Got a 620, would like 700+, advice please

[mmerlis86]

Hi All, first time poster here.

I took the GMAT on Saturday and scored a 620, 80th percentile on the Verbal section and I think around 55 in the quant section. I'm aiming for around a 700 and I think it's completely realistic, but I was wondering if there were any others out there that had a similar experience and similar expectations?

How long should I wait before re-taking the exam? I was thinking that I could do strictly math quiz banks for the next three weeks and then retake the test. Any input/thoughts?

I appreciate any thoughts/advice.

Thanks in advance
Mike

[Osirus@VeritasPrep]

I have a similar situation. I got a 680 and I want to get 720 plus. I am waiting to take the exam until I go through all of my materials again and I shore up all wekanesses I knew I had going in. For example, I knew I wasn't comfortable with geometry, really didn't study it except for my Kaplan Premier guide, so I am going to make sure I am comfortable with geometry before I take it again. Also, I did pretty bad on the verbal, so I am not going to take it again until I am hitting 45 or higher on my verbal CATs consistently. Good luck, and let me know if you have any other questions.

[money9111]

mmerlis86 WELCOME!

Are you completely positive you got a 55 in QUANT? If so... I'd be curious to know what your verbal score was. A 55 in Quant is well... amazing to say the least lol. If you got a 55 and only scored a 620 then your V score must have been fairly low. That's where you should put your focus and time for the next 31 days, if you wanted to take the exam as soon as possible.

[mmerlis86]

Osirus, thanks for the reply. I hope everything works out for you!

Money- Thanks for the response. Sorry about that, I should have been more clear/detailed. My scaled scores are as follows: Q 39 V 37. The figures I referenced in my first post were the percentiles I fell into.

My plan as of now is to utilize my Kaplan online syllabus until it expires on Feb. 27th, the only problem being that I do not have any practice exams left. I can however focus on quant quiz banks and possibly a few verbal questions.

[money9111]

Did you take the two free GMAT prep cat exams yet? If soaye you can just invest in the MGMAT exams. Might be worth it for the practice!

[Brian@VeritasPrep]

Hi Mike,

First off, congratulations on a pretty strong performance! Obviously, the tenor on this board tends to be 700+ or bust (and I love the aggressive goals), but 620 is significantly above average, so you deserve some credit for what you've already accomplished.

With your starting point, and with the differential between your percentiles, I think you can definitely get to 700 in the next 4-6 weeks. A few things I'd advise:

1) Think back to test day and see if you can identify 2-3 things that you know need improvement. Did you pace yourself okay? Were there any questions that you just couldn't tackle? Can you think back to any mistakes that you made, or to any mistakes you tended to make in practice that you didn't notice on test day?

If anything comes to mind, make that a priority in the next week or two and see if you can make some quick improvement there.

2) Determine if there were any areas of weakness going in to your test date that you know you'd have liked to spend more time on...now you have that time to spend. Sometimes, just the psychology of knowing you could have prepared better will sap your confidence enough to affect you on things you ordinarily do well, because you're sort of waiting for the other shoe to drop. See if you can identify something like "I knew I'd be weak on probability, and was hoping not to see any", and address that now.

3) Don't neglect the verbal! With your 80th percentile score, you're in great shape, but I'd advise that you spend about 1/3 of your time on the verbal, and the rest on quant. 80th percentile didn't max you out - you still have points to gain - and you definitely don't want to see that drop at all (the worst would be to pull your quant up to 80th, but see your verbal drop around 70th and keep you under 700). Spending some time on verbal will help you keep that fresh, build some confidence with what you're already doing well, and hopefully pick up a few more points there, too.

Best of luck in the next month or so! I hope that you'll keep the board posted.

[mmerlis86]

Money - Yes, I've already used both of the free exams. I think I am def going to give the MGMAT a shot.

Brian, thanks for the congrats and the positive forward looking statements!

I should probably elaborate a bit more on my study habits...I'm a crammer, always have been and it has worked for the best, however I don't believe cramming for the GMAT was such a good idea. I took the Kaplan review class over the first few weeks of December, and I was planning on taking the test Jan 13th. As usual, unexpected things came up (family issues, the usually unanticipated late nights at work, etc...), and I ended up pushing the test date back to the 13th of Feb.

I didn't spend much time going over my first 4 CAT practice exams through Kapaln, and I'm sure that not doing so was a bad idea. There was a lull between the the holiday season and the last week of January where I really didn't do much studying, i would take a quiz here and there and go over a Kaplan online workshop. Per my usual study habits it was one the three weeks leading up to the test and I began the cramming. I took 6 practice exams over the three week period and meticulously went over each one. As expected this is when I finally began to see improvements and also strarted to realize how important it was to go over the exams, regardless of the results.

I'm going to take your advice and really concentrate on the items from the quant section that I remember struggling with. Those areas being: Radicals, properties of sets and some of the more involved number property questions. I wish there was a detailed diagnostic for the actual exam, it would be so helpful.

Thanks again for all the replies!

[mmerlis86]

I've been looking through the MGMAT products and I'm having trouble deciding on which to purchase. I think the Practice Exam/Q Bank combo is a perfect fit for what I need, however I'm looking to really focus on quant so maybe I should look at some of the offerings that focus mainly on quant?

[MFaulkner]

I've been looking through the MGMAT products and I'm having trouble deciding on which to purchase. I think the Practice Exam/Q Bank combo is a perfect fit for what I need, however I'm looking to really focus on quant so maybe I should look at some of the offerings that focus mainly on quant?

If you buy a MGMT book (for something around $25.00 per book) you get access to 6 CATs and one QBank that is complementary to the book you purchased.

I started out with Kaplan, like yourself, and after completeing the course was only able to score in the mid 600s. Three weeks ago I purchased four MGMT books (Sentence Correction, Critical Reasoning, Number Properties, Math-Word Translations)--I am currently on the third book.

So far I've been very impressed, overall I feel that MGMT provides much more thorough explanations on all of the subject matter than Kaplan's material did. This is especially true for the advance material, which is crucial to gain better understanding of considering that the advance material (700-800 level questions) is what's keeping me from my goal of a 700 score. Additionally, I'm convinced that MGMT's CATs are superior than Kaplan's--in both the questions themselves and the scoring algorithm.

My recommendation would be to purchase one or two of the MGMT quant books. These will give you access to 6 new CATs and QBanks consisting of 25 questions relevant to the material you're struggling with.

[money9111]

"My recommendation would be to purchase one or two of the MGMT quant books. " if do you this... Number properties must be one of the books!

[bhumika.k.shah]

which other book would u recommend?

i would like to know how is mgmat's fractions and % book?

i already have it but should i go through it?
is it good?

"My recommendation would be to purchase one or two of the MGMT quant books. " if do you this... Number properties must be one of the books!

[mmerlis86]

Thank you for the advice Faulkner, I'm going to purchase all of the quant books today and get the ball rolling. I've also decided to not schedule my exam as early as I had previously planned to. I figure I should give myself 4-5 weeks of further studying rather than 2-3.