Hi All,
I have some concerns about my study. I've actually taken a prep course before in the past (a year and a half ago) and I guess I didn't really invest my time into it. I did pick up a general idea of how the GMAT works and learn some good SC tricks, but it was no where near the effort I was putting in today. I took a practice test (it was GMAT paper test) at the end of the class and ended up with a 590. I decided that I would have to put things on hold, this wasn't an acceptable score for me.
So around this year, the beginning of July I started to go all in with the Manhattan GMAT self study materials. I went through the syallabus and did all the Math OG11problems. I used OG12 for verbal. Some of the verbal I was still working on (RC and CR). I decided it was time to to start taking practice CATs.
9/19/10 MGMAT CAT 1 590 (Q44/V29)
Ouch. Even after going through the OG stuff my score was pretty bad. I felt discouraged.
9/26/10 MGMAT CAT 2 580 (Q39/V31)
This was like someone stabbed my ego with a knife then slightly turned it. Something must've happened here- my CAT I revealed that my CR and RC were weak- So I worked on CR the whole week after CAT 1, I knew I could do better. When I got a 580 on CAT, I knew it was maybe because I was putting so much pressure on myself that I ended up choking. I decided to do the 3rd CAT right away.
9/28/10 MGMAT CAT 3 660 (Q45/V35)
Now I was seeing improvement! After a long day at work and an hour break between my CAT and work, I managed to break 650! Still noticing that my RC was bad. 75% of the problems I got wrong were RC- worked on that for two weeks and looked over my error logs, then got this:
10/15/10 MGMAT CAT 4 640 (Q44/V34)
CAT 4 made me realize that there was an underlying pattern of error in my testing. CAT 4 reveals that my RC improved. Then my CR dropped!!! My SC accuracy dropped a little bit but not too bad. I needed to study every subject at the same time and stop neglecting others.
I decided to look at my errors for the next week for ALL verbal subjects, and take the real GMATPrep. I wanted an indicator of where I was really at. Here's the bad news. So after work yesterday, I decided to go to the library and take the first GMATPrep test. Here are my results:
GMATPrep CAT 1 610 (Q42/V33)
I am devestated. So many things started to go through my head (am I smart or competent enough to break 700? Am I over exhausting myself? MBA maybe not for me?). I know that I placed too much emphasis on this test and the quant definitely dropped because of this. Quant looked easier than Manhattan GMAT, but some of the problems were so easy I was certian I was doing terrible. I also am not sure how to gauge if I should skip a problem that is hard or not. I still need to go through GMATPrep CAT 1 questions to see where my troubles were. But from looking at it quickly after the test I know that a lot of my SC problems I missed... I am an engineering graduate (master's and bachelor's) from UCLA. During the test, I thought my handle on RC and CR were ok, I know I made some careless mistakes but SC was psyching me out (the night before I did a SC portion of a paper test and got like 60% correct). I thought things like this should come easy to us. Guess not.
I wanted to take my test next weekend (I am going on a 2 week vacation in a lil over 2 weeks- I just wanted the GMAT out of my mind for my vacation), but this GMATPrep CAT 1 made me realize that I am not ready. If I had an official score under 700 I probably wouldn't enjoy my vacation either.
I've exhausted all the study material from OG12. What can I do from here?????
Thank you all for your suggestions in advance. Please feel free to share any thoughts....
I have some concerns about my study. I've actually taken a prep course before in the past (a year and a half ago) and I guess I didn't really invest my time into it. I did pick up a general idea of how the GMAT works and learn some good SC tricks, but it was no where near the effort I was putting in today. I took a practice test (it was GMAT paper test) at the end of the class and ended up with a 590. I decided that I would have to put things on hold, this wasn't an acceptable score for me.
So around this year, the beginning of July I started to go all in with the Manhattan GMAT self study materials. I went through the syallabus and did all the Math OG11problems. I used OG12 for verbal. Some of the verbal I was still working on (RC and CR). I decided it was time to to start taking practice CATs.
9/19/10 MGMAT CAT 1 590 (Q44/V29)
Ouch. Even after going through the OG stuff my score was pretty bad. I felt discouraged.
9/26/10 MGMAT CAT 2 580 (Q39/V31)
This was like someone stabbed my ego with a knife then slightly turned it. Something must've happened here- my CAT I revealed that my CR and RC were weak- So I worked on CR the whole week after CAT 1, I knew I could do better. When I got a 580 on CAT, I knew it was maybe because I was putting so much pressure on myself that I ended up choking. I decided to do the 3rd CAT right away.
9/28/10 MGMAT CAT 3 660 (Q45/V35)
Now I was seeing improvement! After a long day at work and an hour break between my CAT and work, I managed to break 650! Still noticing that my RC was bad. 75% of the problems I got wrong were RC- worked on that for two weeks and looked over my error logs, then got this:
10/15/10 MGMAT CAT 4 640 (Q44/V34)
CAT 4 made me realize that there was an underlying pattern of error in my testing. CAT 4 reveals that my RC improved. Then my CR dropped!!! My SC accuracy dropped a little bit but not too bad. I needed to study every subject at the same time and stop neglecting others.
I decided to look at my errors for the next week for ALL verbal subjects, and take the real GMATPrep. I wanted an indicator of where I was really at. Here's the bad news. So after work yesterday, I decided to go to the library and take the first GMATPrep test. Here are my results:
GMATPrep CAT 1 610 (Q42/V33)
I am devestated. So many things started to go through my head (am I smart or competent enough to break 700? Am I over exhausting myself? MBA maybe not for me?). I know that I placed too much emphasis on this test and the quant definitely dropped because of this. Quant looked easier than Manhattan GMAT, but some of the problems were so easy I was certian I was doing terrible. I also am not sure how to gauge if I should skip a problem that is hard or not. I still need to go through GMATPrep CAT 1 questions to see where my troubles were. But from looking at it quickly after the test I know that a lot of my SC problems I missed... I am an engineering graduate (master's and bachelor's) from UCLA. During the test, I thought my handle on RC and CR were ok, I know I made some careless mistakes but SC was psyching me out (the night before I did a SC portion of a paper test and got like 60% correct). I thought things like this should come easy to us. Guess not.
I wanted to take my test next weekend (I am going on a 2 week vacation in a lil over 2 weeks- I just wanted the GMAT out of my mind for my vacation), but this GMATPrep CAT 1 made me realize that I am not ready. If I had an official score under 700 I probably wouldn't enjoy my vacation either.
I've exhausted all the study material from OG12. What can I do from here?????
Thank you all for your suggestions in advance. Please feel free to share any thoughts....
