How do these practice test results reflect my level?

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I started to study for GMAT a week ago. In the first day, I did the GMATPrep and my score was 610 with 47Q and 23V.. Then after realizing I suck at SC, I studied this part of the test for 3 days from the OG12 and some materials from this forum. Then yesterday I took the practice test of MGMAT and my score was 680 with 49Q and 34V. And today I took Princeton Practice test and my score is 640 with 47Q and 31V.

Shortly,
610 with 47Q and 23V. (1 week ago, GMAT Prep)
680 with 49Q and 34V. (Yesterday, MGMAT)
640 with 47Q and 31V. (Today, Princeton)

First of all, are these results reliable? How are MGMAT and Princeton?

Second, how could I improve my verbal score, if I was able to score 40-41 from verbal, I think my total score would be over 700. I am also surprised that I could not score more than 50 in Quant, I thought I would because I have a degree in Teaching Math.

Thank you all. :)
Last edited by nathanalgren on Wed Jun 23, 2010 2:52 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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by arora007 » Wed Jun 23, 2010 12:31 pm
Hey Nathan, welcome to the community... you are doing pretty good...

Firstly, the MGMAT math is slightly tough... you could score a bit more in the real test, keep practicing the 700+ questions on MGMAT and you should be good...

Secondly, you need to improve a lot on your verbal. Have you gone thru OG-12 & OG-11 completely?
for SC especially you should look at the explanations given in OG. it really is amazing.
You should also go thru the Manhattan SC book, which is a must. This will clear your basics. Infact you should start OG SCs only after understaning the Manhattan SC book.

With a couple of months of practice, you should be doing good. keep visitng the forums for more practice questions and advice on book you should refer and strategy and stuff, keep reviewing yourself... you will surely cross 700. All d best!
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by nathanalgren » Wed Jun 23, 2010 1:02 pm
Hey arora007,

Thanks for your reply. I haven't gone through any books yet, I only have OG12 and I haven't finished half of it yet. I only finished the SC part of it, after seeing that it is my true weakness. I could not find the 700+ questions on the web site of Manhattan. Also it is hard to find Manhattan books in Turkey, do they sell PDFs of them? They would be great if they did.

The thing is my GPA is not high, that is why I need a really good score from GMAT, I am aiming 750, but I don't know if that is too high. I feel like if I was native, I could score 700+ with less effort.

I really like the forum by the way.

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by nathanalgren » Wed Jun 23, 2010 1:18 pm
Also I generally finish the Quant part in 40 minutes and Verbal part in 50 minutes. And when I looked at my test results in MGMAT, I noticed I did have mistakes in some questions that I answered in 20-30 seconds. I might need to take more time to think.

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by InkyBinky » Wed Jun 23, 2010 2:44 pm
A 49 in math seems pretty good to me. My understanding is that it puts you at the 88th percentile or so. Keep in mind that you're competing against others who may hold engineering, hard science or math degrees...Even some with advanced degrees in those subjects, so you can't necessarily assume that because you have a math degree, that you'll do better than all of them.

I'm in the opposite boat as you. I'm scoring fairly well on verbal and my math needs work. So I'm focusing almost entirely on that.

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by nathanalgren » Thu Jun 24, 2010 5:27 am
InkyBinky wrote:A 49 in math seems pretty good to me. My understanding is that it puts you at the 88th percentile or so. Keep in mind that you're competing against others who may hold engineering, hard science or math degrees...Even some with advanced degrees in those subjects, so you can't necessarily assume that because you have a math degree, that you'll do better than all of them.
That is quite right, I didn't think about this. I should stop being hard on myself then. :)

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by nathanalgren » Sun Jun 27, 2010 7:46 am
Okay after intensively studying SC, I took the free practice test of Kaplan and I scored 670.

Quant:
Data sufficiency 11 out of 14.
Problem solving 23 out of 23.
Overall 34 out of 37

Score:48 --- Percentage:98

Verbal:
RC 9 out of 14
CR 10 out of 11
SC 12 out of 16
Overall 31 out of 41

Score:39 --- Percentage: 89

Is Kaptest easier than the PowerPrep and MGMAT? Or am I actually making progress?

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by Stacey Koprince » Tue Jul 06, 2010 10:34 am
Received a PM asking me to respond. I'm sorry I'm just getting to your message now; I've been on vacation since 23 June.

Generally, GMATPrep is the most reliable practice test (because it is the real thing). MGMAT practice tests have a standard deviation of 50 points, so ours are pretty good too. (The real test is about 30 points.) I don't know the SD of Princeton Review tests.

There are bigger issues we need to discuss here, though.

First, are you taking these tests under full official conditions, including essays? If not, then your score is not as valid. How far off it might be depends upon how much you deviate from official testing conditions - for example, skipping the essays often results in an inflated score, especially on verbal.

Second, it's pretty much never a good idea to take tests more than once a week - and, most of the time, you should only be taking tests every 2 to 4 weeks. CAT exams are really good for (a) figuring out where you're scoring right now, (b) practicing stamina, and (c) analyzing your strengths and weaknesses. The actual act of just taking the exam is NOT so useful for improving. It's what you do with the test results / between tests that helps you to improve.

When you take a test or do a practice problem, you are primarily "doing" - that is, trying to use everything you have already learned to do well on that problem / test. You are not actually learning (much) while you're "doing." Learning comes via the analysis and review you do after you have finished a practice problem or test. Once you have taken a test, you're wasting time if you take another test before you analyze the first one, set up a study plan based upon your results, and then actually learn what you need to learn.

This article talks more about how to set up a study plan: https://www.beatthegmat.com/mba/2010/02/ ... study-plan

This article talks about how to evaluate an MGMAT test: https://www.beatthegmat.com/a/2009/09/23 ... tice-tests

And these two explain how to analyze practice problems and how to learn from your errors:
https://www.beatthegmat.com/a/2009/10/09 ... ce-problem
https://www.beatthegmat.com/mba/2010/04/ ... our-errors

Once you look through those articles, you'll see why it can take 2, 3, even 4 weeks to learn everything you want to learn before you take another test.

Re: your quant score, a math degree likely means you'll do well, but it doesn't mean you'll necessarily score in the 90+ percentile right from the beginning. This test requires you to know the math, yes, but it also requires you to know how to take this test - and after only a week of studying, you can't have mastered that yet. :)

You mention studying for SC using OG12 and "some materials from this forum." OG12 is a great source for practice, but it does not actually teach you how to get better at any part of the test. I'm not sure what materials you are using from the forum, but if you are going to score 40+ on verbal, then you need things that actually teach you HOW to do the problems and HOW to improve. The above article about developing a study plan talks a bit more about this issue.

So, start with the above, take a look through everything, then come back here and let us know what you discovered about your strengths and weaknesses and what you propose to do for the next several weeks or month for your study plan. Then we can start to talk about the details and make sure you're on the right track!
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