test 2 - 640
Prep GMAT Test 1 - 760 (Downloaded it for the 2nd GMAT)
Prep GMAT Test 2 - 720

Even after getting those score wasn't feeling confident that I would score well and on the D-day it went as I had feared. Since I had nothing to lose and was at least confident that my score in the 2nd GMAT will be at the least >620. I was hoping for a score of 670-680 and finally as I had feared I thought all thought the exam that I was all set to be doomed.

AWA went ok as I had previously scored 5.5, so didn't worry a lot abt it.
Quant - The first question was itself abt some weird quadratic equation and it took me 11 mts to solve it. Finally I thought better to guess and went forward. The 1st question itself brought down my motivation and expectation of scoring 680 down. By the end of 70th minute I waded to 30th question and the 34th Q that I got was about frequency & median which I made mistake (realized during the break) and finally done with Q.
In the break I felt very bad abt my performance but anyhow had to finish off the V part. So decided not to have hangover or worry about the Q performance. Just had water and then went in for my V part.
Verbal - It started with 2 SC's, followed by 2 critical reasoning's and then an reading comprehension. I was feeling better here as this was a good sequence of Q's that I was getting. I remember that I made a mistake on the 9th (reading comprehension had 3 para's and the 9th questions answer was in 3rd para but I inferred the answer from 2nd para). That's it - I thought I even doomed my V part but had to move forward. By first 10 questions I used up 30 mts. I thought it is better to get max questions correct than to worry about answering more and having them wrong. By the time I hit 22nd question and I noticed the time - I used up 55 mts - and had just 20 minutes to 19 questions. I thought to speed up the answering but wasn't able to do it. By 30th question I used 70 minutes. Last 5 minutes I got 1 reading comprehension, 4 critical reasoning's & 6 SC's. Just glanced reading comprehension while answering, first two answers at least read the argument before answering and guessed the other 2. In SC's was just eliminated the wrong ones by using 3:2 split and selected the answers, as soon as I confirmed Q 40 I ran out of time.

As soon as the exam got over I knew that I had messed up both Q & V very very badly and was doomed for a score of below 600. When I clicked the "Report score" scene I didn't even look at the monitor until next 3 minutes but slowly raised my head to see the score - viola it was 730 - that's it I didn't even see the split and came out and saw the split in my unofficial score report. That was a really really great feeling for me after having the feeling that my GMAT score may fall well below 600. But when I plan to apply for the schools I don't need to worry about my GMAT and can forget it. Now I feel that having a score > 700 really gives a relaxed feel when applying as essays are the only things that you need to concentrate.

My Suggestions:
- Do OG 10 & OG 11 completely to understand the rules for SC
- Start doing verbal tests (75 mts). The tests give you excellent practice for the real GMAT (I did only 7 due to time crunch). Analyze each mistake on the paper and try to understand why it went wrong – Real good thing, will help in eliminating the wrong choices.
- There is no need to rush to complete all the questions on the exam, try to relax and do it at your normal speed. The last 10 questions you can increase the speed or just use your intuition to answer the questions.

Now I need to research on the schools that I need to apply? Should I target the top 10 or 15? I am an Indian IT professional with MS (CS) & 4 yrs exp. Any suggestions !!!

JustMe123 · 2006 November 12th, 10:12 AM

You should realistically assess your chance for each school before applying. If you want to apply to 10 schools, then choose 3 dream schools, 4 target schools, and 3 safe schools. Ten is a lot. I think most people apply to 4 to 5 schools. Go to gmatclub.com click on AskAccepted. This consultant named Paul answers questions so maybe you can give him your profile to see what he says.

skuchkarov · 2006 November 12th, 12:35 PM

Congrats buddy,

I can imagine how joyful you are thses days.

Wonder what was your breakdown for the first test? I mean percentiles for Q and V.

What Verbal tests are you talking about. Would highly appreciate if you sent the test to skuchkarov1972@yahoo.com

Good luck with your apps.

skuchkarov.

2006 November 12th, 09:13 AM	#1 (permalink)
whoknows I JUST got here. Join Date: Sep 2006 Posts: 2	620 to 730 (Q50 V38) Finally .......... My GMAT sojourn comes to an end. I had taken my first GMAT in Sep and scored appalling 620. One month later took it in 1st week of Nov and scored a competitive 730. Was planning to apply for fall' 07 and decided to give the exam before Nov 30 but was finding no motivation. Finally started doing some practice test in verbal (7 in total) and gave Prep GMAT 4 times: Prep GMAT Test 1 - 710 (CD from my 1st exam) Prep GMAT Test 2 - 640 Prep GMAT Test 1 - 760 (Downloaded it for the 2nd GMAT) Prep GMAT Test 2 - 720 Even after getting those score wasn't feeling confident that I would score well and on the D-day it went as I had feared. Since I had nothing to lose and was at least confident that my score in the 2nd GMAT will be at the least >620. I was hoping for a score of 670-680 and finally as I had feared I thought all thought the exam that I was all set to be doomed. AWA went ok as I had previously scored 5.5, so didn't worry a lot abt it. Quant - The first question was itself abt some weird quadratic equation and it took me 11 mts to solve it. Finally I thought better to guess and went forward. The 1st question itself brought down my motivation and expectation of scoring 680 down. By the end of 70th minute I waded to 30th question and the 34th Q that I got was about frequency & median which I made mistake (realized during the break) and finally done with Q. In the break I felt very bad abt my performance but anyhow had to finish off the V part. So decided not to have hangover or worry about the Q performance. Just had water and then went in for my V part. Verbal - It started with 2 SC's, followed by 2 critical reasoning's and then an reading comprehension. I was feeling better here as this was a good sequence of Q's that I was getting. I remember that I made a mistake on the 9th (reading comprehension had 3 para's and the 9th questions answer was in 3rd para but I inferred the answer from 2nd para). That's it - I thought I even doomed my V part but had to move forward. By first 10 questions I used up 30 mts. I thought it is better to get max questions correct than to worry about answering more and having them wrong. By the time I hit 22nd question and I noticed the time - I used up 55 mts - and had just 20 minutes to 19 questions. I thought to speed up the answering but wasn't able to do it. By 30th question I used 70 minutes. Last 5 minutes I got 1 reading comprehension, 4 critical reasoning's & 6 SC's. Just glanced reading comprehension while answering, first two answers at least read the argument before answering and guessed the other 2. In SC's was just eliminated the wrong ones by using 3:2 split and selected the answers, as soon as I confirmed Q 40 I ran out of time. As soon as the exam got over I knew that I had messed up both Q & V very very badly and was doomed for a score of below 600. When I clicked the "Report score" scene I didn't even look at the monitor until next 3 minutes but slowly raised my head to see the score - viola it was 730 - that's it I didn't even see the split and came out and saw the split in my unofficial score report. That was a really really great feeling for me after having the feeling that my GMAT score may fall well below 600. But when I plan to apply for the schools I don't need to worry about my GMAT and can forget it. Now I feel that having a score > 700 really gives a relaxed feel when applying as essays are the only things that you need to concentrate. My Suggestions: - Do OG 10 & OG 11 completely to understand the rules for SC - Start doing verbal tests (75 mts). The tests give you excellent practice for the real GMAT (I did only 7 due to time crunch). Analyze each mistake on the paper and try to understand why it went wrong – Real good thing, will help in eliminating the wrong choices. - There is no need to rush to complete all the questions on the exam, try to relax and do it at your normal speed. The last 10 questions you can increase the speed or just use your intuition to answer the questions. Now I need to research on the schools that I need to apply? Should I target the top 10 or 15? I am an Indian IT professional with MS (CS) & 4 yrs exp. Any suggestions !!!

2006 November 12th, 12:35 PM	#3 (permalink)
skuchkarov Within my grasp! Join Date: Apr 2006 Location: Tashkent, Uzbekistan Posts: 263	Congrats buddy, I can imagine how joyful you are thses days. Wonder what was your breakdown for the first test? I mean percentiles for Q and V. What Verbal tests are you talking about. Would highly appreciate if you sent the test to skuchkarov1972@yahoo.com Good luck with your apps. skuchkarov. _ _ _ _ SIG _ _ _ _ Life can only be understood backwards, but it must be lived forward.

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2006 November 12th, 10:12 AM	#2 (permalink)
JustMe123 Within my grasp! Join Date: Jun 2006 Posts: 331	You should realistically assess your chance for each school before applying. If you want to apply to 10 schools, then choose 3 dream schools, 4 target schools, and 3 safe schools. Ten is a lot. I think most people apply to 4 to 5 schools. Go to gmatclub.com click on AskAccepted. This consultant named Paul answers questions so maybe you can give him your profile to see what he says.

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