Hello Instructors,
To introduce:
I am an Indian IT Male with 4+ years of experience. I took a 2months break from work to prepare from my GMAT. I referred MGMAT for SC and LSAT CR Bible, apart from OG12 and OG Verbal Review. I had initially referred Kaplan Premier. (After having spend a month, realized it to be useless.) During the last 2 weeks I referred to the other MGMAT strategy guides and realized my mistake of not having taken them up earlier during my preparation. Most of the improvements you see in the Month 2 of my preparation, I own it to these 8 strategy guides and OG Archer. I must mention how beneficial the OG Archer had been to help me pin point my weaknesses and strengths.
Mock Test Scores:
My test score have been as follows:
Month 1:
Kaplan 1 540 (Diagnostic)
Kaplan 2 670 (q45, v39)
MGMAT 1 640 (q42, v35)
Kaplan 3 720 (q55, v34)
Kaplan 4 620 (q40, v33) [Unplanned interruptions occurred]
Kaplan 5 650 (q45, v31)
Month 2:
MGMAT 2 680 (q48, v34)
MGMAT 3 690 (q48, v35)
MGMAT 4 700 (q51, v35)
MGMAT 5 700 (q50, v35)
GMATPrep1 710 (q50, v36)
GMATPrep2 710 (q49, v38)
Reset GMATPrep1 750 (q50, v40)
Real GMAT: 610 (q48, v27)
Month 2 tests were under complete test conditions.
Test Day:
I was pretty relaxed a day before and during the exam. So, I can safely say that stress factor was not a part of my debacle. Reached the test center an hour before the scheduled time. AWA section was pretty smooth.
I pretty much tried to follow the MGMAT timing strategy but the last 30-15 minutes is were I loose a lot of time because the questions get tougher. Quant section started of easy but started to become very difficult by the mid 20s. Out of the first 25 question, I had spend considerable time (about 5mins) for 3 questions, which I think could have been experimental. I had encountered 1 really touch Geometry question out of the approximately 5 geo questions in all. I probability question. And a lot of number theory and word translation questions. And 5-6 algebra questions with power of 3, 4 or 5!! I noticed that I had only 1:15 for each of the last 10 questions. Therefore, improved my speed. Among these last 10 questions, I took a random guess for the last 2 questions as I had almost run out of time. But overall, I had a good feeling about the quant section.
During the breaks, I went to the restroom, had a bar of chocolate, and a glass of water.
Verbal section started of pretty well. But to my astonishment, the 6th or 7th question was a tremendously difficult, long, vocab intensive RC with 4 questions. (Now when I reflect back I think this one might have been an Experimental Question) I lost more that 10-12minutes on this one. SC and CR questions were on the tougher side. Comparatively, difficult that the OG12 problems and the GMATPrep questions. Mid way through I got another long RC followed by 4 questions. This one was not as tough as the previous one. In all, I got 4 RC (2 long with 4 questions and 2 short with 3 questions). I had 1 minute each for the last 10 questions. Almost panicked. 1 short RC(3questions), 2CR questions. But most of them(5) were SCs and I was quite confident about those. My second last question was a bold faced question CR question and the last question was a SC question. Thought I was doing ok. But when I saw the score 610 (v48 q27), I felt as if my life was shattered. Completely socked! Took me a few minutes for the score to sink in.
Request:
I have resumed work and plan to take the GMAT again in about a months time. I will be able to devote about 3 hours on weekdays and the entire weekend. I am hoping for some good tips/suggestions from the instructors to improve my GMAT score to a 700-730 level. I would highly appreciate your help in this regard.
Ron/Stacey,
I am really looking forward to your suggestions. Many thanks in advance.
Best Regards,
Mist
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