520 to 700+ in 3 months??

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520 to 700+ in 3 months??

by saikatlahiri » Fri Mar 15, 2013 6:51 am
Hi,

I have recently started preparing for my GMAT which is scheduled for end of June. I gave my first GMAT prep test and got 520(Quant-40, Verbal, 21, IR-7..This is basically with virtually no preparation).Since I have just 3 months to prepare and as I work for a management consulting firm due to which there is a lot of travel involved therefore I might not be able to join any formal classes for preparing. Due to these constraints I would have to self study and for starters I am referring study resources provided by MGMAT strategy guides and official GMAT study material. I am planning to study atleast 4 -5 hours a day till the date of exams which also includes me giving practice exams over the weekend for the first month and then twice/thrice every week till the date of exam.

With this kind of a plan do you think it is feasible to score 700+ in my GMAT exam. Please advise what will be the best possible way to go forward to achieve this score.
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by essaysnark » Sun Mar 17, 2013 9:08 am
Hey saikatlahiri - anything is possible but you're essentially asking if you can bump your score almost 200 points. That's pretty ambitious and only you can say if it's doable or not. We've seen it done but it's not so common (keep in mind that many people do better on practice tests than the real thing).

The good news is that an improvement in the verbal side gives a bigger bump in the total score than a similar point increase in the quant side; in other words, your studying on the verbal to bring up the 21 raw score can actually have a very large impact on your total. You need to increase on both sides of the test but that 40 raw quant score is a good starting point (and the 7 for IR is good too).

We've heard of some studies in learning techniques advise against the lengthy cram sessions. Studying for 4-5 hours a day sounds like a lot, but again, you're the best one to judge what works for you.

Since you have so much time before your test you might want to take advantage of the BTG 60-Day Study Guide - we've heard of people using it with some good results. https://www.beatthegmat.com/mba/gmat-guide

Good luck with it!
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by essaysnark » Sun Mar 17, 2013 9:35 am
Eek - just realized that this was posted in the official GMAC forum - EssaySnark is not an official GMAT rep! Very sorry, we shouldn't have answered anything here, not our place.

saikatlahiri, this question should probably go in a different forum; see https://www.beatthegmat.com/read-this-wh ... 14224.html
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by OfficialGMAT » Thu Mar 21, 2013 12:35 pm
No worries, EssaySnark! We're all friends, here!

saikatlahiri, it sounds as if you are doing all the right things to prepare for the GMAT exam. There is no one study strategy that works for everybody or that will guarantee you a specific score, but I can tell you that having a solid study strategy in place will go a long way toward improving your score. We know that students who spend longer studying tend to do better on the exam. Remember when you are preparing for the exam to practice pacing in addition to the subject material, as running out of time can be detrimental to your score. You can see more study tips here: https://officialgmat.mba.com/2012/04/19/ ... mat-score/

Best of luck!
Leah
Official GMAC Representative

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