Beat The GMAT

iao · Wed Nov 11, 2009 11:41 pm

can someone let me know how to improve gmat score by 100 in a month?

GMATBootcamp · Thu Nov 12, 2009 12:21 pm

What materials have you used to study thus far? What were your score breakdowns on practice tests?

You might want to invest in a good study guide and depending on your score breakdown, devise a strategy to address your weak areas.

IMO, this approach will probably give you the most bang for you buck if you want to see some significant score improvement within a short time frame.

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iao · Thu Nov 12, 2009 12:31 pm

thanks Paul for your reply.

i finsihed Manhattan gmat prep course back in July and only have taken 2 practice tests from Manhattan and scored between 560-580 on both of them.

i have study materials from Manhattan and OG guide (i believe is the 11th edition, green color)

can you give me some suggestion to organize my study, most likely i will have to retake the gamt again, hopefully in the next month or two.

many thanks to you
Mei

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BrainFart · Thu Nov 12, 2009 1:37 pm

Hi IAO-Mei,

I was in your position not too long ago, and now I'm trying to move out of 550-570 range into mid to high 600...I'm not a quant person, so my focus has been re-learning my math, as well as improving my concentration and stamina. I've been spending about 2 hours/day during the week, about 5 hours on Sat (I usually take a practice test), and another 2-3 hours on Sun. In about three weeks, I managed to up my score from 480-520 to 550-570 on my practice tests. I still have quite a bit to go, but it is promising.

I started preparing with Princeton Review, but I find Princeton too focused on the short cuts and plug-ins, rather than providing clear explanations on how to solve the problems. Princeton's online drills and exercises are helpful, but the explanations are pretty thin. I ended up supplementing my Princeton with Manhattan GMAT online practice package ($40 for one year). I tend to fall for solving the algebra, and Manhattan GMAT gives me both the explanation and the plug-in option. I'm also using Kaplan's GRE & GMAT Math Workbook, which breaks down the problem types into basic, intermediate, and advanced, and this helps me gauge where I stand and what I need to focus on.

I think what is also important is realizing that the advanced problems (600, 700, and 800 range) are really not "difficult" but rather more layered, so the key is to break it down into pieces and work your way through the layers. Here's an example of a 700-800 problem from Manhattan GMAT I was surprised to have been able to solve in about 1 min 2 secs:

The value of an investment increases by x% during January and decreases by y% during February. If the value of the investment is the same at the end of February as at the beginning of January, what is y in terms of x ?

You can either plug in $100 for investment, 20% for x, and 10% for y , or you can solve it algebraically and let investment = 1 and isolate y (y=...).

I used to freak out whenever I'd see something like that, but these days, I've been able to take it in stride. That's another important factor: Mental Preparation. Read Stacey Koprince's article on "What Went Wrong"

http://www.beatthegmat.com/a/2009/10/26/my-score-dropped-figuring-out-what-went-wrong

Best of luck!

BrainFart

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GMATBootcamp · Fri Nov 13, 2009 12:18 pm

@iao

Depending on your score breakdown, I would target your biggest weak areas first.

If you score was significantly lower in verbal than quant, take a look at which specific areas in verbal you struggled with. For example, if you discover that you are consistently missing a lot of sentence correction problems, focus a big chunk of your studying on sentence correction. Learn to identify proper sentence patterns, memorize grammatical rules, and solve a lot of practice problems. Remember to track your mistakes using some type of error log.

After the end of 1 week of study, take a practice test to evaluate your progress. If you're not satisfied, continue working on this area until you are. Otherwise, pick another weakness and repeat the same process. Just remember to do a few practice problems from sections you have already studied to ensure that you mentally stay on top of your game.

HTH!

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