GMAT Scores and Options

[Guest.]

Hi Stacey/Ron and others,
I took GMAT one week back in a rush due to deadline of a college I was supposed to apply(and also have a base GMAT score to get me writing essays for schools).
I was dissapointed by the score of 680 (Q49,V34) AWA 4.0. Although I am okay with Quantitative, I am not happy with either Verbal or AWA.
I know that I did not prepare well for verbal. Although I did go through SC of MGMAT -which was helpful, I had not not go through the explaination of the answer I did wrong in the OG11 and OG Verbal.
I am planning to take the test once again in begining October before I apply to the schools that matter to me(hopefully I would be done with the essays by then), and I need help in few things:
a. What is your suggestion to me regarding approaching preparation for Verbal.
b. I think I have the way out for RC, as I understand how the questions are structured, by reading few of OG11 explaination. Do you have
any suggestion for SC and RC.
c. AWA- I did write few essays, but I was not able to evaluate myself how good they were..I was stuck in the exams, as I could find only one flaw.
They had the analysis of argument something like this " A company need to buy the logo of a environment company and use
it in its credit card. Survery showed customer are concerned about environment, so by using the logo, company would gain customer base, increase
in usage of their credit card".
Can you please help in any standard structure.
d. I plan on spending 1 hour daily on Maths also to keep the momentum on it and around 2-3 hours on verbal.
Please help. I know that 680 is a decent score, with 11 years of experience. But with IT experience, it is difficult in top B-Schools as there would be tons of guys similar to my experience(although I have some major acomplishment).
Thanks
Regards
Mihir

[StaceyKoprince]

Hi, Mihir

A 680 is a great score, especially if you know you didn't prepare as well as you could have! I assume you'd like to continue to study on your own? You probably do have time to take a class or do some tutoring if you want to, but you'd have to start that right away if you plan to take the test again in early Oct.

It sounds like you do have our SC book. Basically, start going through that in more depth than you did last time - it contains all of the grammar rules you need to know for this test - and use OG to test yourself. Make sure you analyze your work as you go through. Why are the wrong answers wrong? Why are some wrong ones tempting even though they're wrong? Why are the right ones right? Why did you eliminate a particular right answer (that is, why did you think it was wrong)? Etc.

You said in your point b below that you think you understand RC and then you ask for suggestions for RC. I assume that, for one of those, you actually meant to type CR, but I don't know which is which! Did you want advice on RC or CR?

For AWA, don't stress about this too much. If you can lift your score to 4.5 or 5.0, you'll be fine. I'd suggest one (or both ) of two things: use the essay chapter in OG11 to assess your own essays. This chapter includes a "rubric" for grading your essays. We also have an essay grading service. You can turn in two essays and get them graded and get feedback on what to do differently the next time. If you're interested in that, send an email to studentservices@manhattangmat.com and ask them for details (including how much it costs - I'm not sure).

Re: your study plan, make sure not to overdo it. Most people can't be effective for more than about 90-120 minutes at one sitting - you basically don't retain everything you've studied if you go too far past that. It's fine to study more than that in one day, but do so in two different sittings, and take at least a 2-hour break between two study sessions. Most people find that, after a full day of work, 2 hours is the max for effective study.