Need some guidance! 630 goal / 660 practice to 540 actual

[mjayp99]

Okay GMAT people. I need some guidance. I've been a lurker in these forums and haven't participated much, simply because I think that I'm much different than most. I'm quite weak in quantitative (my Achilles heel my entire academic life so you could say that I have something of a math phobia) and (until recently) felt pretty good in verbal. I only need to score in the 620-630 range.

I first took the GMAT last June and bombed big time with a 500. I knew my studying was not very effective, and that my nerves got the best of me, so when it came time to take the test again, I wanted to be prepared. I signed up for the Kaplan Math Refresher class and the Kaplan GMAT anywhere classes. I have, for the most part, stayed in the Kaplan ecosystem for materials and practice tests. I took my practice tests at the actual Pearson locations in order to calm my nerves down.

Here are my score from the last 4 Kaplan CAT tests.
CAT6) 590 q42 v81
CAT7) 600 q40 v87
CAT8) 610 q42 v89(five days before test)
CAT9) 660 q42 v99 (two days before test)
Actual test) 540 q28 V66
Ouch.

I found the actual test to be different than the Kaplan materials. Not harder, just different. I would so it was less A+B=C and more abstract. I knew I was in trouble when I had only 6 questions left and about 2 minutes on the clock. In the Kaplan tests I struggled to finish in time. Verbal, which was coming to me in the Kaplan tests so well that I scored in the 99th percentile on my last CAT) made no sense and I felt lost.

I drank some caffeine before hand (as I did on my practice tests) in hope that it would help me to focus. And I was pretty (extremely) nervous.

So I need to know what to do here. I avoided the GMATprep test because it spooked me the first time, but now I feel like I should take that CAT and get a good feel for my actual current score level minus nerves. And then start up again, but I don't want to make the same mistakes. Should I go MGMAT and take the math and verbal from the most basic levels?

I am not applying to a top-50 school; I have a spectacular GPA, a great work history and fantastic references. This GMAT is the only thing holding me down.

I'm not going to let the test beat me, I took a few days off and am ready to attack it again, I just was hoping that someone out there could point me in the right direction!

[aslan]

I cannot understand the V60 and V8o stuff here!! ....where are you finding these tests which give such type of marking...Ive only heard of V40 or V30..unless the percentiles are mixed up here..

go for MGMAT for sure....anf finally relax, its only a test

[mjayp99]

Thanks for the reply. The numbers I posted were the percentiles, not the scaled scores. Kaplan doesn't give those for the practice tests, only the final score percentile. On the actual test I got a scaled score of 33 verbal and 31 math.

[aslan]

were you able to finish the quant on time?.

If your are a native,I bet you can easily pull up the sore to high 30's or maybe even 40's with a bit of practice.

[mjayp99]

Yes. Finished ahead of time on quant, which was quite different than my practice tests where I was struggling to finish on time.

[fitzgerald23]

Do you have the OG12? The first thing I would do is take their diagnostic in the front of the book and post the amount that you got correct. That can probably give you a good idea of a starting point and let other give you recommendations. MGMAT is excellent for helping your quant score which is really your killer from the looks of it and is probably where you want to go.

[mjayp99]

I'll do the diagnostic. I ordered the MGMAT books and am also looking at the Gmat Pill products.

[ashpall]

The OG guide is a definite must! Also, Manhattan GMAT publishes the Official Guide Companion, which gives clearer explanations of the OG quant. problems. I would download the free GMAT prep software and practice with this as much as possible. While GMATprep only has two tests, if you reset them you'll definitely get many new questions.

If I had to do it over, I would have spent more time with the OG and GMAT prep software really getting to know the questions including why the wrong answers were wrong and extracting the main concepts. The GMAT tends to test the same tricks over and over, as a matter of fact, I am sure I got an exact data sufficiency question from my practice on the actual GMAT; they just changed the numbers.

As far as nerves go, try to relax as much as possible and remember that you can always take the test over. I took Manhattan GMAT and my instructor said that there tends to be a HUGE improvement when people take the GMAT a second time; one increase he mentioned was someone going from a 560 to a 720. I think a lot of this has to do with less nerves and getting more comfortable with the concepts and questions.

Best of luck!

[rishi raj]

Here are my suggestions
1.Focus on learning the concepts really well. They shouldn't remain the GMAT concepts but rather should "become" a part of you.
2. Apply the concepts learnt by practising as many questions as possible from each topic
3. Maintain an error log .
4. Analyze,analyze and analyze each question.Don't get satisfied just by seeing that you got a question correct.Learn from each question.

[mjayp99]

I think that part of my problem is just that.... happy to get a question right and not fully learning and engulfing myself in the concepts.

Any hints on how to maintain an error log?

And again, thanks all for the help.

[kapsdeep]

I think that part of my problem is just that.... happy to get a question right and not fully learning and engulfing myself in the concepts.

Any hints on how to maintain an error log?

And again, thanks all for the help.

hey mjayp99 !!
just focus on few pain areas......for 620-630 not much effort req.
Take a GMATPrep and work backwards......I hv a analysis sheet, which I can share

[aslan]

I took a Kaplan test yesterday.... not good AT ALL for GMAT....

questions are presented in a plain and simple fashion (exactly lke a+b=c).They are still following the old ETS standards of questioning....better to stick only with MGMAT and GMATprep .

[mjayp99]

I think that part of my problem is just that.... happy to get a question right and not fully learning and engulfing myself in the concepts.

Any hints on how to maintain an error log?

And again, thanks all for the help.

hey mjayp99 !!
just focus on few pain areas......for 620-630 not much effort req.
Take a GMATPrep and work backwards......I hv a analysis sheet, which I can share

Kapsdeep, I would appreciate that very much!

Aslan, I think that you are correct about Kaplan. The strategies are good, but the questions threw me for a loop. The quantitative questions are less abstract than the actual material.

So here is the latest, I took a week off with no GMAT on my mind, even though I have these shiny new MGMAT books looking at me, and woke up today to take the GMAT prep, and scored a 690 42V 42Q.

So now I'm even more confused!

Is it possible that nerves got to me that much? Maybe I just over-studied and got so worked up before hand that I sabotaged myself.

[aslan]

@mjayp99:They got to me...seriously!