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Need advice on when to take the Real GMAT exam

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Need advice on when to take the Real GMAT exam

by Brielle147 » Wed Sep 25, 2013 12:37 pm
I would like to take the GMAT soon but my scores are all over the place. My goal is at least a 680

My practice scores since 5/29/2013 in order have been
Veritas 590 V35, Q31
600 V35, Q33
620 V35, Q36
620 V31, Q40
650 V41, Q37
670 V39, Q42 8/24/2013
640 V32, Q44
GMATPrep 660 V 36, Q44 9/11/2013
Veritas 630 V37, Q36
590 V24, Q42 (sick)
Man Gmat 640 V36, Q42
GPrep 1 630 V35, Q42 today

My job is going to start getting busy soon and my scores keep fluctuating not sure what to do. I can't seem to get my highest verbal score and highest quant score to line up at the same time. I want to take the gmat soon but I haven't consistently been reaching my goal score. Should I just take the GMAT and hope that I do better on the real exam or should I wait until I consistently am scoring at or above my target score? Also, any advice on fluctuating scores? Any advice would be greatly appreciated! Thanks!
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by [email protected] » Wed Sep 25, 2013 4:05 pm
Hi Brielle147,

Many of your practice CAT scores are "within range" of a 680, so you could very easily score that on Test Day (in the near future). The fluctuations could be based on a number of factors. I would guess that the biggest factor is the number of silly/little mistakes that you made on each CAT. Go back and review each of these exams in its entirety and make a list of everything that you got wrong BUT should/could have gotten correct. Those are your missing points. If you can make the necessary adjustments/improvements on your own, then your score will go up. If you can't, then you'll need to some more practice time and maybe some new practice resources.

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by Gowri@CrackVerbal » Wed Sep 25, 2013 9:21 pm
Brielle147 wrote:I would like to take the GMAT soon but my scores are all over the place. My goal is at least a 680

My practice scores since 5/29/2013 in order have been
Veritas 590 V35, Q31
600 V35, Q33
620 V35, Q36
620 V31, Q40
650 V41, Q37
670 V39, Q42 8/24/2013
640 V32, Q44
GMATPrep 660 V 36, Q44 9/11/2013
Veritas 630 V37, Q36
590 V24, Q42 (sick)
Man Gmat 640 V36, Q42
GPrep 1 630 V35, Q42 today

My job is going to start getting busy soon and my scores keep fluctuating not sure what to do. I can't seem to get my highest verbal score and highest quant score to line up at the same time. I want to take the gmat soon but I haven't consistently been reaching my goal score. Should I just take the GMAT and hope that I do better on the real exam or should I wait until I consistently am scoring at or above my target score? Also, any advice on fluctuating scores? Any advice would be greatly appreciated! Thanks!
Yes - reviewing the questions you got wrong on each of these tests is the best way to identify the gaps in your preparation. Your Verbal scores seem to be around the 35 score mark, which is around 75 percentage. But your Quant scores are in the early 40s, which is a much less impressive percentage of 50. So, your first step must be to gauge which of these is your strength - Quant or Verbal?
We hear a lot of advice about working on your weaknesses - but playing to your strengths is an excellent strategy! So, once you discover the section that is your forte, try to maximize your score there by identifying and bridging all gaps there. This will give you maximum returns.
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by Gowri@CrackVerbal » Wed Sep 25, 2013 9:22 pm
Brielle147 wrote:I would like to take the GMAT soon but my scores are all over the place. My goal is at least a 680

My practice scores since 5/29/2013 in order have been
Veritas 590 V35, Q31
600 V35, Q33
620 V35, Q36
620 V31, Q40
650 V41, Q37
670 V39, Q42 8/24/2013
640 V32, Q44
GMATPrep 660 V 36, Q44 9/11/2013
Veritas 630 V37, Q36
590 V24, Q42 (sick)
Man Gmat 640 V36, Q42
GPrep 1 630 V35, Q42 today

My job is going to start getting busy soon and my scores keep fluctuating not sure what to do. I can't seem to get my highest verbal score and highest quant score to line up at the same time. I want to take the gmat soon but I haven't consistently been reaching my goal score. Should I just take the GMAT and hope that I do better on the real exam or should I wait until I consistently am scoring at or above my target score? Also, any advice on fluctuating scores? Any advice would be greatly appreciated! Thanks!
Yes - reviewing the questions you got wrong on each of these tests is the best way to identify the gaps in your preparation. Your Verbal scores seem to be around the 35 score mark, which is around 75 percentage. But your Quant scores are in the early 40s, which is a much less impressive percentage of 50. So, your first step must be to gauge which of these is your strength - Quant or Verbal?
We hear a lot of advice about working on your weaknesses - but playing to your strengths is an excellent strategy! So, once you discover the section that is your forte, try to maximize your score there by identifying and bridging all gaps there. This will give you maximum returns.
Gowri N Kishore
Verbal Specialist & Mentor
CrackVerbal

If you find my posts useful, please hit the 'Thank' button. :)

Get a FREE Profile Evaluation from CrackVerbal experts!
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by Brent@GMATPrepNow » Thu Sep 26, 2013 7:14 am
Brielle147 wrote:Should I just take the GMAT and hope that I do better on the real exam or should I wait until I consistently am scoring at or above my target score?
To date, you have not reached your target score.

On test day, most students are unable to beat their best practice test score. For this reason, I typically suggest that students achieve their target score on at least 2 practices tests before they take the official test.

Having said that, some student thrive in formal testing environments and perform much better than their practice test scores. If you feel that you're one of these unique individuals, then you might consider taking the test sooner than later. Otherwise, keep working.

Cheers,
Brent
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by rakeshd347 » Fri Sep 27, 2013 5:44 pm
Brielle147 wrote:I would like to take the GMAT soon but my scores are all over the place. My goal is at least a 680

My practice scores since 5/29/2013 in order have been
Veritas 590 V35, Q31
600 V35, Q33
620 V35, Q36
620 V31, Q40
650 V41, Q37
670 V39, Q42 8/24/2013
640 V32, Q44
GMATPrep 660 V 36, Q44 9/11/2013
Veritas 630 V37, Q36
590 V24, Q42 (sick)
Man Gmat 640 V36, Q42
GPrep 1 630 V35, Q42 today

My job is going to start getting busy soon and my scores keep fluctuating not sure what to do. I can't seem to get my highest verbal score and highest quant score to line up at the same time. I want to take the gmat soon but I haven't consistently been reaching my goal score. Should I just take the GMAT and hope that I do better on the real exam or should I wait until I consistently am scoring at or above my target score? Also, any advice on fluctuating scores? Any advice would be greatly appreciated! Thanks!
Hi Mate,

As some of the experts have already mentioned here. But being as a student, I would put my thoughts on this.
I got 700 710 710 on veritas prep and 710 740 on Kaplan and 700 on gmatprep.....but my real test score was 690. It's not a bad score but its not the score I wanted because I was expecting more than 700 as I had already scored more than 710 4 times.
You should consider one more thing. All the tests you have taken....Did you take the IR and essay full 30-30 minutes each and took 8 minutes break each.....Now it might sound bit awkward but these things matter a lot...I have given gmat before and I came from 530 to 690....But this is what I learned from my experience if you have not taken the IR and Essay even that will take your score down by 10-20 points at least....but if you have even taken then IR or essay in my experience original gmat score is always almost 10-20 points less.....You might pull it if you are a good fighter but I have hardly seen any such stories on forums that a student score more on real than on practise test.
Having said that, I don't want to discourage you but want to give you heads up because lot of students keep their expectation too high that they crash when see low score and it happened with me at first time.

Thanks,
Rakesh
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by buoyant » Sun Sep 29, 2013 8:19 pm
Hi Rakesh,
Great improvement in your score!
I am still stuck at 580 in mocks:-(

Can you please share how did you improve in verbal section?
Most of the time, I debate between two answer choices.
I m also not able to detect the patterns. Is there a regular pattern in RC and CR ans choices?
Performance in SC is also not 100%..Sometimes it is 75% and sometimes 90%

no idea what is wrong with my preparation.
Last edited by buoyant on Tue Jan 20, 2015 1:17 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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by rakeshd347 » Mon Sep 30, 2013 5:01 pm
buoyant wrote:Hi Rakesh,
Great improvement in your score!
I am still stuck at 580 in mocks:-(

Can you please share how did you improve in verbal section?
Most of the time, I swing between two answer choices(CR & RC) and choose the wrong one.
I m also not able to detect the patterns. Is there a regular pattern in RC and CR ans choices?
Performance in SC is also not 100%..Sometimes it is 75% and sometimes 90%

no idea what is lacking in my preparation
Hi Mate,

I am not expert myself but I can share with you what I know. All I know I started with 530 as my first score after month of preparation. My issue was same CR and RC both.
First of all for RC there is no short cut. You have to get used to read the tough and dense passages. What I did and lot of experts suggest here. read a passage and pause at the end of the passage and think about it what author is saying and what he might say in the next passage. Now in the starting it will be time consuming but trust me you will see the result in 2 weeks. You should be 3-4 passages everyday 5 days a week and for 2 weeks and see what improvement you have gain. You will surely see improvement. I can't tell you how hard I tried but was never able to get RC and CR right but these techniques worked and they have worked for lot of my friends too.

For CR I would say you start with easy arguments. Now in the starting don't worry about what argument is asking( strengthen or weaken or evaluate). Get used to of getting the conclusion. Now read the question stem first and then argument. But when you are done with the argument ask yourself what is the conclusion. what is author trying to say. For example if he has concluded that today will rain they ask yourself WHY?. what evidence he has given. If you know the conclusion of the passage you have won the battle. So for the next 1 week If I were you I wouldn't worry about tough arguments but just find the conclusion and the evidence once you get used to of doing this. Your accuracy will boost. It won't take months to see the improvement. Its just a matter of 2-3 weeks and you will know yourself that you have improved.

Let me know if it works.
Thanks
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by buoyant » Tue Oct 01, 2013 9:09 am
rakeshd347 wrote:

Thank You so much, Rakesh!
I will try to follow the strategies you have mentioned above.

Had one more question about pattern recognition.
Is there a specific pattern among the answer choices of CR & RC question types respectively?

Have you figured those out?
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by rakeshd347 » Wed Oct 02, 2013 2:41 am
buoyant wrote:
rakeshd347 wrote:

Thank You so much, Rakesh!
I will try to follow the strategies you have mentioned above.

Had one more question about pattern recognition.
Is there a specific pattern among the answer choices of CR & RC question types respectively?

Have you figured those out?
There are patterns in RC more than CR. Having said that, in CR too there are pattern but I have seen if you do the CR and think like a real world person you will succeed more as it won't limit your thinking power. But if you think like formulas and methods then GMAC can always go one step ahead and throw something new. But more practise you do the better you become. You need to know each question why it is right and each wrong answer why it is wrong. Analyse each question it might take time but analysing 20 question is better than doing 100 with analysing.
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