GMAT Strategy

Hi

This is my first post on this forum, I've been studying for the GMAT for about 2 months now and it's now baffling why I didnt go through this site earlier !

Anyways, I began my preparation targeting a score of 740-750. Before my prep. began I'd given a Veritas test scoring 620 and a non-standardised diagnostic test scoring 640. My quant scores were about 38-40 and verbal scores were 37-39.

I started by doing very basic quant exercises topic wise ( from a couple of books ) and gradually started doing the official guide (12th Edition ). For sentence correction I studied the Manhattan SC Guide 4th Edition and the official guide for RC and SC Questions.

The first 2 mocks i gave after 2 months of preparation ( average - 2hrs a day ) were -

Manhattan gmat free test cat1 -: 710, q45,v41
Kaplan CAT 1 -: 630, q39,v37

The one thing i noticed was that i had more questions wrong in the manhattan test than the kaplan one. My understanding on how the test is scored is still a little raw. To increase my quant score, i finished the Kaplan Maths Workbook just to get an idea of a wider variety of questions.

I gave a GMAT Powerprep mock again and my score was -: 710, q47, v39 . I only had 5/6 questions incorrect on the quant section. In verbal, i had about 5 SC questions incorrect.

After my incessant rambling, my main question is how do i get this up to 740 / 750. I've been reading the topics on here for about an hour and the general idea i've got is that after a point, there's no point in solving more questions or in studying 10-12 different books. I've identified my weak areas in quant and sentence correction / CR but i have no idea about how to progress on them.

Is 750 attainable with the kind of scores i have or do i need a change in strategy ?
Also, is the IR Section in the new pattern going to make a difference in how scores are percieved by colleges ? I'm sorry for such a long post but I'd really appreciate any help on this !

Now is the time to start figuring out the cause of your mistakes. You are already scoring very well which probably means you have mastered most, if not all, of the content tested on the exam so it is time to start looking at your exam taking skills and see if there is a consistent problem. Some very common problems with their solutions, are:

1) didn't know what the question was asking: Look into the question to see what key words will help you to identify this type of problem in the future and make sure to focus on those, not just the solution.

2) Didn't know the content: Study the content

3) Rushed through the math and made a mistaken assumption: learn to use a more focused approach so you are not rushing a problem and be better at reading what is on the page - the GMAT loves to write questions that don't seem reasonable in real life.

4) mis-reading a question: Do you always misread the same words, learn to look out for your personal problem areas

5)Fell for an attractive verbal answer: Look at how they disguised the correct answer with vague wording and made the wrong answer more attractive with repeat wording from the passage and begin to be appropriately suspicious of repeating words.

6) Got lost in a step/ missed a step/ did the math wrong: use your note boards more efficiently.

7) Don't know, felt unfocused: learn when you are drifting from the test and find a physical action (deep breath, tighten muscles, roll neck) that will help to refocus you on the task at hand

There are several others but these tend to be the main ones.

Best of Luck.

One way that will drastically increase your chances of success is to use an expert private tutor who has great reviews and a proven track record. It really helped me pinpoint my weaknesses and get over my threshold. Check out some of my older posts.

Thanks for your replies. I'll look into the tutor thing as well.

Another question that i have is how is the test actually scored ? In my first mock ( Manhattan ) i got about 10-11 questions wrong in quant and still managed a 45 whereas in the second mock ( Kaplan ) i got 14 wrong which got me a score of 39.
In the third as well, i got 5 incorrect and yet got only 47.

The test is scored using a computer adaptive algorithm. It is not a point based test - meaning it is not a test in which a certain number right equals a certain score. As you take the exam and get questions correct, the questions get harder (representative of a higher scoring level). The score is, at a very basic level, the result of all the questions you got right and wrong along with the difficulty level of the questions. For instance if you get 4 questions wrong in a row your scoring level will most likely drop but if you get 4 questions in a row correct your score will improve. There is an added confusion of experimental questions which do not affect your score.

The GMAT does not release it's actual scoring algorithm and companies do their best to emmulate it with their software - there are some discprepancies between the different companies and this may be what you are seeing. You can also go to the GMAC website where you can download two mock exams written by them.