Gmat 30 day strategy

[vedanth]

Hi guys. I have been preparing for gmat since 2months. Now my exam is in 30 days.
I recently did a test and was disappointed to get just a 590.
I need to reach 700. I'm also working on my weak spots. Can some pls suggest me the best strategy to get to my aspiration.
Also I'm good in verbal. Weak at quant.

[Rich@EconomistGMAT]

Hi vedanth,

Boosting your score from 590 to 700 in 30 days will be difficult. With that in mind, I'm curious about the following:

1) When are you hoping to apply for business school?
2) What are some of your specific weak areas in Quant?
3) Can you possibly move your test date back?

Best,
Rich

[vedanth]

Thanks for your reply. I have taken 3 mock tests till date, I have got varied scores, 590,600,630. My weakness is quant( DS, work rate, Geometry and probability). I'm planning to apply for Fall 2016. I'm planning to apply to US B schools. If not top 15 then top 25 at least.
Moving the date is not a possibility.
I study for 5hrs a day. My exam is on sep 30th 2016

[Brent@GMATPrepNow]

30 days isn't a lot of time.
I suggest that you keep taking practice tests. This will help you build your test-taking skills, and it will help you identify any remaining area(s) of weakness.

While analyzing your practice tests, there are four main types of weakness to 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.

Finally, if silly mistakes are hurting your score, then it's important that you identify and categorize these mistakes 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.gmatprepnow.com/articles/avo ... teaks-gmat

Cheers,
Brent

[[email protected]]

Hi vedanth,

It's not completely clear how you've been studying, so I have a few questions about the work you've done so far:

1) What resources have you been using?
2) What were your Quant and Verbal Scaled Scores on each of your CATs?
3) Did you take the ENTIRE CAT each time (including the Essay and IR sections)?
4) Do you have trouble finishing the Quant section on time (and do you have to rush through questions just to finish? How many questions?)?

4) When are you planning to apply to Business School?
5) Why can't you push back your Test Date?
6) If you do not hit your score goal, do you plan to retake the GMAT?

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