adi2 wrote:Dude congrats on this wonder full result.......
i hada few question up my mind...
1. I scored a 620 in my GMAT prep 1..... Qt:44 & Verbal:31..... its been a week since then.....so by when should i take my second test as my exam date is nearing i.e. 27th Jan.....
Sorry for answering late. I know your test day is coming up fast so hopefully this will still be of some help.
You have 7 days left til test date. When you should take it depends on your reason to take the second test. Is it to determine whether you are prepared for the test? I mean, do you have a target score in mind that you would like to reach. For instance, if your target score is 700 but you score a 650 on your second test, you should consider rescheduling the test. I know you lose the $250 (this happened to me), but it you think you will need that score to get into the school you want to, it's something you have to do. So that being said, if your goal for the second test is to determine whether you are prepared to take the real thing, then I would recommend taking it about 3-4 days ahead of the actual test date. This will accomplish two things. First, you'll get a realistic idea of what you can expect to score on test day. Second, it will still give you a day or two to focus on some areas of weakness so that you might boost your score by 10 points (maybe more?) before the actual test.
If you absolutely can't reschedule the test for some reason, and this is your only shot at it (for now at least), then I would recommend taking the practice test about 6 or 7 days before the real thing. Yah, I know that means now. Hopefully the first stuff I said applies to you and not this. I'm suggesting this because you don't want to score low right before the test and then realize you have no time to boost your score. I think it would be bad psychological preparation. If you are locked into the test date, and you take the practice test 6 or 7 days early, you still have a chance to seriously boost your score if there are areas of weakness that can be addressed right away. So if you take the test now and get a 650, there's still some hope for you to get a 700 on the real thing if you do everything right for the next 5 or 6 days. That means knowing exactly what your weak areas are, getting your timing down pat (timing issues can mess up your score more than anything else), and building the right frame of mind for success.
The advice I laid out above is assuming you have several hours a day to study from now until the test. If you are working, try to squeeze in 3-4 hours a day if possible. If you're not working, do 6 hours a day if you can maintain it. But don't study that much on the day before the test, and whatever you do DO NOT take the practice test on the day before the test.
adi2 wrote:
2. And how can i improve more on both the sections more......i still have 10 days to go....
Well now of course you have under 7 days thanks to my late response. Figure out what section is your weakest. If your verbal OK but your quant needs help, dedicate a bit more of your remaining study days to quant (maybe a 60-40 split?). Same goes if your quant is stronger.
Good things to focus on for picking up points in the home stretch is sentence correction. For me at least, critical reasoning and reading comprehension performance was not helped that much with practicing -- they were things I was used to doing at school. That being said, reviewing argument construction (premises, conclusions, assumptions) will help you on CR. If you have access to the CR bible, definitely have a quick read through in your final days of study. I only really used it in my final week and I think it might have bumped my CR score a bit. Practice prephrasing (predicting what the right anwer will be), which will help you be much more efficient at tackling CR questions. Pay very close attention to what is being asked. Personalize (imagine someone is trying to convince you of something), which will help you see the question from a unique perspective (this can help a lot).
For reading comp, practice a couple of passages a day for the remaining days, don't overload your brain with reading. Just focus on doing them efficiently (no more than 3-4 minutes to read passage, 1-1.5 min to answer each question) and ACCURATELY. Pay close attention to the answer choices. Once you narrow down the choices to 2, pay very close attention to each and determine whether there playing the seashell game on you (trying to tempt you to pick a wrong answer by subtle changes in wording/meaning).
For quant, I wish I could give you good advice but there's really no way to do so without knowing how comfortable you are with this section. Practice as many OG questions as you can and time yourself. Keep an error log. I know it's a bit late if you haven't started one, but it can still help quite a bit in the final days. Definitely time yourself. No need to make it complicated. If a question takes you longer than two minutes, mark it for review. If you get it wrong, mark it for review. If you guessed but got it right, mark it for review! Do 10 questions at a time (at least). Review, review, review. If you made conceptual errors, use your study material to figure out why you couldn't get it right. Don't just rely on OG answer solutions. By googling part of the question you will find better solutions on this forum and others (gmatclub, testmagic). These solutions can be very helpful. Spend half your study time reviewing. In the final few days, redo your marked question -- all of them! If your able to get many right the second time, this will build your confidence and reinforce the fact that you're making last-minute progress. If you can't get them wrong again, mark them again and review them right away!!! Sometimes it takes a couple of times going over something to make it sink in.
I should mention that when you review, try to come up with the solution yourself without going straight to the solutions. Give yourself 5 minutes and see if you can get it right, but always compare your solution to the official solution. This is good because for one you're priming the neural pathways that you'll have to use when you're taking the actual test. It's also good because if you are able to solve it but then realize that there was a more efficient way to do it, you'll be better equipped to remember the more efficient way next time (at least this is my experience).
In your final days also definitely review some guessing strategies. Unless your quant score is very high, you WILL HAVE TO GUESS on some questions. There is no other way. If you have got to the 1.5 minute mark and still have no clue how to solve the question, you're likely going to have to make an educated guess because even if you are able to come up with the right approach, you'll have wasted too much time on the question. I even had to guess on two questions in a row near the end and I still ended up with a decent 46 (I said decent, not great!!!).
Spend some time looking over the beatthegmat flashcards which can give you some usefull tips. Check out the flashcards at
https://www.manhattangmat.com.
Don't stress out too much in your final days. Just try to use your time productively and efficiently. I think that it's possible to go from 620 on GMAT prep 1 to 700 (or more?) on the real thing if you play your cards right. I've read debriefs by people who have done this very thing. I suspect it is either because they were taking the practice tests lackadaisically, or because they used their final days to do some very efficient prep. That's what it's all about, and that's why so many people back the error logs so strongly. That's why athletes keep logs, because it's the most efficient way to improve performance. I know it's a cliche, but the saying is true. Practice doesn't make perfect; perfect practice makes perfect. Try to practice perfectly in your remaining days and your effort will pay off.
I'd also look at some of the stuff written by Stacey Koprince on this site. She's a GMAT maven and I highly respect what she has to say about the test. Her pacing strategy post (sorry too lazy to go hunt for the link) really helped me work out some last minute kinks with my quant timing. If timing is an issue, I definitely recommend following her milestones and use these to keep track of your progress in the test. It will enable you to break free from being a slave to the clock. Here they are in case you don't find the article:
Quantitative
Time Left : Question Near
75 : 1
60 : 7-8
45 : 15-16
30 : 23-24
15 : 30-31
Verbal
Time Left : Question Near
75 : 1
60 : 8-10
45 : 16-18
30 : 24-26
15 : 32-34
