Topic: 660 and confused!

Fri Jul 02, 2010 11:02 pm

This would be my first de-brief, but my second attempt at the GMAT. First time around I managed only a 570, mainly because I made the mistake of attending a bogus prep course, which really hurt my chances. Second time around, I decided, to hell with all prep courses, I can do this on my own. So these are the resources I tapped into: 1. OG12 2. Powerscore CR Bible 3. Manhattan SC 4. Kaplan 800 5. Kaplan (the big book) 6. Princeton review guide So I was pretty much done with all of this about two weeks back, after which I decided to rigorously take practice tests and condition myself for the GMAT. I took all tests under timed conditions and wrote the AWA. Writing the AWA is absolutely crucial, you have no idea how rapidly you can lose concentration during the verbal section after doing the AWA and math, so it's important you do the complete test each time. Not writing the AWA during practice was a mistake I made last time. Here's a list of my GMAT scores from practice tests: 1. GMAT Prep1: 570 2. MGMAT 1: 600 3. MGMAT 2: 600 4. MGMAT 3: 610 5. Peterson's: 700 6. Power Prep: 690 7. MGMAT 4: 640 8. GMAT prep 1 (Retake): 660 9. MGMAT 5: 690 10. Gmat Prep 2: 700. After doing the MGMAT 5, I really thought I was doing well. That score and my lack of time forced me to book my exam soon. I booked my date 3 days before the exam! I'm not sure if this was a mistake, but it's not like I had an option. Two days before the exam, I took my last GMAT prep, and was really excited to see a 700, as that was my target score. Exam Day: The exam was scheduled for 9:00am, so I woke up at around 6, did the routine stuff. Went through all math formulae, did a couple of SC, RC questions, after which I headed straight for the exam. This time I decided to drive myself to the exam center, you know, for good luck. And as soon as I reached there, I realized driving up there was a huge mistake. I got into an altercation with the watchman as he refused to let me park, I was in a building with NO parking and nowhere to go! After a lot of pleading, begging on my part and a li'l bit of under the hood cash, he did agree to let me park. So that was that- now for the exam, luckily I left quite early, so I was still well in time. I did the palm vein scanning thingy, took my picture and all rest of the formalities and waited for the inevitable. My exam started pretty well, the topics for AWA weren't too bad, I took a li'l time on the Argument part but sailed through the issues part. I took my break, ate a couple of eclairs and got back to do the math. Math seemed way too easy, I was getting really simple questions, and I began to wonder if I was actually doing well, but I've never actually done badly in math, so I stuck to it and kept going. It was time for my second break, gobbled a couple of eclairs and got straight back to doing my verbal. I knew that this was what was gonna decide my fate.

I got a few simple questiosn initially, all of which I answered without much of a problem. I got an essay on the 6th question, so I thought I must be doing well. I reached the 18th question and from here, it all started going down hill. The thing was in both the exams I did prior to this one, I was doing really well in verbal, and I knew so because I got a bold faced question by the 15th question. It was Q18, and still no BF Question, at this point I suddenly got a nervous breakdown, I started feeling sick at the pit of my stomach, I was contemplating cancelling my score. I looked at the clock, and I realized that I had done only 20 questions, and head only 20 minutes left, I got even more panicky! I took a minute regained my composure, and told myself that I WILL get through this, I WILL not quit. I kept going I started reading actively again, I raced through the questions, I got a few CR's that were not too tough but I could just not figure out the answer, I guessed and moved on. I finished the paper by guessing on the last couple of questions and clicked on finish. So I clicked next really quickly, got to the part where the stupid program asked me whether it should report the scores, I thought for a while and clicked on REPORT! My prayers had now shifted from what would have been "PLEASE BE 700" to "PLEASE BE 600", the screen flashed and showed Q 47 V 35 S 660 I was partly relieved and partly disappointed, because I knew I could've done better on the verbal part, as I was consistently scoring b/w 38-40 on the practice exams, however, after all that happened during the verbal part, I'm glad that I atleast managed a V35. Although my aim was a 700, I cannot imagine studying again and writing the GMAT again. I was initially targeting top 10 schools, now I guess I'll have to settle for less. I'm not sure if this is good even for top 20, but I guess I'll have to take my chances. I would like to thank all of you for all the help, I would like to thank all the experts for their valuable input, and thank you Eric, for this wonderful forum!