@visa1416 , no u wont have to give any explanation to adcoms for extending the date ..
Stacey ,my Gmat is scheduled on 22 oct .. i am getting a score of 600-630 on Mgmat's .. need to improve on Verbal part by almost 8-10 points .. doing fine in quant .. there's no weakness in a particular section sometimes doing badly on cr's sometimes rc's .. cant figure out how to get a consistent score
my target score in 670+ .. is that achievable now with few days left ?
thnx..
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guvernment
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Stacey Koprince
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Hi, guys
1) No one will know if you reschedule your exam; the only thing the schools will see is if you show up to take an exam but either don't finish it or cancel it at the end (then they'll see that you showed up but cancelled the score).
2) It will be extremely challenging to go from 520 to 700 in a few weeks. That typically takes several months (and even then there are no guarantees - it's hard to get a 700 no matter where you're starting). Anyone in this situation should most likely reschedule the test.
3) It may be possible to go from 630 to 670 in a few weeks. Remember that all of these tests have standard deviations. The SD on our test is about 50 points and the SD on the official test is about 30 points, so it's fairly wide (most people are surprised by how large the SD is - people tend to think that if it's scored in 10-point increments, then it's actually accurate to within 10 points). At this point, you should assume you'll go for it, but take a last practice test about a week before and make your decision then. (If you cancel at least a week in advance, you get to apply most of the money to your next test date.)
4) In order to improve, it's very important to understand your weaknesses. guvernment, you said that you're struggling to figure out where you're doing badly. Look at the difficulty levels of the questions you're talking about - maybe the issue is just that you're struggling with the harder questions. Alternatively, maybe there are certain sub-types of questions that are giving you trouble so, when you get more of those, you do worse on CR or RC as a whole. Eg, maybe you're struggling with draw a conclusion or explain a situation. Or maybe you're struggling with specific detail questions on science passages. Or whatever. Dig in a little deeper and see if you can find any patterns there.
Also check out your timing and performance as you progress through the test. Are you using a little too much time in the earlier part and then having to pick up speed in the later part? And is that hurting your performance during the second half or the last third of the questions? In that case, if you happen to get more CRs there, you'd think you're doing worse on CR, but it's really just because you're pressed for time and possibly anxious because you know you're pressed for time. That will hurt your performance. Or it could be a stamina thing - you may be running out of energy towards the end of the section - that would again show up as inconsistent "weaknesses" across different question types.
5) visa, yes, analyzing the problems and your thought process is key to improvement. Look around the forums here for discussions about how to analyze various types of problems on the test.
1) No one will know if you reschedule your exam; the only thing the schools will see is if you show up to take an exam but either don't finish it or cancel it at the end (then they'll see that you showed up but cancelled the score).
2) It will be extremely challenging to go from 520 to 700 in a few weeks. That typically takes several months (and even then there are no guarantees - it's hard to get a 700 no matter where you're starting). Anyone in this situation should most likely reschedule the test.
3) It may be possible to go from 630 to 670 in a few weeks. Remember that all of these tests have standard deviations. The SD on our test is about 50 points and the SD on the official test is about 30 points, so it's fairly wide (most people are surprised by how large the SD is - people tend to think that if it's scored in 10-point increments, then it's actually accurate to within 10 points). At this point, you should assume you'll go for it, but take a last practice test about a week before and make your decision then. (If you cancel at least a week in advance, you get to apply most of the money to your next test date.)
4) In order to improve, it's very important to understand your weaknesses. guvernment, you said that you're struggling to figure out where you're doing badly. Look at the difficulty levels of the questions you're talking about - maybe the issue is just that you're struggling with the harder questions. Alternatively, maybe there are certain sub-types of questions that are giving you trouble so, when you get more of those, you do worse on CR or RC as a whole. Eg, maybe you're struggling with draw a conclusion or explain a situation. Or maybe you're struggling with specific detail questions on science passages. Or whatever. Dig in a little deeper and see if you can find any patterns there.
Also check out your timing and performance as you progress through the test. Are you using a little too much time in the earlier part and then having to pick up speed in the later part? And is that hurting your performance during the second half or the last third of the questions? In that case, if you happen to get more CRs there, you'd think you're doing worse on CR, but it's really just because you're pressed for time and possibly anxious because you know you're pressed for time. That will hurt your performance. Or it could be a stamina thing - you may be running out of energy towards the end of the section - that would again show up as inconsistent "weaknesses" across different question types.
5) visa, yes, analyzing the problems and your thought process is key to improvement. Look around the forums here for discussions about how to analyze various types of problems on the test.
Please note: I do not use the Private Messaging system! I will not see any PMs that you send to me!!
Stacey Koprince
GMAT Instructor
Director of Online Community
Manhattan GMAT
Contributor to Beat The GMAT!
Learn more about me
Stacey Koprince
GMAT Instructor
Director of Online Community
Manhattan GMAT
Contributor to Beat The GMAT!
Learn more about me
My first full GMAT test was the Kaplan Diagnostic that I gave around a month and a half ago when I was just about to begin my GMAT preparations. At that point I scored 550 on the test. Quite contrary to what I had expected I did well on Verbal(I had never done any critical reasoning or sentence correction before that). Anyways right away I decided to take a GMATPrep test and I scored 580 on it. I had read online that GmatPrep is somewhat easy and so I was expecting more than 600 or somesuch. Anyways I had just begun my preparations so I was not that worried.
About 3 weeks later after doing a lot of math mostly I decided to take Gmat Prep again and this time around I scored 650 on it. I scored well in Quant but my verbal was not good at all. A day later I took a paper based official test and scored 680, again doing well on quant and not verbal.
Then just last week after reviewing some verbal material and doing few practice questions off OG I decided to take the 1st Kaplan CAT out of the 5 I bought online. I did the test and I was dejected to see only 580 as my score. I scored poorly on both Quant and verbal (Q:40, V: 27). I had 12 silly mistakes in Quant and these were like proper silly mistakes (like forgot to convert mintues to hours at the end, or found x but had to find y). In Verbal I just was going through motions because I could not concentrate at all. Anyways after a thorough review of my answers I decided to take Kaplan CAT 2. The toughness level was pretty similar. But this time around I scored 700 on the test. (Q:54, V: 30). The 3 questions that were wrong on the quant section were all silly mistakes again (conversion mistakes mostly, not sure why I'm unable to get rid of those mistakes.). Verbal was again the same going through motions and just clicking through.
Anyways going forward I'm going to give the rest of the Kaplan CATs. I have also bought the MGMAT CATs and lets see how I do on those. And during the last week I will give the GmatPrep test 2 and PowerPrep tests.
About 3 weeks later after doing a lot of math mostly I decided to take Gmat Prep again and this time around I scored 650 on it. I scored well in Quant but my verbal was not good at all. A day later I took a paper based official test and scored 680, again doing well on quant and not verbal.
Then just last week after reviewing some verbal material and doing few practice questions off OG I decided to take the 1st Kaplan CAT out of the 5 I bought online. I did the test and I was dejected to see only 580 as my score. I scored poorly on both Quant and verbal (Q:40, V: 27). I had 12 silly mistakes in Quant and these were like proper silly mistakes (like forgot to convert mintues to hours at the end, or found x but had to find y). In Verbal I just was going through motions because I could not concentrate at all. Anyways after a thorough review of my answers I decided to take Kaplan CAT 2. The toughness level was pretty similar. But this time around I scored 700 on the test. (Q:54, V: 30). The 3 questions that were wrong on the quant section were all silly mistakes again (conversion mistakes mostly, not sure why I'm unable to get rid of those mistakes.). Verbal was again the same going through motions and just clicking through.
Anyways going forward I'm going to give the rest of the Kaplan CATs. I have also bought the MGMAT CATs and lets see how I do on those. And during the last week I will give the GmatPrep test 2 and PowerPrep tests.
Can someone please tell me what is the range of difference in scores one can expect between the MGMAT tests and the real test? :roll:
Test day is getting closer and I'm still fluctuating between 590 and 640 (That's about 50-ish points from wht I need).
Test day is getting closer and I'm still fluctuating between 590 and 640 (That's about 50-ish points from wht I need).
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Stacey Koprince
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Our standard deviation is about 50 points. The SD on the official test is about 30 points.
Please note: I do not use the Private Messaging system! I will not see any PMs that you send to me!!
Stacey Koprince
GMAT Instructor
Director of Online Community
Manhattan GMAT
Contributor to Beat The GMAT!
Learn more about me
Stacey Koprince
GMAT Instructor
Director of Online Community
Manhattan GMAT
Contributor to Beat The GMAT!
Learn more about me
Oops! I'm sorry about that. I didn't know that this is what you were referring to when you mentioned it earlier. My bad.Stacey Koprince wrote:Our standard deviation is about 50 points. The SD on the official test is about 30 points.
Thank you , Stacey.
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praneeth
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Accuracy of the algorithm for scoring aside, which tests provide the best practice (besides GMATPREP)?
You could have a completely different test and still get to a low SD to actual score by tweaking the scoring algorithm, I feel.
You could have a completely different test and still get to a low SD to actual score by tweaking the scoring algorithm, I feel.
In the last few days, I did MGMAT, Kaplan and GMATPrep exams (1 of each). My scores were 640, 630 and 700, respectively.
-Kaplan RC passages seemed harder (or at least longer) than others.
-MGMAT seemed to give a high number of difficult questions (as someone already stated). I was surprised to get 640 with getting quite a number of questions wrong.
-GMATPrep math questions seemed harder those of the other two.
Overall, MGMAT provided the best analysis and user experience.
I was aiming for 550 and my exam is in 8 days.
-Kaplan RC passages seemed harder (or at least longer) than others.
-MGMAT seemed to give a high number of difficult questions (as someone already stated). I was surprised to get 640 with getting quite a number of questions wrong.
-GMATPrep math questions seemed harder those of the other two.
Overall, MGMAT provided the best analysis and user experience.
I was aiming for 550 and my exam is in 8 days.
ive noticed nobody has really stated anything about the 800score CAT flash based tests
¡¡¡¡ɥƃnouǝ uoos ɥɔʇıq ʎɯ ǝq ןןıʍ ʇɐɯƃ ǝɥʇ
I did the following CATs:
- Kaplan CATs (both Internet & CD-ROM from Kaplan Premiere Program 2009)
- Manhattan Review
- Manhattan GMAT
- officials (GMATPrep & POWERPREP)
I voted for Manhattan GMAT. BUT: I would never recommend to do just CATs from one vendor. I liked doing some CATs from multiple vendors as all had different challenges.
Short overview:
- Kaplan: CD-ROM rating not working, Internet rating seems fine. Question pools seem to overlap which is the most important disadvantage from my pov, explanations and difficulties are fine, though overall difficulty seems to be a bit more challenging than other CATs
- Manhattan Review: Quant part seems way too easy, always finished ahead of time. This happened to me just for MR tests and one of the PowerPrep tests. Verbal seems fine, overall the scores also seemed fine, no overlaps in question pool
- Manhattan GMAT: killer CATs, very sophisticated analysis, exceptionally good explanations (especially for verbal), no overlaps in question pools
- Official: from my point of view the difficulty of the CATs varied strongly between the 4 official tests (2 GmatPrep, 2 PowerPrep).
- Kaplan CATs (both Internet & CD-ROM from Kaplan Premiere Program 2009)
- Manhattan Review
- Manhattan GMAT
- officials (GMATPrep & POWERPREP)
I voted for Manhattan GMAT. BUT: I would never recommend to do just CATs from one vendor. I liked doing some CATs from multiple vendors as all had different challenges.
Short overview:
- Kaplan: CD-ROM rating not working, Internet rating seems fine. Question pools seem to overlap which is the most important disadvantage from my pov, explanations and difficulties are fine, though overall difficulty seems to be a bit more challenging than other CATs
- Manhattan Review: Quant part seems way too easy, always finished ahead of time. This happened to me just for MR tests and one of the PowerPrep tests. Verbal seems fine, overall the scores also seemed fine, no overlaps in question pool
- Manhattan GMAT: killer CATs, very sophisticated analysis, exceptionally good explanations (especially for verbal), no overlaps in question pools
- Official: from my point of view the difficulty of the CATs varied strongly between the 4 official tests (2 GmatPrep, 2 PowerPrep).
guys,
two questions..
1. gave my first gmat prep test yesterday. scored a 690, BUT (yeah always a big but
).. i had 18 wrong in quant (incl missing the last Q). still scored a 47 on it. i started of very well and my whole paper seemed one tough Q after the other. still, 47, after 18 wrongs!! possible?
speed was a major issue, had like 12 min for last 10 questions.
2. to resched or no to resched: have my exam sched for monday, the 29th. i started preparations only 3 weeks ago. and i feel i can boost my score by 20/30 points in a week or so. my worry is, everyone would feel the same. so should i take the risk of rescheduling (not only does it mean another week off from work, but also the whole fees again). cant make up my mind.
two questions..
1. gave my first gmat prep test yesterday. scored a 690, BUT (yeah always a big but
).. i had 18 wrong in quant (incl missing the last Q). still scored a 47 on it. i started of very well and my whole paper seemed one tough Q after the other. still, 47, after 18 wrongs!! possible? speed was a major issue, had like 12 min for last 10 questions.
2. to resched or no to resched: have my exam sched for monday, the 29th. i started preparations only 3 weeks ago. and i feel i can boost my score by 20/30 points in a week or so. my worry is, everyone would feel the same. so should i take the risk of rescheduling (not only does it mean another week off from work, but also the whole fees again). cant make up my mind.
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DavoodBeater
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1- it is because of CAT; that means almost everyone can answer 50-60% of the questions, but will get his own grade! weird, isn't it?
2- It depend on your target score, but it is possible to handle that improvement in a week.
2- It depend on your target score, but it is possible to handle that improvement in a week.
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Donkey_man_88
- Junior | Next Rank: 30 Posts
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- Joined: Sun Aug 10, 2008 8:19 pm
Of all the people who have taken the official test, which CAT is most representative. I've taken Kaplan and Gmat Prep. I scored really well on both, but only a 600 on the real thing. Are the Manhattan Gmat tests worth taking? I took a few about a year and a half ago, but they contained a lot of errors (in the questions and in the algorithm). Any help is greatly appreciated.
-Donkey
-Donkey
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Urbnengineer
- Newbie | Next Rank: 10 Posts
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- Joined: Fri Jan 02, 2009 6:47 pm
Hi,
So I am starting to plan out my GMAT prep and I took a free Kaplan "in person" timed paper test for free and got a 550 Q36/V39 back in October. I haven't been studying in earnest until recently when I had a few days off around the holidays. I did about 150PS, 30DS, 30RC, 15CR, 30SC, questions (all from the OG11) mostly because the test I took in October said that PS was my weaker area, along with RC/SC and I'd never done anything like the DS sections, so I wanted to get some experience. I took these untimed, as I'd finished very very early in the practice tests in October (like 15 minutes!!) After this, I thought I could stand to take another practice test and I'd bought the Kaplan GMAT Premier 2009 book, so I did one of the CD-ROM CATs. I got another 550!! (Q30/V35).
First...How can I get Q36/Q39 and then Q30/V35 and they're both 550?
Second, how long should I give myself to prep if my goal is a 700? I'm planning to do a night part-time program which will start in the fall of '09, so I'd need my score finalized by the end of June in order to apply. I was thinking March?
Third, should I be worried about the lack of improvement and the relatively low starting score(s) (compared to my goal)? I saw here that several people said that the Kaplan scores were lower than other preps, so maybe I need a different test to try?
Any advice you experienced test takers have would be very helpful. I can see already that my old high school test anxiety issues are going to play havoc with this test as well.
Thanks in advance for any advice!
So I am starting to plan out my GMAT prep and I took a free Kaplan "in person" timed paper test for free and got a 550 Q36/V39 back in October. I haven't been studying in earnest until recently when I had a few days off around the holidays. I did about 150PS, 30DS, 30RC, 15CR, 30SC, questions (all from the OG11) mostly because the test I took in October said that PS was my weaker area, along with RC/SC and I'd never done anything like the DS sections, so I wanted to get some experience. I took these untimed, as I'd finished very very early in the practice tests in October (like 15 minutes!!) After this, I thought I could stand to take another practice test and I'd bought the Kaplan GMAT Premier 2009 book, so I did one of the CD-ROM CATs. I got another 550!! (Q30/V35).
First...How can I get Q36/Q39 and then Q30/V35 and they're both 550?
Second, how long should I give myself to prep if my goal is a 700? I'm planning to do a night part-time program which will start in the fall of '09, so I'd need my score finalized by the end of June in order to apply. I was thinking March?
Third, should I be worried about the lack of improvement and the relatively low starting score(s) (compared to my goal)? I saw here that several people said that the Kaplan scores were lower than other preps, so maybe I need a different test to try?
Any advice you experienced test takers have would be very helpful. I can see already that my old high school test anxiety issues are going to play havoc with this test as well.
Thanks in advance for any advice!
