Dramaminh,

Congrats on your 580! While to get to your goal of attending a top 10 b-school you'll need a higher score, a 580 tells me that you are on the right track and just need to tweak a few things in your preparation in order to get a 700+.

You need to focus your efforts to ensure you have an overall understanding of the GMAT topics that are tested, not how much time you are spending "studying" or "doing problems."

There are 22 topics on the GMAT math, 3 (basically) on the verbal.

Which topics are you not understanding? Are these in Math? Verbal?

For example, if you understand say the percentages topic, and are getting 9/10 of those questions right, leave that topic. You got that one. Don't waste time on it, go to the topics that you are getting 3-4/10 right every time and focus on those. I wouldn't spend more than 2-3 hours a day studying, any more than that I imagine your concentration and productivity will fall drastically.

Also remember, if you don't have the right materials and approach, you will struggle to improve your score. You should be using The Official GMAT Guide (11th or 12th edition) as your initial guidebook for the test.

I did hear a statistic one time that the average student who scores 700+ studies over 100 hours. I don't know how much I believe that, but some really smart guy probably spend alot of time to get that statistic so I thought this would be a good time to use it

I hope my thoughts have helped you!!

Sincerely,

Lee
The GMAT Coach

Dear Lee,

thank you very much for your interest and your reply.

I really felt some relief when i read your words. I want so much to get a high score and because it doesn't seem

feasible right now, I 've started being very nervous and anxious about the GMAT.

We 'll see!

Thank you.

Best Regards