Study plan for high-level Verbal / Math

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Study plan for high-level Verbal / Math

by sb2702 » Wed Mar 06, 2013 1:11 pm
Hi BTG community!

I humbly come seeking advice on my study plan for the GMAT, which I take in 3 weeks.

I've been studying for the GMAT for about two months or so, and I'm doing well so far, getting consistent scores I'd be happy with on test day across several practice tests from different companies. I've still got 3 weeks until my exam though, so I'd still like to spend my time improving.

Quant:
I've been stuck on a score of 50 for a few weeks now.

So far, I've just been practicing Manhattan GMAT's "Challenge Problems" over and over again.
My errors on Quant seem to be split evenly between 1)Small errors on tough problems (forgetting to take into account a small piece of information in the prompt) and 2) Getting phased out/stumped by 1-3 really tough problems per practice test, problems on which I usually just eliminate what I can and then guess, when I can't think of a strategy to solve it in less then ~40 seconds.

Any advice/recommendations for pushing quant up to a 51? My only guess would be stay the course and try to practice minimizing stupid mistakes on test day.

Verbal:
On verbal, I've been consistently between 44-46. My most recent GMATPrep test indicates that all 5 of my wrong answers on verbal were sentence corrections.

My verbal strategy thus far has been doing Knewton's course, and reading Manhattan GMAT's Sentence correction guide. While I'm comfortable with Reading Comprehension, there's a couple tough Critical Reasoning questions that still get me, and some days it seems I just make a couple of SC errors.

I'd like to bump my verbal scores to a 46-48. Any recommendations from verbal experts? I'm contemplating right now just practicing a ton of official SC problems, as especially tough ones, and revising/cataloging/analyzing my errors.


Thanks a bunch, I promise I'll contribute to the forum after I'm done with my own GMAT.

-Sam

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by arun@crackverbal » Thu Mar 07, 2013 4:10 am
A Q-50 V-45 (your current range) should give you a 770 so really no need to worry if you are applying to a bschool. After a point there is only so much you can do as you are already in the 99th percentile :) In anycase, even with the improvement you seek i.e. Q50 ->51 and V 45->48 your score will only marginally move from a 770 to a 780.

If I were in your shoes, I would just book the next available date and take the test. It is pointless to expect improvement beyond a point.

Arun
Founder of CrackVerbal - India's fastest growing GMAT Prepration and MBA Admissions Consulting Company. https://gmat.crackverbal.com

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by sb2702 » Thu Mar 07, 2013 7:28 am
Hey Arun,

Well, you're right in that I've been consistently scoring a 770, a score I'd be happy with for the business schools I want to apply to. My primary concern/motivation for continued improvement, is, what score I'd get on a bad day. I want to mitigate the effects of such a possible bad day by covering all my bases, and I'm willing to dedicate the time given that I've already scheduled my exam for 3 weeks from now.

Thanks,
Sam