GmatPrep- 500 to 650 in one week..please advice

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hetavdave: Senior | Next Rank: 100 Posts; Posts: 77; Joined: Sat Dec 27, 2008 10:58 pm; Thanked: 4 times

GmatPrep- 500 to 650 in one week..please advice

by hetavdave » Sat Jun 27, 2009 5:12 am

After 2 months of preparation, i gathered up my guts to take 1st GMATPREP test last week.

On seeing the final score of 500, i was actually depressed. Then somewhere on this blog i read Stacey Koprince's tips -

concentrate on quality rather then quantity
spend more time on reviewing your weakness
work on your weaknesses and sharpen your strengths.
time management

I that advice literally. earlier i use to do each and every problem out of OG. (I have already finished up with OG-10,OG-11,KAPLAN and Princeton).
So i started doing difficult questions, and spending more time on reviewing the answers even those right ones that i had got.

When i took my gmatprep today, i was really amazed to get a decent score of 650. i have still got a 1+month of preparation time with me and i am aiming for a higher score.

Can anyone please advice next course of action for me.

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Source: Beat The GMAT — GMAT Strategy | Sat Jun 27, 2009 5:12 am

DanaJ: Site Admin; Posts: 2567; Joined: Thu Jan 01, 2009 10:05 am; Thanked: 712 times; Followed by:550 members; GMAT Score:770

by DanaJ » Sun Jun 28, 2009 7:53 am

Well, you seem to be on the right track. A 150-point increase in two months is great, so give yourself a pat on the back first. Practice makes perfect, so keeping up this rhythm will probably earn you even higher scores. If you've finished the books you've mentioned, you could also try the OG verbal and quant supplements or the new OG 12. It's got about 300 new questions! IMHO, it's always best to practice using the original...

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VP_Jim: GMAT Instructor; Posts: 1223; Joined: Thu May 01, 2008 3:29 pm; Location: Los Angeles, CA; Thanked: 185 times; Followed by:15 members

by VP_Jim » Sun Jun 28, 2009 8:49 am

As DanaJ says, you've already achieved an amazing improvement. The first thing I'd do if I were you is take a few days off to rest. You still have a month, so you want to be fresh for your final push.

At this point, try to focus on a handful of areas where you're struggling. Do you always take too long on yes/no data sufficiency? Are you fine with sentence correction but you struggle with reading comp? Try to hone in on those weaknesses so that you can shore up any holes in your prep.

Also, try to seek out harder problems. If you're scoring in the upper 600s, most of the OG problems are now going to be too easy for you. Practice the end of each section in the OG. Analyze each question and its answer choices. The better you are at dissecting problems, the more you will begin to achieve an intuitive understanding of the test. You might struggle with the harder problems at first, but if you put in the time, you might see that 650 get even higher.

Jim S. | GMAT Instructor | Veritas Prep

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doclkk: Master | Next Rank: 500 Posts; Posts: 180; Joined: Tue Apr 07, 2009 3:46 pm; Thanked: 5 times; Followed by:2 members

by doclkk » Tue Jun 30, 2009 9:43 am

VP_Jim wrote:As DanaJ says, you've already achieved an amazing improvement. The first thing I'd do if I were you is take a few days off to rest. You still have a month, so you want to be fresh for your final push.

At this point, try to focus on a handful of areas where you're struggling. Do you always take too long on yes/no data sufficiency? Are you fine with sentence correction but you struggle with reading comp? Try to hone in on those weaknesses so that you can shore up any holes in your prep.

Also, try to seek out harder problems. If you're scoring in the upper 600s, most of the OG problems are now going to be too easy for you. Practice the end of each section in the OG. Analyze each question and its answer choices. The better you are at dissecting problems, the more you will begin to achieve an intuitive understanding of the test. You might struggle with the harder problems at first, but if you put in the time, you might see that 650 get even higher.

This is a great post. Thanks for this.

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LFalken: Senior | Next Rank: 100 Posts; Posts: 44; Joined: Wed May 13, 2009 5:40 am; Location: MN; Thanked: 1 times; GMAT Score:580

by LFalken » Wed Jul 01, 2009 6:23 am

hetavdave,

I am in a very similar situation, I have studied for about 1.5 months and Have now taken 4 practice exams 530 Q32 V28, 580 Q37 V30, 550 Q33 V33, and finally last weekend 530 Q33 V31....I have studied daily, but most of it has been "liesure" studying... working problems from the very beginning of OG through entire section, not timed, and rather slow... 40-50 problems over 4-5 hours... I'm wondering what has made you "turn the corner" was it just studying tougher problems, or did you begin to time yourself? I typically do rather well when working problems and understand what I'm doing, but under timed conditions I simply just do not produce. If you could give me a little more insight on what changed from you first 2 months of studying to get a 500 to what you did differently to obtain the 650 score... was it simply just doing the harder problems? Any advice would be great! thanks!

LFAL

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hetavdave: Senior | Next Rank: 100 Posts; Posts: 77; Joined: Sat Dec 27, 2008 10:58 pm; Thanked: 4 times

by hetavdave » Wed Jul 01, 2009 11:50 am

Hi LFalken,

I am just an novice over here but will try to put up some points which have helped me in , as you said, "turning corners"

1) I marked questions on OG on the base of their difficulty. For e.g first 100 questions in OG quant are extremely easy. So I wrote on the index "start from 100". and i began crossing the extremely easy ones that doesn't deserve a second round of solving them.

This saved some time of mine and helped me identify my weaknesses by filtering out the easy ones.

I left marks on OG like "Difficulty,"good one", "tricky", "wordy problm" etc.

2) I started giving sectional tests for quant and verbal more often. As you said there's a lot of difference between solving a problem from book and solving it under a timed test. It's all a matter of nerves and slowly i got the feel of it.

3) As said before, i concentrated on quality rather then quantity. Started taking more difficult questions and spent more time on analyzing the answer even on those which i got correct. Many a times, i found faster and easier method to solve such questions.

4) On my second round of OG books, I started watching time. And in order to practice for the GMAT test, I practied 1.5 times the no of questions.
For e.g. I started taking 25 SC, 6 RC passages and 20 CRs at a single stretch in about 90-100 mins. This one really helped as it I sort of "got used to" sitting and concentrating for more then 75 mins per section.

5) And finally, I made an excel sheet as attached below. It contains a detailed breakup of my test results.

Hope this helps. Will be glad to be of any help possible.

Attachments

Results.xls: (22.5 KiB) Downloaded 147 times

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GMAT/MBA Expert

Stacey Koprince: GMAT Instructor; Posts: 2228; Joined: Wed Dec 27, 2006 3:28 pm; Location: Montreal, Canada; Thanked: 639 times; Followed by:694 members; GMAT Score:780

by Stacey Koprince » Thu Jul 02, 2009 11:33 am

Received a PM from hetavdave asking me to provide suggestions for the remainder of study. Some good advice already, above.

Do you have a particular goal score in mind? It will help to know this because you want to be scoring in that goal range (on practice tests) during the couple of weeks before the official test.

As Jim was saying, it's really important to figure out what your weaknesses are so that you can specifically target those. Are you struggling with content, technique, timing, or all of the above? (Don't forget about timing - a lot of people don't even consider that when assessing weaknesses.)

If content, what specifically is giving you the most trouble? (eg, in SC, modifiers and verbs) Include in this category the different types of questions for CR and RC (eg, find an assumption vs. weaken or inference vs. main idea).

On what types of questions or content areas are you struggling with technique or timing? (Technique is knowing how to identify / categorize a particular type of question and knowing what you're expected to do / answer as you move through the problem.)

Are there certain kinds of errors you tend to make repeatedly?

Use the answers to these questions to drive your study. (And if you're not sure how to interpret some of the data or what to do, ask us here!) You may need to go back over some of those OG questions a third time! As Dana mentioned, you can also get some new official questions via OG12 (about 300 of the questions are new). You can also get some new official quant questions from GMAT Focus (online only: www.gmatfocus.com).

Also, remember that some things are more important than others: the things that show up more frequently on the test are more important than things that aren't frequent. For instance, many people hate combinatorics and spend lots of time studying that topic - but those questions aren't very common on the test, so it's not a good use of your time to spend a ton of time there, even if it is a big weakness for you.

Also, you do mention that you have some resources from Kaplan and Princeton Review. Just make sure that you have comprehensive resources - you have something for all of the different question types and content areas that appear on the test.

Please note: I do not use the Private Messaging system! I will not see any PMs that you send to me!!

Stacey Koprince
GMAT Instructor
Director of Online Community
Manhattan GMAT

Contributor to Beat The GMAT!

Learn more about me

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LFalken: Senior | Next Rank: 100 Posts; Posts: 44; Joined: Wed May 13, 2009 5:40 am; Location: MN; Thanked: 1 times; GMAT Score:580

by LFalken » Thu Jul 02, 2009 12:15 pm

stacey,

I want to obtain above a 650. I know after 1.5 months of studying to still have not gained anything and be hovering around 550, (where I started) that a 700 may be out of my grasp. But I do believe 650 is a reasonable goal. My exam is not until sep. 11th (over 2 months remain)... Please advise if it seems a bit out of reach due to my current progress, or lack there of.....

I believe Numbers properties in D.S. is what I struggle on most, as far as content. CR I feel that I'm improving, SC I feel I am also improving ( I am half way through the manahattan SC guide) and my RC seems to be improving as I am learning to focus more as I read.

HOWEVER, that quant. I know it's not much of a relation as I may be comparing apples to oranges. But for 1) I scored 65% percentile in the GRE quant section, after about 1 week of studying 2) I am a engineering graduate, with a Masters in engineering and I guess I really just figured the math would come much easier for me and the verbal would be the issue But, that simply has not been the case. It's not just D.S. I struggle on, but also P.S. arithmetic, timing.. etc. I think attention to detail and timed practice is what I need to really focus on.

Ideally I want to be scoring above a 41 on the quant section... I understand that the exam is a CAT, but is there a "general" percentage of quant questions you should be getting correct to be above 41-42... because currently I'm at 17 incorrect to obtain my current 33 quant score, and I am wondering how many "correct problems" I may be away, or at least in the ball park...

Thank you for your response, although I didnt address it yet I will first have to take a closer look at my most recent manhattan practice test to see where I was really struggling, but if I remember it was a 33% in D.S...

LFAL

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hetavdave: Senior | Next Rank: 100 Posts; Posts: 77; Joined: Sat Dec 27, 2008 10:58 pm; Thanked: 4 times

by hetavdave » Thu Jul 02, 2009 9:54 pm

Stacey Koprince wrote:Received a PM from hetavdave asking me to provide suggestions for the remainder of study. Some good advice already, above.

Do you have a particular goal score in mind? It will help to know this because you want to be scoring in that goal range (on practice tests) during the couple of weeks before the official test.

As Jim was saying, it's really important to figure out what your weaknesses are so that you can specifically target those. Are you struggling with content, technique, timing, or all of the above? (Don't forget about timing - a lot of people don't even consider that when assessing weaknesses.)

If content, what specifically is giving you the most trouble? (eg, in SC, modifiers and verbs) Include in this category the different types of questions for CR and RC (eg, find an assumption vs. weaken or inference vs. main idea).

On what types of questions or content areas are you struggling with technique or timing? (Technique is knowing how to identify / categorize a particular type of question and knowing what you're expected to do / answer as you move through the problem.)

Are there certain kinds of errors you tend to make repeatedly?

Use the answers to these questions to drive your study. (And if you're not sure how to interpret some of the data or what to do, ask us here!) You may need to go back over some of those OG questions a third time! As Dana mentioned, you can also get some new official questions via OG12 (about 300 of the questions are new). You can also get some new official quant questions from GMAT Focus (online only: www.gmatfocus.com).

Also, remember that some things are more important than others: the things that show up more frequently on the test are more important than things that aren't frequent. For instance, many people hate combinatorics and spend lots of time studying that topic - but those questions aren't very common on the test, so it's not a good use of your time to spend a ton of time there, even if it is a big weakness for you.

Also, you do mention that you have some resources from Kaplan and Princeton Review. Just make sure that you have comprehensive resources - you have something for all of the different question types and content areas that appear on the test.

Stacey, thanks a lot for your advice/guidance.

I have scored in the range of 620-650 in the last few. I am targeting a score of 700+.I have identified my weaknesses as DS in Quant and bit of RC+CR (weakness questions) in Verbal.

I have already started working on DS from OG and going through the posts from this site.

I have still one month to go and i am aiming for 700+ score. Can you please tell me if that score is achievable and what additional measure that I should take on improving my weaknesses?

And also that If I am aiming for a score of 700+ and say 2 weeks before the exam I manage to get my score around 680-690, are there any chances of getting a 700+ score on the actual GMAT?

Sorry for asking so many naive questions, but I have just a month to go and I am in real stress due to my score.

Will really appreciate your advice on this.

Thanks a lot
Hetav

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GMAT/MBA Expert

Stacey Koprince: GMAT Instructor; Posts: 2228; Joined: Wed Dec 27, 2006 3:28 pm; Location: Montreal, Canada; Thanked: 639 times; Followed by:694 members; GMAT Score:780

by Stacey Koprince » Mon Jul 06, 2009 11:57 am

LFalken: most people score around 60% correct in each section, regardless of scoring level. I really encourage you not to think about this as "how many more do I need to get right." Think of it as "of the questions they give me, which ones are the most important ones to get right?"

The answer to that is NOT "the hardest ones." The most important ones to get right are those questions at or below your desired scoring level. There's no way to tell exactly which questions those are, but you can often tell when you get a question that is way beyond you. Those ones you can get wrong - in fact, in a way, it's actually preferable to get those wrong, because your reward for a right answer is an even harder question!

The reason I don't want you to think "how many do I need to get right" is because then you'll think you actually do need to get the super-hard question that just popped up right. In your efforts to get it right, you are going to cost yourself questions you CAN actually do later in the section. And then you aren't going to get the score you want, because you missed the "wrong" questions. Does that make sense at all? Let me know, if not. (And, also, search for some of the earlier discussions on time management and how the scoring works - it's really important for you to understand this.)

You also mention earlier that you have been studying in a "leisurely" way, not timed, etc. You definitely need to time yourself - that is a major factor in your ability to get the score you want. In fact, it's perfectly possible to know how to do the kinds of questions you need to do to get the score you want, and yet not get the score you want because you mess up the timing. This happens all the time.

The only specific book I saw you mention was the MGMAT SC guide. It's also a good idea to get books that specifically target the other question types and content areas on the test. You can look around at the different companies' materials and see what you think would work best for you. (I try not to make recommendations because of the obvious conflict of interest!) When you're working on learning the content or technique, you don't need to worry about the timing so much. But when you're doing OG questions, you definitely need to be timing yourself - you need to learn how long 2 minutes really is, you need to know what to do when the problem isn't working for you in that timeframe, and you actually need to practice doing it!

Last edited by Stacey Koprince on Wed Jul 08, 2009 5:26 pm, edited 1 time in total.

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Stacey Koprince: GMAT Instructor; Posts: 2228; Joined: Wed Dec 27, 2006 3:28 pm; Location: Montreal, Canada; Thanked: 639 times; Followed by:694 members; GMAT Score:780

by Stacey Koprince » Mon Jul 06, 2009 12:02 pm

hetavdave: your questions are not naive at all. You're asking good questions.

You need more than OG in order to improve your weaknesses and get to a 700 level. You need source material (books or online) that will teach you how to get better at the things at which you're currently weak. That material will likely come from test prep companies - the OG folks aren't in the business of actually helping us get better at taking the test. So ask around, go to a bookstore and browse, but identify what can help you with DS, CR, and RC. (Also, for DS, you may also have some actual content weaknesses - eg, Number Properties or Word Translations. If so, identify sources that will help you with that particular content.)

Is it possible? Yes. Is it a slam dunk? Of course not. But go for it - if you don't feel like you're in the right range when the test date gets close, consider rescheduling. (You can reschedule for only like $50 or $80 if you do it at least 7 days before your test date.)

If you are scoring in the high 600s in the week or two before the test date, then yes, you do have a chance to hit a 700 on the official test. You may not, of course, but you are in range, so it can happen!

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LFalken: Senior | Next Rank: 100 Posts; Posts: 44; Joined: Wed May 13, 2009 5:40 am; Location: MN; Thanked: 1 times; GMAT Score:580

by LFalken » Wed Jul 08, 2009 6:17 am

Stacey,

Thank you very much for you advice and guidence. I have began working quant problems and verbal problems in 75 min sessions, of 37 and 41 questions respectively (with the correct distribution of question types... apx 22 p.s. 15 DS), 12 RC, 16 SC 13 CR etc...So far I feel it's helping me but we'll see...

Thank you for the insight on the idea I had of "how many more problems do I have to get right?" I was way off, and your explanation cleared things up and provided with some confidence.

My verbal weakness seems to be RC at this point, followed by SC... I will spend more time with RC in the future, (as I have put almost zero into it at this point)

My quant problems are timing and lack of confidence under the conditions, so I will practice, practice, practice....I have actuall ordered the numbers properties, geometry, and word translations books from Manhattan... I have heard good things, and I DEFINITELY need the clarity on number properties.. I feel D.S. of number properties is what I struggle most on, I assume to quickly, or miss a fine point.

Anyway, that is my latest plan of attack. I appreciate the help and I really hope I can provide some meaningful feedback to the forum soon if my score increases... 2 months left, and looking to get 650+

LFAL

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GMAT/MBA Expert

Stacey Koprince: GMAT Instructor; Posts: 2228; Joined: Wed Dec 27, 2006 3:28 pm; Location: Montreal, Canada; Thanked: 639 times; Followed by:694 members; GMAT Score:780

by Stacey Koprince » Wed Jul 08, 2009 5:27 pm

Good luck - let us know how it goes! FYI, on the quant section, it's actually possible to get 16 or 17 DS and only 20 or 21 PS. It's no longer exactly a 15/22 split.