Monday, June 8, 2009

Earned 660 in GMAT

I had written following note in one of the GMAT forums back in Aug, 2007. I think it would useful to share it out here.
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Yesterday I gave my GMAT, and score is 660 (44,38). This is obviously disappointing as Quant score is off from my avg score from official CAT exams (47,49,48,46) and so I missed magic 7** number. I guess, I took Quant for granted and that cost me some points.

Here is what I observed during the exam:-

Analysis of Issue: something like, "Open communication between employees and company mgmt would improve company's performance".
Analysis of Argument: something like, "Powerful business leader is having stronger influence on community/nation then any govt official".

=> Quantitative was quite reasonable and pretty much in-line with OG and official-CAT exams. None of questions were from the probability, permutation/combination or standard deviation. Also, none of the question where such that I had to guess to move forward but I am sure that my answers would be wrong for some questions with higher weight (say in 700-800 range). On the part of timing, I could barely make it to 37th question in given 75 minutes and that was what happened with me during PowerPrep exams.

=> Verbal was was also pretty much inline with PowerPrep and GMATPrep questions. I could finish all but two question on time; I had to guess for last two questions (CR & SC).

RC: There were 3 RCs. One was on the solar-analogous stars and Sun, another one was on women theory (not very sure), and the last one was on corporate America & role of ROI on investment decision. None of them were of the category that could make me quit the exam unlike what I observed with some Kaplan RCs !

SC: Most of the Questions were testing very basic grammar rules explained in Manhattan GMAT while some were testing more then one grammar rules. I didn't get any SC question with entire sentence underlined but then friend of mine got 5 of them with similar score so its quite random.

CR: Some of the questions were quite tricky and interesting but then I have a strong hold on CR so enjoyed them. If I recall right, none of the questions were double bold type.

My humble opinion on best source of material and few other tit-bits...
Quantitative: OG-11, OG-Quantitative, 20 Sets and questions from various forums (gmattutor, scoretop, scorechase, urch.com etc).

Verbal: Manhattan GMAT (awesome), OG-11, OG-Verbal, SC-1000, CR-100 (pre-LSAT section), RC-1000. OG-11 does a great job in explaining why particular choice is right or wrong; understanding of this explanation is more important then rushing to try as many questions as possible. 1000-questions sets are great in setting pace as well as practicing grammar rules.

Exams: PowerPrep, GMATPrep (math is much simpler than actual exam but then score is scaled to give you correct judgment on where you stand). You can reinstall these two software to get 6x6=12 exams. I found Manhattan GMAT exams pretty much inline with OG, however sometimes their Quant questions are tougher and time consuming.

Pace: As many of you have noticed, GMAT is trying to make you rush through questions, however "fast and furious" never get along well with good GMAT score. Tough questions are having higher point weight so one is better off spending time (never more then 3 minutes) on such questions. I chose to do as many questions 'right' and then for last 2-3 questions guess if needed.
Hope any of these helps you to become better prepared for your exam. All the best !