GMAT Strategy

Hello,

As the subject states, my gmat exam is in 12 days and my score is around 450 on Manhattan Prep practice tests (up from 420 last week). My aim is to get 580, but postponing the exam is not an option at all as the deadline of the MBA application is a day after the GMAT exam date. Haven't studied Math for 11 years and English is not my strongest subject coming from IT background. I read the Manhattan Prep material for over a month and now practising using the official guide GMAT review. I know that you can't turn things around in 12 days, but practising is all I have left to get to 580. Do you think it's possible, what are some tips and tricks you can provide that can help me in the next 12 days. help is much appreciated.

thanks!

Hi karimelchami.

While the likelihood of you hitting 580 in 12 days is not great, your doing so is not inconceivable.

On your practice tests, what were your quant and verbal section scores?

Meanwhile, are you saying that this is the only application deadline of the school to which you plan to apply? There are not any later rounds? Really? The school takes applications only through the first days of October?

Marty Murray wrote:Hi karimelchami.

While the likelihood of you hitting 580 in 12 days is not great, your doing so is not inconceivable.

On your practice tests, what were your quant and verbal section scores?

Meanwhile, are you saying that this is the only application deadline of the school to which you plan to apply? There are not any later rounds? Really? The school takes applications only through the first days of October?

Hello,

verbal was 38% and Quant was 19%

this is the deadline for January semester that I'm interested in. I can wait till September 2017, but I dont want to wait till then.

Ok, so really you have plenty of room for increases in both quant and verbal.

Tip 1: Practice untimed.

You have to learn to get right answers, by seeing key details of the questions and using logic. You won't learn to do those things by doing questions in two minutes each. To get to 580 you have to learn how to get certain things done. So work on learning what you can in the time you have.

Tip 2: You don't have to be great at English to be great at verbal. I have had students whose English is not great score in the upper 40's in verbal.

What do you have to be good at in order to score high in verbal? Using logic, just as you would do in any job!

If you speak and understand English with reasonable proficiency and if you are good at using logic, you can get most verbal questions right.

Tip 3: So to increase your verbal score, spend the next two weeks learning to SEE MORE and to better use logic to get to right answers.

Tip 4: To increase your quant score, use the Assessment Report feature of the Manhattan tests to generate a report based on the tests that you have taken. Analyze the report to find areas of quant that you can quickly improve in to get some more right answers, and, in addition to doing OG questions, do extra questions in those areas of quant.

One area that you may be able to improve in quickly is Exponents. You don't have to know much math stuff to get those right. You more have to notice things.

Another is Positives and Negatives, so simple, but tricky.

Also, do a lot of DS questions. If you can get the hang of how to do DS questions, you may get many more right answers without learning much more math.

For some categorized quant questions, you could set up a Free Practice Account in the GMAT area here, https://bellcurves.com.

To get your total score to increase by 130 points, you have to get maybe 15 more right answers than you have been getting. Is that such a big deal? Not really. By getting better in a few quant areas, and by seeing some more in verbal, you may learn to get enough right in a couple of weeks.

Also, go to mba.com and download the two free official GMAT Prep tests. You may find that you score on one of them higher than you have on the Manhattan tests, partly because the questions on the official tests tend to be better written than some test prep company questions. For all you know you will score 500 on an official test without any more training. If that were the case, 580 would not be all that far from your current level.

Tip 5: When you are taking the test, get easy questions right. Given the way that the test works, wrong answers to hard questions tend to leave your score where it is, while wrong answers to easy questions drive your score down. So be careful when you are answering easy questions, so that you don't drive your score down by missing something you are ready to get right.

Enjoy the game!