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Starting this journey with 420 baseline - is that decent?

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Starting this journey with 420 baseline - is that decent?

by metal_gmat » Thu May 12, 2016 12:07 pm
Hey all,

I'm embarking on this journey to get into a M.Fin program at Queen's in Canada. I will need at least a 650 to get considered, but my target is at least 700. The plan is to write it in September so I should have about 4 months.

My current question: is 420 a good starting point? I know it means I have to do a lot of work up ahead diligently. But I made sure to do the practice exam in more poorer conditions on purpose: after work, later into the night, starting to lose focus and falling asleep in Verbal section (although that's where I happened to excel in comparison to Quant).

As for my prep material, I just got the OG bundle and am signed up for EmpowerGMAT. I do work full time so I will mostly be doing around 2 hours on weekdays and a few more hours on weekends.

Thanks; looking forward to being more active in the community while on this journey.
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by MartyMurray » Thu May 12, 2016 9:45 pm
Hi. Welcome to the game!

From 420 to 700+ is a fairly long way. Still, people basically increase their scores to wherever they want to increase them as long as they put in the work. Also, given your testing conditions, that 420 sounds a little low, and meanwhile, if you had prepared or familiarized yourself even a little before taking that test, probably you would have scored higher. So in a sense probably you are starting from closer to 500 than to 420.

Regarding the resources you have so far, they may do the job or they may be somewhat too limited depending on what you have to actually accomplish in order to hit your score goal.

For instance, if you need a lot of review of quant concepts, you may be well served by getting some quant resources. One that I have seen that seems good for quant is Target Test Prep. Whatever you do, if you get any books, get e books rather than paper books, the manufacturing of which is destructive both to forests and your karma.

On another note, here is something to keep in mind as you prepare. Often people prepare for months without seeing much of a score increase when they don't realize the following. The GMAT is predominately a test of vision, i.e. seeing key details and the other key aspects of the questions, and use of logic. So as you prepare be sure to work on seeing what you need to see and on getting better at using logic to get to answers.

In order to accomplish those things, when you are working on practice questions do them untimed at first, seeking to learn to get right answers in any amount of time before you seek to get right answers on a timed basis. Learning to get wrong answers in two to three minutes each is useless.
Marty Murray
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by Knitgeek » Fri May 13, 2016 8:31 am
Welcome!

As Marty has already said, you do have a fairly big jump from your starting point score to your goal but given the conditions you took your baseline test under I would say the 420 is probably lower than your actual ability.

I'm in a bit of the same boat as you as far as having more affinity towards the verbal side of things. I will say that I've seen a huge jump in my ability to get questions right in the quant section after just a month of study mainly due to the fact that I have a familiarity with the topics but just haven't used them in a long time. Studying some of the strategies of the test and understanding that for both quant and verbal sections that the test is more of a logic and critical thinking test then a test of actual skills. So I will say that getting yourself to a 700+ score is doable, it will just take work.

What were your scores on the individual sections of your baseline test? In going over the test were you missing answers because of missing details in the questions or were they due to not being able to remember how to get to an answer (for example I haven't gotten to my geometry review yet and I'm having trouble when I hit a practice question because I've forgotten a lot of the tricks with geometry that the test likes to use)?

Basically just saying a score is or isn't a good baseline isn't really the full story. If you are missing questions because you aren't familiar with the background concepts of questions it can mean lots of review but it doesn't mean you can't pick up the information pretty quickly (especially if you've seen it before but haven't used it in a long time). If you are getting stuck more on the psychology and what the test is really testing, that is really learnable too. Same thing goes if you have holes in both areas (like me).

Long story short, figure out where you need to focus your studies and you can really bump your mark up quickly. You've got the time to move your mark to where you want but like any studying you need to be strategic about how you tackle your prep. I really suggest not building extra hurdles in like taking practice test under adverse conditions. It doesn't give you any real advantage in judging where you are at. I stopped practicing under strict time constraints based on suggestions from the experts on this forum and low and behold I'm getting more answers right in practice and my average time per question (based on my practice with Magoosh, my chosen study method)is still pretty much on pace without me rushing and making sill mistakes like I was (okay reviewing more quant concepts and getting more familiar with some of the common themes of the verbal questions has helped that too).

Hope to keep in touch as we both work towards our GMAT dominance! :)
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by [email protected] » Fri May 13, 2016 8:55 am
Hi metal_gmat,

Many Test Takers end up unhappy about their initial CAT scores, but that result is just a measure of your current skills. Over the course of the next several months, you'll learn Tactics, hone skills and learn all of the little things that you have to do to score at a high level on Test Day, so this initial score isn't anything to be too concerned about. However, the idea that you would purposely go about making this part of the process 'harder' strikes me as questionable. Why do that? What were you looking to gain? Test Day is a rather specific, predictable event. To maximize your performance, you have to train to take advantage of all of those patterns. That requires making smart choices and working diligently throughout the process.

GMAT assassins aren't born, they're made,
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by metal_gmat » Fri May 13, 2016 5:22 pm
[email protected] wrote:Hi metal_gmat,

...However, the idea that you would purposely go about making this part of the process 'harder' strikes me as questionable. Why do that? What were you looking to gain? Test Day is a rather specific, predictable event. To maximize your performance, you have to train to take advantage of all of those patterns. That requires making smart choices and working diligently throughout the process.

GMAT assassins aren't born, they're made,
Rich
Hey Rich,

Thanks for reaching out. The reason I made the process "harder" was for me to gauge my worst case scenario. I'm ready to put in the diligent work otherwise and see how I fare.
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by metal_gmat » Fri May 13, 2016 5:29 pm
Marty Murray wrote:Hi. Welcome to the game!

From 420 to 700+ is a fairly long way. Still, people basically increase their scores to wherever they want to increase them as long as they put in the work. Also, given your testing conditions, that 420 sounds a little low, and meanwhile, if you had prepared or familiarized yourself even a little before taking that test, probably you would have scored higher. So in a sense probably you are starting from closer to 500 than to 420.

Regarding the resources you have so far, they may do the job or they may be somewhat too limited depending on what you have to actually accomplish in order to hit your score goal.

For instance, if you need a lot of review of quant concepts, you may be well served by getting some quant resources. One that I have seen that seems good for quant is Target Test Prep. Whatever you do, if you get any books, get e books rather than paper books, the manufacturing of which is destructive both to forests and your karma.

On another note, here is something to keep in mind as you prepare. Often people prepare for months without seeing much of a score increase when they don't realize the following. The GMAT is predominately a test of vision, i.e. seeing key details and the other key aspects of the questions, and use of logic. So as you prepare be sure to work on seeing what you need to see and on getting better at using logic to get to answers.

In order to accomplish those things, when you are working on practice questions do them untimed at first, seeking to learn to get right answers in any amount of time before you seek to get right answers on a timed basis. Learning to get wrong answers in two to three minutes each is useless.
Thank you for your detailed response. I appreciate you pointing those tips out to me. I will definitely keep your advice in mind for approaching things logically and critically. Also, definitely good to learn to get things right before learning to get things right in allotted time.
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by metal_gmat » Fri May 13, 2016 5:35 pm
Knitgeek wrote:Welcome!

As Marty has already said, you do have a fairly big jump from your starting point score to your goal but given the conditions you took your baseline test under I would say the 420 is probably lower than your actual ability.

I'm in a bit of the same boat as you as far as having more affinity towards the verbal side of things. I will say that I've seen a huge jump in my ability to get questions right in the quant section after just a month of study mainly due to the fact that I have a familiarity with the topics but just haven't used them in a long time. Studying some of the strategies of the test and understanding that for both quant and verbal sections that the test is more of a logic and critical thinking test then a test of actual skills. So I will say that getting yourself to a 700+ score is doable, it will just take work.

What were your scores on the individual sections of your baseline test? In going over the test were you missing answers because of missing details in the questions or were they due to not being able to remember how to get to an answer (for example I haven't gotten to my geometry review yet and I'm having trouble when I hit a practice question because I've forgotten a lot of the tricks with geometry that the test likes to use)?

Basically just saying a score is or isn't a good baseline isn't really the full story. If you are missing questions because you aren't familiar with the background concepts of questions it can mean lots of review but it doesn't mean you can't pick up the information pretty quickly (especially if you've seen it before but haven't used it in a long time). If you are getting stuck more on the psychology and what the test is really testing, that is really learnable too. Same thing goes if you have holes in both areas (like me).

Long story short, figure out where you need to focus your studies and you can really bump your mark up quickly. You've got the time to move your mark to where you want but like any studying you need to be strategic about how you tackle your prep. I really suggest not building extra hurdles in like taking practice test under adverse conditions. It doesn't give you any real advantage in judging where you are at. I stopped practicing under strict time constraints based on suggestions from the experts on this forum and low and behold I'm getting more answers right in practice and my average time per question (based on my practice with Magoosh, my chosen study method)is still pretty much on pace without me rushing and making sill mistakes like I was (okay reviewing more quant concepts and getting more familiar with some of the common themes of the verbal questions has helped that too).

Hope to keep in touch as we both work towards our GMAT dominance! :)
Thanks for your input, I sense that you must be quite good at AWAs as you offer good critique and insight :). I can't remember the baseline scores for each section, just that I got 10th percentile on quant and 30th percentile on Verbal. You touch on a key point though: not having touched any quant skills in forever and thus not remembering any of the previously learnt concepts.

But yes, I'm starting to understand the vibe of this exam being more and more focused on your approach to questions than the literal answers. So definitely going to try and learn but understand the concepts required in the exam, get the practice questions right - and then do CATs under timed measure.

All the best in your exam, when are you going to take it? Is it your first one?
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by Knitgeek » Sat May 14, 2016 6:33 am
I write my first GMAT July 23rd. I'll have put in just over 3 months study at that point. The school I'm aiming for doesn't have a super high GMAT requirement (in general I don't find Canadian schools are as focused on high GMAT score than their US counterparts) so I'm hoping to be one and done.
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