How is my progress?

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How is my progress?

by jpwv » Mon Mar 01, 2010 3:42 am
I am taking the gmat on March 22. I have been studying for about a month or so since I took my baseline test. I scored a 520 on my baseline. My goal is to score a 620. Since I have been studying Im getting 74% of the verbal correct and 55% of the quant correct.

Can someone tell me approximately what % I should be getting right to score >600? How does my improvement sound at this point? I originally felt a big improvement but now Im not really feeling so good about it.
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by Brian@VeritasPrep » Mon Mar 01, 2010 4:10 pm
Good question - I certainly admire your dedication to your studies...to have done enough questions to have calculated those percentages is impressive!

To answer your question, a lot depends on the sets of questions that you're answering. If they're "difficult" questions, your verbal percentage is terrific, and your quant score is on track. If they're "easy" questions, things may look a little bleaker.

More important than just your percentage, with three weeks still to go before your exam, is what you're learning from the 26% of verbal questions and 45% of math questions that you're missing. Are you finding any patterns in the mistakes that you're making? Have you found any particular concept areas or question types that you know need improvement?

Without context, those percentages don't mean as much as they could (I'd venture that, especially on the verbal side, though, it's a good sign overall), but you can certainly use the results to help you determine specific areas of improvement. If you need to gain 100 points from your previous score, simply finding and identifying 3-4 major areas of emphasis can get you close, if not all the way there. I'd advise that you use the qualitative results of your study sets, more so than the quantitative results, to determine how you spend your time these next three weeks, and in doing so you can set yourself up for success with the only numbers that matter on test day.
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by jpwv » Mon Mar 01, 2010 7:30 pm
Thank you for your thorough response! I have answered 215 quant and 130 verbal. I am identifying some areas and hope to really drill down on them in the next couple weeks. I am meeting with my gmat class instructor a couple times a week starting tomorrow to review the items I have missed.

Thanks again!