GMAT Strategy

Hi everyone,

It's the first time that I actually post something on this forum and I'll start by thanking all the beatthegmat contributors for the countless posts on GMAT techniques etc. Now, a bit about myself: I'm a young graduate and I plan to apply for a masters in management for next year. I took a mock exam and scored 460 (Q26,V27), that was a 3-4 months ago. Today, after a decent amount of time preparing for it. I retook an official mock exam and got 640 (Q44,V35). An improvement, but that's not enough. When reviewing the questions I made some silly mistakes on the verbal whereas I got some good answers while guessing on the quant.Time was a bit of an issue on the Quant whereas is was ok on the verbal.

I'm sitting the gmat this Saturday and to be honest, I'm in doubt as to the best strategy for the last 3-4 days. I really want to get above 700 and since I'm also enrolled on a quite intensive language program, I might not have another opportunity to take the gmat (at least within the next 2 months).
What do you guys think I should do to maximize my chances of reaching the 700 threshold?

More info on my prep:
Used the gmat economist software and completed 80 percent of it. Went through the OG13, twice for the maths part. Didn't use anything else for the prep. As for the other mock exams I've taken:
- MGMAT CAT 660 Q41 V39 (a week ago)
- Mock exam GMAT the economist 600 Q41 V33 (2 weeks ago)
- Mock exam GMAT the economist 600 Q37 37 (3 weeks ago)

Thanks anyways!
Al.

First, congratulations on that improvement. That is a tremendous move from 460 to 640. I understand that you are seeking to improve further, but understand that you went from the 22nd percentile to above the 70th percentile. That is a pretty amazing jump. Now you are facing test day and you want to jump some more.

Based on your observations here are some notes. You said that on verbal you had a combination of 1) not running out of time and 2) some silly mistakes. I have written an article called Why was my Verbal score so low? In this article I specifically respond to a student who thought that the questions on the verbal seemed "easy" something that you did not state directly. But since you made some silly mistakes I think that this may be useful to you as well. https://www.beatthegmat.com/mba/2013/03/ ... ore-so-low

Also on the verbal side, remember that it is really a matter of focusing properly. Go back to your silly mistakes and look to see if you were perhaps focusing on the wrong part of the sentence for sentence correction, the wrong part of the argument for critical reasoning or the wrong part of the passage for reading comp.

You do not have a lot of time so your best hope for a large increase is to be able to get those questions right that you should have gotten right on the practice test.

Thanks, yeah, I think I can do better by focusing properly on the right parts, especially for SC. And I actually did not run out of time on verbal I finished 2 minutes in advance. So, it clearly highlights one area where I should pay more attention.

I can kinda picture myself as the student who asked you the question in the article.
Anyways, I have the skills, now it's just about having the right mindset, being more confident and hopefully everything's gonna be on the T-day. And of course, reviewing a bit before that =).

Alex