Monday 29 June 2015

A Solid Score

I did a GMAT prep test this weekend. I would like to get an MBA at some point but am not in any rush because of the time, work, and cost involved. However, both Maria and Natasha are planning on writing the GMAT this summer to apply for their Business Masters. I figured it would be nice to have some company when studying and the scores last for 5 years. The fake test helps give a sense of my starting point - I went in pretty much blind. I knew what type of questions to expect but hadn't studied at all.

My score was 620, which is pretty decent. This is in the 69th percentile. With just that score I would have no issue getting into most of the Canadian schools. However, it isn't quite high enough for the elite programs and it isn't good enough for scholarship options, which I will need because an MBA is expensive. Here is what the test is like and how my score broke down:

Analytical Writing Assessment (AWA) - 30 Minutes - 1 Topic
Scored out of 6, not scored on the practice test.
This is an essay.

Integrated Reasoning (IR) - 30 Minutes - 12 Questions
Scored: 4/8
Percentile: 37
Types of questions: Multi-Source Reasoning, Graphics Interpretation, Two-Part Analysis, Table Analysis

Quantitative - 75 Minutes - 37 Questions
Scored: 36/60
Percentile: 40
Types of questions: Data Sufficiency, Problem Solving

Verbal - 75 Minutes - 41 Questions
Scored: 40/60
Percentile: 90
Types of questions: Reading Comprehension, Critical Reasoning, Sentence Correction

I know that I can do much better on the Quantitative (or Math) section. I knew how to figure out pretty much all of the problems but without studying, I didn't have the tools needed (like the formula for the area of a circle, or different shortcuts you can make with exponent equations). I am glad that I will be able to improve this because the main score is out of 800 and is calculated only from the last two sections. The IR is really really hard. I don't know if they send that score separately and if they do how much it matters to admissions.

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