I just Beat The GMAT!

- This was a repeat attempt for a score of 630 (Q49, V25) which I did in August. It's heart breaking to find out that I got the same score even today.

Preparation highlights
- Last time out I realized my weak points were verbal and especially SC. I solved it through e-gmat and my accuracy was nearly 4/5 for any question sets attempted.
- My mock exam scores were high this time. Scored a 720 once in MGMAT (My final Mock attempt) and GMAT Prep was around 660-670 thereabouts

Possible reasons for my failure(According to me)

1. My CR this time was too bad. A good no. of questions (atleast 4-5) came from the minor question types category mentioned in MGMAT CR book. (Qs with fill in the blanks and find out the connection b/w highlighted text).
Note: I have never practiced fill in the blanks

2. Concentrated on RC and I think, although this increased my accuracy, valuable time was lost in my exam.

3. Finally, for answering the final 7 questions I had 8 and a half mins . And, the worst scenario was after doing 36 questions in exam, came an RC passage. I didnt read through actively and answered those 2(most probably one is wrong). So final 2 questions in 2 minutes and I failed to answer the final question!

So my question is, were my final 7 questions screw my GMAT or was I really lacking substance in Verbal.

From a HeartbrokenKid

Don't lose heart. Live to fight another day

Here's the problem.

2. Concentrated on RC and I think, although this increased my accuracy, valuable time was lost in my exam

.

Two things happened
1. By concentrating too much on RC you got lost in the detail. That is exactly what the GMAT wants you to do. The extra time you took to read the passage and then answer the questions (I suppose you were lost on the questions as well because your mind was too clogged with the details) made you deviate from what you may call your standard speed and thus you had to operate at a new untested speed while solving verbal on the test. Thus, your brain was unable adapt to this new speed and as you rushed through the questions, you lost focus and thus fell into the traps set by the GMAT.

As far as RC is concerned, here's a strategy you can test

1. For Short Passages: Read slowly but with intent and then get on the questions
2. For Long passages: Skim, taking in enough to understand the main purpose and structure and then answer the question (going back to the passage to answer each question)

3. Finally, for answering the final 7 questions I had 8 and a half mins

- This includes RC, CR and SC. If you take away 3.5 minutes to read the passage, you had 3.5 minutes to answer 8 questions. I would not be surprised if you got most of these questions wrong.

- Last time out I realized my weak points were verbal and especially SC. I solved it through e-gmat and my accuracy was nearly 4/5 for any question sets attempted.
- My mock exam scores were high this time. Scored a 720 once in MGMAT (My final Mock attempt) and GMAT Prep was around 660-670 thereabouts

Mock tests are just that MOCKS. MGMAT is the best practice tests around (after GMATprep), however, its still not a real indicator of how you would perform on the real test because MOCK TESTS fail to factor in many factors such as
1. Quality of sleep before the test
2. Anxiety
3. Question pool etc.


In my opinion the test wants you to do two things.
1. Pick your battles : Don't get hung up on solving question types that historical data indicates that you tend to get wrong (for example you might always get main purpose question wrong on RC). Pick a choice and move on.
2. Timing: Life is all about Timing. Define a timing strategy and stick to it. 75- 55- 33-19 is one strategy (you should be solving question 1 with 75 min left, question 11 with 55 mins left, question 21 with 33 minutes and question 31 with 19 mins left).


On CR/RC here are a couple of tips

1. On Main Idea questions : Moment you read the prompt, tell yourself that the correct answer choice can be proved from the facts in provided in the passage. If an answer choice goes beyond whats mentioned in the passage, reject it and move on
2. On Strengthen/Weaken questions: Answer choice that repeat the facts provided in the passage are usually wrong. The answer choices can bring information from outside the passage. So select ones that strengthen or weaken your conclusion and move on.


Good luck..

Awesome advice Mohit. Thanks a Lot!
-I did concentrate on RC too much in the original exam because that was the weak point during the mock exams and I studied specifically to cover this shortcoming in the 2 days before the exam. So accuracy became high in my view, but my overall scores in the original exam took a hit. Could you suggest me any good text/sites for practicing the minor questions types in CR. That sprang a surprise as I never expected those 4-5 questions in the exam

Hoping to put everything right next time. What is the ideal timeframe you suggest to do a retake? I really want to Beat the GMAT.

Hoping to put everything right next time. What is the ideal timeframe you suggest to do a retake? I really want to Beat the GMAT.

As soon as you think you are ready!! GMAT is all about the mental game. When you think you are comfortable with the question types and you are able to recognize patterns in right and wrong answer choices, pick the sword and the armour and head out into the battlefield

The common CR question types are
1. Must be true
2. Resolve the paradox
3. Bold face
4. Method of reasoning
5. Evaluate the conclusion
6. Strengthen
7. Weaken
8. Assumption

Most of the CR questions fall under one of these 7 categories. I'd suggest that you get Powerscore CR bible (if you haven't done so already). Powerscore CR bible charts out strategies to attack each of the 7 question types above. I still think its best to focus on most common CR question types ( 2. 3. 5. 6. 7. 8. )

You can google these question types in BTG and answer those or get BTG practice questions. BTG offers 300 odd verbal questions. I'd rate them approximately 6.6-7/10

And hey, things go wrong, learn from your mistakes, move on, prepare harder and do better next time, Good luck