unfortunately I scored 510 at my first actual GMAT exam last month and I was pretty shocked when I saw my score on the screen claiming 510 and to be honest with you . world was not beautiful that day !
. specially because I was studying gmat stuff for over 3 months. books such as : Manhattan strategy guide pack, Kaplan verbal foundation , grockit , e-gmat and ... but unfortunately at the test time I did several stupid things that led to unfortunate score (510) . when I came back to hotel I reserved another spot for 1 month later and I just focused on my exam strategies during the 30 days ,yes ! I did not study any thing special . I just reviewed RC passages of OG 11th , that was all !.
the day after exam I just tried to focus on my weakness of giving the exam ! and it seems somehow I was right :
here is my fatal list (advice included) :
1- I was so nervous, or better say curious about my score at every second of my exam ! . (my advice : DO NOT THINK ABOUT YOUR SCORE during the test ! - you have a lot of time after that
)2- I put so much effort on AWA section : first I tried to do best on AWA section and after 1 hour I really felt I did a verbal section .. but who cares .. I wanted a high score for Awa . (guys do not put effort on awa
at all )3-I simply tried to be best at the EXAM : then Q showed up after 4 - 5 minutes break . (Q is my strength point) so I tried my best to answer every single question completely right . so after 6 - 7 th question .. tough ones showed up ... I mean reallllllly tough !
... then I suddenly saw the timer and sad oh holly SHIRT ! ... there was a smudge on my T-shirt ... I could see it in the reflex of screen ... then I saw the real timer inside the screen and I said something like the latter one again .. there I had 20 minutes and 15 questions ... and to be honest with you I was at a real hard Q questions .. and I was sure I couldnt deal with them at the remaining time. so I tried to sacrifice over 7 - 8 of them at the end ..
and unfortunately it costed me 47 on Q section
.. I was so disappointed after the Q section .. because I know it wasnt as good as I wanted - usually I scored 50 or 51 on Manhattan cats. my advice ( never let Q question got you ! .. always check your time after every 5 question .. remember .. every 5 question ... about 8 minutes for first 20 questions and every 5 question after the 20th 10 minutes ... at the last .. you will appreciate the 8 minutes extra of the 20 questions
...4- I was thinking about my Q and I tried to go on V .. I knew I should really do some thing awesome on V otherwise I would not score 700 or 700+ score (heh ... you can imagine my face when I saw 510 on the screen !!
)so I tried to be focus enough on my verbal timing :
67 - 5 (CR - SC)
58 - 10(always a 3 question RC)
48 - 15(CR - SC)
40 -20(2 RC one with 3 questions another with 4 questions)
30 -25(2 RC one with 3 questions another with 4 questions)
20 -30(no special RC)
12 - 36(watch out here ... there is always a tiny RC that can really confuse you if you dont store enough time
2 - 41
to be honest with you I was doing great until the 10th question .. after that a really hard RC question showed up with 5 questions ! .. I just tried to answer them .. but every question was as long as a paragraph then I realized that I had spent over 15 minutes for 5 question ! .. ohmy god .. 5 minutes in verbal means alot ! .. then I faced another hard RC with 5 questions and again I spent 15 minutes for that [pretty funny huh ?] then I saw the timer again ..
this time oh my holly shirt ! ... I did not know my T-shirt had some writing about religious until that time .. furthermore
I experienced same thing like the Q section ...
again random questions at the end for 7 - 8 question and ...
BOOM 510 !
advice : please sacrifice a hard question ! ... because the penalty is that you cannot answer the hard one neither the easy ones after that (because of time )
----------------------- That was all that I experienced at the first time ... and Because I really knew that 510 is not my score I tried for second time and I am really happy that I did that ...
My background
I am Iranian , and I study IT management in tehran university .
my Q is a little good and my verbal is my weakness point.
I studied gmat for 3 months , and my materials were :
Q :
Manhattan books ( they were really good ... - but if your math is good , it would be unnecessary to put more than 10 days on them)
OG - Math review and OG (best ever )
V:
CR : Manhattan CR . (didnt worth it)
CR - Bible (totally worth it)
OG
RC : Manhattan RC (was not bad , but I do not suggest it )
OG
SC :
1 - ***** Kaplan verbal foundation (5 star source . it really make your mind ready for Manhattan ) it can improve you to 50% : an smooth book that can prepare your mind for hard problems
2 - ***** Manhattan SC (it is advised to read it after the kaplan , 5 star aswell) can add 20% to your sc skills : It's just a pefect book , highly adviced to be reviewed , specially the Idiom's section
3 - ***** e-gmat (simply I can say A perfect source ...Its price is completely reasonable, and it really improves your SC abilities since it use several new concepts that I have never seen befor) can add another 20% to your sc skills !
I was introduced to this web site through one of friends, claiming his 70% ability in SC improved to 90%, and I believe he was completely right ! as far as e-gmat.com is not know compared with kaplan or manhattan , I think it is necessary to cite their advantages :
1 - the web site e-gmat uses a multimedia environment that make it pretty easy to understand the tough problems of SC, furthermore before any section's start you would be requested to take a mini quiz that helps you find out what are your weak points in the section .
2 - there is over 200 questions , and video explanation for each of them that was really helping . there were even a portal that helped me asked whenever I had a doubt about something , and it was answered at 24 Hours at most.
3- one of main problems was that I was not native speaker thus, I could not find out why some answer choices were FALSE AND WORDY . I was really triying to understand that why some answer choices are not true since they are completely right in structure . therefore I really enjoyed this web site facility that compares each of 5 answer choices with each other through Grammar focusing or Intended Meaning focusing.
4-their support were perfect , I was registered in several GMAT companies and they knew my exact time of exam, but they didnt even send me an email , except beatthegmat and e-gmat.com. In addition e-gmat.com instructors (Payal and Rajat) supported me by internet web calls for over 5 or 6 times, ensuring I am at perfect level. Rajat guided me through the month between my first and second attempt and he really helped me to find out , overworking do know solve your problem but focusing on weakness points can !
5-their course is really comprehensive , I could find out every necessary section in it
6-They keep their web site fresh , adding new sections or altering some concepts,materials that you can not find in books!
these three sources are really advised for SC.
I used grockit and beat the gmat practice bank
to be honest
beatthegmat questions were good at SC and Q sections
a little weak at RC
and so stupid on CR questions !
Grockit was really good . but timing on RC was not standard at all !
my CAT scores
before my first real exam
Manhattans : between 640 - 670 ...
Gmatprep : first time 500 (exactly the same thing as my real exam happened and I ran out of time)
the second time I scored 670 (with the time control management table)
my final advices :
1)Do not care about your score ! or you will regret it .
2)The Pearson people are so smart ! at the exam I was pretty sure that my Q was really tough but I could answer them correctly but suddenly 3 or 4 SUPER easy question showed up in row ! .. then I thought maybe I answered the hard ones wrong .. but immediately I remembered that I should not care about exam's score during the exam .. then I just answered them .. after that I understood that pearson people just wanted to trick me with easy question .
3)read LOTSSSSSSSSSSSS of RC passages and try to answer them at 2 min / Q .
it really helps you
4)Believe in your self ... I always imagined the phrase "People do not fail .. they just give up ! " at times when I was thinking about my score 510 ...
so just do not give up ! thats it
at the end I wanted to thank :
Rajat and Payal : for their kind support
Stacey : for her articles and for her support
RON : for his perfect articles on manhattan.com I really learned from you RON .. but unfortunately I did not receive the answers that I sent you through the private message . guess you were busy . but thanks for your best articles
and Beat the gmat forum because it really helped me
at the end , if you have any question or any thing that you think I can help you , do not hesitate to ask
. It was a total surprise for me as well 
.
