GMAT Strategy

On practice tests I generally score around the Low 40's in Quant (~70%) and high 30's (~85%) on Verbal for a cumulative score of about 650.

My goal is to get a 700 or greater on the actual test. Is it more advantageous to focus purely on raising my Quant skills or should I try to raise both. Keep in mind I only have about 1 month left to study before I take the exam.

I had spoken to a friend who got a 43quant and 42verbal and admissions consultants said that her quant score was too low.

Let me know your thoughts.

Thanks!

Hi there,

I agree with the admission consultant in that business schools look for a great overall score, but they are more concerned with your ability to handle numbers and math in business classes, so the quant portion of the GMAT addresses that.

If I were you, I would concentrate my studies there. Perhaps there are quicker wins for you in quant in studying tricks/tips of certain problems than to go through a grammar book and learn proper grammar (high 30's is a great verbal score).

Best of luck.

there's an unofficial 'rule' out there that states that business schools would ideally like a candidate with scores in the 80th percentile in BOTH quant and verbal. a 42 in verbal is quite good, probably closer to 90th percentile. a 43 in quant, however, is not as good. i think its probably in the 60-70th percentile range. in this sense, you'd want your Q to be hovering at around a 47+, so that you're near this "80/80" score.