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lurkman · 05-03-2008, 08:44 PM

Well, my five week sprint is over.

I took the GMAT this morning and per the unofficial score report, I scored as below:

Quant: 45 (77%ile)
Verbal: 39 (88%ile)
GMAT: 690 (90%ile)

Quant score reflects not finishing the test. I ran out of time when I had question #35 on the screen.

In contrast, at the end of the Verbal, I had 5 minutes left when I had question #41 on my screen. Took my time on the last sentence correction question and finished with 3 minutes to spare. I wish I had had the extra time for the quant! But that's not how it works!

Background:

I am a 42 year old engineer, originally from India; I came to the U.S. at age 21 and have lived here for the past 21 years. I finished a Ph.D. in engineering in 1995 and have been working for the past 12.5 years for a large multinational corporation.

About six weeks ago, I decided to change tracks in my career and applied for a job in Finance. Needed a change. My previous experience has been entirely in engineering & product development. Two weeks later, I got the job. To gain traction in the new job and chart out a new career path, I would need an MBA. This set my sights on some evening MBA programs available locally, one of them a top-10 school.

Application deadlines for Fall 2008 were approaching (one was on April 1st and the other May 15th): that gave me about four, maybe five, weeks to take the GMAT. On March 23rd, I scheduled the GMAT for April 19th. Then on April 11th, I re-scheduled it for May 3rd (today) to give me some additional prep time.

I might add that the first three months of 2008 were consumed by a medical emergency, so I could not have devoted any time to MBA planning prior to March; in any event, the whole MBA project was triggered by the opportunity that came along only in March.

GMAT Test Experience:

The testing center is a mile away from my house. Yesterday, I went by the place and made sure I knew exactly which floor and Suite number I was looking for.

The test was at 8:00 a.m. this morning. Woke up at 5:30 a.m., reviewed one or two questions from each question type from the OG explanations section. Did not make myself solve anything. I was only skimming.

I was the first to show up at at the test center. It was 7:25 a.m. Got checked in (electronic finger print, photograph, read instructions, etc). I was ready to go, so I got started around 7:40. Didn't have to wait till 8:00 a.m.

Analytical Writing Assessment:

I had not practised the AWA seriously on any of my practice tests. But I did read some of the tips floating around this forum and last night, I used one of the links from TwinnSplitter's debrief to settle on a structure for each of the expected essays.

I finished both the essays on time, but did not have time to read and edit anything at the end. This was not a major issue because I tend to edit and polish as I go along. So even some extra time would not have resulted in any major revisions; maybe I could have eliminated typos, if any.

Writing is one of my strengths but writing against the clock is not something I have practised. I was glad to get through the AWA without any timing mishaps. I think I should have made the essays longer. But I am slow.

I took the break after the AWA. Splashed some cold water on my face; used the rest room. Back to the room.

Quant:

Started the quant well enough. Initial questions involved algebra (manipulating surds), some number properties, one or two combinations / counting, then a string of DS questions.

Was doing okay on time till about mid-to-late 20s. Can't say I was concentrating well. But I was getting through the questions okay (I thought). Got stuck on one or two hard ones (around #24 or so, I think), made a guess and moved on. I had had some hard ones along the way. I didn't really know how well I was doing. I was definitely not concentrating well.

Towards the end, I was clearly behind on time and tried to speed things up. I should have started guessing blindly in the last minute but didn't. This was obviously a mistake because I did not finish the section.

I was "quietly stunned" that I had let this happen. In my practice tests, I had had difficulty finishing the quant section and I had told myself that on the real test, I would at least finish the section with guesses. But I had failed.

After the quant section was over, I raised my hand, took the optional break and went to the rest room to do my water splashing routine. Took my glasses off, splashed water on my face. I looked into the mirror and shook my head. This wasn't going very well.

But I don't panic easily (even if I say so myself). Even when my wife was giving birth to our baby boy in the front seat of our car (this was the medical emergency that kept us busy for 3 months in early 2008), my blood pressure was probably not much higher than normal.

I was determined to make the best of it. In both the GMAT Prep tests that I had not finished in practice (35/37 on GPrep1 Quant, and 34/37 on GPrep2 Quant) I had scored 710. So I knew this was not over yet.

I returned to my seat to take on the Verbal.

Verbal:

The verbal section began with a couple of each: two SCs, one or two CRs and then got into an RC fairly early. None of them seemed difficult and I kept going through them steadily. After 10 questions, I was doing very well on time and after another five, I even thought this was easy. But then I ran into some CRs that I wasn't so sure about and after that it wasn't clear to me how well I was doing. The RCs were okay. Nothing nasty.

The whole section turned out to be fairly smooth till the end, though I am sure I had my share of errors along the way. During practice, I was error-prone on SCs and CRs but would do well on RCs. I took my time, or so it seemed; however, I did not belabor my decisions on the answer choices (as I had in the quant section); I trusted my instincts and kept up a breezy pace till the end.

I arrived at the last question, #41, and found I had five full minutes left. The last question was an SC. I took my time answering this one. Two minutes later, I clicked one of the circles and it was over. Three minutes to spare.

The Scores:

Went through the screens on background data, where to report scores, etc, then the moment of truth: did I want to report the scores? Yes. I cannot re-take this test before my application deadline. This is what it is.

When the 690 popped up with Q45 and V39, it was as I expected, more or less. The penalty for not finishing was familiar to me (from my GPREP tests).

I cannot say my prep was intensive enough to bump my scores up a lot. It was more a survey of the problem types and doing some of them under timed conditions. I collected a lot of material but had the time to go through less than half of it. (Working full time and waking up 3 times a night to feed our infant son (I also have a 4.5 year old and a working wife) put some constraints on the prep; but I have no complaints. I thoroughly enjoyed the GMAT material and sinking my teeth into all this stuff after twenty odd years was a joy ride.)

I tried to follow the advice of all the heroes on this forum but I had my own unique issues. I have been out of school for a long time. I took the IIT-JEE in 1983 and GRE, AGRE, TOEFL in 1986. I finished the Ph.D. in 1995. I used to be competitive then, but I am rusty and have lost all speed now. I found out soon enough that while I could solve many of the problems, even some of the hard bin questions, I took longer than required. Also, by habit, I don't give up, or guess and move on. I stay with the problem till I get it. This is obviously a bad habit under test conditions; though I tried to correct it, I failed to finish the test even on the final day.

For reference, my practice test scores over the past 5 weeks were as follows:

GMAT Prep #1: 710 (Q47, V41) (before OG or any prep, finished 29/37 in Quant, guessed six more wildly to finish the section at 35/37; only one of my six wild guesses were correct!)

Manhattan GMAT online Test #3: 650

I did not take anymore Manhattan tests after this one; I learned that GPREP and PowerPrep were more representative of the actual GMAT tests (which I have to say, they were), so I focused only on taking those. I really didn't have time in my 5-week plan to go wandering off the park.

PowerPrep #1: 700
PowerPrep #2: 720
GMAT Prep #2: 710 (1 week before GMAT; finished 34/37 in Quant).

GMAT Prep #1 (repeat) : 700 (three days before the test)

Actual GMAT: 690 (Q 45, V39).

Conclusion:

While I think the score does reflect a below-par performance, I also think it is a fairly accurate report of my effort on Test-Day under test conditions. I am neither super-pleased, nor super-disappointed. I would have liked to touch 700.

The score is sufficient to meet my goal of getting into the evening MBA program and I'll just have to put on the blinkers and finish my application before the deadline.

Last, but not least, I would like to thank all the excellent folks on this forum from whom I learned a lot: Krovvidy, LHomme, ve_boss, DWarrior, and many others, there are too many to mention. I also searched for past posts by 800Bob, Clintonn, TwinSplitter and benefitted a lot from them.

Among others, I was inspired by the GMAT debrief by Ursula (43 year old mom who scored a 760). I used the notes prepared by Charu_Mulye, Clintonn and the links from the excellent debrief by Twinsplitter. I admire both the dedication and the generosity of these individuals; besides preparing so hard for the GMAT, they have been extremely generous in sharing their notes and materials. Many thanks.

I am almost sorry it's over. Maybe I should continue preparing for the GMAT and take it again. Just for fun. Who knows, I may even finish the Quant section one of these days.

My best to you all.

lurkman

Lhomme · 05-03-2008, 09:00 PM

Lurkman,

Congratulations on your score. Excellent defrief. You can easily put together a good application with your impressive background. Good luck on your applications and new job.

Cheers
VJ

krovvidy · 05-03-2008, 09:32 PM

Congratulations Lurkman.

Excellent debrief ... it's really motivating to the future test-takers ... you have an amazing positive attitude and cool head ...

It's my pleasure having interacted with you over a month on TM ...

Good luck for your apps ... and have fun with your baby boy ...

Best
Krovvidy

gmat2k8 · 05-03-2008, 09:41 PM

Congratulations lurkman. Wish you good luck.

Dynamo · 05-04-2008, 01:12 AM

Very good.... You are awsome.... I wish I was as iso-tempered as you are....

ve_boss · 05-04-2008, 03:56 AM

Congrats !! I wish you best of lucks for your application.
Let us know on this forum.

lurkman · 05-04-2008, 03:27 PM

LHomme, Krovvidy, gmat2k8, Dynamo, ve_boss,

Thanks very much for your notes and wishes.

I thoroughly enjoyed interacting with all of you on TM. I stumbled on this forum completely by accident and found it to be a gold mine for GMAT aspirants!

I have more thoughts to post on this whole GMAT experience.

Missing the 700 mark is certainly disappointing; I expect that will stay with me for a while even as I move on.

Let me know if I can help you in any way.

I'll write some more, perhaps later in the day.

Best,
lurkman

Gmater-1 · 05-04-2008, 03:54 PM

Congrats !! at age of 42 with kids around and 5 weeks prep its awesome score

attitudewins · 05-04-2008, 10:56 PM

Amazing score for such a short prep. Given the years you have been away from basic maths, the score becomes all the more special. Congratulations!!

You must have abundance of patience and calmness, and perhaps those played a significant role in getting you this score.

ares666 · 05-05-2008, 10:21 AM

congratulations, i think it's a great score that is enough to reach your goal.
Now focus on your experience for applications

05-03-2008, 08:44 PM	#1 (permalink)
lurkman Eager! Join Date: Apr 2008 Posts: 99	GMAT 690, (q45, V39) Well, my five week sprint is over. I took the GMAT this morning and per the unofficial score report, I scored as below: Quant: 45 (77%ile) Verbal: 39 (88%ile) GMAT: 690 (90%ile) Quant score reflects not finishing the test. I ran out of time when I had question #35 on the screen. In contrast, at the end of the Verbal, I had 5 minutes left when I had question #41 on my screen. Took my time on the last sentence correction question and finished with 3 minutes to spare. I wish I had had the extra time for the quant! But that's not how it works! Background: I am a 42 year old engineer, originally from India; I came to the U.S. at age 21 and have lived here for the past 21 years. I finished a Ph.D. in engineering in 1995 and have been working for the past 12.5 years for a large multinational corporation. About six weeks ago, I decided to change tracks in my career and applied for a job in Finance. Needed a change. My previous experience has been entirely in engineering & product development. Two weeks later, I got the job. To gain traction in the new job and chart out a new career path, I would need an MBA. This set my sights on some evening MBA programs available locally, one of them a top-10 school. Application deadlines for Fall 2008 were approaching (one was on April 1st and the other May 15th): that gave me about four, maybe five, weeks to take the GMAT. On March 23rd, I scheduled the GMAT for April 19th. Then on April 11th, I re-scheduled it for May 3rd (today) to give me some additional prep time. I might add that the first three months of 2008 were consumed by a medical emergency, so I could not have devoted any time to MBA planning prior to March; in any event, the whole MBA project was triggered by the opportunity that came along only in March. GMAT Test Experience: The testing center is a mile away from my house. Yesterday, I went by the place and made sure I knew exactly which floor and Suite number I was looking for. The test was at 8:00 a.m. this morning. Woke up at 5:30 a.m., reviewed one or two questions from each question type from the OG explanations section. Did not make myself solve anything. I was only skimming. I was the first to show up at at the test center. It was 7:25 a.m. Got checked in (electronic finger print, photograph, read instructions, etc). I was ready to go, so I got started around 7:40. Didn't have to wait till 8:00 a.m. Analytical Writing Assessment: I had not practised the AWA seriously on any of my practice tests. But I did read some of the tips floating around this forum and last night, I used one of the links from TwinnSplitter's debrief to settle on a structure for each of the expected essays. I finished both the essays on time, but did not have time to read and edit anything at the end. This was not a major issue because I tend to edit and polish as I go along. So even some extra time would not have resulted in any major revisions; maybe I could have eliminated typos, if any. Writing is one of my strengths but writing against the clock is not something I have practised. I was glad to get through the AWA without any timing mishaps. I think I should have made the essays longer. But I am slow. I took the break after the AWA. Splashed some cold water on my face; used the rest room. Back to the room. Quant: Started the quant well enough. Initial questions involved algebra (manipulating surds), some number properties, one or two combinations / counting, then a string of DS questions. Was doing okay on time till about mid-to-late 20s. Can't say I was concentrating well. But I was getting through the questions okay (I thought). Got stuck on one or two hard ones (around #24 or so, I think), made a guess and moved on. I had had some hard ones along the way. I didn't really know how well I was doing. I was definitely not concentrating well. Towards the end, I was clearly behind on time and tried to speed things up. I should have started guessing blindly in the last minute but didn't. This was obviously a mistake because I did not finish the section. I was "quietly stunned" that I had let this happen. In my practice tests, I had had difficulty finishing the quant section and I had told myself that on the real test, I would at least finish the section with guesses. But I had failed. After the quant section was over, I raised my hand, took the optional break and went to the rest room to do my water splashing routine. Took my glasses off, splashed water on my face. I looked into the mirror and shook my head. This wasn't going very well. But I don't panic easily (even if I say so myself). Even when my wife was giving birth to our baby boy in the front seat of our car (this was the medical emergency that kept us busy for 3 months in early 2008), my blood pressure was probably not much higher than normal. I was determined to make the best of it. In both the GMAT Prep tests that I had not finished in practice (35/37 on GPrep1 Quant, and 34/37 on GPrep2 Quant) I had scored 710. So I knew this was not over yet. I returned to my seat to take on the Verbal. Verbal: The verbal section began with a couple of each: two SCs, one or two CRs and then got into an RC fairly early. None of them seemed difficult and I kept going through them steadily. After 10 questions, I was doing very well on time and after another five, I even thought this was easy. But then I ran into some CRs that I wasn't so sure about and after that it wasn't clear to me how well I was doing. The RCs were okay. Nothing nasty. The whole section turned out to be fairly smooth till the end, though I am sure I had my share of errors along the way. During practice, I was error-prone on SCs and CRs but would do well on RCs. I took my time, or so it seemed; however, I did not belabor my decisions on the answer choices (as I had in the quant section); I trusted my instincts and kept up a breezy pace till the end. I arrived at the last question, #41, and found I had five full minutes left. The last question was an SC. I took my time answering this one. Two minutes later, I clicked one of the circles and it was over. Three minutes to spare. The Scores: Went through the screens on background data, where to report scores, etc, then the moment of truth: did I want to report the scores? Yes. I cannot re-take this test before my application deadline. This is what it is. When the 690 popped up with Q45 and V39, it was as I expected, more or less. The penalty for not finishing was familiar to me (from my GPREP tests). I cannot say my prep was intensive enough to bump my scores up a lot. It was more a survey of the problem types and doing some of them under timed conditions. I collected a lot of material but had the time to go through less than half of it. (Working full time and waking up 3 times a night to feed our infant son (I also have a 4.5 year old and a working wife) put some constraints on the prep; but I have no complaints. I thoroughly enjoyed the GMAT material and sinking my teeth into all this stuff after twenty odd years was a joy ride.) I tried to follow the advice of all the heroes on this forum but I had my own unique issues. I have been out of school for a long time. I took the IIT-JEE in 1983 and GRE, AGRE, TOEFL in 1986. I finished the Ph.D. in 1995. I used to be competitive then, but I am rusty and have lost all speed now. I found out soon enough that while I could solve many of the problems, even some of the hard bin questions, I took longer than required. Also, by habit, I don't give up, or guess and move on. I stay with the problem till I get it. This is obviously a bad habit under test conditions; though I tried to correct it, I failed to finish the test even on the final day. For reference, my practice test scores over the past 5 weeks were as follows: GMAT Prep #1: 710 (Q47, V41) (before OG or any prep, finished 29/37 in Quant, guessed six more wildly to finish the section at 35/37; only one of my six wild guesses were correct!) Manhattan GMAT online Test #3: 650 I did not take anymore Manhattan tests after this one; I learned that GPREP and PowerPrep were more representative of the actual GMAT tests (which I have to say, they were), so I focused only on taking those. I really didn't have time in my 5-week plan to go wandering off the park. PowerPrep #1: 700 PowerPrep #2: 720 GMAT Prep #2: 710 (1 week before GMAT; finished 34/37 in Quant). GMAT Prep #1 (repeat) : 700 (three days before the test) Actual GMAT: 690 (Q 45, V39). Conclusion: While I think the score does reflect a below-par performance, I also think it is a fairly accurate report of my effort on Test-Day under test conditions. I am neither super-pleased, nor super-disappointed. I would have liked to touch 700. The score is sufficient to meet my goal of getting into the evening MBA program and I'll just have to put on the blinkers and finish my application before the deadline. Last, but not least, I would like to thank all the excellent folks on this forum from whom I learned a lot: Krovvidy, LHomme, ve_boss, DWarrior, and many others, there are too many to mention. I also searched for past posts by 800Bob, Clintonn, TwinSplitter and benefitted a lot from them. Among others, I was inspired by the GMAT debrief by Ursula (43 year old mom who scored a 760). I used the notes prepared by Charu_Mulye, Clintonn and the links from the excellent debrief by Twinsplitter. I admire both the dedication and the generosity of these individuals; besides preparing so hard for the GMAT, they have been extremely generous in sharing their notes and materials. Many thanks. I am almost sorry it's over. Maybe I should continue preparing for the GMAT and take it again. Just for fun. Who knows, I may even finish the Quant section one of these days. My best to you all. lurkman

05-04-2008, 01:12 AM	#5 (permalink)
Dynamo Heading there!!!! Join Date: Mar 2008 Location: USA Posts: 703	Very good.... You are awsome.... I wish I was as iso-tempered as you are.... _ _ _ _ SIG _ _ _ _ SK please understand...!

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05-03-2008, 09:00 PM	#2 (permalink)
Lhomme TestMagic Guru-in-Training Join Date: Mar 2008 Posts: 560	Lurkman, Congratulations on your score. Excellent defrief. You can easily put together a good application with your impressive background. Good luck on your applications and new job. Cheers VJ

05-03-2008, 09:32 PM	#3 (permalink)
krovvidy Getting a hang of it ... Join Date: Feb 2008 Posts: 779	Congratulations Lurkman. Excellent debrief ... it's really motivating to the future test-takers ... you have an amazing positive attitude and cool head ... It's my pleasure having interacted with you over a month on TM ... Good luck for your apps ... and have fun with your baby boy ... Best Krovvidy

05-03-2008, 09:41 PM	#4 (permalink)
gmat2k8 Trying to make mom and pop proud Join Date: Feb 2008 Posts: 7	Congratulations lurkman. Wish you good luck.

05-04-2008, 03:56 AM	#6 (permalink)
ve_boss Mens sana in corpore sano Join Date: Feb 2008 Location: France Posts: 425	Congrats !! I wish you best of lucks for your application. Let us know on this forum.

05-04-2008, 03:27 PM	#7 (permalink)
lurkman Eager! Join Date: Apr 2008 Posts: 99	LHomme, Krovvidy, gmat2k8, Dynamo, ve_boss, Thanks very much for your notes and wishes. I thoroughly enjoyed interacting with all of you on TM. I stumbled on this forum completely by accident and found it to be a gold mine for GMAT aspirants! I have more thoughts to post on this whole GMAT experience. Missing the 700 mark is certainly disappointing; I expect that will stay with me for a while even as I move on. Let me know if I can help you in any way. I'll write some more, perhaps later in the day. Best, lurkman

05-04-2008, 03:54 PM	#8 (permalink)
Gmater-1 Within my grasp! Join Date: Aug 2007 Posts: 452	Congrats !! at age of 42 with kids around and 5 weeks prep its awesome score

05-04-2008, 10:56 PM	#9 (permalink)
attitudewins amplify Join Date: Mar 2008 Location: NJ Posts: 5	Amazing score for such a short prep. Given the years you have been away from basic maths, the score becomes all the more special. Congratulations!! You must have abundance of patience and calmness, and perhaps those played a significant role in getting you this score.

05-05-2008, 10:21 AM	#10 (permalink)
ares666 Within my grasp! Join Date: Apr 2007 Location: Peru Posts: 114	congratulations, i think it's a great score that is enough to reach your goal. Now focus on your experience for applications

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