GMAT Strategy

Hello everyone.

I'll begin with a brief background. My first attempt at the Gmat began last month with the OG13 guide, I did not make it very far because I (literally) couldn't get past question 3 of the quant. section. I've always been weak in math, and the fact that I haven't done any math in 4 years or so certainly didn't help. I decided to go with Magoosh because I needed a flexible program that would allow me to prepare for the exam while interning at the same time. With that said, I've been studying intensively for the quant., beginning with basic arithmetic in order to learn the math concepts and skills that I had long forgotten. I will admit that I didn't dedicate much time to the verbal section because RC and CR sort've came naturally to me, and it was necessary for me to take the Gmat in the following month in order to submit my applications on time. After completing the magoosh questions, magoosh estimated my raw scores to be in the range of Q36-44 and V31-38 (quant. slightly skewed due to repeat questions).

My exam is in two days (9/13) and I am very worried about what my score will be because of my inconsistent CAT scores over the past week. As I mentioned, I only had 1 month to prepare for the exam, consequently, I held off doing any CAT's until the week before my exam. Foolish.. I know but I didn't want to waste any practice exams because I was unable to finish the quant. section.

The following are the CAT scores that I've received: (I'm aiming for above a 600 for my school)
9/5 Kaplan 560 Q39 V28 - 4IR
9/8 GMATPrep 1 510 Q35 V25 - 2IR
9/9 MGMAT 610 Q43 V31 -No IR
9/10 Veritas 630 Q40 V36 -4IR
9/11 GMATPrep 2 500 Q36 V23 - 2IR

From what I've gathered through various sources on the internet, namely test-taker comments, the Kaplan CAT is considerably more difficult than the the actual exam, and one can generally expect a higher score on the actual exam. However, on the next day I scored an abysmal 510 on the GMATPrep, which by all accounts is THE most accurate estimator of your score. I figured I would do two more practice exams and save the second GMATPrep CAT for last. Next up was MGMAT, I knew that the quant. section would be more challenging compared to the actual exam through test-taker comments but to my surprise I scored a 610 with Q43 and V36. The results of MGMAT gave me a huge confidence boost going into the Veritas CAT the following day, which I ended up scoring a 630 with Q40 V36, again ecstatic and feeling confident for my final GMATPrep CAT. Once again, I was surprised by my final score but not in a good way this time. I some-how managed to score lower than my first attempt at the GMAT and completely bombed the only section I feel most comfortable with.

Does anyone have any idea as to why my GMATPrep score is significantly lower than other CATs that are supposedly "harder"? With the exception of MGMAT, I did the IR's and essays for all of the practice exams and took the exam under testing conditions. I am debating if I should take another CAT to see if it was a fluke or not.

Thanks for reading and I'd really appreciate your input or advice.

[email protected] wrote:Hi dwat0147,

Since your GMAT is on 9/13, you should NOT take another practice CAT. There won't be any benefit and if you take another CAT, then you'll run the risk of "burn out", which you don't want right before you're about to take your Official GMAT. I suggest that you do some light review and try to relax.

Taking so many practice CATs on back-to-back days was not a great use of those CATs. There's no way to truly measure your actual ability from this data, so there's no way to assess what will likely happen on Test Day. During your review, you should look for tactics and methods that helped you to get questions correct, then plan to use those approaches again on the Official GMAT.

You should plan to report back here with your scores. There's a big potential "swing" in your performance and I'd like to know how everything turns out.

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

Thanks for your input Rich. I'll report back tomorrow.