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Last minute advice & GMAT Prep score prediction accuracy

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Last minute advice & GMAT Prep score prediction accuracy

by saintforlife » Mon Nov 05, 2012 12:37 am
I got a 710 on my GMAT Prep #1 on Oct 30th - 49Q, 37V
I got a 720 on my GMAT Prep #2 on Nov 5th - 49Q, 40V

My target score is 720 and my date of GMAT is Nov 9th, Friday at 2:00 pm. Do scores typically tend to go down in the actual GMAT? I want to at least maintain this level if not improve on my score. I certainly don't want it to go down.

I have completed about 50% of the questions in OG13, Quant Review and Verbal Review. My plan is to again review those questions I got wrong in these official guides and the two GMAT Prep exams. Then try to do as many of the remaining questions I can in the official guides in the days leading up to the exam. Is this a good strategy?

What can I do in the next 5 days to maximize the score and get the best score I can? I have taken off work from both Thursday and Friday. I can study for about 4-5 hours every night after work on Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday. I have identified certain weak areas - Combinatorics, Probability and certain number property questions which involve inequalities that I never get right. So I have decided to just guess on those questions to bank some time and I did on both my GMAT Prep exams (did that sentence violate parallelism, it sounds funny :)).

All tips and suggestions welcome!

Thanks in advance.
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by ivyctor2010 » Mon Nov 05, 2012 4:22 am
I think you are on right track and have identified your weaknesses. But since you are doing very well in quant, I suggest giving some amount of thought and practice to your weak areas in verbal. But otherwise just relax, have proper sleep and food, these things become important near the exam date. You will do well. Best of luck.
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by saintforlife » Mon Nov 05, 2012 6:00 pm
Anybody else have any other tips/suggestions?
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by Brent@GMATPrepNow » Tue Nov 06, 2012 7:37 am
saintforlife wrote:I got a 710 on my GMAT Prep #1 on Oct 30th - 49Q, 37V
I got a 720 on my GMAT Prep #2 on Nov 5th - 49Q, 40V

My target score is 720 and my date of GMAT is Nov 9th, Friday at 2:00 pm. Do scores typically tend to go down in the actual GMAT? I want to at least maintain this level if not improve on my score. I certainly don't want it to go down.

Things are looking good for you.

The answer to your question partially depends on what sort of test-taker you are. Some people rise to the challenge of the testing environment and others crumble. How are you under pressure?

As part of your preparation, I think it's a good idea to work on the mental/confidence aspect of the test. I'm fond of positive visualization, but everyone needs to find the strategy that works best for them.

At the same time, keep working on any weaknesses you have identified. You're on the right track.

Cheers,
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by David@VeritasPrep » Thu Nov 08, 2012 7:19 am
Scores can fluctuate by a few percentile just based on which questions are experimental and some aspects of luck. Even the officials at GMAC agree with this. So your natural range would likely be 700 to 730, IF you uphold your end of the bargain.

When scores do go down on test day (and I mean down more than 10 or 20 points) it is for a reason. It means that you did not uphold your end of the bargain. The test is very good at accounting for false positives (those times when you guess correctly or just get lucky). The computer does this by requiring you to prove yourself at a given level by getting multiple questions right and not just one or two.

You have to take care of the false negatives (those questions that you should get right except that you make a silly mistake). That is your end of the bargain. You promise not to go in there and fall for a bunch of tricks, answer the wrong questions, and make wild assumptions.

Put very simply, if you get the questions right that you are capable of getting right then your score will fall within the your natural range. As I said above that seems to be around 700 - 730. If you have a great day that could even go to 740. BUT if you have a bunch of false negatives, a bunch of silly mistakes that is when the score drops right off. That is when you could have a score that is 50 or 100 points below what you recent practice test score.

So that is your job. Get the questions right that you can. The test takes care of everything else.

What you want to do in the hours remaining is to do a little walk through - like pro athletes or Olympians do the day before their event. You should just take a couple of problems of each of the 5 types (CR SC RC, PS and DS) and do a slow-motion walk through. "This is what I do first each time I see a Critical Reasoning Problem" "then I do this" and so on. Make sure that you know your procedures.

Pay special attention to the ways that you catch and prevent those "silly errors" that I talked about. I call these procedures that prevent you from making mistakes "handrails." Here is an article that I wrote about Handrails and in particular the ones that I use on Data Sufficiency. https://www.beatthegmat.com/mba/2012/10/ ... -handrails

Now the only other thing that is likely to really sink your score other than making silly errors, is to really lose focus and confidence on test day. Here are two articles that I wrote to help you keep focused on test day and to help you get it back if you lose focus.

https://www.beatthegmat.com/mba/2012/10/ ... n-the-gmat

https://www.beatthegmat.com/mba/2012/06/ ... n-the-gmat

Let me know if you have any questions about these thoughts.

Best of luck tomorrow and remember, you have do not have to have a great day to get that 720, just your normal day will get you in your range!
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