Well guys and gals, I was content to scrape by on the GMAT with a low 600 until my best friend, who goes to an upper-tier law school, enlightened me on career opportunities in consulting and the typical path one must take to get there.

I now know that taking the GMAT without study and accepting whatever 600-650 score I would probably get just won't cut it. I've got to crack at least 680.

So yeah. Let's do it.

P.S. I've been reading a ton of posts on here and can tell that we have a rather international audience. In honor of our non-USA colleagues, I made a joke in my avatar. Hope you get it .
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I just finished taking the diagnostic and I am honestly very surprised with the results.

I was expecting a score in this range, but I am almost shocked that my Q and V are the same scaled score.

I only got 18 questions right on the quantitative section. Compare that with 30 on the verbal. Anybody care to explain how that gives me the exact same scale score? I do have one theory. I'm going to look over my answer choices, but I have a feeling I just happened to guess well in the first 1/3 of the Quant and the almighty CAT bumped me up.

So yeah, that's my no-study starting point from a midnight GMAT - 37Q 37V 610 Composite.
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Each moment of time ought to be put to proper use, either in business, in improving the mind, in the innocent and necessary relaxations and entertainments of life, or in the care of the moral and religious part of our nature.

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Thanks for the welcome!

I figured as much about the difficulty. I took the GRE a year ago so I am familiar with the CAT concept, but it still never ceases to amaze me. I felt like I got into the "difficult' section of the verbal pretty quickly. (I only missed a couple of the first 13 questions - the 3rd and the 5th.) I guess this just goes to show you how critical it is to not miss any of the first 25% or so of questions.
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Each moment of time ought to be put to proper use, either in business, in improving the mind, in the innocent and necessary relaxations and entertainments of life, or in the care of the moral and religious part of our nature.

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Great! Welcome!
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"Only by going too far, can one find out how far one can go."

--T.S. Elliot

I'm scheduled to take the test December 13th. That's 44 days from now. As I mentioned earlier, I got a 610 on GmatPrep1 cold at midnight and a surprisingly low 570 on the free Knewton.



Target Scaled Score Increase:
38V to 46/47V
37Q to 39/40Q

Target Composite Score Increase:
610 to 700/710

Do you think that it would be in my best interest to reschedule, or should I keep preparing until the 1-week deadline in hopes that my preparatory CATs begin to produce scores that align with the level of my aspirations?
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Each moment of time ought to be put to proper use, either in business, in improving the mind, in the innocent and necessary relaxations and entertainments of life, or in the care of the moral and religious part of our nature.

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That's what I was thinking, too. If I don't get the score I want then I'll retake it! Easy enough.

Difficulty in Planning Because I am Unpredictable

The hardest thing about making a plan for myself at the moment is that I don't really have a pattern of questions that I miss. Sometimes I miss easy questions, sometimes I miss hard questions. Sometimes I "see" the simple way to do a quantitative problem and sometimes I don't. Nonetheless, I definitely notice an improvement in my quantitative when I study much more than when I study verbal.

The Luck Factor

It seems like once you get to a higher percentile, luck plays more of a factor.

A perfect example of this is how my verbal tests usually go. I usually miss about 5 or 6 of the first 25...and verbal is my thing. I'm a native English speaker and I was a history/French undergrad. The difference between missing 2 or 3 of the first 25 and 5 or 6 on the first 25 would have a huge impact on my scaled score, but frankly I believe it will end up being luck. It will all come down to how well I am able to choose between the "two of these remaining choices could work, but one is better" options.

How I Currently Rate My Ability For Each Section (1 Being the Worst, 10 Being the Best):

Sentence Correction (9/10)
Reading Comprehension (8/10)
Critical Reasoning (7/10)
Data Sufficiency (5/10)
Problem Solving (6/10)

I tried to do this based on the percentile scores I've already been getting to give you an idea where I am at in terms of all other test takers.

Feeling Like You Are An Idiot Half of The Time is The Goal!

The only questions that help me get better are the questions that make me feel like an idiot. At this point I have to focus entirely on 650-800 level questions in order to see improvement. SO to reach my goal, I have to get to the point where I can feel comfortable getting 700+ level questions right only half the time. That's the GMAT for ya!
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Glad to know I'm not alone!

I am learning more and more about how I take tests each day. One revelation is that if I give myself about 45 more seconds than I normally would to either solve a question in a different way or check my work before guessing, then I am exponentially more likely to get it right. Any longer than this, though, and I start a vicious cycle that eats all of my time up. This extra 45 seconds or so is a sweet spot that is easy to make up on the questions that don't give me much trouble.
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Each moment of time ought to be put to proper use, either in business, in improving the mind, in the innocent and necessary relaxations and entertainments of life, or in the care of the moral and religious part of our nature.

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Kyro, I sent you a PM. I'm still working on whatever my overall strategy is, but for now it is mainly just making sure that I do a little bit of each question type every day - especially quantitative questions.
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Each moment of time ought to be put to proper use, either in business, in improving the mind, in the innocent and necessary relaxations and entertainments of life, or in the care of the moral and religious part of our nature.

-William Andrus Alcott

Just ordered the MGMAT 8-Pack. Given my current skill levels, which I have articulated in previous posts, can anybody with experience using these books suggest in which order I should complete them once they arrive?
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Each moment of time ought to be put to proper use, either in business, in improving the mind, in the innocent and necessary relaxations and entertainments of life, or in the care of the moral and religious part of our nature.

-William Andrus Alcott

I'm realizing more and more that it may be more feasible to try and have a higher quantitative score than a 46+ Verbal and a comparatively lower quantitative score. I keep relying on my ear too much and it is causing me to miss questions due to grammatical technicalities.
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Each moment of time ought to be put to proper use, either in business, in improving the mind, in the innocent and necessary relaxations and entertainments of life, or in the care of the moral and religious part of our nature.

-William Andrus Alcott