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Scoobinski, Thanks very much for your feedback. I must say, I have always felt that the grading here in the States is significantly easier than that in New Zealand, and probably Australia too. In my undergrad degree typically only the top 5 - 10% of students got A's and professors really tried to maintain a bell curve of grade distribution. That does not seem to be the case here in the States, as a far higher percentage of people get A's. I've been in classes where 50% of the students get A's. That's fine, but it does devalue the grade slightly IMO. That said, I always felt a little strange bringing the subject up, as I thought it sounded like sour grapes on my part that I didn't get better scores, and that I was just looking for excuses. But your mail confirms my suspicions. Thanks

Well the consensus seems to be to apply for a better school, so it sounds like that may be a sensible course of action for me. A few people asked about my background. I did my undergraduate degree in the New Zealand in, of all things, Agricultural Science. But since graduating in 1993 have done a little of everything. My last job, which I just left, was as a Logistics Manager for a small importing company here in Oregon. Prior to that I worked for Compaq in the UK as a Business Analyst, and Nokia in Spain as a Project Manager. My work experience is pretty irregular as during my 20's I used every opportunity I could to see the world, by working and traveling. As a result I spent almost 4 out of the last 12 years, backpacking my way through more than 100 different countries. Great experience, but not what many employers are looking for :lol: I'm also a competitive cyclist, and typically spend around 15 hours per week training. That may seem completely off topic, but I truly believe that sport really helps with focus. I'm curious if others among you find the same thing. It's funny that a few people asked about 'those 10 points', as I couldn't help think the same thing. Stupid, but I guess it's human nature to never be 100% satisfied. I wished I could provide some more constructive feedback on Verbal, but all I can repeat, is that having been through the [tooltip=Official Guide]OG[/tooltip], and understood the common SC errors, it just seemed to 'click' into place with the correct option almost popping out at me I found. I never really bothered in CR, as they always seemed fairly obvious to me, but I did focus a little in RC, on main point, and inference questions, as I found that initially I made the mistake of being either too broad or too narrow in my thinking with these types of questions. I also found when they mention a statement from "line 12" for instance, read at least 10 lines before and after that line, as it's often a trick to catch out "the Joe Blogs" among us. But I think Princeton etc. say the same thing so I'm preaching to the choir here. One thing which is probably sounds completely silly, I swear 80% of my answers were either A or E. It got to the point where I was a little paranoid that I was getting them all wrong, and joked to myself during the test that I could have just stuck E for everything and saved myself all that study!! I wouldn't recommend that technique to anyone here :-D , but thought it was worth mentioning as it was so apparent during the test.

Thanks all. To answer your questions. I can't commpletely remember exactly the question breakdown:o , but I think I had two geometry and two Probability questions. Rest assured they were significantly easier that many questions on this board. One data sufficiency question on whether the angles given were sufficient to calculate remaining angles, and simple combination/permutation questions. I had a break after my essays, both of which went pretty well I think, but because I completed the quant section so quickly I just kept going at that point. I took earplugs to the test, which I found really helpful. I also took the test at 9:30 in the morning as I tend to function better in the mornings. Didn't really do anything special apart from that. I went through my CAT practice tests the night before and checked on the questions I got wrong. Didn't sleep every well, but who does the night before GMAT right:) As for my plans from here: My intention was to apply to a business school in Oregon (U of O) where I am currently living. But I'm now wondering if I should apply to some other schools as well. (I was considering ESADE and University of BC among others, as I didn't think I had a chance at any of the top schools in the States). Until now I have been put off applying to other schools as my undergraduate degree was in science, and my GPA was pretty "average" (probably around 3.0). Do you think a good GMAT score is sufficient to make up for a poor GPA? I have 10 years international work experience too, which should help a little. BTW. I'm from New Zealand with Dutch citizenship too, so have the luxury of being able to live in several countries, without too many concerns about visa requirements. I appreciate your advice, and will try and answer any additional questions you have.

All, I haven't been a frequent poster here, but have used this forum mainly for challenging quantitative questions. Now I feel a little guilty :oops: that I didn't post more often, as I've clearly benefitted from the input of others here, so it only seems fair to try and give something back. I finished the Math with about 20 minutes to go, and the Verbal with about 18 minutes to go in the test. That had never happened to me in my practice tests :o My study consisted of about 1 month, pretty unstructured, doing maybe a couple of hours per day. I used the [tooltip=Official Guide]OG[/tooltip], Princeton Review, and Kaplan books and CD's along with the Powerprep. I did all the CAT practice tests I possibly could, as I think there is nothing quite like simulating test conditions. My scores were: Princeton Review V45 M48 740 V39 M48 700 V38 M49 700 V42 M41 670 Kaplan V50 M50 780 V45 M50 780 (doesn't sound right, but that's what it says) Powerprep V42 M48 730 V47 M50 780 I focused more heavily on the math than the verbal, as I found that once you understand the typical errors in SC (i.e. parallelism, pronoun errors, tense, idioms) it all becomes pretty intuitive, so no further study was really needed. Likewise with CR, and RC, study didn't really seem to help me much. I also found that, Princeton Review, Kaplan etc, had subtle differences from the [tooltip=Official Guide]OG[/tooltip], which were just enough to throw me off, and dent my confidence. That is reflected in my practice scores. I simply didn't agree with their logic at times, which I found frustrating. But rest assured, that's not an issue with the [tooltip=Official Guide]OG[/tooltip]. Their questions seem better researched in my opinion. So my advice on verbal would be to focus on the [tooltip=Official Guide]OG[/tooltip], (I did the last 50 questions from each section) and not worry too much about the other guides as they can also cause some confusion if you are not careful. I found the test to be very similar to the [tooltip=Official Guide]OG[/tooltip]. As for the math section: Princeton, Kaplan etc, along with this forum were really useful. By really focusing on more difficult questions, such as complex algebra, probability etc. by the time the test came the questions all seemed pretty easy in comparison. The difficult questions also teach you vital skills like when to backsolve by plugging in, and when to solve algebraically, which I think is super important, in saving time. I realize I got a pretty good score, so some of you may be thinking that my prep is not very relevant to your study. Granted, I am a native english speaker which has some definite advantages, with recognition of idioms and reading speed, but in other areas it's almost a disadvantage in my opinion, as you have never really learned sentence structure. But I want to stress is that I really struggled at times with some of the math questions on this board, and was constantly in awe of how clever several of the posters here were. So DON'T PANIC if you find some questions here difficult. Now I'm off to buy a new laptop as a reward for doing the GMAT. I'll try and check back and answer any questions you have. Thanks again for all your help everyone, it made all the difference.

I agree with Drizzle. The answer should be C. In fact I remember this from Kaplan, and am pretty sure the official answer is C. Statement 1 determines that E is on the Y axis but could be +ve or -ve. Statement 2. on it's own doesn't help but when we combine statements, Point E must be (0,4) My $0.02