GMAT Strategy

Hi All,

I have followed Beatthegmat 60 day study plan, but adjusted it keeping my work hours during the week and weekend off time in mind. I have completed Quant and Verbal preps and I am now ready to give my mock exams. My exam is on 16th May. I plan to give 5-6 full length exams and review each one. I then hope to identify my weakness and strengthen them before the next test mock test.

Could you pls help me with points that I must keep in mind before giving these mock exams,as I feel a bit nervous at this point. Also I have the following mock exam resources available. Pls let me know if there is any particular order/priority/difficulty levels of these exams.
-GMAT Prep 1&2 tests
-Manhattan 6 free full-length tests - after the purchase of their resources
and free trial online tests available

Phoenix19 wrote:Hi All,

I have followed Beatthegmat 60 day study plan, but adjusted it keeping my work hours during the week and weekend off time in mind. I have completed Quant and Verbal preps and I am now ready to give my mock exams. My exam is on 16th May. I plan to give 5-6 full length exams and review each one. I then hope to identify my weakness and strengthen them before the next test mock test.

Could you pls help me with points that I must keep in mind before giving these mock exams,as I feel a bit nervous at this point. Also I have the following mock exam resources available. Pls let me know if there is any particular order/priority/difficulty levels of these exams.
-GMAT Prep 1&2 tests
-Manhattan 6 free full-length tests - after the purchase of their resources
and free trial online tests available

Manhattan CATs tend to be a little more difficult than the real thing and tend to generate somewhat lower scores. The GMAT Prep CATs are rather like the real thing and generate scores similar to what one would likely get in taking the actual test. Veritas also makes some CATs, and while maybe not quite as accurate as the GMAT Prep CATs, no surprise there, those CATs tend to generate scores close to those generated by the actual test.

So for the sake of seeing where you stand, it may make sense to start with a GMAT Prep CAT, as doing that will give you the highest probability of seeing how you would likely do on the real thing at that point.

Then you maybe you could take one or two MGMAT CATs to get more practice and further assess what you could be stronger in. Then the Veritas free CAT will get you a pretty accurate score, and finally you could take GMAT Prep 2 to get an even more accurate score and experience before you take the test.

Six CATs in two weeks sounds like a lot, but maybe it's ok. Another thing that could make sense is doing some complete CATs and some partial CATs. This could make sense if, for instance, you are having trouble with one section, verbal or quant. So you could take just that section of a CAT in order to get used to playing that part of the GMAT video game. With all those MGMAT CATs you could do that half CAT thing multiple times if you wanted to, and doing that is not as exhausting as taking multiple full length CATs can be.

While you have learned to answer questions, part of rocking the test is knowing how to handle the test itself. So your first CAT score will likely not showcase your question answering skills optimally, because you will be dealing with the additional challenges of handling the questions in the context of the entire test. So just keep your cool as you practice, and keep playing the CATs like video games to get used to the experience of taking a CAT and to develop your CAT handling skills.

So, don't be getting nervous. Seek to be cool and to be so intense and busy answering questions that you don't even have time to be nervous. Vision, logic, intensity and determination rule on the GMAT.

@Marty Murray

Today I gave the Gmat Prep test 2.

I scored miserably! A score of 380. It felt as if I had given the test without any preps. But then I sat down to analyze my state of mind during each section, this is what I discovered.

1. AWA - I understood the argument and was able to write down an essay of 280~ words. During this section I felt I largely lacked organization of thoughts. Wasn't able to gauge how to begin my answer.
2. IR - The questions weren't tough. Just too lengthy. I felt I lacked speed and completely forgot to use the calculator for the big calculations. I guessed the last 5 questions.(12 attempted 9 incorrect)
3. Quant- I was nervous to begin and got the first question wrong. Got a couple of right ones after that. But I suddenly started feeling disinterested and my mind started wandering. I wasn't able to judge if the questions were becoming easier or tougher and it worried me. (37 attempted, 23 incorrect)
4. The CR were fine, SC was manageable. Felt the RCs to be challenging and long, was losing interest and the clock ticking by was making me nervous. Kept calculating the remaining time and questions to be answered. Wasn't able to finish this section with 4 questions unanswered. I guess this was the major reason for being penalized. (37 attempted, 22 incorrect)

Going over the wrongly answered questions I am able to solve them correctly. I guess the stress, exam dynamics just screwed my score. I need more timed practice. Suggestions pls .

I am aiming for a 650-670 score.

[email protected] wrote:Hi Phoenix19,

Have you taken ANY CATs yet? If not, then you should take a FULL CAT (including the Essay and IR sections) as soon possible. With a May 16th Test Date, you have just over 2 weeks left. Taking 5-6 CATs during that time is NOT a good idea as you won't leave yourself much time to make any adjustments to how you're performing.

Once you have that first set of scores, you should post back here.

1) What is your score goal?
2) When are you planning to apply to Business School?

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

@Rich

Today I gave the Gmat Prep test 2.

I scored miserably! A score of 380. It felt as if I had given the test without any preps. But then I sat down to analyze my state of mind during each section, this is what I discovered.

1. AWA - I understood the argument and was able to write down an essay of 280~ words. During this section I felt I largely lacked organization of thoughts. Wasn't able to gauge how to begin my answer.
2. IR - The questions weren't tough. Just too lengthy. I felt I lacked speed and completely forgot to use the calculator for the big calculations. I guessed the last 5 questions.(12 attempted 9 incorrect)
3. Quant- I was nervous to begin and got the first question wrong. Got a couple of right ones after that. But I suddenly started feeling disinterested and my mind started wandering. I wasn't able to judge if the questions were becoming easier or tougher and it worried me. (37 attempted, 23 incorrect)
4. The CR were fine, SC was manageable. Felt the RCs to be challenging and long, was losing interest and the clock ticking by was making me nervous. Kept calculating the remaining time and questions to be answered. Wasn't able to finish this section with 4 questions unanswered. I guess this was the major reason for being penalized. (37 attempted, 22 incorrect)

Going over the wrongly answered questions I am able to solve them correctly. I guess the stress, exam dynamics just screwed my score. I need more timed practice. Suggestions pls .

I am aiming for a 650-670 score and plan to apply to school during the Sep Oct intake.

[email protected] wrote:Hi Phoenix19,

Have you taken ANY CATs yet? If not, then you should take a FULL CAT (including the Essay and IR sections) as soon possible. With a May 16th Test Date, you have just over 2 weeks left. Taking 5-6 CATs during that time is NOT a good idea as you won't leave yourself much time to make any adjustments to how you're performing.

Once you have that first set of scores, you should post back here.

1) What is your score goal?
2) When are you planning to apply to Business School?

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

@Rich

Today I gave the Gmat Prep test 2.

I scored miserably! A score of 380. It felt as if I had given the test without any preps. But then I sat down to analyze my state of mind during each section, this is what I discovered.

1. AWA - I understood the argument and was able to write down an essay of 280~ words. During this section I felt I largely lacked organization of thoughts. Wasn't able to gauge how to begin my answer.
2. IR - The questions weren't tough. Just too lengthy. I felt I lacked speed and completely forgot to use the calculator for the big calculations. I guessed the last 5 questions.(12 attempted 9 incorrect)
3. Quant- I was nervous to begin and got the first question wrong. Got a couple of right ones after that. But I suddenly started feeling disinterested and my mind started wandering. I wasn't able to judge if the questions were becoming easier or tougher and it worried me. (37 attempted, 23 incorrect)
4. The CR were fine, SC was manageable. Felt the RCs to be challenging and long, was losing interest and the clock ticking by was making me nervous. Kept calculating the remaining time and questions to be answered. Wasn't able to finish this section with 4 questions unanswered. I guess this was the major reason for being penalized. (37 attempted, 22 incorrect)

Going over the wrongly answered questions I am able to solve them correctly. I guess the stress, exam dynamics just screwed my score. I need more timed practice. Suggestions pls .

I am aiming for a 650-670 score and plan to apply to schools during the Sep-Oct 2015 cycle.

Regarding the AWA, online there are templates that you can choose from, and they apply to any AWA topic. Go find them and choose one and learn how to use it. Generally using a template requires coming up with a few issues to discuss and plugging them into the format. Then when taking the test, you don't have to worry much about organization. All you have to do is find some flaws in the argument and plug them into the template.

Regarding the IR section, to get a decent to perfect score you only have to get like 7 or 8 right. So there's no need to answer all 12. Also get used to using the sorting function on the tables. You can save a lot of time by using it. Here are some more IR practice problems. https://www.mba.com/us/the-gmat-exam/gma ... types.aspx

Regarding the other two sections, the best antidote for distraction is getting busy working. Don't let yourself get distracted by how distracted you are. Don't worry too much about the time. Be concerned with getting right answers. You know how to find the answers to the questions. So just have it. If you lose focus for a moment, just get to work and you will quickly get involved in some question. Play the test like a video game, seeing just how well you can navigate all of its obstacles and pitfalls.

While at the 380 level you were probably not getting very difficult to answer questions, look over the questions you saw and see if you can find weak areas by seeing which questions gave you the most trouble. Then learn some more about each weak area type and go find a bunch of questions of each type and do them until you are totally comfortable with that type.

Let's see how you do next time. Just by sticking with answering questions, you will probably get a significantly higher score. Experience helps a lot.

Hi Phoenix19,

Unless you're tight on time or simply cannot afford the fee, I'd strongly suggest rescheduling your GMAT. While business schools will see when you've cancelled a score on test day, they won't see when you've simply rescheduled. Since you're so far off from your target score, it's clear that you have quite a bit of work ahead of you. Most test takers devote 2-3 months of disciplined study to crack the GMAT, so don't be discouraged by your initial practice score.

With that in mind, I'd also strongly suggest shopping around for online resources that will cater themselves to your needs. Most online resources offer free trials to help you decide without making a financial commitment off the bat. To help you get started, here's a link to a 7-day trial of Economist GMAT Tutor, which uses adaptive technology (just like the GMAT) to adjust to your needs: https://bit.ly/1bPAHuW

Best of luck,
Rich

Before rescheduling or doing anything else, go over some questions, do some inner talking and take another CAT.