Improving from 650 to 690

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Improving from 650 to 690

by kermed » Thu Nov 05, 2015 6:19 am
Hello ladies and gents,

I'll give you a quick summary of my score and follow up with my problem:

I studied with the Manhatten Strategy Guides and Magooshs databank, as well as the OG.

GMAT Prep MOC 640 (Q43/V35)
Economist Prep Test 650 (Q46/V33)

Quant:
Mostly Algebra in PS, timing is tight and I tend to take too much time for hard questions, exponentials is another topic I need more practise on.
In DS it is Algebra as well as some Geometry.

Verbal:
Biggest problem here is SC (Parallelism and Verb Form). RC is an issue too but hasn't been too bad. 1-3 Qs wrong.

I have one month left to study (until the 6th of December)

Now I really need to improve my score to 680 or higher. My mistakes were during practise and in those prep tests as follows:


How do I get where I need to be?

The strategy guide doesn't seem to help me on SC, since I cannot recognize the issue at hand sometimes. I'd go with 100% studying on SC now to improve the overall score, but Business Schools like a high Quant and I feel like the Economist test is not comparable to the real thing.

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by [email protected] » Thu Nov 05, 2015 9:14 am
Hi kermed,

With a 650, you're closer to a 680/690+ than you realize. At higher and higher scoring levels, the GMAT becomes really 'sensitive' to little mistakes - if you make to many, then you just won't be able to take your score to the desired level. To that end, it's important to define WHY you're getting questions wrong.

On each these CATs, how many questions did you end up getting wrong because of a silly/little mistake? THOSE represent the easiest points that you should be able to get back (and those points might be enough to help you hit your score goals).

1) When you take your CATs, do you take the FULL CAT (including the Essay and IR sections)?
2) Did you take the CATs at the same time of day as your Official GMAT?

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by kermed » Thu Nov 05, 2015 12:49 pm
I have to take a closer look into how many qwere wrong because of silly mistakes. I guess there were some, but mostly regarding me not being able to finish the Quant without gussing the last 4 questions. Time is really a tough constraint.

1) I did take the full ones. I actually like having this initiation part, where you have much more time before the really hard stuff comes up. It helps me to get in the right "mood".

2) I kind of did, the first one was at 9 AM, while the real one will start at 8 AM. For the second one it was quite strange, because I took it after a 10 hour work day and still performed quite ok.

To enhance my timing, should I just take more CATs (I still have the Manhatten ones), although I know that you actually don't learn much from taking the CATs.

Do you have some specific ideas on how to improve the mentioned areas?

Thank you for your input and general assistance on this forum.

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by [email protected] » Thu Nov 05, 2015 5:48 pm
Hi kermed,

You should plan to take 1 CAT per week up until Test Day (with the goal to make each CAT as realistic and 'in line' with Test Day as possible).

Since you've defined a couple of big categories (Algebra and SC) that you're having problems with, do you think that your current resources are enough to help you hone those skills? If you don't believe that they'll be enough, then you'll likely need to invest in some new resources.

GMAT assassins aren't born, they're made,
Rich
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