For the rest of the week, Imélie seemed unable to block off enough time to have a proper GMAT diagnostic test until Saturday morning, since she went around doing other things in her daily life, work or personal. Plus Juan submitted what amounted to Imélie's personal profile with very few edits as a letter of recommendation. Once she finished installing the GMAT practice test software, she warns Sun as to the time needed to take it:
"Please, I need four hours to take this diagnostic GMAT test so that I know where I stand, whether I need to take some lessons or not" Imélie pleads with Sun.
"Why? You should know that there is more to getting into an MBA program than doing well on the GMAT! Plus, Tulane isn't exactly a top-tier business school, even for part-time study!" Sun points out.
"The GMAT is the one thing remaining over which I have some control. Everything else is set in stone, I can't change anything I did in the past. I can't change my history of community service, awards, grades, or whatnot. It will feel a little bizarre for me to be taking that sort of tests for the first time in so long. I'll be a little rusty, so I need to book my test time so that I have adequate lead time to study for it, to get used to the format and question style, and not waste my money, since I know a diagnostic test is not representative of my abilities in this context. Only once I booked my test time may I submit my application to Tulane; it asks me to list a test date if I didn't take it yet"
"Good luck then..."
"Thank you."
This is it! Even though I know that the biggest bottleneck to my quiz bowl aspirations is this stupid GMAT, I must take it! I reached my personal "Threat Level Midnight" in that I have one final hurdle to cross. I must know where I stand before applying, and all I can still do is score as high as I possibly can on the GMAT, even though studying for it means submitting the application several weeks later, and three more weeks at a minimum if I am not satisfied with the score on the first attempt. As I review the latest data available, the median numbers that people often worry about for that specific part-time MBA are 3.40 for GPA and 590 for the GMAT, but I know these will not make or break my application on their own, Imélie thinks as she enters her personal information into the GMAC's system so that she is ready to book her test date whenever ready, as well as entering the recipient of said test date's score. Right now the one thing I have secured is my GPA, 3.95, but will my GMAT be able to cover for a somewhat lackluster community service record? It's not like law school, at least outside of the top-14, where splitters, that is, low GPA, high GRE/LSAT, or reverse splitters, or high GPA, low GRE/LSAT, might still be able to get in; for MBA admissions, non-numerical factors are far more important than for law school. That being said, I don't think being a reverse splitter will do me any favors, and I might still get scholarships provided I score high enough on the GMAT.
Before taking the diagnostic test proper, she takes the time to familiarize herself with the scoring as well as the primary twist: computer-adaptative testing. Which means that a correct answer on a previous verbal or quantitative question will make the next question harder, and an incorrect answer will then make the next question easier. In addition, questions cannot be skipped and later returned to, unlike, say, on the ACT. The starting point is intended to be a "happy medium". Furthermore, the scoring is not a reflection of how many correct answers you provided, but of how hard the average difficulty of the questions you answered are. Which makes GMAT scoring counter-intuitive for people newly introduced to it.
While, of course, she reads the instructions carefully as the test begins, the writing section centers on the idea that one should answer based on the argument being presented and not based on the test-taker's opinion of it. That, even though the writing section will not be part of that GMAT score she feels is the only thing remaining standing between her and her quiz bowl as well as career dreams. Nevertheless, she has only 30 minutes to write a cogent essay to the extent possible, which feels the same as answering the essay question on the ACT a decade earlier to her. Not a place to just answer anything she feels like, she is reminded of the format, but the next section, integrated reasoning, will instead trigger a different set of memories.
These questions remind me of Purple Comet and AMC12, of my life as a mathlete in high school. Of the 82.5 I scored in my first year of high school, or the 124.5 as a senior, only 4.5 points below Jennifer. And the same would probably hold of the quantitative section, but I understand not everyone will be able to answer these questions to the same extent I will be able to, and certainly some people from a less quantitative background, Imélie thinks, but realizing that she is prone to sudden flashbacks, she quickly snaps out of it. I must keep these flashbacks under control if I want to succeed on the real test, so I need to take the diagnostic test seriously.
Whereas in math contests there are usually limits to how much extraneous information is provided in questions, her past experiences of quiz bowl made it much easier for her to tell what's extraneous and what's not. Playing quiz bowl forced her to process vast amounts of information quickly, but here the adaptative sections were kept for last.
The quantitative section is blindingly fast, at least compared to the previous two sections because of how easy it is to her, even on the hardest questions. This is what happens when you design a test for a wide range of test-takers: it must be accessible to a good chunk of the target audience. It's not like the AIME or even the VMC to a lesser extent, these being the mathletic contests that marked my life in high school by virtue of being the hardest I took part in. From my experience the Venomous Agendas fanbase started hyping someone for the last third of the season if they got 11 or more on the AIME; I only scored a 10 and thus I missed out on the USAMO. But no Venomous Agenda quiz bowler ever scored 11 or higher on the AIME, who am I kidding? Why is it that I keep having flashbacks like this, in moments where I must not have these? If my memory keeps playing tricks on me like this, I'm toast! I don't want intrusive memories like these to stand in the way of my quiz bowl dreams! Imélie's mind seems to be infected by parasitic thoughts that gnaw at her. She takes a well-deserved 8-minute break before beginning the final section of the diagnostic test, while refraining from screaming across the room she's taking it in, however tempted she might be to do so.
Ouch. While my memory is certainly an asset under normal circumstances, it's when I lose control over my mind that I feel like my memory can turn into a stranded asset, or a liability even, because I can no longer think straight when that happens. Mathletics and quiz bowl trigger these intrusive memories the most in me, she keeps reflecting about the integrated reasoning and quantitative questions on the GMAC-provided diagnostic test. Then again, maybe I get these parasitic memories because it has been so long that I haven't taken a test of this nature.
The author's narrative has been misappropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.
And then came the verbal section. Just... wow. For some reason certain questions seem to confuse her to no end, even though the preceding two sections were a breeze in comparison, despite that she had intrusive memories in the previous two sections. Whereas she could answer the entirety of the quantitative and integrated reasoning sections without complications, intrusive memories aside, she needed all 65 minutes to answer the 36 verbal questions.
At the end of the diagnostic test, she is given the result under the form of raw scores, and not the composite score ranging from 200 to 800. For verbal and quantitative sections, raw scores are usually between six and fifty-one (scoring between zero and five on either section is very uncommon, even though it does happen), whereas for integrated reasoning, the scores range from one to eight, and finally, for analytical writing the score ranges from zero to six in half-point increments. I guess I have a better idea now of what I should focus on for the next few weeks, and then I'm aiming for an early-to-mid-March test date. It's clear my big weakness here is verbal, but the score estimate is in the low-600s, assuming I perform the same on the real test. Which I know is not an accurate reflection of my abilities, especially not given how my colleagues described me at work, she keeps thinking about her diagnostic results.
Once that is over, she reads about the question types being asked on the verbal section of the GMAT, as well as how to answer analytical writing. In the last case she knows it's not an accurate reflection of what one needs out of writing in the business world. But, as a precautionary measure just to make sure she optimizes her study plan before she books a test date, she needs to ensure that Tulane will not consider the AW sub-score and so she proceeds to email the admissions office at Tulane to obtain confirmation that the AW sub-score is ignored, at least for the part-time MBA.
The AW score, by the way, is not part of the 200-800 composite, and neither is integrated reasoning, but she knows IR is definitely considered.
Oh I know what I need to focus on: there's one specific type of verbal question that seems to do me in but I know that, in the real world, it's far from the end of the story. Sentence correction is my Achilles heel, she realizes upon reading the manifest of the question subtypes and what to expect from each of these.
She then proceeds to subscribe to an email service that provides her with a daily question set with the option to choose a specific subtype of questions to be sent as well as tips and tricks to answer sentence correction questions to go with these daily question sets.
I will not let these stupid correction sentence questions prevent me from achieving my quiz bowl dreams, from returning to Tulane! But I realize that even if I answer SC questions correctly going forward, it will then make the other verbal questions I will be asked harder, she thinks upon receipt of the first daily set, and explanations on any incorrect questions will only be given after the set is finished. Once Sun is back from the groceries, he asks his lover about how the diagnostic test went.
"How did you do in the diagnostic test?" Sun asks Imélie.
"There's one kind of question that dragged me down but it's a consequence of not being used to that sort of thing for so long. Other than that, I think I can, in a few weeks' time, score well enough to get to where I want. But even the quantitative and integrated reasoning sections are just so easy to me; I cannot assume the same will hold of anyone else taking it. But maybe it's because it's the first time that I kept having memories triggered of stuff such as these math contests in high school or Venomous Agenda quiz bowl history. Hopefully on subsequent attempts I will not have those memories resurface" Imélie answers in detail.
"Speaking of which you seem to remember much more fondly and in much greater detail your high school days than your college days"
"If you're talking about quiz bowl there is only one real memory that stands out from my collegiate days, and you heard enough about it already. But I will not let this stupid test prevent me from making Tulane's quiz bowl team great again! Or maybe great at all"
"All I ever hear about you about quiz bowl is how you used to be great at it, and how it makes you feel a certain way about trivia games"
"If you would please excuse me, I need to finish my daily question set."
The daily question sets Imélie just signed up for comprise only three questions; it was more about ensuring uniformity between question sets so that someone that signed up for a daily question set in reading comprehension or integrated reasoning can get a complete passage with all of its associated questions, and the set provider wants everyone that signed up for the daily set to be given the same amount of practice in a form that's representative of what they will be getting on the actual test.
She also feels the need to join an online study group for the GMAT, sensing an opportunity to learn more from people with a different background, both cultural and professional, and they will also learn from hers. That, even though she knew New Orleans was already a melting pot in a cultural sense.
I guess this study group will give me a taste of what the MGM portion of the degree will be like... but just a small one. After all, this study group is as international in its membership as I could even think of, but we interact entirely online, and for a common purpose! she thinks while she finishes her daily set that she posts on the group's social media page.
"Thieves steal Hondas and Toyotas more than other models because they can chop them up and sell them for parts that are worth more than the car. On the test, practice or real, they will ask questions like this one, with an underlined part and five choices, the first one being the same, and the other four being different" Imélie explains while reading the statement of the first question from the daily set without giving the choices.
"Honey, this question doesn't make any sense to me without seeing the choices, nor what is underlined" Sun then complains about not being able to read the choices.
"Just lean in on my screen and you'll see what the choices are. For the record, I'm leaning towards C. I appreciate you're supportive of my career goals and all that"
"The question sounds a little strange"
"Answer C reads Thieves steal Hondas and Toyotas more than they do other models because they can dismantle the cars and sell them for parts that are worth more than the car"
"Speaking of stolen cars, thieves not only steal Hondas and Toyotas more, they also steal lower-end models more than higher-end models of those makes. But I fail to understand why this kind of thing is seemingly essential to success in business school"
A lot of people seem to be bewildered by what the GMAT tests doesn't line up with what their own jobs require of them, or the jobs they plan on pursuing at graduation, and often significant others of those people as well. Even though I will never use this material again in this form, sometimes rhetoric can make a difference. I can always attempt to pick some of my old quiz bowl question sets and create SC practice questions for the group! Imélie thinks while she combs old quiz bowl packets she still has under her possession for suitable source material for this purpose, after finishing the daily question set. Which was pretty quick, after all, the target speed on the verbal section is a little less than two minutes per question so a daily set should take five minutes, and ideally less.