Advice Needed- Need to go up from 570-

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Advice Needed- Need to go up from 570-

by Rachit88 » Mon Oct 29, 2012 8:22 pm
Hello

I took my GMAT yesterday after 3 months of hard work and scored a dismal 570 ( Q44, V25). I am not sure what went wrong with verbal- maybe it was my overconfidence or maybe it the test day anxiety. I have finished OG-12 ( read from a pdf) and Kaplan Premier latest edition completely and scored 640 in my last practice test in GMAT Test prep software.

I will have to give the exam again in another 40 days before the second round deadline of most colleges and the only benefit that I can think of is that I have left my job last month and have full time to prepare.

Can you please advice on the following points

1. What books do you think I should refer to? I noticed that the test had questions which were similar to the OG. Should I buy the 13th edition?

2. Other than working on Verbal, I think a big reason behind the score was on my inability to handle the test correctly. Even while I was preparing I noticed that when I scored low on tests and later redid the questions, I was mostly able to solve them without looking to the answer explanations. Is there a course available online which would give me access to a lot of practice tests? ( I am checking out Master GMAT as I write this )

3. What else can I do to ensure to go from 570 to 720+ in the 40 days time left with me.

Please help

Regards
Rachit

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by AristotlePrep » Mon Oct 29, 2012 9:39 pm
Before you start your prep again,firstly ask yourself whether you understand how to prepare for the test correctly. It is entirely possible that you may not have prepared for the test correctly in the first place and that needs to be addressed first(you may find The Right and the Wrong Way to Prepare for the GMAT in the attached free ebook helpful for this)

If you exactly know what steps you need to take to achieve a 720(your target score),40 days is not a bad amount of time. The first thing you should do before you restart your prep is devise a plan for yourself based on your current competency level in each area on Verbal and Quant.
You may want to ask yourself questions such as -which of the three areas in Verbal do I need to focus on the most? Did I score badly on Verbal because I didn't have conceptual clarity or was because of the lack of practice ? Do I need to improve my time management? Did I use book/resources that taught me the application of concepts, not just theory?
Write down the answers to these questions.Once you have figured out the answers, you will have much better insights into why you did not do well and how you can do better this time around.
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