Advise requested..How to improve from 480 (Q38, V19) to 610 (Q48, V29)

Hi Rich,
I did take CAT mock exam and scored 520, yester day ?, Q40, V21.
Gosh now I feel panic and I dont think I can make it to 610 within May 10th.
I studied very hard the past weeks. I acheived the CR much better, now I move to the 700 difficult range but still overall as poor scored as you can see.
For SC, Idk whats wrong but I stuck at the 600+ difficult problems.
For Rc, thats the worst.

For Quant, most of my mistake was in DS so I think if I give more time on that I can improve.
Anyway, 610 sounds like a dream to me now. Can you give me some advise? How should I improve or is there any stretegies? I dont wanna give up yet.
One last thing, in case I run out of time in Verbal, should I guess for the last 5 pending problems or should I just skipped them?
Some advised that for Q, no problems should left behind but for Verbal, guessing will definately ruin all the score? Any advise?
Thanks
Scuba11

Hi Scuba11,

At this point, you now have about 4.5 weeks study time remaining. While it is possible to raise your score 90 points in that time, that goal might be too challenging to be considered realistic. As such, you might want to consider pushing back your Test Date. I think that you would have a better chance of hitting your score goal if you had 2 months of study time available.

That having been said, you do NOT need to correctly answer ANY "hard" or "weird" questions to hit your score goal, so you should NOT be focused on "700 level" questions. Right now, you need to nail the 'gettable' questions, so we need a better idea of WHY you're getting questions wrong.

On this last CAT, in the Quant and Verbal sections, how many questions did you get wrong....
1) Because of a silly/little mistake?
2) Because there was some math/verbal that you just could not remember how to do?
3) Because the question was too hard?
4) Because you were low on time and had to guess?

On Test Day, you must answer every question, even if you're just taking a guess (and you might find it useful to guess on a few tough questions earlier on in each section, so that you don't have to blindly guess on a bunch of questions in-a-row at the end of the section).

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

Hi Rich,
Thanks for your advise.
Well, I cant push back the test date, the beginning of May is my last chance to apply to MBA. Gosh, I dont wanna give up yet but it sounds like study for gmat is useless now.

1) Because of a silly/little mistake?
Some of them but not all.
2) Because there was some math/verbal that you just could not remember how to do?
For verbal, its very difficult for me esp SC and RC. Funny thing is that I think I do better CR but the result showed that I got 6 of CR wrong.

3) Because the question was too hard?
Well, from the result, it seems to be like that.
4) Because you were low on time and had to guess?
For verbal, yes.

Feel like Im in the deadend?
Gosh, or should I go back and work. Stop thinking of Master degree...

Posted from my mobile device

Hi Scuba11,

If you can't push back your Test Date - and the remaining study time is all that you have - then you cannot afford to be vague with the information that you provide. By extension, you're going to have to be more precise with the answers to those prior questions. Right now, it's not clear why you're getting questions wrong. Do you actually know how to correctly answer a lot of those questions, but you still get them wrong (because of little mistakes that you make)? Do you have no idea how to correctly answer a question, and you're just "winging it" by reading the answers and picking one that "sounds good." Do you have to guess on a lot of the questions at the end because you don't manage your time correctly? Until you provide exact answers to these questions, then it will be difficult to help you to hit your goal. As such, you should review this CAT again and count up the exact number of questions that you got wrong in each section that fit the following 'descriptions':

On this last CAT, in the Quant and Verbal sections, how many questions did you get wrong....
1) Because of a silly/little mistake?
2) Because there was some math/verbal that you just could not remember how to do?
3) Because the question was too hard?
4) Because you were low on time and had to guess?

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

HI Rich,
Thanks for your advise. I tried another free Test on this website and I guess I found out my weekness.
In Sc, I have a serious problem with idioms. The plan is to read the sc, Manhattan book again.
In DS, stupid mistakes by reading error.
In other sections, They are difficult.
Thanks for your advise.
I hope I can improve within the time.
Also, I appreciate if there is any other advises to improve my SCand DS accordingly.

Scuba 11