600 - Owned by the GMAT - 600 (Q33 V40)

[Ran-Diesel]

Well my target score was 700, and I ended up with a meager 600. As soon as the score popped up I knew I would be re-taking.

Ive been a silent reader on this forum for a little while now and have to say its been a great resource. Any advice on resources to use and how to improve my weaknesses would be much appreciated.

My approach was somewhat unstructured as I decided to take the GMAT about 2 months ago. In addition, Im a CPA and have been working brutal hours on top of prep. Usually around 2 hours per weeknight and 10 total hours per weekend.

I initially started with Kaplan premier and added the Kaplan math workbook and OG11 after doing more research and realizing my weaknesses. I went through the entire Kaplan Premier, Kaplan Math workbook, and approx 75% of all the OG11 q's. I focused on both personal statement and DS first then did a brief review of SC, CR, and RC.

Another reason Im pretty discouraged is that my practice tests were all much better than the real test. Only took 3 total, but here are the scores.
KAP GMAT CAT1: 550
KAP GMAT CAT2: 560
GMAT Prep: 660

Im thinking I wont even open Kaplan Premier this time around and might focus my time on OG10 and move back on to OG11.

Strengths: CR and RC
Weaknesses: SC, personal statement, and DS

[Gruesomeguy]

Do sets

[PersianPhoenix]

Ran-Deisel,

First, realize that 600 is a GREAT start to an even higher score. There's no way you can take this test again and NOT score even higher, especially after all of the effort you've put into it. Use that score as your fuel for working even harder toward the 700 you deserve. Trust me, it's not as bad as you think. You were meant to do bigger and better things. If you didn't, the urge to do this again would have faded away a long time ago.

Second, I'd strongly advise that you keep doing the Official Guide questions again. Maybe you should keep track (through a spreadsheet) of the ones you get wrong after first attempt. Then do them again at a later date and see if you are still getting them wrong. This will help you to see if you are mastering the concept behind the problem. Listen to your thought processes, and keep all of the papers that you wrote your calculations on for reference so you can see what your thought process was when calculating your answers. Did you read too fast and misinterpret a question? Did you make a careless math error? Did you make an assumption? Did you fail to recognize the math concept being tested?

Hopefully this will help you. If timing was an issue, I'd also recommend using a stopwatch as you do these problems. It'll make all the difference.

GOOD LUCK!! YOU CAN DO THIS!!!

Take care,

PersianPhoenix (Sherry)

[okGMAT]

Sounds like you hit a streak of question which drug your difficulty down. I took a practice test where I missed 8 out of the first 10 questions and then had an 11 question hit streak at the very end. My subsequent score was 36q (really not bad considering blowing the very beginning). My point being, you didn't have a subsequent streak that exceeded the amount that you missed in the beginning. At least not enough to get you back into the hard question bin to get questions given a heavier weight.

Its unlucky. Refocus, work on winning in the very beginning so you can skew your score and not have to catch up.