GMAT Strategy

You may want to push your test back, but not by too much. It's always a good idea to plan for the possibility of taking it twice, in case you don't get the score you want the first time (it's more money and time to invest, but it's worth it, right?). If your deadline is April 1, you should consider taking it the first time in late Feb, then again in late March. If you get the score you want the first time, you obviously won't have to take it again!

The first thing you should do (if you can... if you saved the questions you got wrong) is review that practice test in a lot of depth. Which areas need more work? Make a list of topics for which relatively low time investment will yield high returns. For example, if there are geometry or grammar rules that you forgot / didn't know, learning those will make a significant difference. If, however, there are general question types (such as reading comprehension or quant world problems) that give you trouble, those are harder to improve in a few weeks. Try to maximize the "improvability" of what you study.

If you finished with 30 min to spare out of 75, you're certainly moving way too quickly through the verbal section. You were probably jumping to conclusions, or missing key pieces of the questions.

The Critical Reasoning questions on the GMAT are pretty similar to LSAT questions, so make sure you're applying the same kind of reasoning there. Sentence Correction, however, is not at all like the LSAT, so this is an area that you probably want to study in depth. I'd recommend buying a SC guide, to make sure that you know your grammar rules and common patterns.

Good luck!

mgmcdowell86 wrote:Yes, 8 of my 14 incorrect in the verbal section were sentence correction questions. I have never looked at them before, and just assumed with a BA in English and experience teaching English that I would not have to worry about grammatically correct sentences. I will definitely study this section, as that could push my verbal score much higher.

Ahh -- the belief that real-world experience translates into GMAT SC success!! (Sarcasm intended.) But, what I'd guess is that you have a LOT of upside available on SC. Take a look at Stacey's article that gives you some basic primers on how to be thinking about optimizing your performance on sentence correction -- https://www.manhattangmat.com/blog/index ... n-problem/ -- and then let me know if you have additional thoughts/questions.

mgmcdowell86 wrote:As for pushing it back, is there a cost involved? I would be worried about taking it in March, because it takes 20 days to get the official results, and the deadline is April 1. If the program fills up, I will be another year behind my plan (and it has been too long already).

I'd call the school you are interested in and see if they truly need official by April 1st or if the 'unofficial' will get them what they need....

-Brian