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Last three weeks of Prep..

by JesseV92 » Mon Dec 29, 2014 6:22 am
Hi all,

First of all thanks for the great website. The way it looks it must have helped a lot of people in realizing their ambitions.

I will be taking the GMAT on the 24th of January. Over the past months I have been studying the GMAT on and off. About three weeks ago I started studying intensively. My goal is to get a score of 720+ on the actual GMAT. My last results are:

- 670 (Q44, V37, MGMAT)
- 620 (Q42, V33, MGMAT)
- 720 (Q46, V42, MGMAT)
- 660 (Q41, V39, MGMAT)
- 690 (Q44, V39, MGMAT)
- 720 (Q47, V42, MGMAT)
- 690 (Q44, V41, GMATPrep)
- 720 (Q47, V42, GMATPrep)

I have to make a sidenote here that I had made the Manhattan exams before. The GMATPrep exams on the other hand were both my first time. The thing is, I am not sure how to continue from here. For the next three and a half weeks I have at least four hours a days available for studying so that isn't the problem. I was planning to take two full GMATs per week (maybe three or four in the last week) in the coming weeks. I know that in the quantitative section Algebra is by far my weakest point so I'll put some extra focus on the related topics.

Can anyone give me some recommendations on how to continue from here? I have all the books from Manhattan GMAT for the quantitative section which I have studied quite extensively. I also own the official GMAT review guide which I have hardly used at all so far. In addition, I bought the additional GMATPrep exam and question pack (which I have both not used so far). To be honest, I am a little bit lost on how to continue from here. Any tips would be very welcome.
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by [email protected] » Mon Dec 29, 2014 7:03 am
Hi JesseV92,

Your practice CAT scores show a certain amount of consistency, but there are some noteworthy issues:

1) Since you've taken most of those CATs before, the scores on those "retakes" are all likely "inflated" (since you've seen some of the questions before). Thankfully, your most recent CATs are "new", so you might truly be scoring at that level.

2) I used the word "might" in the prior sentence because if you're not taking the ENTIRE CAT each time (including the Essay and IR sections), then you're taking a shorter exam that requires less endurance --> this often leads to "inflated" scores.

3) In these last few weeks, I suggest that you take 1 FULL-length CAT/week (including the Essay and IR sections) and spend the bulk of your time on practice problems and review. If you're looking for new CATs, then you could use the Kaplan or Veritas CATs.

4) Assuming that you are truly scoring at this high level, you should take a really good look at the little mistakes that you might be making on your CATs. At this level, the GMAT becomes really "sensitive" to little mistakes, so to score at an even higher level, you have to keep those mistakes from happening.

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by JesseV92 » Mon Dec 29, 2014 7:14 am
Hi Rich,

Thanks for the quick reply! During my last two attemps (the GMATPrep ones) I took the full exam (including essay and IR). At the MGMAT exams I tended to skip the IR and essay parts. These parts are relatively easy for me given my (educational) background. In general, stamina is not really the issue for me I think. When I set my mind to it I can deal with the length fairly well. In the past I have also sat assessment centres for banking internships which were even more grueling in terms of time.

One thing I do notice is that now sometimes the time limit on the quantitative section is rather tight for me. Perhaps this is because I can now answer more different types of questions compared with about a month ago. When I started my prep the time limit on this section was never much of an issue for me. The time constraint on the verbal part has never really been an issue for me. I tend to finish the exam with at least fifteen minutes left.

I have two additional questions. First of all, would it make sense for me to start practicing the verbal section now? Until now I have only focussed on the quantitative part (outside of taking full CAT's). In other words, my current verbal skills are without any serious additional preparation. I am not sure how much room for improvement I have in this section and if I could achieve these improvements in three weeks. Another thing I was wondering about: can you give me some advice on the usage of the official review guide? So far I have studied only from the Manhattan books and full CAT's. With the official guide I am not really sure where to start.

Kind regards,
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by confused13 » Mon Dec 29, 2014 7:23 am
You have some time left so if you KNOW where your verbal weaknesses are, then why not work on them?
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by [email protected] » Tue Dec 30, 2014 9:21 am
Hi JesseV92,

If your natural Verbal ability is really this strong, then you probably don't need much Verbal practice in these last few weeks, although you should probably work through a random sampling of prompts in the OG just to confirm your abilities.

Your Quant Scaled Scores have fluctuated enough that I think some extra work in this area would make sense. You're likely approaching that section of the GMAT as if it were a "math test", when it really isn't that. Most of the questions that you'll see on Test Day can be approached in a variety of ways, so you might benefit from focusing on other strategic approaches during your studies. Some extra emphasis on DS questions is also probably in order.

As far as CATs are concerned, I think that you're planning to take too many. 1 CAT/week is usually all that is needed - the bulk of your time should be spent on honing your skills (on practice problems, review, etc.) - the CATs are how you "measure" your skills/improvement.

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by MartyMurray » Tue Dec 30, 2014 3:18 pm
If you have not worked on verbal much, then probably you should work on it. You might be amazed at how a little better understanding of some rules and how to approach questions could drive your section score up a few points, or more. The truth is that with sufficient work, you could drive you verbal score up to 51. Is that worth it? Probably not at this point. I just want to make it clear that you could.

For one thing, do the modifier exercises here. It is likely that once you have done them you will be much clearer on modifiers and on sentence structure in general.

https://owlet.letu.edu/grammarlinks/modi ... ier2d.html

People often give less attention to whatever section they feel comfortable with and thus miss out on some points they could have relatively easily gotten. Also, getting just a little tighter with some of what goes on in GMAT verbal could help insure a good verbal score.

So doing some work on verbal, maybe even just a few days worth, probably makes sense. If you do most of that within the next week or so, then it will be well integrated by the time you take the test. So new knowledge won't trip up your timing or something, and you will have a chance to practice applying any new things you learn when they show up in questions on practice CATs.

As far as quant goes, if you have not done this already, you could go back over the CATs you have already taken and see if you can answer the questions you did not get the first time around. Further, related to what Rich said about mistakes, check to see what patterns there are to any errors you have made. By reducing errors, you can get more points without doing more questions.

Going through the Official Guide will give you more problems on which to work, but they will be a sampling, rather than concentrated in algebra, where you say you need work. So you might benefit from using, in addition to the OG, a resource with a concentration of algebra problems. Maybe you can choose problems by category from the GMAC question packs. I am not all that familiar with them. If the question packs, or the MGMAT books, do not provide this, one resource that does is the BellCurves question bank. They have hundreds of cool algebra problems, and thousands of quant problems overall, and all of them are categorized by type. (Just a caveat, I don't recommend using their verbal questions at this time. The quality is not the best.)

Regarding timing, obviously, getting better at solving problems will solve some of your quant timing problem. You can also observe how you go about answering questions and see if you are doing things that suck up time unnecessarily. For instance, some people use up time rereading questions almost pointlessly, rather than efficiently noting what information is given and going directly to figuring out answers. Another thing that saves time is, of all things, getting good at looking at the clock and quickly assessing how you stand. Of course there are countless blogs posts and other discussions on how to optimize timing. So maybe you could check some of them out and find some things you can easily learn to apply.
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by JesseV92 » Wed Dec 31, 2014 4:51 am
Thanks for the replies. There is some really useful stuff in there. I adjusted my schedule to make one full GMAT a week instead of two. I just finished the third one from GMAT Prep (I bought the additional exam pack so it was completely new to me) and scored 750 (Q49, V44). Yesterday I went through the chapter on Sentence Correction (where I make most of my mistakes) of the Official Guide and today I answered two answers correctly I would otherwise have had to guess. It might be a bit soon to draw conclusions but a bit of prep on verbal can indeed help significantly already I suppose. Thanks a lot of that tip!

I'll also look more specifically into the Algebra questions. Early next week I wanted to start on the question packs of GMAT Prep. There is also still a lot to gain for me from the MGMAT Algebra book so I'll place my focus there for the time being.

Other than this I'll keep track of my study progress from here and the eventual result. Then in the future I might be of some assistance to others in a situation similar to mine. Anyway, thanks again!
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by [email protected] » Wed Dec 31, 2014 10:27 am
Hi JesseV92,

This latest score is a good sign - it shows that you're really performing at a consistently high level. One of the sticking points now is to stay detail-oriented and organized. GMAT questions are worded to give you very specific information, so you have to continue to note the details and respond accordingly. In that same way, it's important to take the remaining CATs in as realistic of a fashion as possible. While it might be a little inconvenient to do this, doing so will help you to be all the more prepared for the rigors of the Official GMAT.

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by manyaabroadtpr » Thu Jan 08, 2015 9:40 pm
Hi JesseV92,

You seem well sorted to take on your GMAT.We hope that you will score there equally well.Wish you the best.

www.manyagroup.com
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by manyaabroadtpr » Thu Jan 08, 2015 9:41 pm
Hi JesseV92,

You seem well sorted to take on your GMAT.We hope that you will score there equally well.Wish you the best.

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by JesseV92 » Thu Jan 08, 2015 11:47 pm
Hey all,

So yesterday I made another full gmat from GMAT Prep and scored 750 again. Obviously, I was quite happy about that. However, I am now running into a problem. I have made all the GMAT practice exams from Manhattan GMAT twice, and all the ones from GMAT Prep once. However, I would like to make one or two more full exams before my real exam in two weeks. I have not gone through my mistakes on the four GMAT Prep exams, so would it still be representative if I did some of these four exams again? Or should I try exams from a different source, e.g. Veritas, on my last two test moments?

Kind regards,
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by [email protected] » Fri Jan 09, 2015 10:15 am
Hi JesseV92,

You're really hitting your stride score-wise. In these last couple of weeks, it's important to stay diligent, but not burn yourself out. Retaking a CAT that you've already taken is NOT realistic - seeing just a handful of repeat questions will completely throw "off" the experience and likely lead to an inflated overall score. If you're looking for new CATs, there are plenty to choose from.

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by David@VeritasPrep » Fri Jan 09, 2015 10:31 am
Try the Veritas Prep free exam.

If you like it there is a package of 6 more questions available for purchase.

These are the top of the line for non-GMATPrep exams. Fully adaptive based on 9.5 million (at this moment) responses from Veritas question bank.

https://www.veritasprep.com/gmat/free-gm ... tice-test/

enjoy!
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by Brent@GMATPrepNow » Fri Jan 09, 2015 10:31 am
JesseV92 wrote:Hey all,

So yesterday I made another full gmat from GMAT Prep and scored 750 again. Obviously, I was quite happy about that. However, I am now running into a problem. I have made all the GMAT practice exams from Manhattan GMAT twice, and all the ones from GMAT Prep once. However, I would like to make one or two more full exams before my real exam in two weeks. I have not gone through my mistakes on the four GMAT Prep exams, so would it still be representative if I did some of these four exams again? Or should I try exams from a different source, e.g. Veritas, on my last two test moments?

Kind regards,
Rich and I differ on this matter.

The GMAT is the best source of questions AND these practice tests use the official scoring algorithm. So, while there's the downside of some repeated questions, there's also the bonus of taking the most realistic practice test.

Remember that the GMAT is computer adaptive and questions are drawn from a large pool of questions. So, while you will see duplicate questions (about 6 or 7 per section), the majority of questions will be new to you. When/if you see a duplicate question, you can minimize score inflation by waiting 2 minutes before you enter your response (otherwise, you'll gain undeserved time that you wouldn't normally have had.)

If anyone is interested, I wrote an article for BTG on this topic: https://www.beatthegmat.com/mba/2010/03/ ... iple-times

Cheers,
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by MartyMurray » Fri Jan 09, 2015 12:16 pm
JesseV92 wrote:Hey all,

So yesterday I made another full gmat from GMAT Prep and scored 750 again. Obviously, I was quite happy about that. However, I am now running into a problem. I have made all the GMAT practice exams from Manhattan GMAT twice, and all the ones from GMAT Prep once. However, I would like to make one or two more full exams before my real exam in two weeks. I have not gone through my mistakes on the four GMAT Prep exams, so would it still be representative if I did some of these four exams again? Or should I try exams from a different source, e.g. Veritas, on my last two test moments?

Kind regards,
PowerPrep, by GMAC is another option. There are two official practice tests on there. There is some crossover with the OG, but probably that will not really wreck the experience. PowerPrep is available many places. One of them, where I am all but sure it is not somehow infected, is on the Resources page of Beat The GMAT.

Beyond that, the Veritas CATs are pretty smoking, not perfect, not exactly the same as the official GMAT, but very close and are good practice. So doing that Veritas free CAT is probably a good idea< and then you could decide if you want more. One weakness they have had, one which I am not sure if they have fixed yet, they told me they will, is they were a little light on geometry questions involving diagrams. So if that is still the case, you might want to stay fresh with that type in another way, such as doing a handful of questions from another source.

Also, Veritas has a nice page on their site with like 20 good IR questions. Beyond getting better at IR, you can, by doing those IR questions, even learn things applicable to the main quant section.

Meanwhile, if you do get new CATs, going over those wrong answers on the previous CATs could be a really good investment of time.
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