Long time lurker, but first time poster here with a high stakes mission. My GMAT is next Saturday and I need a week long strategy to improve my score in a final burst.
I have already applied and interviewed with my school of choice, because they let me go through the process without a score. I have been in contact with their admissions staff and they seem postured to accept me (they really like my work experience). The missing piece of my application is my GMAT score. Based on my understanding of their standards, I have to improve my score with a range of 50-70 points and hit between a 650-680 in order to "seal the deal".
GMAT Prep 1: 550 (September 2012, first time taking practice exam, a rude awakening)
GMAT Prep 1: 540 ( November 22nd I was devastated that my score worsened after I watched all of the Grockit video courses and practiced the strategies, but this is apparently normal...followed up by doing a crapload of Grockit, GMAT Prep question pack 1 and reading explanations of incorrect answers)
GMAT Prep 2: 610 (11-26-2012, I released a grand sigh of relief that I made progress, but still not good enough)
I am a native English speaker and have an engineering background ...however surprisingly I am getting reamed hard on the Quant! The timing is absolutely murdering me in quant. I'm pretty sure I could effectively and accurately solve all of the problems with careful analysis of the material, however, in my latest practice exam, I found myself not being able to understand what the question was asking quickly enough and guessing a lot after my attempts to structure and solve the calcs did not produce anything fruitful, resulting in 20 incorrect out of 37....OH EM GEE. The the accurate disecting of the problem within the ~2 min window that really screws with me.
In Verbal, I fare much better although I know to focus on CR assumption questions and the last nuanced bits of SC for my final push of prep.
Rescheduling is not an option. If you were in my position, what would you do to squeeze out that last bit of score gain? That is...in addition to improving timing, learning additional core information and deep introspective praying for the hopes of only getting experimental questions wrong
At this point quant is definitley holding my score back a lot, although I am confident in my ability to get proficient in a final grand burst of effort. I improved the first 60 points in a week, and now the challenge is to improve the next 60!
Thoughts on strategy?
I have already applied and interviewed with my school of choice, because they let me go through the process without a score. I have been in contact with their admissions staff and they seem postured to accept me (they really like my work experience). The missing piece of my application is my GMAT score. Based on my understanding of their standards, I have to improve my score with a range of 50-70 points and hit between a 650-680 in order to "seal the deal".
GMAT Prep 1: 550 (September 2012, first time taking practice exam, a rude awakening)
GMAT Prep 1: 540 ( November 22nd I was devastated that my score worsened after I watched all of the Grockit video courses and practiced the strategies, but this is apparently normal...followed up by doing a crapload of Grockit, GMAT Prep question pack 1 and reading explanations of incorrect answers)
GMAT Prep 2: 610 (11-26-2012, I released a grand sigh of relief that I made progress, but still not good enough)
I am a native English speaker and have an engineering background ...however surprisingly I am getting reamed hard on the Quant! The timing is absolutely murdering me in quant. I'm pretty sure I could effectively and accurately solve all of the problems with careful analysis of the material, however, in my latest practice exam, I found myself not being able to understand what the question was asking quickly enough and guessing a lot after my attempts to structure and solve the calcs did not produce anything fruitful, resulting in 20 incorrect out of 37....OH EM GEE. The the accurate disecting of the problem within the ~2 min window that really screws with me.
In Verbal, I fare much better although I know to focus on CR assumption questions and the last nuanced bits of SC for my final push of prep.
Rescheduling is not an option. If you were in my position, what would you do to squeeze out that last bit of score gain? That is...in addition to improving timing, learning additional core information and deep introspective praying for the hopes of only getting experimental questions wrong
At this point quant is definitley holding my score back a lot, although I am confident in my ability to get proficient in a final grand burst of effort. I improved the first 60 points in a week, and now the challenge is to improve the next 60!
Thoughts on strategy?
