[Help] Best strategy for last 10 days of preparation - 720 Q49 V39

Question

Hi, Everyone!

I've prepping for the past 5 weeks and I am going to take the GMAT on 10th March.

I have studied through MGMAT books, the OG2018 and taken the Veritas CATs. Also bought the Official GMAT Prep test 3 and 4
My strategy was to cover all material from MGMAT and OG, one Veritas CAT every week and GMATPrep every fortnight or so.

below are my CAT scores:

GMAT Official Practice Test #1 - 720 Q48 V41 (AWA+IR/ Quant / Verbal)
Veritas Practice test #1 - 650 Q47 V33 (Quant / Verbal / IR+AWA)
Veritas Practice test #2 - 670 Q47 V35 (Quant / Verbal / IR+AWA)
Veritas Practice test #3 - 690 Q49 V36 (AWA+IR/ Quant / Verbal)
GMAT Official Practice Test #2 - 740 Q49 V41 (Quant / Verbal / IR+AWA)
Veritas Practice test #4 - 680 Q50 V34 (Quant / Verbal / IR+AWA)
Veritas Practice test #5 - 690 Q49 V36 (Quant / Verbal / IR+AWA)
GMAT Official Practice Test #3 - 720 Q49 V39 (Quant / Verbal / IR+AWA)

In this last Official Test, I had to rush the last 5 questions (1 SC 1 CR and 3 RC) -- better time management and letting go earlier in hard SC questions must get me back to V40-V41.

I have covered quite everything, and I still have 10 days to exam date. I would like your opinions on how to spend my time given my scores.
Lately I've been focusing more on Verbal, but I am not sure what will be more "effort-efficient" here, Q49 to Q50 or improving Verbal.

It feels so hard to break the 720 barrier!

Thanks!!

ScottTargetTestPrep · Answer

Hi gianluigi19,

First off, 720, 720, and 720 are some great official practice test scores! So, nice job so far. Regarding how to spend the next 10 days, certainly, you could take one or two more official practice exams. In addition to practice tests, you may find it helpful to engage in focused practice of each individual quant and verabl topic. For example, let’s say that you want to practice Number Properties. You can do so by answering 50 or more questions just from Number Properties: LCM, GCF, units digit patterns, divisibility, remainders, etc. As you do such practice, do a thorough analysis of each question that you don't get right. If you got a remainder question wrong, ask yourself why. Did you make a careless mistake? Did you not properly apply the remainder formula? Was there a concept you did not understand in the question? By carefully analyzing your mistakes, you will be able to efficiently fix your weaknesses and in turn improve your GMAT quant and verbal skills. Number Properties is just one example; follow this process for all quant and verbal topics.

Also, try to keep busy with activities other than GMAT prep: go out to dinner, go to the movies, go for a walk, go for a run… Do whatever you have to so you don’t spend the days leading up to your exam worrying about how things will go. If you take this time to do fun, relaxing things, come test day, you can walk into your GMAT with a fresh head and kick the pants off the test.

You also may find it helpful to read this article that provides some advice on  how to treat the final week leading up to your exam as well as some test day tips .

Feel free to reach out with any further questions.

EMPOWERgmatRichC · Answer

Hi gianluigi19,

Assuming that you took these CATs in a realistic fashion that matches what you will face when you take the Official GMAT, you certainly appear to have the skills to score at a high overall level.

The process of taking (and reviewing) a CAT requires a significant amount of energy and effort - and takes time to 'recover' from. This is one of the reasons why you typically shouldn't take more than 1 CAT per week - and your last CAT should be taken about 1 week before Test Day. From what you've described, you've taken 8 CATs/mocks during your 5 weeks of study - and that's a bit too many (and might help to explain the variations in your Scores - meaning that it's possible that you are getting close to 'burning out' before Test Day). In these last 10 days, you should plan to take 1 more CAT, but no more than that. During the last week, you should limit your studies to general practice and light review (NO CATs and NO 'cramming') - you would be better served by getting some extra rest so that you can go into Test Day calm, clear-headed and ready to work.

"Review" is an exceptionally important part of the GMAT training process; your ability to define WHY you're getting questions wrong is essential to defining the areas that you need to work on (and the specific things that you need to 'fix'). As such, I'd like to know a bit more about your last CAT. While a full Mistake Tracker would provide a lot more information, there are some basic questions that you should be able to answer (and the more EXACT you can be with your answers, the better):

Based on your latest CAT Score, you don't appear to have any big 'weak spots' in the Quant or Verbal sections, so we have to nitpick your performance a bit to define what you should be working on. After reviewing each section of this recent CAT, 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?
5) How many Verbal questions did you 'narrow down to 2 choices' but still get wrong?

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

zhanbo · Answer

For the last 10 days

> Focus on official questions. How about reviewing all the questions from your official test 1 through 3? How about try the official test 1 through 3 one more time?
> Sleep very well every day in the last week. Resting well is way more important as the final preparation. But you can still study until the last day. Your goal is to maintain your current skills. You can certainly score 720+.
> 3-4 days before the test, take the official test 4 under the test condition. Perform as you would in the actual test. The score you get should be very realistic prediction. 
> In the test 4 and real test: 
(1) Maintain your momentum in speed. Try to be ahead of the time a little bit. That does mean educated / random guess for hardest question. That also means that for some verbal questions, you will be brave to spot and choose the "right answer" without eliminating all the "wrong answers". Pacing is super important, and can ensure you get the accurate score. 
(2) Focus on the questions on the screen and not worry about your score. You will see the score at the end of the test. Active reading. Active thinking. Your brain will have to run efficiently, which is why resting well is super important. 
(3) Be calm. Have confidence in yourself.

Good luck!

gianluigi19 · Answer

Thanks for the amazing replies! I gotcha -- main focus: DO NOT BURN OUT hahaha, duly noted

ScottTargetTestPrep  -- I will certainly do that light review on Combinatorics and Word problems! Also go through my error log and review my errors from day one

zhanbo , I think this is what I need on verbal! SC questions are eating out my time, and I've been getting more insecure about them, that even if I spot the right answer I go back just in case. Great advice!

EMPOWERgmatRichC  After reviewing each section of this recent CAT I found a few of the common pitfalls you mentioned. If you have any more advice, it would be greatly appreciated

Reviewing my CAT:
Quant: 8 mistakes
1) Because of a silly/little mistake?  5 -- e.g., most algebra mistake like forgetting to do a multiplication 
2a) Because I picked the wrong strategy:  3 -- Example: in one I'd be better off with picking number but went through hard algebra instead. Other 2 DS I wasn't too diligent (I narrowed down to C/E, dig a bit deeper, but didn't worked through to be 100%)

Verbal - 8 mistakes
3) Because the question was too hard?  3 SC / 1 CR 
4) Because you were low on time and had to guess?  1 SC 3RC 
5) How many Verbal questions did you 'narrow down to 2 choices' but still get wrong?  3 SC

I've been working a lot on SC, but I can't improve much. And it seems to be taking time I could spend on RC questions, in which I do quite well. 
I think I need to let go earlier of SC questions -- read, scan choices, eliminate -- if I can't figure out the correct choice, just move on. Any thoughts?

Thanks again guys!

EMPOWERgmatRichC · Answer

Hi gianluigi19,

Based on your analysis, the two immediate areas that you should focus on are your general organization/note-taking and your general grammar/idiom knowledge. Based on the pacing issue that you described, it's not clear if your approach to SCs is the only 'inefficiency' that you have in the Verbal section. On this CAT, what was the average time you spent on your SCs and CRs?

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

gianluigi19 · Answer

Here they are:
Critical Reasoning 01m 29s
Reading Comprehension 01m 57s
Sentence Correction 01m 59s

Thanks again, Rich!

ScottTargetTestPrep · Answer

Sounds good. Good luck with your GMAT!!

EMPOWERgmatRichC · Answer

Hi gianluigi19,

I've sent you a PM with some additional notes.

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

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