Can't seem to see an improvement on GMAT - Help Please

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I have been studying the GMAT for over a year and I took the real exam once and I got 540 (44 on math and 28 on verbal I think). This is not good enough. Right now I am studying for GMAT, but I can't focus on GMAT. I've found myself that I can't study well enough if I am not serious and push myself hard. Should I cut everything out in my life? I mean friends, family, and everything so that I will be more focused on GMAT. I'm very frustrated with myself and don't know what to do. Could you please give me suggestions or help me to be in the right track?

I know most experts said we shouldn't be studying for more than 6 hours per day. Is this method really working? I tried to study 6 hours then go out with my friends later in the day. Then the next day, I find it is even harder to study because I keep thinking about all the fun I have with my friends and how unlucky I am that I have to study GMAT.

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by Jim@StratusPrep » Tue May 14, 2013 9:40 am
Keep your study time down or burnout will set in. You will be unhappy if you cut everything out of your life. I would suggest working with a professional to develop a plan with you and help you stay on task...
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by angie99 » Tue May 14, 2013 6:06 pm
Do you have anyone that you would like to suggest?

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by Jim@StratusPrep » Wed May 15, 2013 8:01 am
I would be happy to help. PM me if you are interested...
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by lunarpower » Thu May 23, 2013 7:11 am
i received a private message about this thread.
angie99 wrote:I have been studying the GMAT for over a year and I took the real exam once and I got 540 (44 on math and 28 on verbal I think).
you may want to check that; those scores don't match up. if you had q44 v28, that would be 600.
maybe plus/minus 10 points, but that's about it.

Should I cut everything out in my life? I mean friends, family, and everything so that I will be more focused on GMAT.
i hope this is not actually a serious question. if it is, then the answer is, of course, no.

I know most experts said we shouldn't be studying for more than 6 hours per day. Is this method really working? I tried to study 6 hours then go out with my friends later in the day.
6 hours in one day is way, way too much.

for adult humans, the upper threshold for learning, and/or acquiring skills, is about 4 hours in a day -- and that's only if there is a decently long break in the middle of that time.
(this is not to be confused with executing skills that one already has; that can pretty much go on indefinitely. for instance, if they really have to, people could take a 12-hour-long test. or investment bankers could make powerpoints for 24 hours in a row. but these are not learning tasks, and that's a fundamental difference.)

plus, the good news about this test is that it's not a "hard work" test.
in fact, that's the way this exam is by design: it's specifically made not to require a great deal of preparation.

yes, you'll need to spend some time familiarizing yourself with the way that the test items work -- how the questions are asked, how they generally work, and so on -- so that the task becomes fairly routine.
and, if you forget your junior-high and early high school math (up through algebra 1 and geometry), and/or the fundamentals of written english sentence structure, then you'll have to refresh those. but, once you have those basic skill sets in place, the point of this exam is to be a fairly "quick study".

in other words, it's good that you're industrious, but this exam is definitely one of those "work smarter, not harder" things.
i.e., the proper response to long periods of work with few results is not to work even longer or harder! the proper response is to change the way you're working.

Then the next day, I find it is even harder to study because I keep thinking about all the fun I have with my friends and how unlucky I am that I have to study GMAT.
don't take this the wrong way, but reading this just gives me the sense that you're not ready for, and/or serious about, the prospect of b-school.

once you decide that this is Something You Really Want To Commit To... well, these kinds of thoughts shouldn't be there anymore.
Ron has been teaching various standardized tests for 20 years.

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by bpolley00 » Thu May 23, 2013 7:40 am
Ron,

Quick question: if the upper threshold to learn is 4 hours, how come in college I could read an entire book the night before and get an A on the test the next day? I am not bragging, I just think either that is a really weird skill or what you said can't be correct. Thanks!

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by lunarpower » Sat May 25, 2013 4:25 am
bpolley00 wrote:Ron,

Quick question: if the upper threshold to learn is 4 hours, how come in college I could read an entire book the night before and get an A on the test the next day? I am not bragging, I just think either that is a really weird skill or what you said can't be correct. Thanks!
not bragging, necessarily, but at times it does seem that you're trying pretty hard to prove yourself to ... well, to the assembled anonymous masses of the internet?
also, perhaps i'm remembering incorrectly, but didn't you once write that you didn't care about / stopped caring about your GPA in college? if so, then going to the effort of reading a whole book the night before seems to fall out of line with those statements.
apologies if i'm misremembering what you wrote and/or thinking of another poster.

anyway --
in all seriousness, there's a big difference between genuine learning/skill acquisition -- aka the learning of new thought processes -- and other kinds of "learning".
if you are talking about acquiring knowledge from a book, then it's virtually certain that you are not talking about the same kind of "learning" at all. if you are just memorizing things from the book, or learning new formulas/templates/concepts that can fit into an already existing thought process (like new formulas in an economics class where you already know the basic macro/microeconomic model), then that's not the kind of learning i'm talking about here.
when it comes to re-wiring your brain -- which is actually quite literal, since we're talking about actually creating new neural connections here -- even 4 hours is pushing it.

there's actually a pretty good analogy to training your body here. if you're already a runner, then you can do a lot of running without getting overly much exhausted. on the other hand, if you're a couch potato, or even just a different kind of athlete (say, i don't know, a powerlifter), then even a little bit of running is going to tax you a lot, and you'll run out of steam pretty fast.
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by vomhorizon » Sun May 26, 2013 4:21 am
From the medical aspect of it, ron is correct. The ability of the human brain to absorb a ton of data in a short period of time is remarkable, and one would be astonished how much of that information can be reproduced in a relatively short interval of time (with high accuracy). Having said that, this is not your classic prep for the gmat. Gmat prep is more prolonged (running into months for most people) where one has to re-develop concepts (if forgotten) and/or learn , reinforce strategies to take the test. This takes time and as such cannot be done by having very long sessions of learning over a relatively short period of time. Throughout medical school I have spent sleepless nights prepping for finals, however i would not say that my knowledge in the field of medicine was acquired during those hard/marathon sessions. I know quite a bit of folks who packed their schedule with 10 hours a day worth of prep and did very well on the gmat, however is that optimum? I would not say so. Just because people can do so succesfully does'nt mean its the best way to do it.
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by bpolley00 » Sun May 26, 2013 7:26 am
Ron,

To the first part, no not really. I just haven't had a chance to really study Neuroscience so I thought the question was relevant. Just because I didn't care about my GPA doesn't mean that I didn't have to pass the class or that I didn't find some of the information relevant to my career goals while finding other parts of the class factually inaccurate/ completely disingenuios. I mean, Ron come take a class from me for 6 months (ACTUALLY, if you are a typical student, you should borrow money to join my class by subsidizing my salary today at the expense of your ability to consume in the future) and I will teach you how to spot REAL WITCHES! My guess is in about 3 weeks when you realize I am full of sh** and not worth listening to you would probably not really care what i had to say. Or maybe you would just sit there and memorize how to spot witches and pound it into your head. You would think about dropping out but then, I would inform you that if you dropped out you wouldn't be able to find a job because you didn't have your witch hunting degree, so employers wouldn't hire you.

Anyways,

I guess I am kind of confused about the two types of learning you are talking about here. I mean, usually when you read a book you shouldn't just memorize it. You should actually critically think about the information being presented. I mean Ron, if I gave you a book and you started reading it and you figured out what that book said was completely rediculous, would you just sit there and memorize it/ pound it in your head for some test? That is what I was getting at with my GPA comments. Maybe you have some book recommendations on this subject, as I am sure you don't want to explain everything you know about Neuroscience on this forum. I am actually reading the brain that changes itself right now and it is really interesting.

Finally, a random question, not sure if you will know the answer or not. I know you know a lot about standardized tests so I figured it would be worth asking. I just took the Wonderlic test the other week for a job interview and I was wondering if you happened to know where I could find the 25%-75% range for that test. I obviously already googled it and couldn't find the information anywhere. I just thought it would be interesting. If you don't know it off the top of your head then obviously I am not asking you to research it for me.

VOM- Point taken and I think that makes complete sense. If you have any book recommendations on the subject that would be great as well.

Thanks for the responses, it is always interesting/ helpful to hear your thoughts/ opinions.

-BP