GMAT Strategy

[email protected] wrote:Hi bmierz86,

Raising a score from the high-400s to the low-600s will take some serious work (and you'll likely need to make some big improvements to how you handle BOTH the Quant and Verbal sections). Thankfully, that score goal is reasonable AND the GMAT is a predictable Exam, so you CAN train to score at a higher level.

To start, I'd like to know a bit more about how you took your CATs:

1) What were the Quant and Verbal Scaled Scores on each CAT?

CAT 1 = 23Q 28V, CAT 2 = 32Q, 26V, CAT3 =
29Q, 27V

2) Did you take the ENTIRE CAT (including the Essay and IR sections)? I only did Essay and IR for CAT 2.
3) Did you take them at home? Yes.
4) Did you ever do ANYTHING during your CATs that you couldn't do on Test Day (pause the CAT, skip sections, take longer breaks, etc.)? No.
5) Did you ever take a CAT more than once? I took 3 CAT exams total.

And as far as your timeline is concerned:
1) When are you planning to take the GMAT? When my score is high enough. Although I am getting annoyed since i am 29, working full time in consulting, and I am tired on weekdays, and getting lazier as I get older. I would like to put an end to this this year. I thought I will be ready by March, clearly I am not.

2) When are you planning to apply to Business School? same as above.

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

bmierz86 wrote:Hi All,

I took the manhattan gmat prep course in October, finished early January. I took 3 practice CATs so far, scores were 440 490 470. The Q/V is in the mid to high 20s range. I try to do problems each night, do Verbal section on various apps on my phones when I travel to work, but it seems I hit some sort of plateau and just haven't been making any progress or as much as I wanted to. My goal is to hit 600-650 range, I will be happy with that. I spent money on the MGMAT class, took it twice actually, I have all their books, I am not sure what I am doing wrong or how to get better at this to break out of the 400s into higher brackets.

I am not sure what to do, I read a lot of the posts here and the stories. Whatever I am doing, isn't working. I Have 3 notebooks full of problems that I got right, wrong, and continue to do problems but my scores aren't showing anything. Now that the class finished, and I have gone through all the homework problems in the syllabus I am sort of lost on how to continue learning on my own or developing a more sufficient study plan than what I already have...any thoughts how can I improve bette?

[email protected] wrote:Hi bmeirz86,

Test Day is a rather specific 'event' - you CAN train for it though, but you have to make sure that you take your CATs in a way that will match up with what you'll face on Test Day (take the FULL CAT - with the Essay and IR sections, take it away from your home, at the same time of day as your Official GMAT, etc.).

From your CAT scores, your Verbal performance is fairly consistent, but your Quant performance fluctuates. In context, both of those numbers imply that you don't have a consistent, formal approach to either section of the Test (in basic terms, it looks like you just 'wing it' as you're working). Reusing materials that you've already used will not help you to fix any of those issues.

Given everything that you've described, I think that you're going to need 2-3 months of consistent, guided study for you to hit your score goal. I also think that you would benefit from committing to a timeline/deadline. By not having an Official Test Date, you'll 'find reasons' to put off your studying and push this process into a longer timeframe than it needs to be. 3 months from now would put you in early June - you should think about 'locking in' a Test Date so that you have that external force motivating you.

Most GMAT Companies offer some type of free materials (practice problems, Trial Accounts, videos, etc.) that you can use to 'test out' a product before you buy it. We have a variety of those resources at our site (www.empowergmat.com). I suggest that you take advantage of all of them then choose the one that best matches your personality, timeline and budget.

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

DavidG@VeritasPrep wrote:

bmierz86 wrote:Hi All,

I took the manhattan gmat prep course in October, finished early January. I took 3 practice CATs so far, scores were 440 490 470. The Q/V is in the mid to high 20s range. I try to do problems each night, do Verbal section on various apps on my phones when I travel to work, but it seems I hit some sort of plateau and just haven't been making any progress or as much as I wanted to. My goal is to hit 600-650 range, I will be happy with that. I spent money on the MGMAT class, took it twice actually, I have all their books, I am not sure what I am doing wrong or how to get better at this to break out of the 400s into higher brackets.

I am not sure what to do, I read a lot of the posts here and the stories. Whatever I am doing, isn't working. I Have 3 notebooks full of problems that I got right, wrong, and continue to do problems but my scores aren't showing anything. Now that the class finished, and I have gone through all the homework problems in the syllabus I am sort of lost on how to continue learning on my own or developing a more sufficient study plan than what I already have...any thoughts how can I improve bette?

Can you tell us a little bit more about what you see when you review old practice tests? Are you arriving at the conclusion that many of the questions you miss, you simply don't know how to do? Or is it the case that you understand how to solve most of the questions, but, for whatever reason, you have difficulty doing them with a time constraint? Do you find that you're doing complex algebra when you could be using a simple strategy, such as picking numbers? Are you running out of time and having to guess on long strings of questions at the end of sections? These are all common problems, but each requires a different adjustment. (And it might be helpful for us if you post a question from an old practice exam and actually discuss how you thought about it, so we can see where some strategic tweaks might be helpful.)

Brent@GMATPrepNow wrote:I suggest a systematic (even methodical) approach, in which you take the time to master each topic/concept (e.g., percents, ratios, assumption questions in critical reasoning, comparison questions in sentence correction, etc).

So, for each topic/concept, you should:
1) Learn the underlying concepts (rules, attributes, notation, etc.)
2) Learn GMAT-specific strategies related to that topic
3) Practice dozens of questions all related to that one topic.
4) Don't stop working on that topic until you have mastered it

Then, and only then, move on to the next topic.

To help you focus on one topic at a time, you can use BTG's tagging feature. For example, here are all of the questions tagged as statistics questions: https://www.beatthegmat.com/forums/tags/ ... statistics
See the left side of that linked page for more tag options.

While completing questions from the Official Guide (OG), you should you use an Error Log (aka Improvement Chart). You can find a free downloadable Improvement Chart at the top of this page: https://www.beatthegmat.com/mba/gmat-error-log
This will help you identify and strengthen your weak areas.

You should also spend a lot of time reviewing the responses from the Experts on this site. They model the steps one should take when tackling problems.

In addition to learning the core concepts and GMAT-specific strategies, be sure to work on your endurance and test-taking skills (e.g., time management) by taking several practice tests. If you're interested, we have a free GMAT time management video at https://www.gmatprepnow.com/module/gener ... es?id=1244

Finally, you might consider signing up for Beat The GMAT's free 60-Day Study Guide (https://www.beatthegmat.com/mba/gmat-guide).
Each day, you'll receive an email with a series of learning activities that guide you, step-by-step, from Day 1 to test day. This will ensure that you will cover everything that the GMAT tests.

Here's an outline of all 60 emails: https://www.beatthegmat.com/mba/gmat-guide-outline

Cheers,
Brent

[email protected] wrote:Hi diegocml,

During your studies, it's important to take FULL-LENGTH CATs (with the Essay and IR sections) on a regular basis (1 FULL CAT every 1-2 weeks). If you've only taken one CAT (back in January), then you should plan to take a new FULL CAT sometime soon. When you have those scores, you should report back here and we can talk about your how you might adjust your current study plan.

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