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URGENT HELP NEEDED: 5 DAYS LEFT

by samus33 » Sat Dec 05, 2009 6:43 pm
PLEASE HELP!!

Everyone, I have been a silent member until now, reading your stories for inspiration as well as for procrastination. I am writing on December 11, and am targetting a 700 (I know, I know... so is everyone else, but my WE or lack thereof (2 years) puts me at a disadvantage in the applications process).

My journey so far:

Princeton Review GMAT 11/03 : 600 (40 quant 31 verb)
Princeton Review GMAT 2 11/18 : 650 (41 Q 40 V)
Manhattan GMAT 1 11/30: 650 (43 Q 36 V)
GMAC GMAT 1 12/03 : 650 (46 Q 34 V)

I have less than one week left and took the last test today. Feeling slightly discouraged, but I've taken the entire week off from work to really hone in on my weak areas.

My weak points in Verbal are SC (60% hit rate), as well as RC Science based articles.

My weak points in Q seems to be math definitions (as ridiculous as that sounds) as well as simply misreading questions. Time management also seems to be a bit of an issue. I tend to get slightly anxious around the 15 question check point, and get nervous about remaining time, thereby rushing through questions 15-25 and I usually end up finishing the Q part of the exam with 5 minutes left.

I'm wondering where I should thrust my focus this week. I've been going through the flash cards on this site daily, focusing on SC as this seems to be my biggest downfall (awful because English is my primary language lol).

Study Materials:
OG 12 & 11
I have taken the PR prep course
GMAT Advanced for top students (Kaplan)
Sentance Correction fundamentals (Kaplan)

Can you recommend a study schedule for the next 5 days prior to friday? I plan to simulate my testing environment by testing every day at 10 am, but am wondering if this is the best strategy, or if it would be more effective to continue to review problem areas.

Your help is greatly appreciated!
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by samus33 » Sun Dec 06, 2009 11:16 am
Can someone kindly post some suggestions/pointers on how to maximize the effectiveness of the remaining 5 days prior to the test?
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by samus33 » Sun Dec 06, 2009 7:54 pm
Quick update:

Just did the PR CAT 3 and scored a 710 (50 v, 39 q). Again, sentance correction seems to be my down-fall (67% hit rate). I've been trying to identify which SC area is my biggest weakness, but it tends to swap between the 6.

Does anyone have experience with PR CAT's? If so, can you kindly share what the difficulty level relative to the real GMAT is? I don't want to be falsly optomistic based on this exam, though it is my first breath of air above 700.

Oddly, I didn't get one permutation, probability or combination problem...


Can anyone weigh in?
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by vivekjaiswal » Sun Dec 06, 2009 11:20 pm
Hey,

I had taken PR CATs when I took my first GMAT in Sept.
I think the PR CAT's scoring is not as easy as the actual GMAT.
I experienced that, in PR CAT, I scored 45 in quants when I had got only 6 or 7 questions incorrect (that too after the first fifteen questions)
But the GPrep CAT gave me a 49 even after getting 12 questions incorrect.

I would say that a 710 in PR CAT is a great score! :)

All the best for your test.
Vivek
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by 2010gmat » Mon Dec 07, 2009 4:59 am
i would say relax...dont get tired...just motivate yourself so that you are eager to attack the GMAT right from the word go...

walk for 20-25 mins daily...eat healthy....take some re-chargers {red bull chocolates etc for the exam...}

meditate....
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by samus33 » Mon Dec 07, 2009 6:18 pm
Thanks for the insight guys.

Just took another GMAT CAT:

Scored a 47 q and a 35 v (660)

Should I switch my focus entirely for the next few days (I write on Friday) to solely verbal, with light brushing up on quantitative?

My sentance correction ability is awful, consistently with a 50%-60% hit rate which really brings down my verbal score. My RC and CR are both above 80% hit rate consistently which I'm content with. Should I narrow down on SC solely for the week to try to bring my hit rating to even 75%?

Also, I still have not encountered and probability/comb/perm questions on the CAT's, has GMAC swayed away from this trend?

As mentioned above, I scored a 710 in PR (50q 39v) yesterday and probably felt overly optimistic going into today's CAT.

Can someone who's written the GMAT kindly weigh in? My anxiety levels are building which is the worst possible scenario.

Thanks
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by papgust » Mon Dec 07, 2009 6:45 pm
I would recommend you to focus on your weakness (SC) and of course not neglecting your strengths at the same time. Review your flashcards for your strengths everyday. As your SC hit rate is not good compared to other sections, just go through whatever strategy book you have for SC once and analyze each and every OG prob (Both right and wrong answer choices). If you encounter any new information, write it down in a paper and review them later. As you hardly have time, you could work at least this way.

P&C, probability questions hardly come in the exam. If you are confident enough to solve the easy and medium questions, then it is fine to not spend time with those chapters.

In short, concentrate on SC's (This section is the easiest section in the exam to score when compared to RC and CR), review flashcards and most importantly, get good amount of sleep from now on.
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by samus33 » Mon Dec 07, 2009 7:00 pm
Excellent advice, thanks Papgust! I just purchsed an additional book for SC and am going to invest some hours into it. Hopefully this will help. Nothing is more frustrating than losing points to grammar.
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by samus33 » Mon Dec 07, 2009 7:02 pm
Excellent advice, thanks Papgust! I just purchsed an additional book for SC and am going to invest some hours into it. Hopefully this will help. Nothing is more frustrating than losing points to grammar.
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by cramya » Mon Dec 07, 2009 7:15 pm
Hi Samus,

My 2 cents:

In addition to visiting the SC section of this forum and reading the explanations please visit the GMAT PREP verbal section at https://www.manhattangmat.com/forums/gma ... l-f31.html and read Ron Purewal's approach and explanation to SC questions. This helped me a lot during my prep as he dissects these questions while giving explanations.

Regards,
CR
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by samus33 » Wed Dec 09, 2009 10:08 pm
Update:
Utterly exasperated... I've scored lower on 3 exams today than I did prior to studying. I've been scoring in the low 600 range, with quants below 40 which is absolutely mind boggling. All the tests I've taken are Princeton Review tests.

Is this normal? I was scoring high 600's and low 700's with first time tests, and on retakes I'm scoring signifcantly lower. Hopefully it's just my nerves getting the best of me and not some fundamentals that I'm simply missing.

Anyways, this was more of a rant than anything because I know it's my nerves. I know my stuff inside and out.

If anyone can shed some light on a good nerve calming tactic the day before the exam, it would be greatly appreciated. I plan on writing the second GMAC CAT tomorrow morning to see if I can shake off the awful scores.

We shall see.

Cheers
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