Taken GMAT twice, need help!

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mbaqueen: Newbie | Next Rank: 10 Posts; Posts: 2; Joined: Fri Jun 25, 2010 6:27 pm

by mbaqueen » Wed Aug 18, 2010 8:34 am

Hello Members,

I recently stumbled across BTG about a week before my 8/17 exam. I have taken the GMAT twice and the first time I've ever taken it, I scored a 430 and a 6 on the AWA. Second time around, I purchased Kaplan's online course did about 600 of the questions out of the Official Guide 11th ed. I've also taken 5 practice tests off of my Kaplan website and both the GMAT Prep CATs and scored 530 on every exam. Yesterday, after sitting through another real exam, I received a score of 480. My goal score isn't 700+, I'm shooting for 600 to 625 which seems so elusive.

After much reflecting from yesterday, I decided to pay for the actual Kaplan CLASSROOM course starting in September and retaking the exam sometime during the end of October or early November. I would not be going into the class blind with the amount of studying that I've done leading up to the exam and I would have an instructor to e-mail with my questions. With that being said, I was wondering what other study tips that everyone has that would like to share to maximize my Kaplan experience.

Thanks everyone,
N*

Source: Beat The GMAT — GMAT Strategy | Wed Aug 18, 2010 8:34 am

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Dan@VinciaPrep: Master | Next Rank: 500 Posts; Posts: 384; Joined: Sun Nov 01, 2009 9:54 amFollowed by: 13 members; Location: Paris; Thanked: 92 times

by Dan@VinciaPrep » Wed Aug 18, 2010 11:52 pm

mbaqueen wrote:Hello Members,

I recently stumbled across BTG about a week before my 8/17 exam. I have taken the GMAT twice and the first time I've ever taken it, I scored a 430 and a 6 on the AWA. Second time around, I purchased Kaplan's online course did about 600 of the questions out of the Official Guide 11th ed. I've also taken 5 practice tests off of my Kaplan website and both the GMAT Prep CATs and scored 530 on every exam. Yesterday, after sitting through another real exam, I received a score of 480. My goal score isn't 700+, I'm shooting for 600 to 625 which seems so elusive.

After much reflecting from yesterday, I decided to pay for the actual Kaplan CLASSROOM course starting in September and retaking the exam sometime during the end of October or early November. I would not be going into the class blind with the amount of studying that I've done leading up to the exam and I would have an instructor to e-mail with my questions. With that being said, I was wondering what other study tips that everyone has that would like to share to maximize my Kaplan experience.

Thanks everyone,
N*

The number of questions that you do doesn't really matter if you don't learn from the questions that you've done. It looks like you've been doing a lot of questions but how much time did you dedicate to learning from the questions that you got wrong, took too long, or that you had to guess on? Could you find a faster way to do certain problems?

Also, do you have a firm grasp of all the basics? I think the best study method is to really learn all of the basics for math and verbal and THEN do lots of questions to build up your speed and stamina.

If my post helped you- let me know by pushing the thanks button

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GMATMadeEasy: Legendary Member; Posts: 768; Joined: Mon Nov 30, 2009 3:46 amFollowed by: 7 members; Thanked: 21 times

by GMATMadeEasy » Thu Aug 19, 2010 8:13 am

Classroom course at this point will not be very helpful as you know well about the GMAT by now.

Take online course (Kaplan or whatever) if needed and work with a private tutor . For almost same money , he might help you to work on your weaknesses.

mbaqueen: Newbie | Next Rank: 10 Posts; Posts: 2; Joined: Fri Jun 25, 2010 6:27 pm

by mbaqueen » Thu Aug 19, 2010 9:26 pm

Thank you to everyone who has posted a response. I spoke with an advisor at Kaplan today and she mentioned that if I were to upgrade to the private tutoring that it would come with the class which would mean I would have the instructor as well as a private tutor which i think is really great b/c I'd really be able to sit down with them and work on my weaknesses on a one-on-one basis.

Prior to going into the math section, I actually bought Kaplan's GMAT Math Foundations, answered all review questions and completed the Chapter test and averaged at least 90% before going onto the next section as the concepts build upon each other. I have a month before the exam and one of my goals is to go through my old practice exams and reading the explanations for the questions that were answered incorrectly and jotting down the question types in order to really pinpoint where my weaknesses are. I'll also be sitting through the diagnostic exam on the first day of class.

Here's to my strategy for improving my score! Thank you again for the sound advice.

N*

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