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700 Goal on retake; 575 on first attempt

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700 Goal on retake; 575 on first attempt

by z281991c » Sun Jul 13, 2008 3:20 pm
Hello all,
This is my first post and I wish I had found this site earlier. I am deployed to Iraq at the moment but took the GMAT while I was home on mid tour leave. I studied the OG as much as I could. We work seven days a week at a minimum of 12 hours a day, usually more. I scored below average on the quantitative section and a little above average on the verbal section. I didn't do very well on the essays either. I do not have my exact scores as they were mailed to my home address after I flew back over here. Since I have been out of a class room environment for almost five years, my math skills are rusty. I thought I had a grasp on the concepts until I started missing questions on the actual test. The last math class I took was Calculus in 2003. All of the courses that I have been doing recently have been online.
I am trying to get into LSU's MBA/JD program starting in the fall of 09. Is is possible to go from a 575 to a 700? I know I can do better, but does that seem reasonable.
If anyone has any advise on what I can do to prepare myself for my next attempt, I would appreciate it. I will be in Iraq for another five months but my study time comes in 1-2 hour blocks. Our internet connections are pretty unreliable so I can not download large files or watch streaming video. Obviously I need to tweak my study plan.
Any suggestions?
Thanks
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Re: 700 Goal on retake; 575 on first attempt

by gabriel » Mon Jul 14, 2008 8:27 am
z281991c wrote:Hello all,
This is my first post and I wish I had found this site earlier. I am deployed to Iraq at the moment but took the GMAT while I was home on mid tour leave. I studied the OG as much as I could. We work seven days a week at a minimum of 12 hours a day, usually more. I scored below average on the quantitative section and a little above average on the verbal section. I didn't do very well on the essays either. I do not have my exact scores as they were mailed to my home address after I flew back over here. Since I have been out of a class room environment for almost five years, my math skills are rusty. I thought I had a grasp on the concepts until I started missing questions on the actual test. The last math class I took was Calculus in 2003. All of the courses that I have been doing recently have been online.
I am trying to get into LSU's MBA/JD program starting in the fall of 09. Is is possible to go from a 575 to a 700? I know I can do better, but does that seem reasonable.
If anyone has any advise on what I can do to prepare myself for my next attempt, I would appreciate it. I will be in Iraq for another five months but my study time comes in 1-2 hour blocks. Our internet connections are pretty unreliable so I can not download large files or watch streaming video. Obviously I need to tweak my study plan.
Any suggestions?
Thanks
Well, a hundred point jump is not something unheard of. So it is very reasonable for you to aim for a 700, especially when you know that the last score you got does not reflect your real abilities. But it is going to be difficult, I cannot imagine myself working under such pressure filled situation and then getting down to studying for GMAT but if you are determined to do it then I am sure you can get your dream score.

Now, which are the books you are currently referring to. The last time you studied did you just refer to OG. If yes, then that is certainly not enough, especially for someone who is not in touch with math.

Since you mentioned about being weak in some concepts in math, the best thing to do would be to first make sure that you learn the basic concepts tested on GMAT and then move forward to solving GMAT questions. How do you do it?, Most of GMAT math is taught to us when we were in our school, in India (that is were I am from) that would be in the 9th and 10th grade, I am not sure if it is the same for America but I dont think it would be much different. If you are able to access math books from those grades then it would be a great place to learn the basic concepts tested in GMAT. Considering the situation you work in I can imagine it being very difficult to get such material but it is still worth a try. If you are not able to get these math books then you can try and use books from Manhattan and Kaplan (the books I used) as they too have touched most math concepts tested on the GMAT. If you want to know more about Manhattan and Kaplan books that will best suit your needs then post on the respective Manhattan and Kaplan threads (you will find them on the forum index) and I am sure you will get that information.

Your last resort is the internet, now I know you mentioned about not having access to reliable internet but there are enough websites on the net that does not require a high bandwidth connection. Just do a google search for the topic areas you have difficulty in and you will find plenty of websites that give a good and basic explanation of most concepts tested on GMAT (If you want I can post links to some of these websites). You can also make a word file out of these explanations provided and take a print out of them and use them to study later.

The idea over here is to make sure you are comfortable with the concepts tested on GMAT math. Starting directly with the problems, like OG does, could create difficulty in understanding them. Believe me understanding most of these concepts does not take a lot of time and the time you spend on understanding them is well worth the effort.

Once you are done with the basic math you can start solving questions on OG and other prep books.

Please post if you want suggestions on any specific topics.

Regards
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by bilko » Mon Jul 14, 2008 4:57 pm
You can't score a 575 on the test...if your AWA was a 5.0, you report that separately. So you would have scored a 570 with a 5 AWA.
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Re: 700 Goal on retake; 575 on first attempt

by GetERDone » Mon Jul 14, 2008 9:42 pm
My recommendation is to order the Manhattan GMAT prep series (7 books), covering each of the key areas on the test. In addition, the Offical GMAT reveiw, quanative and verbal books. Have them shipped to you along with a bunch of note cards for making flash cards. Use the books when you have a block time to study and drill yourself on the material. Use the flash when you have a few minutes of down time. If getting a 700 is your goal you will need to be focus and determine. Use your military skill sets to build out a game plan. If you can get your chain of commands support (you will most likely need them for a reference.) Five months left on a deployment is plenty of time to prepare yourself. Good luck!
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by z281991c » Tue Jul 15, 2008 6:40 pm
Thanks for the recommendations guys. Now I have a starting point.

My score was a 570 and 5 AWA. I just added them together.
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by Senator 153 » Sun Jul 20, 2008 3:43 am
Thank you for your service to our country. I found Kaplan's online Quiz Bank especially helpful. It has 1,000 practice questions and it covers pretty much everything and it tracks how you're doing in each specific area. If you were worried about your connection, you could use it like 10 questions at a time; that's what I do. It provides explanations for each answer.

I've been thinking seriously about a joint MBA/JD lately too.
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by Stacey Koprince » Mon Jul 21, 2008 10:46 am
I admire your determination and ambition to study while you're deployed. Thank you for your service and please come home safely.

I'm guessing that it's not just that you don't have reliable high-speed access but that you don't have regular access at all? My nephew was a marine and I know he didn't get much online access in general, and what access he did get tended to be in the form of a few minutes at a time, not hours (though perhaps that was a function of where he was deployed or something like that). Also, I'm guessing you don't have your own dedicated laptop, but use one as a shared resource?

If all of that's true for you, too, you'll have to do most of your work out of books. That puts you at a bit of a disadvantage, since the test is given on a computer, but there are things you can do to overcome that.

I assume you'll have family members send books over to you in a care package. Make sure they include a stop watch that has "lap" capability (so that you can record the time spent for multple questions in a row without stopping). Also, have them include at least 5 notebooks or pads of paper - one for each question type. You'll want to keep your work as organized as possible.

When doing OG problems, do NOT write in the book. You won't be able to write on the questions for the real test, so don't get in the habit of doing it in practice. (Plus, if you want to do the questions a second time, you don't want to see your notes from the first time.)

Here's some good news: 5.0 is a great score for your essays. You don't need to do any better than that the next time you take it (in fact, I tell my students NOT to go for a 6.0, the highest score, because that takes brain power and energy that you would much rather spend on the multiple choice portion of the exam - which is what the schools really care about).

I don't know if this is remotely possible, but one of the things that would be nice is for you to take a practice test. That would mean setting aside close to 4 hours normally, but skip the essays and it will only require 2 hours and 40 minutes.

GMATPrep software is offered on a CD-ROM but the catch is that you can only sign up for that when you sign up to take the test. Have a family member contact GMAC and explain the situation. Ask if they can send a copy of the CD-ROM to your family even though you haven't signed up for the test yet. They can include the CD in your care package. (If you run into trouble with this, let me know and I will ask my own contact at GMAC what can be done.)

Finally, re: fundamentals (esp. math), yes, you'll need to review the actual concepts, and the OG books alone won't be enough for that. Textbooks are fine BUT they cover everything in a given topic, beyond just the things that are covered on the GMAT. If you use textbooks, make sure that you know what things are and aren't worth studying for the GMAT (you can ask us here if you're not sure - list the table of contents from the book you have and we'll tell you what's tested on the exam).

Good luck - let us know how things go!
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by jiujitsubri » Mon Jul 21, 2008 11:00 am
I thought you only needed to register to mba.com to take the gmatprep free exams, not actually register a date to sit for the exam.
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by Stacey Koprince » Mon Jul 21, 2008 11:05 am
That's to download them online, but the poster above can't do that. He woul dneed to have a CD-ROM version.

From mba.com:
"When you register for the GMAT® test, you may also choose to have a free CD-ROM version of the GMATPrep® software mailed to you. It takes two weeks for delivery within the United States and four weeks for delivery to other locations."
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by Xephyr » Mon Jul 21, 2008 12:55 pm
ZC and everyone else,

So I gave the test today and... let's just say the room for my improvement would be as big as Alaska right now and some.

So lil-jack-honor sat in a corner one fine June day and decided to attempt the GMAT.

I (ok, so I'm Jack :P) bought myself the following books:
1. Official Guide (11)
2. Barron's - How to prepare for the GMAT
3. The Princeton Review - Cracking the GMAT 2008
4. Kaplan GRE/GMAT Math and Verbal workbooks (borrowed).

I did all the problems available, those on the OG I actually did twice. Somehow, these books just lulled me into a false sense of security. I just did not get myself enough practice beyond these.

I did the GMATPreps from mba.com (scoring a 720 and 740 in each respectively). These scores just added to my complacency.

Today was D-Day. The very first Quant question (supposedly a medium difficulty question) had me stumped. Things did not improve going forward. I got as many wrong as I got right. The questions were a whole lot more difficult than the prep books would have had me believe.

VA was much better, thankfully. But it was only damage-control at that point of time. It was no longer about scoring more than 720 (my modest target) but about saving face.

I just wish I had taken a glance at forums like this one here. I wish I had planned my preparation better. I wish I had not gotten so over-confident.

So, 640 is what the scoreboard read after the carnage that was my GMAT test. (Q 39 - 55% , V 40 - 89%).

ZC, Hope you dont mind me piggy-backing on your thread. Your GMAT situation mirrors mine in many ways. I am very rusty with Math and I now have a mountain to climb in terms of getting my score to where I want it to be.


Folks... what do you make of my case?

Xep.
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by Stacey Koprince » Mon Jul 21, 2008 12:59 pm
I got as many wrong as I got right.
That's true for nearly everybody, at every scoring level. Unless you really do score 720+ on the real thing. :) The major determinant of your score is NOT your percentage correct - that's pretty much the same for everyone. The major determinant is the difficulty level of the questions you're answering.

You mentioned getting stuck on the first problem in quant. Did that keep happening through the section? Did you find yourself well behind on timing at some point? If so, when was that point? How did you handle it? On how many questions did you have to rush? Did you have to make random guesses at the end? Did you run out of time entirely and leave some blank?

I'm asking those questions because those are the kinds of things that cause scores to tank. Getting any one question wrong anywhere on the test will not kill your score. Getting a string of questions wrong anywhere on the test will damage your score. Getting a string of questions wrong at the end of the test will kill your score. Could this have happened to you?
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by Xephyr » Mon Jul 21, 2008 1:53 pm
Could this have happened to you?
Stacey, you are right on the money with the time-theory.

I took about 10 minutes to solve (read: random guess) the first quant question. Everyone I had talked to had advised me to make sure I get the first few right.

There were two more questions midway through the test (when i had 35 mins left for the remaining 20Qs) that 1 spent about 5 minutes each on.

I am sure I got the last few wrong. I only had about 10 minutes for the last 10 questions. I may, in all honesty, have gotten all 10 wrong. I was under the impression that the latter questions do not really matter much, it is the first half that really gets you to your actual level of competency.

So, and I'm going out on a very frail branch here, do you think i would be able to get closer to a 700 score (as reflected by my two prep scores of 710 & 720) if I can manage my time better?
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by Stacey Koprince » Mon Jul 21, 2008 4:36 pm
You may have a shot at 700 if you manage your time better. You will not have a shot at 700 if you do what you did last time around. It's a total myth that the earlier questions are worth more than the later questions. They all have the potential to affect you equally.

If you want to score a 700, you cannot do what you did last time - the only people who can do that and still get a 700+ are people like me, people who would normally score in the 99th percentile when we manage our time correctly. :)

Some stats you should know are below. I got these numbers directly from the guy who's in charge of making the algorithm for the official test - I talked to him myself.

If you run out of time before you're done with the questions, every question you didn't answer is a 3 percentile point deduction from whatever your scoring level was at the moment you ran out of time. Further, if any of those questions you didn't answer was supposed to be an experimental question, it will now count (you WILL get the 3 percentile point ding) if you don't answer it!

If you have a string of questions wrong in a row at the end, without any right answers to break up that string, the average penalty is about 2 to 2.5 percentile points per question. (This varies depending upon your scoring level, the specific questions given, and how many are experimental, so there isn't an exact number per question for this scenario.) So if you really did get all 10 wrong, that represents a HUGE drop in your score at the end.

Also, you realized something that I would've told you, but I'm very glad you told me first! Those questions on which you spent 5+ minutes... you probably got them wrong anyway. Best to think of it this way: every question is written such that someone who knows how to do it can do it in 2 minutes. If I can't do it in 2 minutes, then I don't really know how to do it. And if I don't really know how to do it, spending 4, or 5 (or 10!) minutes isn't going to improve my odds. Let it go. Fast. (That doesn't mean you shouldn't still spend your normal 2 minutes - go ahead and try it! But acknowledge when it just isn't working for you and make sure you let it go at or even a little before the 2 min mark.)

This means: learn how to make educated guesses. You will never get so good that you don't have to make guesses. Whatever you can do, the test can give you something harder. On some, you're going to have to make some kind of a guess and let go, so you might as well make that a smart guess. ("Educated guess" is just fancy test-prep-speak for "find some wrong answers and eliminate them" - even though you don't know the right way to do it, you often know some of the wrong ways!)
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by Ian Stewart » Mon Jul 21, 2008 5:52 pm
You'll definitely improve with better time management. The first few questions do not determine your score; as Stacey says, that's a myth.

That said, I'd clarify a couple of points:
Stacey Koprince wrote: If you have a string of questions wrong in a row at the end, without any right answers to break up that string, the average penalty is about 2 to 2.5 percentile points per question. (This varies depending upon your scoring level, the specific questions given, and how many are experimental, so there isn't an exact number per question for this scenario.) So if you really did get all 10 wrong, that represents a HUGE drop in your score at the end.
The drop is not linear. Guessing at one or two questions at the end of your test is likely not going to affect your score much at all. Guessing at ten questions at the end is going to kill your score. Do not think that each guess reduces your score by 2 or 2.5 percentile points; it depends how many guesses you need to make. If you have a well-above average score after 27 questions, ten random guesses at the end will lower your score by much more than 20 percentile points unless you get very lucky, while two random guesses will lower your score less than four percentile points. In any event, the best strategy is to try to finish, or almost finish, the test without needing to guess- do not spend so much time on one question that you do not have time to answer later questions. And no matter what, answer every question, even if you need to guess; the penalty is severe for not answering every question.
Stacey Koprince wrote: You will never get so good that you don't have to make guesses. Whatever you can do, the test can give you something harder.
We've disagreed on this in another thread- the test is only designed for a particular range of ability. If you are well above that range, the test will not give you questions that are too difficult for you. I do think some test-takers can be 'so good that you don't have to make guesses'. I expect that's probably true for most experts on this forum, and for some of the posters here as well, judging by the quality of some of the responses I've seen posted here.
For online GMAT math tutoring, or to buy my higher-level Quant books and problem sets, contact me at ianstewartgmat at gmail.com

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by Xephyr » Mon Jul 21, 2008 10:37 pm
Erudite stuff Stacey and Ian. :)

Thank you guys you have been most helpful.
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