6 weeks to go for GMAT - aiming at a modest 670-680

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Hi fellow GMATers,

While most students out there are aiming for 750+ I am aiming at a modest 670-680 because I know I will be able to get through a college of my choice with this score.

While I have gone through all the quant and verbal material once (Manhattan), I struggle with remembering all the concepts, especially counting methods, probability, a little bit of geometry, certain grammar rules, etc.

Can someone guide me on the topics to focus more on/ master, that will help me achieve this sore. Given 6 weeks to D-Day, I rather spend time mastering certain topics rather than waste time on difficult topics that will not carry much weight and I afford to skip or maybe take a guess during the test.

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by OptimusPrep » Sat Jul 16, 2016 11:28 am
ameyarprabhu wrote:Hi fellow GMATers,

While most students out there are aiming for 750+ I am aiming at a modest 670-680 because I know I will be able to get through a college of my choice with this score.

While I have gone through all the quant and verbal material once (Manhattan), I struggle with remembering all the concepts, especially counting methods, probability, a little bit of geometry, certain grammar rules, etc.

Can someone guide me on the topics to focus more on/ master, that will help me achieve this sore. Given 6 weeks to D-Day, I rather spend time mastering certain topics rather than waste time on difficult topics that will not carry much weight and I afford to skip or maybe take a guess during the test.
The most important exercise to do in the last few weeks would be to solve the official questions from the OG and the Verbal review and take the GMAT Prep mock CATs. Make sure you take the full length mock CATs.

Try to drill down deep into each problem type and identify your pain areas:

SC: The questions test various concepts such as S-V agreement, modifiers, parallelism etc. Find out what troubles you.
CR: There might be certain types of questions that are troubling you. May be Assumption, may be conclusion, inference etc.
You need to find that out and then practice them
RC: This again can be drilled down into different types of questions and also different topics. See what questions and topics trouble you the most and then practice accordingly.

As an addition, start preparing an error log and keep a note of all the mistakes you made and the lessons you learnt from the problems. This will ensure you do not make the same mistake again.

1. What have been your mock scores?
2. Have you completed the OG and the verbal Review?

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by [email protected] » Sat Jul 16, 2016 4:09 pm
Hi ameyarprabhu,

Before I can offer you the specific advice that you're looking for, it would help if you could provide a bit more information on how you've been studying and your goals:

1) How long have you studied?
2) What materials have you used besides the books that you mentioned?
3) How have you scored on each of your CATs (including the Quant and Verbal Scaled Scores)?

4) When are you planning to apply to Business School?
5) What Schools are you planning to apply to?

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by ameyarprabhu » Sat Jul 16, 2016 5:27 pm
Hi Rich,

mentioned my answer next to your questions

1) How long have you studied? - took around 2 months (May and June) to read through concepts, but this was with wide gaps between studying and no studying, thanks to work. Now I am on a 6 week break, so want to optimize my time.

2) What materials have you used besides the books that you mentioned? - Manhattan is the only guide I have used, in addition to solving few quant sums on GMAT club and verbal on Beat the GMAT.

3) How have you scored on each of your CATs (including the Quant and Verbal Scaled Scores)? - Not taken any yet

4) When are you planning to apply to Business School? - This year, want to start in 2017

5) What Schools are you planning to apply to? - So far, I am working towards ISB (given a strong 'non-engineering' profile). Others in mind are Nanyang, HKUST and UCLA Anderson.

Just some info about me:

26 yo Indian male, by October I will have 4.5 years full-time and 6 months freelance work-ex. 2 years working in research and the rest in Advertising.


[email protected] wrote:Hi ameyarprabhu,

Before I can offer you the specific advice that you're looking for, it would help if you could provide a bit more information on how you've been studying and your goals:

1) How long have you studied?
2) What materials have you used besides the books that you mentioned?
3) How have you scored on each of your CATs (including the Quant and Verbal Scaled Scores)?

4) When are you planning to apply to Business School?
5) What Schools are you planning to apply to?

GMAT assassins aren't born, they're made,
Rich

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by [email protected] » Sun Jul 17, 2016 8:58 am
Hi ameyarprabhu,

Since you haven't taken a FULL-LENGTH CAT (with the Essay and IR sections) yet, it would be a good idea for you to take one soon; you can download 2 for free from www.mba.com (and they come with some additional practice materials). A FULL CAT takes about 4 hours to complete, so make sure that you've set aside enough time to take it in one sitting. Once you have those scores, you should report back here and we can talk through your study plan going forward.

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by ameyarprabhu » Wed Jul 20, 2016 5:29 am
Hi Rich,

As suggested, I gave my first ever CAT - gave the Manhattan mock test. Scored a sorry 530 (Q36, V28), an eye opener for me. I have attached screenshots of my report (In case you want to go through it)

I have about a month and a half to D-day - please help out.

I want to go all in, give my best, stretch my study time - just need some sound guidance.
[email protected] wrote:Hi ameyarprabhu,

Since you haven't taken a FULL-LENGTH CAT (with the Essay and IR sections) yet, it would be a good idea for you to take one soon; you can download 2 for free from www.mba.com (and they come with some additional practice materials). A FULL CAT takes about 4 hours to complete, so make sure that you've set aside enough time to take it in one sitting. Once you have those scores, you should report back here and we can talk through your study plan going forward.

GMAT assassins aren't born, they're made,
Rich
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by [email protected] » Wed Jul 20, 2016 6:21 pm
Hi ameyarprabhu,

Raising a 530 to a 670+ in 6 weeks will be challenging. While not impossible, that type of improvement in such a relatively short period of time will require guidance and consistent study on your part. You already seem to be comfortable with the idea that you're going to 'dump' certain questions so that you can focus on the larger categories and pick up the 'gettable' points - and that mindset will be helpful for the task at hand.

Based on everything that you've described, I think that you would find the EMPOWERgmat Total Score Booster to be quite helpful. Most of our clients complete that Study Plan in well under 2 months, so that schedule should fit your timeframe. We have a variety of free resources on our site (www.empowergmat.com), so you can 'test out' the Course before setting up an Account.

If you have any additional questions, then you can feel free to contact me directly.

GMAT assassins aren't born, they're made,
Rich
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