I've been kicking around studying for the GMAT for a while. I just took a GMATPrep CAT 1 test this afternoon and scored a 480 (something that seems to not change), with a quant of 37 and a verb of 20. I have the OG 11 guide as well as a handful of Kaplan workbooks. I also just finished taking a prep class from our local university.
My scores have only improved in the quant section for whatever reason, but will not go up in my verbal section. I don't exactly rigourously study because I never really did that my entire life, I do casually go through the problems, and for the most part, at least in the OG guide, I answer most of them correctly. I notice that on the questions I've gotten wrong, its always a data sufficiency question in the quant sections. I know that you're not supposed to solve them all the way, but you need to determine if there's enough information there to solve it. I know the strategy behind answering the questions, but despite following the AD, BCE, for whatever reason I'm evaluating the data incorrectly.
In example, I had answered "B" on a question that asked "Out of 6 numbers, that have a mean of 30, are four over thirty?", Statement 1 said exactly none are over 60. Statement 2 states exactly 2 of the numbers are 9 and 10 respectively. The answer came back with "C". There's something wrong in the way I evaluate statements.
Later in the verbal, my critical reasoning can randomly be strong or weak, I always can drill it down to two answer, but I seem to always select the wrong one out of those two. My reading comprehension is way off for some reason, but I think I can place the blame by not writing down the main ideas on this last test. My sentence correction somewhat saved my score from being worse. I personally have tend to write in a passive voice, and I tried to make sure I use a more active voice in sentence correction, which really seems to help. I feel I know the strategies, I feel I know how to approach most questions, I think there's a disconnect with how I evalute answers.
I would love any advice on how to push my score up. I would like to take the GMAT soon, I haven't chosen a test date because I really want to have enough confidence to feel assured that I will score in or around 600. I'm not looking to go to a top 10 school, and my love interest is a Sports Business MBA, so I don't need to blow the world away with an amazing score, but I want to score high enough to make my candidacy to be nearly a guarentee (I know there's no guarentees) of getting into a program. If I just need to go out and take the test and there's nothing else I can do, please someone let me know. Otherwise if there's anything else I can do to make the final push to score higher I would like advice. (GMAT tutoring would be a wonderful option, but North Dakota isn't exactly a hotbed for tutors like that, and to get a tutor from Minneapolis isn't exaclty ideal).
My scores have only improved in the quant section for whatever reason, but will not go up in my verbal section. I don't exactly rigourously study because I never really did that my entire life, I do casually go through the problems, and for the most part, at least in the OG guide, I answer most of them correctly. I notice that on the questions I've gotten wrong, its always a data sufficiency question in the quant sections. I know that you're not supposed to solve them all the way, but you need to determine if there's enough information there to solve it. I know the strategy behind answering the questions, but despite following the AD, BCE, for whatever reason I'm evaluating the data incorrectly.
In example, I had answered "B" on a question that asked "Out of 6 numbers, that have a mean of 30, are four over thirty?", Statement 1 said exactly none are over 60. Statement 2 states exactly 2 of the numbers are 9 and 10 respectively. The answer came back with "C". There's something wrong in the way I evaluate statements.
Later in the verbal, my critical reasoning can randomly be strong or weak, I always can drill it down to two answer, but I seem to always select the wrong one out of those two. My reading comprehension is way off for some reason, but I think I can place the blame by not writing down the main ideas on this last test. My sentence correction somewhat saved my score from being worse. I personally have tend to write in a passive voice, and I tried to make sure I use a more active voice in sentence correction, which really seems to help. I feel I know the strategies, I feel I know how to approach most questions, I think there's a disconnect with how I evalute answers.
I would love any advice on how to push my score up. I would like to take the GMAT soon, I haven't chosen a test date because I really want to have enough confidence to feel assured that I will score in or around 600. I'm not looking to go to a top 10 school, and my love interest is a Sports Business MBA, so I don't need to blow the world away with an amazing score, but I want to score high enough to make my candidacy to be nearly a guarentee (I know there's no guarentees) of getting into a program. If I just need to go out and take the test and there's nothing else I can do, please someone let me know. Otherwise if there's anything else I can do to make the final push to score higher I would like advice. (GMAT tutoring would be a wonderful option, but North Dakota isn't exactly a hotbed for tutors like that, and to get a tutor from Minneapolis isn't exaclty ideal).
