Confused about my current gmat preparation.

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I have been preparing for gmat from last 2 months. I was quite satisfied with my preparation with good score in gmat prep tests.

prep 1 - 710 (Q50 V35)
prep2 - 720 (Q50 V38)
prep 3- 730 (Q50 V39)

today I appeared for gmat prep 4 but got 650 (Q49, V31). i am completely devastated. I don't know what went wrong, as today I was more calm and mentally prepared compared to previous mocks.

After analysing all my mocks I found that my performance in SC is not up to the mark. Every time i am making more mistakes in SC compared to CR and RC. In today's mock there were 7 incorrect SC compared to 3 CR and 4 RC.

My target score is 700+. Although I still believe that i can cross 700, but due to today's performance I am in dilemma.

Should i delay my exam, if not than how to go about it. How to improve SC, I have completed MGMAT SC 3 times, but i am not able to apply all the rules during mocks. While solving OG13 and VR2 my accuracy in SC was around 80%.

I need some valuable suggestion.

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by [email protected] » Wed Jul 23, 2014 11:48 am
Hi hellboy97,

One "off" practice CAT score isn't statistically significant, but it's important for you to do a full question-by-question review of that CAT to figure out what went wrong. In that Verbal Section, how many questions did you get wrong because of a silly mistake? How many questions did you "narrow it down to 2 and then 'guess wrong'?" These are the errors that you need to fix.

The Verbal section of the GMAT is as consistent and predictable as the Quant section, so you need to define your specific "weak areas" and put in some extra work in those areas. Saying that SC is your weak category isn't specific enough - what aspects of SC are you having trouble with? Do you know the grammar rules? Do you know idioms? Do you recognize patterns in the 5 answer choices (and do you recognize the common errors that GMAT writers tend to put in the answer choices?)?

You ask if you should delay your exam, but you did not state when you were planning to take the GMAT. With these overall CAT scores, I don't think that you should delay your exam. Assuming that you took the ENTIRE CAT each time (including the Essay and IR sections), then you're performing well and you shouldn't delay.

GMAT assassins aren't born, they're made,
Rich
Contact Rich at [email protected]
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by hellboy97 » Wed Jul 23, 2014 11:49 pm
Hi Rich,

Thanks for your suggestions. After reading your post i deeply analysed my last mock. 2 out of 3 incorrect CR, 2 out of 4 incorrect RC and 3 out of 7 incorrect SC were silly mistakes. i am sure i would have solve them correctly, if was more concentrated on them. infact i was able to solve them correctly when i was analysing my last mock, but remaining incorrect questions indeed require more skills out of me. In SC i did narrow it down to 2, but then i was getting confused because of idioms or meaning of the sentence. every time i took the entire cat along with AWA and IR.

I am having a error log of OG13 and VR2; i am planning to go through them. i am really feeling saturated and don't want to delay my exam. i am planning to appear in next 10 days.

Once again thanks for your time.