GMAT Strategy

Thanks, I will check it out

Just an update, still studying and just took another official practice test, haven't taken one in months and restarted studying about a month ago

9/24/18
Score 690
Quantitative:47 - 63% percentile
Verbal: 38 - 85% percentile

6/8/18
Score 630
Quantitative: 39 - ??% percentile
Verbal: 38 - 85% percentile

6/2/18:
Score 640
Quantitative:42 - 45% percentile
Verbal: 36 - 81% percentile

5/2/18:
Score 560
Quantitative: 33- 25% percentile
Verbal: 34- 71% percentile

Needless to say, I am thrilled with the results as I honestly was worried I was going to do worse after taking suck a long break. I am on Day 22 of the 60 day study guide.

Hi KDR83,

That's great news - especially considering the time off you took over the Summer. To clarify things a bit though, was this a CAT that you had taken before (or did you see any questions on it that you had previously answered?)?

GMAT assassins aren't born, they're made,
Rich[/quote]

It was a CAT from the official website, I have taken it before but for some reason the previous attempt does not showed up in my profile. There were zero repeat questions in quantitative, at least I did not remember any and had to solve each question, there was one repeat passage in the verbal but I missed 3 out of the 4 questions pertaining it. I believe I actually did better last time on the same passage, so I'm not concerned about an inflated score. I went back and checked all my questions and there were at least 3 quantitative problems I knew how to do, just made stupid mistakes.

Well big update today, unfortunately not as good of an outcome as I was hoping for...

On October 26th I took a full length practice test on Manhattan Prep:

Score 620
IR: 6.6
Quant: 39
Verbal: 35

I panicked here as this is the lowest score I have received in a while, basically since I began to study. I finished up studying and took the full length Exam #2 on the official GMAT website (1st Attempt) this past Friday Nov 2nd:

Score 680
IR: 5
Quant: 46
Verbal: 37

So I was feeling pretty good again, this weekend I only looked at a few sample essays for the Essay.

Well today, Nov 5th, I took the GMAT for the 1st time. I was not that familiar with the process but think the nerves got the best of me:

Score 640
IR: 8
Quant: 42
Verbal: 35

Funny thing is during my two best practice tests, which were both from the official GMAT website, I felt I was failing the math section and I got a 46 and a 47, this time was the first time I felt confident about the math and got a 42. I did rush the last two problems which were easy but did not have time to calculate them so perhaps that hurt my score significantly? Verbal, I just felt like I was not understanding the passages, normally on verbal I do pretty terribly at sentence correction but miss zero or one on all the other parts, this time I felt less confident on that section. I think I want to retake the test, I am going on vacation for Thanksgiving so may aim to retake it mid December. I want at least a 680+ and mostly it is simply for me wanting it, sucks it will cost me another $250 to try again.

I wonder how helpful it is if at all but although I only got a 640 on my GMAT, I did get a perfect score on both the IR section (8.0) and AWA (6.0). I do feel pretty proud of that achievement. And before anyone asks, the order I selected when taking the test was Quant, Verbal, IR, and AWA, so I did not waste too much "brain power" on those sections and as a result got a lower score on the "more important" sections.