I took the GMAT today and scored 710. I’m a bit disappointed since my target was 720-730. Although this is only 10 points below the target I’m feeling that this score may not be good enough for the target schools I have in mind. GMAT Exper…
I took the GMAT today and scored 710. I'm a bit disappointed since my target was 720-730. Although this is only 10 points below the target I'm feeling that this score may not be good enough for the target schools I have in mind.
GMAT Experience:
===============
This was my first GMAT attempt and although I spent almost 4.5 months on it, I think I only seriously studied for about 3 months. I think that GMAT is a sprint not a marathon, so you need to plan accordingly.
I always felt that Maths was my weak point but my verbal score completely betrayed me today as I was definitely expecting a 40 which would have put me right on target.
You are very heavily penalised for making mistakes on the verbal section compared to mistakes in the Maths section.
In terms of the type of questions asked, I think it resembles very closely to the GMATPrep questions. I think that handling the pressure is the key element of the test. Under the conditions of the exam room if you can hold your nerve AND try to think logically, that;s the key IMHO.
I got about 4 probability problems and am confident that I got these right. I did have to guess a few maths problems due to time constraints, but at the end of the math section I did feel confident.
Took a 5 minute break before the Verbal section.
Most of the sentence correction questions were okay I thought. I did get a few CR questions which were tough (not boldface CRs, I got only one BF CR and that was the second-last question). Although I usually do well in RCs I suspect that today RC might have let me down as I did get a few tricky RCs where the questions were looking for minute details from the passages. As a result I had to go back and re-read the passages although I had the gist of it. Thus I lost time and I had to hurriedly finish the last 4 questions of Verbal. Still I was surprised to get a 38 instead of a 40.
Last but not the least, make sure that you have a good night's sleep before the exam. My exam centre was 3 hours away so I had to get up early at 5.30 to catch the bus, but I could not sleep properly during the night.
Study materials:
============
Nothing out of the ordinary.
Maths: OG + OG Quant book + Forums + some old CAT basic reference material I have from 10 yrs back(yes I still have them!)
Verbal:
SC : Manhattan Sentence correction guide. + PSahil's notes + Spiderman's notes + Rajat NDA's notes.
RC: Read passages posted on the forums
CR: Powerscore LSAT Bible. I always felt that in-spite of reading this book I never quite mastered CR
My gut feeling is that both RC and CR combined to let me down on Verbal.
Mock test scores:
=============
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
MGMAT May-2008 Overall 650 Q-46(15 mistakes) V-33 (18mistakes)
MGMAT Feb-2009 Overall 610 Q-41(18 mistakes) V-33(21 mistakes)
GMATClub free test Apr-2009 Q (9 mistakes), V (9 mistakes SC-4,CR-5,RC-0)
freeTest
GMATPrep1 9May2009 Overall 760 Q-50(8 mistakes) V-44(4 mistakes)
Princeton free test 12May2009 Overall 650 Q-42(10 mistakes) v-39 (9 mistakes SC-4, CR-2, RC-3)
GMATPrep2 17May2009 Overall 710 Q-49(12 mistakes) V-38(9 mistakes- SC-4, CR-4, RC-1)
Knewton 27May2009 Overall 600 Q-36(10 mistakes) V-38 (6 mistakes SC-3, CR-1, RC-2)
GMATPrep2 retake 1Jun2009 Overall 760 Q-49(10 mistakes) V-44 (4 mistakes SC-1, CR- 3, RC - 0)
(Note the huge difference between GMATPrep1 and GMATPrep2!. My GMATPrep2 first attempt score turned out to be my final GMAT score as well!!)
(I wasn't demoralised with the scores provided by Knewton and Princeton though this was late in my preparation stages as I knew that their algorithm was not really indicative of the real exam. My goal was to try and pick up as many nuggets of information possible using sample questions).
(Also I did not take the MGMAT tests 1 to 6 as I had not purchased the SC book--dont know if it would have made much difference w.r.t. verbal)
Now the difficult part and some queries:
Background:
IT professional 11 yrs experience out of which 9 years have been outside India.
B.E. (Elec Engg - 1997) + M.S.(Strategic Mgmt) - 2007
Professional Certifications: PMP + ITIL + CSM
Role: System test manager in a mobile telco software SME.
Acads: Quite good.
Extracurriculars: Okay, nothing fantastic.
Target schools:
IIMA(PGPX), IIMC(PGPEX), IIMB(EPGP), XLRI(GMP), ISB in that order.
Will be applying as a foreign national.
Does this score suffice for these schools with my experience. I know GMAT is just one part of the application components but I guess schools like IIMA and ISB are particularly skewed towards high GMAT scorers. Plus given the fact that I come from the most common pool of applicants(IT industry) might put me on the backfoot, so seriously considering a retake.
Any thoughts on this guys? I guess if I go for a retake I will need atleast 730 or it will be even more embarrassing!
Hi,
Just read your post and couldn't stop smiling. Dunno, but I have come across soooo many people who have scored above 700 and they are moraly down bcoz they think they could have "significantly improve their chances" by getting a 20-40 point increase.. If u ask me, all that is plain Bull****.
I have a 640 and an admit from Richard Ivey (Top 50 Global b-school as per businesweek and FT.com)
So chill man.. Just relax.. 11 years work-ex, a foregn national 8 years international experience, heck if u ask me, you could be in even with a 650. All this provided your essays were good enuff.
So stop worrying about these tirival matters about retaking the GMAt. A 720 and 760 does not make a difference if you come across as a Dodo on the whole. So just go ahead with your applications and see where you can add value. GMAT is just one component of the overall application.
lemme know if u need any more gyan on this.
All the best.
Anubhav
I read this post just now (after posting my reply to your other post abt where to apply which program 1 or 2 yrs etc)
As you are NOT indian you can easily get admission in any IIMs as very less non-indians apply there.
I think you deserve better school than IIM.Why you are not cosidering top US schools ?
IMO you can get admission to any top school........
I took the GMAT today and scored 710. I'm a bit disappointed since my target was 720-730. Although this is only 10 points below the target I'm feeling that this score may not be good enough for the target schools I have in mind.
GMAT Experience:
===============
This was my first GMAT attempt and although I spent almost 4.5 months on it, I think I only seriously studied for about 3 months. I think that GMAT is a sprint not a marathon, so you need to plan accordingly.
I always felt that Maths was my weak point but my verbal score completely betrayed me today as I was definitely expecting a 40 which would have put me right on target.
You are very heavily penalised for making mistakes on the verbal section compared to mistakes in the Maths section.
In terms of the type of questions asked, I think it resembles very closely to the GMATPrep questions. I think that handling the pressure is the key element of the test. Under the conditions of the exam room if you can hold your nerve AND try to think logically, that;s the key IMHO.
I got about 4 probability problems and am confident that I got these right. I did have to guess a few maths problems due to time constraints, but at the end of the math section I did feel confident.
Took a 5 minute break before the Verbal section.
Most of the sentence correction questions were okay I thought. I did get a few CR questions which were tough (not boldface CRs, I got only one BF CR and that was the second-last question). Although I usually do well in RCs I suspect that today RC might have let me down as I did get a few tricky RCs where the questions were looking for minute details from the passages. As a result I had to go back and re-read the passages although I had the gist of it. Thus I lost time and I had to hurriedly finish the last 4 questions of Verbal. Still I was surprised to get a 38 instead of a 40.
Last but not the least, make sure that you have a good night's sleep before the exam. My exam centre was 3 hours away so I had to get up early at 5.30 to catch the bus, but I could not sleep properly during the night.
Study materials:
============
Nothing out of the ordinary.
Maths: OG + OG Quant book + Forums + some old CAT basic reference material I have from 10 yrs back(yes I still have them!)
Verbal:
SC : Manhattan Sentence correction guide. + PSahil's notes + Spiderman's notes + Rajat NDA's notes.
RC: Read passages posted on the forums
CR: Powerscore LSAT Bible. I always felt that in-spite of reading this book I never quite mastered CR
My gut feeling is that both RC and CR combined to let me down on Verbal.
Mock test scores:
=============
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
MGMAT May-2008 Overall 650 Q-46(15 mistakes) V-33 (18mistakes)
MGMAT Feb-2009 Overall 610 Q-41(18 mistakes) V-33(21 mistakes)
GMATClub free test Apr-2009 Q (9 mistakes), V (9 mistakes SC-4,CR-5,RC-0)
freeTest
GMATPrep1 9May2009 Overall 760 Q-50(8 mistakes) V-44(4 mistakes)
Princeton free test 12May2009 Overall 650 Q-42(10 mistakes) v-39 (9 mistakes SC-4, CR-2, RC-3)
GMATPrep2 17May2009 Overall 710 Q-49(12 mistakes) V-38(9 mistakes- SC-4, CR-4, RC-1)
Knewton 27May2009 Overall 600 Q-36(10 mistakes) V-38 (6 mistakes SC-3, CR-1, RC-2)
GMATPrep2 retake 1Jun2009 Overall 760 Q-49(10 mistakes) V-44 (4 mistakes SC-1, CR- 3, RC - 0)
(Note the huge difference between GMATPrep1 and GMATPrep2!. My GMATPrep2 first attempt score turned out to be my final GMAT score as well!!)
(I wasn't demoralised with the scores provided by Knewton and Princeton though this was late in my preparation stages as I knew that their algorithm was not really indicative of the real exam. My goal was to try and pick up as many nuggets of information possible using sample questions).
(Also I did not take the MGMAT tests 1 to 6 as I had not purchased the SC book--dont know if it would have made much difference w.r.t. verbal)
Now the difficult part and some queries:
Background:
IT professional 11 yrs experience out of which 9 years have been outside India.
B.E. (Elec Engg - 1997) + M.S.(Strategic Mgmt) - 2007
Professional Certifications: PMP + ITIL + CSM
Role: System test manager in a mobile telco software SME.
Acads: Quite good.
Extracurriculars: Okay, nothing fantastic.
Target schools:
IIMA(PGPX), IIMC(PGPEX), IIMB(EPGP), XLRI(GMP), ISB in that order.
Will be applying as a foreign national.
Does this score suffice for these schools with my experience. I know GMAT is just one part of the application components but I guess schools like IIMA and ISB are particularly skewed towards high GMAT scorers. Plus given the fact that I come from the most common pool of applicants(IT industry) might put me on the backfoot, so seriously considering a retake.
Any thoughts on this guys? I guess if I go for a retake I will need atleast 730 or it will be even more embarrassing!
Hi Ajay,
thanks for the post. key points.
1. Although I am not an Indian citizen right now (since I acquired another nationality by naturalisation), I am very much of Indian origin and I studied and lived in India until 10 yrs back. So I don't think my Indian study/origin will be completely ignored by IIMs. i.e. I don't think they will treat me like a foreigner (say an American who has studied/lived in US)
2. yes, US Schools are the best, but I think 2 years is too long, and the cost is too high as well. I don't want to rake up huge loans which I will be paying for 5 or 6 years after completing my studies. From a cost point of view I think IIMs are still good value for money. Moreover, another goal I have is to return back to India soon, and IIMs offer a good path of achieving this IMHO.
Hi,
I would like to know Q49 and V38...how many questions you think in QA and Verbal were correct as I have just started preparing for GMAT and I am trying to map scaled score to number of correct questions.
Regards,
Sandeep
i think Q49 33/37 and V 38 31/41
you can't really map this. The score depends on when you got the question wrong. If you get a question wrong earlier in the test you are penalised more. Similarly if you get an easy question wrong you are penalised more.
yaa I think you are right...
Hi,
Can u advise me how we can improve SC.
you need to go back to basics of grammar etc..see testmagic.com and beatthegmat.com ..there are people who are posting a lot of examples there. will give you good practice.
is there any negative marking in GMAT.
there probably is internally but this is not visible to us. People say that you are penalised more for getting a question wrong in the earlier section of the exam than in the later section. Similarly if you get an easy question wrong there is a higher penalty than getting a difficult question wrong.