Hello,

I took the gmat in September and failed woefully. I got a 540 (Q35 V27). I wasn't surprised due to the fact that I studied sporadically throughout the summer. I spent the next few weeks after that studying and I decided to go through OG12. I took the diagnostics test and realized some of my weak areas: data sufficiency and CR.
I did about 3/4 of the questions in the book and did fairly well on those. My quant was good. I thought I was ready and decided that I would take a practice test. I took it and still got a 540.
I'm a very frustrated person right now. I was hoping to apply to round 2 of some schools this year and now, it's looking bleaker and bleaker everyday. The thing I don't understand is that I'm pretty good at math (I have an EE master's degree..not like that should be a guarantee for success but I was just hoping for something better).

I don't know what it is...could fear have a lot to do with my scores? i don't think so but when i take any sort of tests, i somehow subconsciously think that i'm not going to do well based on my past results. when i do the questions on paper, i do well, but on the CAT, not so much. I just can't figure out why i can't break 540. are the OG questions simpler than the real gmat?

I apologize for my lengthy email but I'm hoping someone can give me some sort of analysis...I'll take anything coz my way isn't working.

Please, please, please help me.

Thanks in advance.

How was your timing? It's possible to get better at the material but have serious timing problems - and then your score might not move at all.

What kind of practice test did you take? If one of ours, you can use the below article to analyze your results:
http://www.manhattangmat.com/blog/index ... ice-tests/

If you took GMATPrep, that test doesn't give you any data... so you may want to take one of ours to get good data. We can then use that data to figure out what's going on and how to get better.

Did you time yourself when you were doing the OG questions? Did you set up sets of questions for yourself, so that you were practicing stamina as well? Did you make sure to throw some harder questions in the mix? (The higher the question number in OG, the harder the question.)

So go analyze a test, thoroughly, then come back here and share your analysis with us (note: not just the raw data - tell us what you think the data means).

If you do have a timing problem, read this and start doing what it says:
http://www.manhattangmat.com/blog/index ... anagement/

_________________
Stacey Koprince
Instructor
Director of Online Community
ManhattanGMAT