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Official GMAT 530, wanting to get up to mid-600s in a month

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Official GMAT 530, wanting to get up to mid-600s in a month

by chiller » Tue Mar 17, 2009 10:03 am
Hey everyone,

I wrote my exam on Feb.24th and scored a disappointing 530 (34Q,28V). The result wasn't surprising, as I had only been scoring high 500s to low 600s in the practice tests leading up. I have to admit, I did put effort into studying, but the main thing I did not lock down was the timing. In the actual exam, I would say for both the Q and V sections, I ended up guessing about 6-7 questions nearing the end, so I presume that could damage my score a bit.

After about 2 weeks or so of very little studying, I am ready to attack again.

My materials were pretty much the OG11 and Princton Review. I did all PR exams, and did the GMATprep software exams. Now I have exhausted my materials, any advice on what to use to prepare for my 2nd attack in about a months time? Are the supplemental OG guides different questions? Also, what else has a relevant bank of questions to help me attain a better score?

Thanks everyone.
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by ken3233 » Tue Mar 17, 2009 11:52 am
If you are convinced that timing -- and not deficits in knowledge -- are your problem, you should probably take lots of timed tests at home to improve your mental reaction speed.

You may consider buying a cheap stop watch and then taking practice exams of the GRE and LSAT everyday. Be certain to set your timer to whatever amount of time is mandated for each test.

It would be a good idea for you to take the timed GMAT Prep tests several times again. It wouldn't hurt also to download the free GRE Powerprep tests, and to take those numerous times as well.

I am recommending taking tests beside the GMAT for practice because, if the tests are taken under timed conditions, the experience of taking the tests increases your mental speeding and real-time testing ability.

Finally, I think you should study hard for three months, and not one month, if you are serious about improving your score.

Good luck.
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by TedCornell » Wed Mar 18, 2009 6:05 am
1 month is very little time.

That said, I agree with the previous poster's (Ken's) statement that you should consider taking the GMATPrep tests over. There are a lot more questions in the software that you haven't seen if you've just taken the two tests and stopped.

I disagree however with Ken when it comes to using GRE exams. The GRE is just so different from the GMAT that I wouldn't mess with that. GRE verbal is vocab driven while GMAT is grammar driven; 2 completely different sets of skills are called upon.

With only a couple of weeks to go, consider going over the gmatfix verbal flashcards over and over; An improvement in verbal performance will raise your GMAT score more than a similar improvement in quant performance, because the quant is a lot more competitive worldwide (it takes a lot to stand out, and score depends on peer performance)

I think the supplemental OGs are definitely worth getting if already know the OG inside out.

Are you going up against a hard deadline? Why give yourself only a couple of weeks?
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by pJackson79 » Wed Mar 18, 2009 6:15 pm
If you believe the core issue is timing, which it may well be if you guessed on 6 to 7, I would say that you should go out and find every free practice test you can and then do them.

Further, I would also practice under exaggerated time pressure. In other words, I would work OG problems and give yourself only 1.5 minutes or 1.25 minutes so that you learn the art of moving on when you are stumped.
Last edited by pJackson79 on Tue Mar 31, 2009 2:57 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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by TedCornell » Thu Mar 19, 2009 1:31 am
If timing is a big issue, it may be because you are not doing a great job of making connections between similar questions so that when you come across the same puzzle, it takes you just as long to put a solution together as it did the previous time.

Ideally once you have done 3 or 4 similar questions that give you trouble (meaning you miss, guess or take too long to solve) you carefully study the explanations to find the root of the issue. If you are successful, the next 4 or 5 quesitons will give less trouble because even if they are just as difficult, it won't take you as long to figure out how to approach them.

The sad thing about gmat studying is that the best problems (OG and GMATPrep) also have the worst explanations (or no explanation as far as GMATPrep is concerned). This puts the onus on you to put together the lessons and strategies that should be drawn from that question. Take a look at the GMATPrep Solutions from gmatfix to help with that task.
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