650. One month to go, aiming for 750!

[shakas]

Hi guys,

I have been working for two months now, preparing for the GMAT.

I took the first GMATPrep Exam 1 two months ago, without preparation, to know my level : (Q37, V23), shocking score of 510. Why shocking? because I am aiming for 750, so the difference blew me off!!!

No worries, the day after the test, I started my preparation. I spent the whole month of September working on quant, using Manhattan GMAT along with the OG 13th. I retake the GMATPrep Exam 1 : (Q47, V18) : 530. Again, shocked, but less than the first time. Quite happy for Quant, happy for my confidence and timing in Quant during the test, but worried for the Verbal part. Ok, I had not yet started reviewing Verbal, but I definitely was not expecting my verbal score to drop.

Again, no worries. I spent the entire month of October working on verbal (again, Manhattan GMAT + OG 13th), and took a GMAT Prep 2 last saturday : Q46, V33 : 650.

I'm taking the official test in exactly one month : December the fourth.
My questions :
- what do you guys honestly think of my progression? Is the 750 score reachable at that pace? I think I can reach the 750 score, but I'd love your $0,02 on this, maybe I'm overly optimistic. It is kinda relaxed at work right now, so I can definitely put any amount of work into it, but I need a solid plan!
- what do I do now? With which set of materials? I have the specific Quand and Verbal OGs, but I'm afraid their questions are of a middle difficulty (600-650). I kept an error-log that I will meticulously review, but I don't know what else to do in the upcoming month.

Your advices, experience, whatever, will be crucial.
Thx a lot!!

[[email protected]]

Hi shakas,

You've made some significant improvements so far, which you should be proud of. Gaining another 100 points in one month is a tough goal to accomplish. Do you have any flexibility in your schedule (can you push your Test Date back a bit?)? That extra time could be spent studying and making the necessary adjustments to how you take the Test, which would in turn help you to pick up those missing points.

GMAT assassins aren't born, they're made,
Rich

[shakas]

Hi shakas,

You've made some significant improvements so far, which you should be proud of. Gaining another 100 points in one month is a tough goal to accomplish. Do you have any flexibility in your schedule (can you push your Test Date back a bit?)? That extra time could be spent studying and making the necessary adjustments to how you take the Test, which would in turn help you to pick up those missing points.

GMAT assassins aren't born, they're made,
Rich

Hi Rich, thanks for your response, it's encouraging.

Unfortunately, I can't push my date back. I'm thinking about applying to Business School in Round 2. I'm aiming 750 because Wharton is my choice number 1. With that being said, I'm living in Paris (France) and doesn't have a particular preference about the location, so any business school within the top 40, with a strong b-cases type of teaching and a high finance faculty will do it.

Yes, I guess 510 to 650 in two months is not that bad, but there is better! I also know it's a lot harder to improve from 650 to 750, even crossing the 700 barrier. What do you mean by how I take the test?

Thx.

[dominhtri1995]

Hi shakas,

I have to say that you are making a great progress !!
However, 100 points in 1 month is a bit too ambitious. When you come to 650+, you will find it is not that easy to get over 700 as you are at 500-600. At 700 level, every single problem is challenging and require solid skills and strategies.

After all , It's just my opinion.

Good luck !!!!!!!

[Brent@GMATPrepNow]

Your score breakdowns don't provide much information regarding what's needed to increase your score.

I suggest that you take some practice tests and carefully analyze them to identify your area(s) of weakness. While analyzing your practice tests, there are four main areas of weakness you should watch out for:
1. specific Quant skills/concepts (e.g., algebra, standard deviation, etc.)
2. specific Verbal skills/concepts (e.g., verb tenses, assumption CR questions, etc.)
3. test-taking skills (time management, endurance, anxiety etc.)
4. silly mistakes

For the first two weaknesses, the fix is pretty straightforward. Learn the concept/skill and find some practice questions to strengthen that weakness. To focus on one topic at a time, you can use BTG's tagging feature to isolate one concept. For example, here are all of the questions tagged as statistics questions: https://www.beatthegmat.com/forums/tags/ ... statistics
See the left side of that linked page for more tag options.

If your test-taking skills are holding you back, then you need to work on these. For example, we have a free GMAT time management video at https://www.gmatprepnow.com/module/gener ... es?id=1244. Then you should hone your test-taking skills by taking more practice tests.

Finally, if silly mistakes are hurting your score, then it's important that you identify and categorize these mistakes during your prep so that, during tests, you can easily spot situations in which you're prone to making errors. I write about this and other strategies in the following article for BTG: https://www.beatthegmat.com/mba/2012/09/ ... n-the-gmat

Cheers,
Brent

[irfanali]

Hey Shakas,

Hope your prep is coming thru great...Wish you all the very best for your test day (Dec 4th)..

Looking forward to hearing from you..

Irfan.