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New GMATPrep Test 2: 670, Q 47, V 35, IR: 7

Needless to say, a 530 in my first prep test was a big bummer. I felt miserable. Surely, I am capable of a higher baseline score. Hence the second attempt. This time I decided to attempt  the 2nd GMAT PREP test. I know experts believe that attempting the GMAT PREP test questions once too many times  is a waste of actual GMAT questions but I felt it would be good to give it one more shot before I start my prep. Here are my results.

670, Q - 47, V 35, IR - 7 ( I didn't attempt the AWA section.)

Here are the screen shots.

As you can see the scores are different. I wouldn't go to the extend and say that the scores have improved. There was no extra preparation involved before I attempted the 2nd test as opposed to the first. My take on the 2nd test:

Quant: I felt the 2nd second test was definitely easier than the first. I could have done better had I remembered certain concepts related to word problems and geometry.
Verbal: The verbal section was not very different from the 1st test. I just lucked out on this one. I answer the questions based on gut feel and how it felt on the ear. Lesson Learnt: I need to move away from depending on certain body parts to pure concept and practice based science. :)
IR: I was very disappointed to see test 1 set of questions repeating in test 2 although the questions were ordered differently. The IR questions are not adaptive. I think GMAC should have included 12 new questions in the 2nd test as well. This was obviously a big disappointment. There was another curious aspect of the IR section. In the first test I answered 9 correct out of 12 and was given a score of 1. This time I answered 7 correct out of the same set of 12 questions. I got a score of 7. I would like to attribute the IR score fallacies to a bug in the software, even though I downloaded the latest version after the bug was supposedly fixed.

I know that a baseline score of 670 as opposed to 530 is nothing to rejoice about. This just shows how a little mental preperation, familiarity of concepts and GMAT type questions, time management and a little bit of luck can attribute to a better score. This shows that my current level of preperation leaves a lot to be desired. After giving the test, I spent a good 7 days understanding the gmat question types and reading through great debriefs on beatthegmat.com and gmatclub.com. I am now ready to get started. I would like to leave you all with a quote from Nelson Mandela. This quote has been the driving force behind everything I have achieved and hoping to achieve in my life. Hope this will be of some inspiration to all of you. Good luck with your prep.

Getting Started with GMAT

I am two months away from hitting the big 3-ohs and just like anyone else, I have been evaluating the "What ifs" and "What could have beens" of my life. And just like anyone else, I see myself staring down a growing list of dreams and things to do, of which very few, if not none have been accomplished. One such dream, right at the top of the list is to empower myself, my career and life by getting an MBA education. As a fresh, dewy faced Engineer, at the beginning of my career, I foresaw myself scratching off every item in my bucket list by the time I hit thirty. But then Life happened. Deadlines, product releases, appraisals, promotions, love, heart break, successes and failures have made me stash this list out of sight. I have been waiting for the right time to start working on these goals. The right time was 3 years ago. As always, I am late. Probably, the only thing that I did on time, strike that, before my time, was being born. I was born full 2 months before time. Well, thats a post for some other time.

Thats enough of blah, lets talk about MBA and GMAT. The first step towards an MBA is GMAT. I have done my research and have trolled the gmat club and beatthegmat.com for the past few weeks. I am yet to set a date. I will do so by the end of this week. I kick started my journey to a 750 GMAT by attempting a GMAT prep test today. To begin with, I downloaded the latest installment of the GMAT prep from mba.com. For those who are not aware, GMAC has recently released the latest version of GMAT prep software labelled GMATPrep 2.0® along with an additional set of 404 questions called GMATPrep Question Pack 1 that can be purchased for additional practice.

I decided to skip the AWA section. I started the test with the new Integrated Reasoning section. A few IR questions were dead easy while others required a lot of reading as the question stem itself was two pages long!! My first impression of IR section is that the questions are not all that difficult, except for the questions with long question prompt. Next is the Quant section. I found the Quant section to be tough. I didnt remember most of the formulae and concepts and struggled with this section. Same was the case with Verbal section.

The final verdict: 530 : Q 37 V 26, Integrated Reasoning : 1 on 8
I am pretty dissapointed with the score. I was hoping to do better than that. I have my doubts on the IR score though. I had 3 wrong answers out of 12 questions and still scored 1. I read that the GMAT prep software has some bugs in the IR section. I am hoping the low score in the IR section can be attributed to that. Either way I have a long way to go. I need to put in a lot of effort in all sections to push my score upwards of 750.

Watch me go from 530 to 750. Let the games begin..

GMAT prep 1: 530 Q 37, V 26, IR - 1

New GMAT Prep Score Interface - 1

New GMAT Prep Score Interface - 2

Analysis