Could use a little encouragement

[timmy d]

Hello everyone,

I am writting because I just cannot seem to get my Gmat abilities to improve. I have been studying fairly consistenlty since January. I took the Knewton course and watched most of the classes two times. I have also completed all of the practice problems, yet my cat scores all remain about the same. First 5 at 490 and the last 1 at 480! I just took the first official gmat practice and score a 470. I wasn't expecting a tone of improvement, but it is so difficult to motivate to study when you don't see any improvement. I want to schedule to take the test but I hesitate to do so until I see some improvement on the practice cats.

I do feel my overall knowledge has improved and I definitely felt my last cat was the best(by far best quant score, verb score way down though). I have just ordered the OG 12 and MGMT number prop book, hopefully I can work on fundamentals some more.

I really appriciate all the forum questions and responses on this site. Does anybody have a different approach I can try? I just need to see some improvement, so I can stay motivated! I am not looking for a 700 score, just somewhere around 600 so I can get intp a local part-time program. I knew it would be tough since I've been out of school for 10 years, but this is a little much! Ok I really just needed to vent , but seriously if anyone could offer some advice/encouragement I would be greatful.

Thanks for reading!

[cans]

After each test you need to review what went wrong.
Work on all incorrect questions in detail. Check why each wrong option is wrong and why a particular option is correct. Make error logs. Find your weak area and work on it.
Work smart
And do solve OG12 atleast twice.
Good luck

[timmy d]

Thanks, looking forward to tackling the OG. I will go through my past tests and really try and understand how I missed the answer! Just reading about some peoples struggles and eventualy triumphs has given me so hope!

[maus]

Hi Timmy d,

I totally agree with cans, but I just wanted to say that I know how you feel. It is definitely frustrating. A suggestion that I have is to try to stay positive. As corny as it sounds, its super important.

While you are doing problems, don't just read the explanations - try to find areas where you are consistently getting problems wrong and analyze them side by side (if possible) to see the similarities and differences. This will really help, also, even if you get problems right, review explanations to see if there is a quicker way to do it - shortcuts help on time.

While I certainly am not among some of the higher scorers here, I'm still going to attack my test like I am. Remember, attitude is really important too!

Good luck to you!
Maus