GMAT Strategy

Hi,

Today I took my first complete test. It was Kaplan and scored just 550(Q 21, V 21), which I think is very bad if I target to score 750. As far as quantitive is concered I always did well in practice quiz, every time scored above 80%. I tried to see the explanation on kaplan CD but it only showed me first essay. So now I am not even abled to review my mistakes in test. I have plan to give actual GMAT in Feb end and thus not left with much time. I am through with Kaplan 800 and presently doing OG11 and have plans to do OG verbal, kaplan tests, and tests from mba.com. Please suggest what should I do to improve my score. I can not give more than 2-3 hrs a day becuase I m doing a full time job.

Thanks,
Satish

Ah, you should read through the forums! Most people say Kaplan tests are a lot harder than the real thing and that the scores can be a LOT less than what you should expect. People used to say 50-100 points, but more recently I'm seeing people say Kaplan scores can even be 120 points below your real score! So ignore the Kaplan score altogether. Causes unneeded stress.

GMATPrep and Princeton Review tests will give you a much better idea. Have you taken either of those?

I have downloaded GMATPrep from mba.com but do not know about Princeton Review tests. May be I should go for test suggested by you.

Thanks,
Satish

You can take a free Princeton Review test on their Web site, www.review.com. For the rest of their tests, you'll need to buy Cracking the GMAT, with the DVD. It's fairly cheap and there are some cool tools on the DVD, well worth it. So definitely do those in addition to the GMATPrep ones.

Hi

i have the same problem, i cannot see explanations to the answers, it only shows a general analysis of score breakdown, timings etc.

Does anyone know how one can review the answers and see explanations for Kaplan CD tests - or at least see which questions were answered incorrectly? I know that you can for the Kaplan online tests, so surely i am missing a trick here....

Thanks
H

Hi

On the top of the screen there is a tab "Explanations".. in that you can choose section 1/section 2/section 3/section 4 to see the respective section answers.

Hope this helps

Yes I have seen a lot of ppl complain about not being able to find the correct way to navigate through the explanations on the Kaplan CD. That is an example of tacky UI design for you. Ideally, explanations should have been navigable through the "Next" Tag in the test window. If not, then at least, the the "explanation" tab that appears in the menu, should be highlighted. Also the test tutorial does not seem to mention anything about navigating through the explanations. Having said that, the most important thing - the material - is outstanding. I think although scores are not indicative of real GMAT, getting a low score keeps up my motivation. I tend to slack down after solving OG questions. But Kaplan keeps me rooted.