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First Manhattan GMAT: 490

by dumluck » Sun Apr 10, 2011 3:08 am
Hi All,
Advice needed: I have been studying for the last 3 months. Ran through the Kaplan Math Workbook and 5 of the Mandatten GMAT guides (everything except half of work translations, reading comprehension and crticial reasoning). I'm poor across the board being honest but need to be scoring in the 600-700 range. In the in-action problems and GMAT questions I'm coming out with 60 - 70% correct in most areas.

However, today I took my first full length GMAT practice CAT with Manhattan GMAT and came out with a 490. Quant 30 (wtf!) and Verbal 28. I'm unsure how to proceed. On the quant I could easily recognise the area that was being tested but I was unconfident in the question and about 50% of the quention types I had not seen previously; even doing all the above. The verbal I did OK as I havn't been concentrating in the area. My GMAT is MAY25th do I a; continue to close out the Manhatten books? or b: Concentrate purely on questions? I'm planning on doing a CAT every week in addition to study to my test.

Also, I finished quant with 15mins to spare and Verbal with 20mins.


Thanks in Advance,
D
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by fitzgerald23 » Sun Apr 10, 2011 4:44 am
I think you have plenty of time to prepare before your actual test day. Dont worry about that test score that you got on the first try. Its a new test and as you said you hadnt seen many of the question types, which is pretty common I would think on a first attempt. The most important thing that I take away from reading your post is that you finished quant with 15 minutes to spare. In my experience with Manhattan it is very hard to finish quant on time due to the length and difficulty level of what they present. Seeing that you finished so fast tells me that you made a number of errors that you would have found by taking more time, and I have a feeling on the DS problems that would have helped alot as those are very tricky on first attempt.

Id recommend continuing with Manhattan and supplementing that with questions. Did you already purchase the official GMAT guide with all the sample questions in it? The one drawback to Manhattan is that their questions they provide do not really prepare you for the questions you will encounter. They rely on you applying what they teach to the OG problems and they will list exactly what questions to do in each chapter. If you have not done that already that will prepare you for all the question types and help you decide your way to approach each question. So Id recommend going through the guide along with Manhattan, slow down to avoid possible careless errors, and use these forums to ask questions of people who can help.

Best of luck.
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by vineeshp » Sun Apr 10, 2011 5:37 am
First of all , wrong forum to post buddy.
Second of all, I too agree with fitzgerald23.
Third of all, you need to practice timing. No point getting a 490 and saving 35 minutes.

May 25 is almost 45 days from here. You got time!

And hey don't dwell too much on practice CAT scores. GMAT Preps are the closest indications but even they can go +-50. (My last GMAT Prep was 740 and my test score was 700).
Vineesh,
Just telling you what I know and think. I am not the expert. :)
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by dumluck » Sun Apr 10, 2011 7:26 am
Hi,
Thanks for the advice. Primarly; what would be the appropriate forum for this post; apologies about that? Secondly, As part of the Manhatten GMAT I have been doing OG 12th questions as I go through each topic and I still didn't recognise the take on quite a few of the questions. I understood them conceptually but wouldn't have come across a strategy for them or encountered them previously.

I downloaded the excel exports of my test results in quant and verbal. It shows me the areas where I need to improve but didn't offer explanations for the questions I got wrong. Is that correct, or have I missed a critical component of the spreadsheet?

Thanks Again
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by fitzgerald23 » Sun Apr 10, 2011 1:42 pm
dumluck wrote:Hi,
Thanks for the advice. Primarly; what would be the appropriate forum for this post; apologies about that? Secondly, As part of the Manhatten GMAT I have been doing OG 12th questions as I go through each topic and I still didn't recognise the take on quite a few of the questions. I understood them conceptually but wouldn't have come across a strategy for them or encountered them previously.

I downloaded the excel exports of my test results in quant and verbal. It shows me the areas where I need to improve but didn't offer explanations for the questions I got wrong. Is that correct, or have I missed a critical component of the spreadsheet?

Thanks Again
The spreadsheets wont give you any explanations. What you have to do is click on the view section in the review options and that will take you back to the questions with their explanations for each answer. That is the part you need to look at.

Since you are going over the OG I have one other question. Have you studied the Manhattan examples and tried to do their chapter end questions? Im asking that because you said you did not recognize a number of problems you encountered. In my experience with Manhattan their books prepare you for almost every scenario they throw at you on the test unless you are only using the OG questions, which are different than than some of the more difficult wording styles Manhattan uses. I feel its one of those areas where you have to do both to succeed.

If you have then I would just go back and restudy each chapter. You had so much time on that test that you were probably seeing something, saying to yourself "what in the world is this", and quickly moving on when some added time may have jogged your memory. When you dig into it further my guess is you will start to recognize almost all question types and a general way to solve them.
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by dumluck » Mon Apr 11, 2011 4:32 am
Thanks for the response.

I am doing the GMAT question AND the in-action problems. One unique point is my flash cards are made up more of in-action difficult questions than GMAT problems and that could account for me not noticing some of the questions. I will review the score via the view as suggested.

Thanks for that,
D
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