want some help : stuck up with 470-490

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want some help : stuck up with 470-490

by kalyan4gmat » Wed Nov 24, 2010 8:36 am
folks,

need some help. preparing from last 2 and half months. still not able to improve the score. gave couple of tests. although quants score has improved from 30 & 35 to 40 &43, verbal part is hammering me very badly. am not able to find a right approach for verbal.

- VERBAL - facing difficulty with CR. out of 10 qs - hardly 2-3 qs r getting rite - have done og till now. but it din helped me well as
the explanation is not convincing somehow and coudln't get an idea from OG.
- please suggest RC good book.
- Only thing which is going good so far is SC. atleast 50 to 60 % SC qs are rite in d practice tests till now.

Quants : not able to identify what mistakes am doing. eventho d score has improved from horrible 25-30 to 40 and 43(being d highest) i need to drag it to 48 ideally. have done OG, princeton math work out. can ne suggest good book for quants to improve d score other than these 2.

finally.. the difference in practice tests..

i have joined a coaching class and my tutor said every 15 days the questions in gmatprep will get refreshed. so uninstalling d gmat prep and again reinstalling gmat gives some news qs. he claims give only gmat prep exams but nothing else. coz gmatprep scoring is rite and accurate than ne other tests.

can ne one suggest how to take this? coz i find kaplan as standard questions but again manhattan exams (which i purchased exam series), finding those very difficult. seeing manhattan score is like am getting demotivated.

shd i give only gmat prep and ignore other tests. i mean if i get low scores on other tests , shd i worry ?? i find d difficulty level as manhattan xam series>kaplantests>gmat prep.

please can someone suggest and help me out in this ...
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by karanrulz4ever » Wed Nov 24, 2010 9:28 am
Your tutor is dead right. The GMAT prep is the ONLY test which mirrors the GMAT. You can use the rest for practice, but if you want to know ur level in the GMAT, use the GMAT prep.

Read the OG explanations for verbal. Practice more questions.

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by kalyan4gmat » Wed Nov 24, 2010 9:45 am
@karan: thanks a lot. can u pls suggest me how to find d mistakes. although am practicing, still m nt able to figure out how to improve. can u suggest me good books 4 quants other than OG and Princeton math review to improve strategies and shortcuts ??

and can u suggest something on verbal pls

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by Laura GMAT Tutor » Wed Nov 24, 2010 10:03 am
Hi Kalyan,

Essentially, to improve your quant score, it's important to improve your core knowledge of math. I would suggest Total Math (from gmathacks.com) or Kaplan's GMAT/GRE workbook. Total Math costs $50 and is really, really, really good. The Kaplan book is not as good but is still ok and is more like $25. All the tricks and strategies in the world won't do you much good unless you really know your core content.

The GMAC doesn't update the Prep software very often -- maybe once every two years. Certainly not every 15 days! It's true that you can take those tests more often than twice. If you reset the test, you can take it up to about 4 times without seeing so many of the same questions.

You don't have to worry about taking practice tests all the time. Go back to basics. Make sure you understand the explanations in the official guide. You said you find them "not convincing," but you HAVE to find them convincing, because the GMAC decides how things are and you have to agree.
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by rishi raj » Thu Nov 25, 2010 3:00 am
I agree with Laura. The fact that you don't find the answers convincing possible indicates that you need to work on your concepts.

For CR, you may want to buy PowerScore CR Bible .For RC, RC99 is a good book.

However, keep in mind that whether it be SC,CR or RC,you need to do rigorous analysis.
Are you keeping an error log ?

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by Night reader » Sun Nov 28, 2010 12:49 pm
Laura GMAT Tutor wrote:Hi Kalyan,

Essentially, to improve your quant score, it's important to improve your core knowledge of math. I would suggest Total Math (from gmathacks.com) or Kaplan's GMAT/GRE workbook. Total Math costs $50 and is really, really, really good. The Kaplan book is not as good but is still ok and is more like $25. All the tricks and strategies in the world won't do you much good unless you really know your core content.

The GMAC doesn't update the Prep software very often -- maybe once every two years. Certainly not every 15 days! It's true that you can take those tests more often than twice. If you reset the test, you can take it up to about 4 times without seeing so many of the same questions.

You don't have to worry about taking practice tests all the time. Go back to basics. Make sure you understand the explanations in the official guide. You said you find them "not convincing," but you HAVE to find them convincing, because the GMAC decides how things are and you have to agree.
Laura, I would not go over Gmat Hacks right away. Jeff Sackman's text wording is too simple to understand and apply the concepts. Better MGMAT followed by GMAT Hacks. Later PS, DS and Word Problems from the same author's challenge set would do some good for a serious test taker.
My knowledge frontiers came to evolve the GMATPill's methods - the credited study means to boost the Verbal competence. I really like their videos, especially for RC, CR and SC. You do check their study methods at https://www.gmatpill.com