GMAT Strategy

Hi
I am a working professional with four years of work experience now. I have very recently started the preparation of the exam, as I am willing to fuel the growth of my career which I believe an MBA from a good university would help. I started with a pre preparation test to understand where I stand as far as my aptitude was concerned after so many years of staying away from curriculum Math & Verbal.
Test 1: Q38 & V22 approx. Score of 500

After few weeks of preparation
Test 2: Q42 & V16 approx. Score of 490

Test 3: Q50 & V28 approx Score of 590

I understand I need to tighten the screws as these are certainly not the score that I am looking for. Though there has been considerable improvement in math section, the improvement on the verbal isn’t that good.
I am willing to take few steps at a time as I plan to take the test early next year and would like to improve on my verbal area as I believe; I have always been good at numbers and would take less time to gear up on that front.
I am looking at an improvement of around 250 score from my first test. I would like to seek guidance from the experienced folks here on this forum how can I make this possible.

Hello people,

just an observation!!!!! The test i gave were all paper based and evaluated from the predictor sheet along with ARCO prep guide.......
after few comparison on this forum i found that indicator to be predicting quiet a low value........
A gmat score of 690{Q49 V34} is 620 on ARCO's sheet.

Though it states that it is an approximation, there is quiet a degree of aberration!!!!

Regards,

Any comment on this guys???

Hi Eccentric,

That is a good observation you made there.

Regarding your preparation, I think you have quite some time to structure your preparation well, formulating a clear strategy, timetable and approach for your preparation can be helpful. But first, you will need to identify the problem areas in the verbal section for eg is it SC,RC or CR. and also the pattern of your mistakes in that area, for eg you may be facing difficulty in say inference based questions on the CR. A tool that may help with the identification is the diagnostic GMAT CATs available from a number of websites. One such tool I know of is the Kaplan GMAT diagnostic on the kap website.

Cheers!

Thanx for your comment reachac

My preperation at the moment is through the princeton review guide.
and working out the questions in Bins
Timing seems to be critical, As far accuracy is concerned it is alright in Maths, though some room for improvement still exist( not made to 100% accuracy ); however improvement both in speed and accuracy is needed in verbal.
I have taken down your suggesttion as i feel i need to work out strtegy at the granular level, so far i have only concentrated at macro level.

Regards,

Hi,

I am getting really consistent; but this consistency is hurting me. Of my two complete paper test {question set prepared from OG 10 guide} my score is 580 & 590 where quant is around 48 mark while verbal score is in 22 & 24.

The verbal break up is 64% SC, 57% is CR & 50% in RC. that is on accuracy front. However i am poor on timing as well as i miss nearly 3 - 6 question in verbal. The method of preparation adopted is practicing questions and identifying error and approach improvement.
Looking at the metric there is lot of room for improvement but HOW seems to big question lurking in my mind.

Any suggestion would be appreciated!!!!

i've been preparing for gmat for past 3 months and done og-11,kaplan premier program and kaplan gmat 800 , i have a 85% accuracy rate in Quant and above 70 % in verbal
but when it comes to taking test i struggle in data sufficiency and verbal part
data sufficiency is still not that bad but whole verbal accuracy in tests is 50%

i was giving the princetonreview online gmat,noticed that despite getting 29 questions correct in quant my score was 40
and when it comes to verbal i just lose my concentration at the time of tests

what should i do to increase score in verbal(rc specially) ??

Hi,

The score you got is fairly correct, 29 correct on verbal would get you around scaled score of 40.

I cannot suggest you any method of improving your rc score as i am myself struggling to improve the accuracy which is 50 %.

However, i have made an observation that when i solve an RC in un-timed condition i am around 80 - 100 % accurate. This clearly indicates that quick comprehension and judging the most accurate choices(as you would find 2-3 choices that can be easily eliminated upfront) among the 2 close ones is key.

guvernment wrote:i was giving the princetonreview online gmat,noticed that despite getting 29 questions correct in quant my score was 40
and when it comes to verbal i just lose my concentration at the time of tests

what should i do to increase score in verbal(rc specially) ??

Hi,

The score you got is fairly correct, 29 correct on verbal would get you around scaled score of 40.

I cannot suggest you any method of improving your rc score as even i am struggling to improve the accuracy which is 50 %.

However, i have made an observation that when i solve an RC in un-timed condition i am around 80 - 100 % accurate. This clearly indicates that quick comprehension and judging the most accurate choices(as you would find 2-3 choices that can be easily eliminated upfront) among the 2 close ones is key.

Hello Panel,

I gave my first complete test including the essays and my score is(not very surprising to me, i have scoring consistently !!!!)

550(22v, 43Q)

Below is the section wise performance break up..

Question Type Performance
 Category R W U % Correct

   Problem Solving 19 3 0  86%
        PS Frac/Dec/Per 6 1 0  86%
        PS Exponents/Ro1 0 0  100%
        PS Eqtns/Inequa 1 0 0  100%
        PS Functions 2 0 0  100%
        PS Digits 1 0 0  100%
        PS Plugging In 3 0 0  100%
        PS PITA 2 0 0  100%
        PS Estimation 1 0 0  100%
        PS Geometry 1 2 0  33%
   Data Sufficiency 12 3 0  80%
        DS Frac/Dec/Pet 2 0 0  100%
        DS Ratios/Proprt 0 2 0  0%
        DS Avgs/Rates/ 2 0 0  100%
        DS Eqtns/Inequa 4 0 0  100%
        DS Tricks/Traps 2 1 0  67%
        DS Yes/No 2 0 0  100%


 Category R W U % Correct

   Sentence Corr. 12 3 0  80%
        Red Pencil Fever 2 0 0  100%
        Misplaced Modifi 1 0 0  100%
        Idiom 4 1 0  80%
        Verb Tense 1 1 0  50%
        Parallel Const 2 1 0  67%
        Concise vs Wor 1 0 0  100%
   Arguments 4 8 0  33%
        Weaken 0 3 0  0%
        Inference 2 1 0  67%
        Parallel 1 0 0  100%
        Strengthen 1 3 0  25%
        Evaluate 0 1 0  0%
   Reading Comp. 6 8 0  43%
        RC General 1 1 0  50%
        RC Specific 3 5 0  38%
        RC Reasoning 1 1 0  50%
        Reading Comp. 1 1 0  50%


My preparation so far have been solving the questions in OG 10 and reviewing them, i have always timed these questions too and my scoring range has been 550 - 620 with a good dinner break between quant and verbal. I Consider myself good on maths and verbal in general, however the results reflect for maths not quiet for verbal though. Though believe can improve in both both areas to significantly improve my score I have time @ my hand as i am planning for admissions in next year, would like to seek some advice and suggestions from the expert panel here

Thanks in advance