A real shock and bust....

[Banerjee]

I am writing to attract the attention of the ManhattanGMAT staff.

Today has been one of the worst days of my life. Took the GMAT and scored an awful 650.

My track record with the preparations has been decent enough, but I really can't figure out why I performed so bad.

I started with MGMAT in May. The SC guide, as all agree on this forum, was splendid. That was the only guide I purchased (I have monetary constraints). My scores in the 6 MGMAT tests improved from 600 to 740.

MGMAT 1: 640
MGMAT 2: 640
MGMAT 3: 600
MGMAT 4: 690
MGMAT 5: 680
MGMAT 6: 740

GMATPrep test scores also were not untouchables with 710 and 740 (Q:49, V:41).

Given the above scores, I reasonably hoped for a score of 700-740. But, ended up with only 650 (Q: 47, V: 32). I have a serious suggestion to make in this forum. My experience suggests that the Maths portion of the MGMAT tests are unusually tough, whereas that of Verbal is not that much so. It will surely serve the students if MGMAT scales up its verbal sections in the tests and scales down the maths ones. I finished my maths section with a good 10 min to spare. I was a bit surprised, since in maths section of MGMAT tests, I always had to rush to complete the sections.

In fact, I have a feeling that the Verbal section on the GMAT was even tougher than those in the GMATPrep tests. I intend to take the test again if I don't succeed in getting thorugh the B-Schools of my choice. If so, I feel I need to take some private tutoring to spruce up my strategies for the verbal section. The profiles of MGMAT instructors are really impressive and so are the feedback of students. But, I am at a loss as to how I could opt for a private tutoring from so far as India. I request the MGMAT tutors to understand my predicament and suggest what all could be done.

[jwall341]

I had a similar experience to you, I was scoring high on mgmat and gmatprep, and first real test got 620. month later took again and got 720. the first time I thought the math was really easy. What that means for both of us is that somewhere, maybe in the beginning, we screwed up and the questions didnt get hard enough. Take it again and be extra careful on the first few questions and im thinking youll have the same experience as I did.

[jesclama]

jwall,

I see that you took about 4 weeks to study for your next attempt. All I need to focus on is Quant, what kind of game plan do you suggest? I'm only looking to get about a 650 (first attempt was a 580). I wore myself out doing problems before my first GMAT, and I'm really dreading those math problems. Is 4 weeks enough time to fill that score gap? How many hours did you spend studying each day?

Thanks!