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700 & 1 month till test?

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700 & 1 month till test?

by rwedmore09 » Sun Jan 11, 2015 6:03 pm
Hey guys,

First post here and was hoping for some study strategy. Even though I've been in the background wanted to say forums have been amazingly helpful!

I have one month until my test. I took a second practice test today and I was amazed by my results! I'm trying to figure out where to concentrate my efforts going forward. So far my practice tests (both GMAT prep) are :
Q:40 V:39 = 650 overall
Q:44 V:41 = 700 overall (today)

Some background: I started studying last January and due to some circumstances at work, I wasn't able to take the test at the end of May as I had planned. I put off studying, and I started up again in November. I took a practice test in October (650), and after seeing my first test score (and my low quant score), I have been studying ONLY quant for the past 2.5 months.

When I was studying in the spring, I went through all of the Veritas books and made study guides for each section. However, I didn't feel like I had a complete strategy with Veritas, so I switched to the Manhattan books in the fall. I thought I would need to go through all of the Manhattan quant and verbal books, but after seeing these two scores, I'm not sure I need to redo verbal.

Timing was definitely an issue in quant on my practice test today (basically had to guess on the last 10 questions because of lack of time). I still have the Veritas verbal strategy guides I wrote up, so I could go through those and my old books instead of going through all of the Manhattan material again. I haven't touched Integrated Reasoning or Reading Comprehension yet. I'm currently working 50-60 hours a week, so I only have about 20 hours to study.

What do you guys think I should do with the one month I have left?
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by [email protected] » Sun Jan 11, 2015 6:56 pm
Hi rwedmore09,

These practice CAT scores show that you could score at a really high level on Test Day. I do have a couple of questions about these CATs though:

1) Did you take the ENTIRE CAT (including the Essay and IR sections)?
2) Since you had studied previously, did you take either of these CATs before?

Assuming that you didn't do anything that would be considered "unrealistic" with these 2 CATs, then you're performing at such a level that you'll have to "nitpick" your results a bit to figure out what you should be focusing on.

To that end, a full review of both of this CAT is in order. You need to figure out WHY you're getting questions wrong. How often is it because of a silly/little mistake? How often is it because the question was too hard? In the Verbal section, how often do you 'narrow it down to 2 choices and then "guess" wrong?' When you have qualified and quantified these errors, you'll then have an idea of what your *big* problem areas are and you can focus on them accordingly.

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by MartyMurray » Sun Jan 11, 2015 10:11 pm
You should probably invest at least a little time in solidifying your GMAT reading comprehension skills. You could confirm this by checking to see what you are missing on the CATs. Areas for which one has not prepared much tend to have low hanging fruit in terms of points that can be gained by just learning a little more about how the questions work, any rules involved and what it takes to get official answers.

In general, it often makes sense to put some work into preparing for one's comfortable or stronger section. Maybe it seems as if verbal is about as good as it's going to get for you, but it would be good make sure that you perform strongly on verbal on test day, and you may very well be able to score some more points on the section by investing just a little more time.

Another thing you could do that would begin to address the quant timing issues and would be a means of increasing skills in all areas is to hit one of the online question banks and just do question after question on a timed basis. If you don't want to purchase more materials, Veritas has a free question bank. If you feel like investing a little, there are some others that provide more ability to choose questions by category so that you could really focus on developing skill in areas in which you are currently weak.

Timing is key, and so in this final month you would do well to be conscious of timing and efficiency, whether you are doing a group of timed questions or just working through one question to learn something. Also, practice makes perfect. So one way to improve timing is by getting more CATs to take. There are some offered by GMAC as add ons to GMAT Prep. Also Veritas has CATs that are pretty close to the real thing. The first one is free. If you don't want to burn yourself out taking CATs, you can buy a bunch of CATs from Veritas, GMAC or someone else and just take the quant sections, with the purpose of seeing what you can do to speed up. While that will not recreate the test day experience, that's not the purpose of this exercise. Also it would be a way to improve your quant skills in general.

Studying strategies and concepts is great. Banging out questions with the clock going and then going back and analyzing your results to see what you can do better and what areas could use some more work is also great.
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by manyaabroadtpr » Tue Jan 13, 2015 12:15 am
Hi rwedmore09,

As you mentioned that you are left with only one month we would advice you to give as many practice tests as possible. Keep taking mock tests in real test taking situations. However, more important than taking a mock test is to analyse your performance in the same. If you spend 2 hours on a mock test, spend 6 hours in analyzing the same. Figure out ways by which you can continuously keep improving your score.

Identify your strong and weak areas and any gap areas which is bringing your scores down.Go back to each of your answers and try to identify quicker, smarter and faster ways to answer those problems.

Figure out ways by which you can continuously keep improving your score. You can check our GMAT courses on the link below

https://www.manyagroup.com/gmat-courses-available

Hope the above information helps. In case, you have any further queries, please do let us know and we would be happy to help. www.manyagroup.com
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by BestGMATEliza » Tue Jan 13, 2015 3:45 am
First of all, congrats on the great practice score! It definitely means that you are capable of scoring really well on test day, but it is not assured. People tend to fluctuate in their scores and if you didn't take IR and AWA with that test then it is likely higher than what it would be if you had. There are two important things that I recommend for people in their final month of studying (if you are aiming for a 700+)
-Practice with more difficult material (Kaplan 800 and MGMAT Advanced Quant are good sourced for this).
-Take lots of full length (with IR and AWA) practice tests under test conditions to build up your mental endurance.
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by rwedmore09 » Wed Jan 14, 2015 8:43 pm
Thanks for the replies guys. I did not take the entire CAT this time around (skipped IR and AWA) so I will start doing that going forward. I have five weekends before the test (test is on a Monday). I am planning to take a CAT each weekend for the next four weekends and taking the fifth weekend off before the test. I'm going to grab the GMAT Test Pack 2 for two additional tests, and then I'll have to use Manhat and Veritas online tests for the last two tests.

I analyzed the CAT I just took and some things stuck out to me:
-in Quant, I got 15 of the first 20 questions correct, but I only got 6 correct out of the next 17. So timing issue is pretty evident there.
-I tried to do a percent correct breakdown by subject area: Algebra 70% correct (13 questions), Geometry 40% correct (5 questions), Fraction/decimal/percent 100% (1 question), Number Properties 80% (5 questions), Word Problems 25% (8 questions), Stats/Prob/Combinatorics 60% (5 questions). I think this gives me a good idea of where I need to concentrate my review/practice efforts. Word Problems/Algebra/Stats will be getting the majority of my attention at first.
-As for Verbal, RC was 85% (13 questions), CR 92% (12 questions), and SC 70% (16 questions). So SC review/practice is really necessary.

I didn't get as much Quant review (theory and incorrect/hard questions) in as I wanted before this last test, so I will need to do a good deal of that before retaking.

This is my plan for the next four weeks (listed items in order of priority). Let me know if I should change any pieces:
Week 1 (this week) - review old SC/RC/CR material, review quant notes/probs, start/finish Manhat IG/AWA book
Week 2 - Complete Manhat SC sections as needed, SC/RC/CR OG13 practice, quant timing practice
Week 3 - Quant timing practice, essay practice
Week 4 - Quant timing practice, Verbal practice

Thanks again for all the help
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by manyaabroadtpr » Mon Jan 19, 2015 9:08 pm
Hi rwedmore09,

Your study plan looks good.You can go ahead with it and let us know if you require any further help regarding your GMAT preparation.

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by VivianKerr » Tue Jan 27, 2015 6:01 pm
Hey RWedmore,

Going forward, for sure take the IR and AWA, just to build that stamina (the GMAT is wicked long!). A CAT each weekend is a great idea, and emphasizing the GMATPreps are great.

Here's what I also think you need to do:

- a thorough Error Log for EVERY CAT. Fill it in (attached) esp. pay close attention to WHY you get a question wrong. Is it a Content issue? If so, what was the rule or formula you didn't know. Was it a Pacing issue? Was it a Strategy issue?

- go through the MGMAT SC book and do you own study notes, just like you did with Veritas.

- pacing drills in between CATS (don't only work under pressure on a CAT! do a short pacing drill at least once a day!)

- a solid RC strategy (you can read more of my thoughts on that here: https://gmatrockstar.com/tag/reading-comprehension/

I would also recommend you do BOTH Quant and Verbal each week, but limit the number of concepts to 2-3 in each section, so you can really deep-dive. Use your Error Log to select your topics.

Hope this helps!
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