kdog3490

Well, I agree that Test 55 is the best of the 3 tests, but the RC section still came from the [tooltip=Official Guide]OG[/tooltip]. IMHO, for $30, I don't know if it's really worth it. It certainly didn't do much for me, other than occupy my time for two afternoons - the fact that there are no explanations also hurts. In other news, I just received my official score in the mail today. Scored a 5.5 on the AWA! I spent about 2 - 3 days preparing for it, and I wrote a few sample essays leading up to the test to get in the mindset - I never did the essays during any of my practise tests. If you're a good writer, I wouldn't worry too much about the AWA. Personally, I found the book 'GMAT CAT Answers to Real Essay Questions' fairly helpful, as it provided some good ideas for the Issue section (it contains 200 essays in total).

Hi folks, I wrote the GMAT for the second time on May 30. I had cancelled my scores the first time thinking I had completely bombed it due to a combination of nerves and a lack of sleep the night before (see http://www.TestMagic.com/forum/topic.asp?TOPIC_ID=4113 - I made sure to schedule my subsequent test during the afternoon session). The essays were fairly standard - as mentioned several times before, they were both pulled from the back of the [tooltip=Official Guide]OG[/tooltip], so I really believe it is worth spending 2-3 minutes brainstorming on each of the Issue topics, if not the Argument topics as well. I think most people find the Issue essay more difficult (especially non-native speakers), because you have to be more creative and package those thoughts coherently in a short period of time. The quantitative section was the most interesting part of the exam. During my first test, I had some very difficult questions early on - standard deviation, 2 confusing probability questions, stats, etc. I had expected the same this time around. But by question 15, I had yet to receive even a remotely difficult question!! Mostly algebra, some arithmetic and geo, and one simple probability. I was convinced I had bombed the section. I truly believe all the questions I got were on par with the [tooltip=Official Guide]OG[/tooltip] (maybe longer, but not harder), and certainly not as difficult as Kaplan's. I actually finished with 10 minutes to spare (not very good clock mgmt, I know). Moral of the story: don't give up, even if you're not getting more visibly difficult questions. At the end I expected a 35 - 40 score; I ended up with 49. The verbal section was not that bad either. I started off with 5 SC in a row, followed by 2 RC back to back, and then my first CR by Q12. In total I received 4 RC passages. All were about the same level of difficulty as hard [tooltip=Official Guide]OG[/tooltip] questions - I believe my biggest problem was my level of concentration. I am a native speaker, with fairly good English skills, but my eyes were getting sore, and I started to simply pick the first answer that sounded correct and moved on. Boredom also starts to creep in at this stage. You need to really buckle down and stay focused. I ended up with a 35, while in practice tests I was regularly scoring in the 40 range. O well. So that's that. I thought about rewriting a third time to boost my Verbal score, but I figure the time is probably better spent on my tan and my application essays. In terms of prep, after my first test, I purchased Kaplan's Quiz Bank 1000 online (about $179 US) for additional practice questions. They were pretty good, but I'd say about 20% of the questions are duplicates from the Kaplan 5th Edition CD. I also bought the 3 paper-based tests from MBA.com, but they were from 1995 and 1997, and far too easy, with a lot of duplication from the [tooltip=Official Guide]OG[/tooltip]. I do not recommend them. I looked at Barron's GMAT and Arco's Master the GMAT CAT, but they were absolute garbage and bear no resemblence to the real deal. However, the GRE GMAT Math Review was an excellent refresher, and definitely worth the trip to the library/bookstore if your math is rusty.

Hmmm....I got exactly the same score, a 49Q and 35V, and only ended up with 700. Interesting...

Are you truly serious about re-writing a 760?!? You have nothing to gain by getting a higher score, from a b-school perspective...better to spend the time working on your application or your tan.

How come it's not A? (pi*r^2) / (2*pi*r) = 3/2 r/2 = 3/2 r = 3

What is this question asking? Stengthen/Weaken? Assumption? It is missing the question stem...

I believe the answer to Rob's Geo question is A=100*pi. Correct me if I'm wrong...

Rob, Thanks for the advice and encourgagment. I know that in my next attempt, cancelling is definitely not an option, no matter how good or bad I think I'm doing. It's comforting to know that even excellent Quant. scorers like yourself have some difficulty with a few of the questions. So I'm not completely out of my mind. I find it surprising that you went through the first 10 slowly, and then finished the next 27 so quickly that you had 20 mins. remaining! What do you estimate was your pace per question?

I was just wondering if anyone has tried the Kaplan GMAT Quiz Bank 500/1000 questions, available online at Kaplan's site. Are they any good? Is is worth the $179? Or are they just duplicates of those found in Kaplan's other books? Thanks.

Thanks for the advice and encouragement Sri. I will definitely need to think about why I panicked during the Quant. section, and how to handle the stress during the test. I'll definitely look into some meditation and relaxation techniques....it's amazing how 24 hours can put everything back in perspective...the GMAT is not life or death by any means....I'm just a few dollars poorer now... =)

Hi Erin, I've been a silent observer on this board, and just wanted to share my experiences, so no one goes through what I've just been through. I wrote my GMAT this morning, and decided to cancel my score about 15 questions into the Quant. section. First, here's my background: - Studied for about 2 months (total 150 - 200 hours) - Fully completed [tooltip=Official Guide]OG[/tooltip], Kaplan, PR, Insiders Guide - PP#1: 730 (without reading official guide) - PP#2: 710 (about a third of the way through the guide) - Kaplan CD: 610, 600, 600, 600 - Princeton Review: 720 , 710 - Aiming for a 700+ score For the AWA, I was surprised that the Issue essay came first, instead of the Argument. No matter, both were straight from the [tooltip=Official Guide]OG[/tooltip], and were not too difficult. For some reason, I was really nervous about the Quant. I have an engineering background, which makes this even more unusual. I did very well on the PP practice tests (#1: Q49 and #2: Q50), but I got totally RATTLED when I hit a question (#4 or #5)that I couldn't find an answer to (in the choices). So I started to doubt myself, redo my work, worry about the clock, and essentially freak out. This behavior started to perpetuate itself as more questions came around, even really simple ones that I'd had no problems solving in practice. Believe me, this is not atypical test-taking behaviour for me, so I was really disturbed by how I reacted. I'm not sure how to make sure this does not happen again. In retrospect, I feel that I started to think more about how the questions were going to screw up my score, rather than focusing on the question itself. This cost me dearly (not to mention the $200). I decided to stick around for the Verbal, which was actually quite reasonable, and very similar to the [tooltip=Official Guide]OG[/tooltip]. If you can do the questions in the book, you'll be fine. I feel I should emphasize that I don't think the Quant. on the real thing is any harder, so please don't get discouraged. It just looks a little different than some of the stuff in the [tooltip=Official Guide]OG[/tooltip] (more steps, wordier, etc.). And that apparently was enough to throw me off. Any suggestions folks? I feel like my effort in studying has been wasted, as I was really looking forward to getting this off my back. I am at a loss at what to do. Take a break for a few weeks? Schedule another exam right away? Thanks for your input.