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A little discourged -- Loking for advice.

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galen560
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A little discourged -- Loking for advice. [#permalink] New post   07 May 2011, 12:48
Hey all-
Today I took a practice test and was a little discouraged by the results. Looking for a little advice and, if I'm lucky, encouragement.

What I have done thus far:
Began studying approx 2 months ago. Not too hardcore, had a few trips, including a Bach party to Vegas that sidelined me for about 5 days.

In those 2 months, I went through all of the MGMAT guides, and did all of the In Action problems and most of the OG12 problems proscribed (more so in Quant).

Last weekend, I took my first CAT exam, from MGMAT and scored a 640 (Q43/V34). I was fairly happy with this, especially in my understanding that MGMAT is slightly more difficult than the real thing. Not where I ultimately want to be, but I thought it was a great starting point.

This past week, I started really going after the the OG, doing about 40 questions a night over different topics. I did focus only on quant, which seems to be my weak point. I have been keeping an error log w/ the MGMAT OG companion, and reviewing every problem I get wrong, as well as many I get right.

Fast forward to this morning.... I decided to take the GMATprep CAT to see how I would do (I plan on taking one every Saturday until test time). On this test I got a 610... unfortunately I did not realize that I couldn't go back and review my score again and did not take of the Q/V split... i think it was something like V40/Q35, but really not sure.

Realizing the results were gone forever, I got so pissed i took the test again. Scored a 590 the 2nd time around, maybe saw 4 of the same questions. I realize this score may not be as accurate due to mental strain of taking back to back tests.

What I do know about the GMATprep test:
I got 13 questions wrong in Quant, and 16 wrong in verbal.... in comparing to my MGMAT CAT where I got only 48% of the quant questions correct.

I'm trying to make sense of this to see what I need to work on. Should I be focusing on more difficult questions only?

Any advice would be greatly appreciated! Thanks in advance.
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galen560
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Re: A little discourged -- Loking for advice. [#permalink] New post   07 May 2011, 13:00
Also, I'm now reviewing my 2nd test of the day...

Q36/V37
Breakdown-
11 out of 37 wrong Quant
10 out of 41 wrong Verbal

Seems to me I am essentially getting every high level question wrong. Am I reading this correctly?

Thanks.
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hopalong
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Re: A little discourged -- Loking for advice. [#permalink] New post   08 May 2011, 13:37
hmm... that does seem to be an unusual scoring pattern. MGMAT has a difficult quant section, and you did better on their quant than the Prep test.

Are you sure you answered all the questions on all tests? not answering questions at all can kill your score.
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galen560
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Re: A little discourged -- Loking for advice. [#permalink] New post   09 May 2011, 05:09
hopalong wrote:
hmm... that does seem to be an unusual scoring pattern. MGMAT has a difficult quant section, and you did better on their quant than the Prep test.

Are you sure you answered all the questions on all tests? not answering questions at all can kill your score.



Yes I'm sure I answered all the questions. In fact, I finished with extra time (about 4 minutes on quant, 10 on verbal).

I felt like I was having an easier time than the MGMAT CAT exam. Which makes sense, considering I got 5 or so more questions right.

Maybe I just had an off day, or got a little lucky with the previous Manhattan CAT. I will continue to grind it out until test day, which is now less than 1 month away :shock:.
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aznboi986
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Re: A little discourged -- Loking for advice. [#permalink] New post   09 May 2011, 05:56
Same thing happened for me. I took an MGMAT CAT after a month of studying and scored a 640 (44Q/34V) and then took another one 2 weeks later and scored a 680 (44Q/38V).

I thought I was making real progress, and then I took the GMATprep exams. 610 (42Q/31V) and a 600 yesterday (42Q/32V). I'm not sure why the scores are so off. The verbal in GMATprep seems a bit tougher, especially sentence correction. However, the scoring is really what throws me off. I miss a ton more MGMAT questions than on the Prep and on MGMAT, I miss 5 in a row at some points. I've never missed more than 3 in a row on the Prep test.

The only conclusion that I can come up with is that on the Prep test, an incorrect answer makes your question level go down furthur than on MGMAT.
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galen560
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Re: A little discourged -- Loking for advice. [#permalink] New post   09 May 2011, 07:03
I guess the solution is to get more questions correct!
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aznboi986
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Re: A little discourged -- Loking for advice. [#permalink] New post   09 May 2011, 07:39
galen560 wrote:
I guess the solution is to get more questions correct!


The thing is, I HAVE been getting more right on the GMATprep tests. I remember getting 19 correct and 18 wrong on the MGMAT exam and getting a 44Q. On the other hand, I usually miss 13 on the Prep test and I've gotten a 42Q twice now.
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Re: A little discourged -- Loking for advice. [#permalink] New post   09 May 2011, 12:13
galen560 wrote:
Hey all-
Today I took a practice test and was a little discouraged by the results. Looking for a little advice and, if I'm lucky, encouragement.

What I have done thus far:
Began studying approx 2 months ago. Not too hardcore, had a few trips, including a Bach party to Vegas that sidelined me for about 5 days.

In those 2 months, I went through all of the MGMAT guides, and did all of the In Action problems and most of the OG12 problems proscribed (more so in Quant).

Last weekend, I took my first CAT exam, from MGMAT and scored a 640 (Q43/V34). I was fairly happy with this, especially in my understanding that MGMAT is slightly more difficult than the real thing. Not where I ultimately want to be, but I thought it was a great starting point.

This past week, I started really going after the the OG, doing about 40 questions a night over different topics. I did focus only on quant, which seems to be my weak point. I have been keeping an error log w/ the MGMAT OG companion, and reviewing every problem I get wrong, as well as many I get right.

Fast forward to this morning.... I decided to take the GMATprep CAT to see how I would do (I plan on taking one every Saturday until test time). On this test I got a 610... unfortunately I did not realize that I couldn't go back and review my score again and did not take of the Q/V split... i think it was something like V40/Q35, but really not sure.

Realizing the results were gone forever, I got so pissed i took the test again. Scored a 590 the 2nd time around, maybe saw 4 of the same questions. I realize this score may not be as accurate due to mental strain of taking back to back tests.

What I do know about the GMATprep test:
I got 13 questions wrong in Quant, and 16 wrong in verbal.... in comparing to my MGMAT CAT where I got only 48% of the quant questions correct.

I'm trying to make sense of this to see what I need to work on. Should I be focusing on more difficult questions only?

Any advice would be greatly appreciated! Thanks in advance.


1. The exam is adaptive, so getting three questions incorrect in a row is worse than getting those three wrong at different points along the test. Don't get fooled by absolute percentages.
2. Yes, doing 2 tests back-to-back wasn't a good idea.
3. Review your GMATPrep questions thoroughly--even the ones that you got correct. If you are unsure of an answer look it up at gmatclub and/or MGMAT. Ron Purewal(MGMAT) has some excellent explanations for Verbal questions.
4. GMAT is 60% Strategy(and execution) and 40% Knowledge. First of all determine whether you are having trouble completing a section. Also, while analyzing the test questions look for specific type(s) that you are struggling with.
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hopalong
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Re: A little discourged -- Loking for advice. [#permalink] New post   09 May 2011, 17:18
Dont just work on getting more questions correct, work on getting your strategy down so you work your way up to the point that the CAT is giving you significantly harder questions, that is what your score is based on, not number right and wrong.
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davekeane
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Re: A little discourged -- Loking for advice. [#permalink] New post   12 May 2011, 04:11
Get more sleep, and don't do the questions at night.
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Re: A little discourged -- Loking for advice. [#permalink]
12 May 2011, 04:11

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