HELP Please: Quantitative Section Time Management!

Hi yasoo,

Since you could pick up those extra points in either the Quant or Verbal sections, you could focus a bit on one of those areas and then potentially retest relatively quickly (in January or early February). Comparing your 2 Official Scores, you seem to have found it easier to make adjustments to how you handle the Quant section - while your Verbal Scaled Score essentially stayed the same. By extension, it stands to reason that you could continue to focus primarily on the Quant section, lock up a 550+ score and potentially be done with the GMAT. That having been said, you'll probably have to commit to a more 'spread out' study routine (while you don't have to study every day, 'cramming' on the weekends is not the most effective way to prepare for the GMAT). To reiterate a prior point - you don't have to correctly answer ANY questions that you think are too hard or too weird to hit your Score Goal, but you do have to keep the little mistakes to a minimum on the 'gettable' questions.

1) Going forward, how many hours do you think you can consistently study each week?

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

Hi Rich,

My next exam is 4 weekends away, unfortunately during the week I can only study for 1/2 to 1 hour each day, while on the weekends I can study for 4-5 hours each day.
I really want to improve my Quant score, not only to boost my overall score, but also because I feel bad that it's too low. I'm afraid that having such score will also decrease my chances of getting accepted into a business school even if I reached their minimum score requirement. Therefore, I haven't made an effort to enhance my Verbal score (it hasn't changed since the last exam), I was trying to invest time in Quant.

I've been reading other users posts, and I was shocked by how much people have been taking online practice tests. I forgot to mention that I haven't taken any. Maybe this is why I ran out of time during the real test.

I don't know if the following seems like a good plan given that I have around 4 weeks ahead.
I'm planning to take a practice test, to see how well will I do under the same circumstances without pausing between questions. Then I will try going over the easy/medium questions and solve more of them instead of trying to solve the harder ones. Lastly, I will take another exam, to see if I improved.

Sorry if I'm writing a lot of details, but one last thing please, do you recommend any specific practice tests that are more likely to predict real scores? There are many, and I don't know which ones to pick.

Thank you so much for your time & help EMPOWERgmatRichC

Hi yasoo,

To score at a higher level on the GMAT, you have to have a variety of skills (more than just content knowledge) and the only way to properly assess whether you have those skills or not is to take FULL-LENGTH CATs under realistic conditions AND at regular intervals. Make sure to take those CATs in a realistic fashion (take the FULL CAT - with the Essay and IR sections, take it away from your home, at the same time of day as when you'll take the Official GMAT, etc.) and put in the necessary time and effort to define WHY you got questions wrong - so that you can 'fix' whatever little mistakes you might be making (and effectively keep similar mistakes from occurring in the future).

The scoring algorithm on the Official GMAT is far more complicated than most people realize. Since that algorithm is proprietary, no GMAT company has an exact match for it, thus CAT scores can vary a bit based on the 'biases' involved in their respective designs. The most realistic CATs available are the 6 from GMAC (the 2 free CATs, and each of the 2 that come with Exam Pack 1 and Exam Pack 2), but the CATs from Kaplan, MGMAT and Veritas are all 'close enough' to the real thing that they will provide you with a reasonably accurate score result (assuming that you take the CAT correctly).

You haven't really defined how you plan to STUDY for the next 4 weeks (a CAT is really a 'measuring device' - when used correctly, it will give you a realistic score and help define your strengths and weaknesses, but it will NOT help you to fix any of those weaknesses).

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

Hi Rich,

I will definitely take at least 2 CATs to measure my performance. Although they are for measuring as you mentioned, but I think I will also benefit from facing new questions and analyzing my mistakes. Won't they also help me in time management? like for example, realizing that I should skip a hard question that I know I won't be able to solve on time...

Regarding how will l study, I will go over some questions on the Official Guide, but since I already went through them all, I will try to find online sources for practice questions. I'm also planning to divide the type of questions I'm facing into (algebra, geometry...etc) or even more specific categories (like questions about average, sets, area...etc) so I can get better at realizing what's required quickly.

I'm also planning to solve questions that are organized according to their difficulty level, I noticed on gmat club that such questions are available. I will check these out.

I hope that if I did all the above I'll be able to score higher on Quant (at least reach the 30s! and get a higher overall score!