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Scoring past upper 500s? Keep going solo or turn to a tutor?

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Scoring past upper 500s? Keep going solo or turn to a tutor?

by jazzcat4u » Tue May 27, 2008 2:13 pm
Hi there - Wondering if anyone has experience improving their practice/test scores from the upper 500s to the mid/upper 600s. I've been studying for the GMAT really passively for the last 2 years. Having been recently laid off, I finally decided to go to B-School and have been studying actively for the GMAT in the last 2 months. I have not been able to move past 580 though. Here are the materials I've used 1) Kaplan's GMAT Comprehensive Books 2) Kaplan's Mathwork book 3) Kaplan's online quiz bank and CD practice tests 4) GMAT Official Guide 5) Veritas Material 6) Powerscore LSAT Logical Reasoning Bible. I try to do roughly 40-60 problems a day, but have not seen any real improvement (I take a practice test once a week). I am thinking about hiring a tutor (it's expensive, but I think if it helps my score it's worth it). Can you please share your thoughts on weather tutoring helped you improve your score from 500s to mid/high 600? I study alot on my own since I'm not working right now, but have not seen improvement, not sure if I should keep going solo or finally see a tutor.

I plan to finally take the GMAT in September - so I have roughly 3 months to study.
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by VP_Jim » Tue May 27, 2008 8:59 pm
Of course I'm a little biased, but for most people, seeing a tutor is a good idea. Getting a tutor is no guarantee of a score increase, but my experience as a GMAT tutor/teacher is that the great majority of students do improve, at least a little. Also, I've found that lots of people who are stuck in the high 500s have a solid foundation in math and grammar, but just might need some pointers on how to think "the GMAT way" and approach the test correctly.

Another thought: if tutoring is too expensive, you might want to think about a classroom prep course, which tend to be cheaper (but often just as effective). Some people actually prefer the group setting because of discussions, participation, etc., while some prefer the one on one attention that tutoring allows.

Good luck!
Jim S. | GMAT Instructor | Veritas Prep
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by Spence » Wed May 28, 2008 4:37 am
Are all of those 500-score tests Kaplan tests? They tend to seriously underestimate your score, so if you've only done Kaplan tests, take a GMATPrep official test (mba.com) or Princeton Review's online test (www.review.com) to get a much better idea of how you're really doing.

If you can't crack 600 on your own, then yes, I would work with a tutor or take a class. Be sure you nail down your specific weaknesses, though. If it's one or two weak areas, a tutor would be better, to just target those. If it's across the board, then go for a class -- it'll be more cost-effective.

I am now doing Princeton Review's online course and I LOVE it.
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Scoring past upper 500s? Keep going solo or turn to a tutor?

by jazzcat4u » Wed May 28, 2008 8:59 am
Thanks guys! I used 3 practice tests from a kaplan cd, 2 from thomson/arco cd, and 1 from the GMATPrep software (downloaded from MBA.com). I just signed up for a Manhattan practice test, so we'll see how that goes.

I'll probably keep at it on my own for a couple of weeks and if I still see no improvement, then I'll opt for tutoring. After reading some posts on this website, I think my issues lie in not pausing long enough to review how the problems are solved to fully digest all the info so I can be better prepared next time I run into similar problem sets.

I've been more concerned over the quantity of problems I do versus the quality of the time I put into reviewing those problems. I think I rushed this process bc I got frustrated since it would take about 2-5 minutes to do a problem and if it was hard, I spent roughly 10 minutes reviewing the explanation. This meant I could take anywhere from 5-15 minutes reviewing a hard question and with time constraints and a goal of covering 40-60 problems a day, I thought cutting the review time was more important since I wanted to complete more problems - I was wrong.

So if you find yourself in this predicament, I guess a question to ask yourself is, would you rather take the time to understand how to do 20-30 problems right and really digest this knowledge or rush through 40-60 problems at the risk of doing them wrong in the future?

I guess with my frustrations, I lost patience and shortened my time reviewing the explanations so I could complete more problems. Since I didn't have a better understanding of how to solve problems due to my impatience, this ultimately affected my performance on my practice test.

Maybe after I make this change I'll see some progress. I think as I study, the element of the quantity of problems I do will take care of itself.

Let me know if you changed things up like this - that is, see your work improve after changing your strategy from "covering a quantity of problems" to "the quality of reviewing explanations to those problems". Hopefully I'll get a good balance of both before I take the test in September.
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by VP_Jim » Wed May 28, 2008 10:45 am
"Would you rather take the time to understand how to do 20-30 problems right and really digest this knowledge or rush through 40-60 problems at the risk of doing them wrong in the future?"

My most succesful students follow this approach, as did I when I was studying. I'd often spend 30 minutes on a particularly hard question, trying to come up with easy ways to solve them. I found that there's almost always a "trick" - you just have to get at spotting them.
Jim S. | GMAT Instructor | Veritas Prep
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