Hi
Thanks for reading this post. I would like to understand what's happening to my scores and if this is common.
My Background:
I'm a guy who has tendency to postpone everything until last day, and push so hard the day before exam. And it has always worked for me so far. I've topped almost all my school exams. And Maths is my favorite subject, given I've hardly scored anything less than 100% (slight exaggeration, but you get the point).
I'm currently working for the past 3 years. Been thinking about MBA for almost a year now. And finally decided I'll do MBA in Jun. And I know you can't master GMAT by just memorizing stuff 1 day before exam.
Picking Exam date:
So, first issue is to pick an exam date. Issue is, I dunno how far out that date should be. And, unless I book an appointment, I could never become serious about GMAT Preparation. So, after wasting whole of Jun with moderate on and off basic preparation (Just getting to know the format of the exam, basic concepts etc), On 30th Jun I decided to book an appointment for 12th Aug. Then I started dedicating regular time during weekdays and weekends.
Mock tests:
In Jul, I tried to give mock tests every weekend. Below are my results:
Test 1- Q46 V25 T590. I was shocked by this and got super scared with just about 35 days left. And lot of forums said max improvement in a month could only be 50-70 points. So, focused only only Verbal for next 1 week.
Test 2- Q42 V31 T610. Yes, verbal score improved but Quants fell. What is happening. Then I focused on brushing the concepts of both.
Test 3- Q48 V31 T650. Quants is back to ok level. But no improvement in verbal. By this time, I had completed whole of
OG. My friend told me that I should focus on difficult questions and pointed me to few resources. So I decided to postpone my exam date.
Test 4 (Today)- Q49 V36 T700.
My Target is Q50/51 V41/42 T750 +
Questions:
1. Every time i read new material, I always find new concepts. I keep discovering something every week (that is, I don't have a feeling that I've mastered a topic). Is this common?
2. Does the score keep improving week after week, or will it get flatten at some point? How would I discover what level it would be? How close would that be to the REAL GMAT score?
3. Should I postpone my exam date? If yes, how long should I give myself (say 100 hours or 5 more mocks or 1 month etc?)
4. To achieve my target score, how many wrong answers I can afford in each section?
5. Based on my mock experience, I find data sufficiency more difficult. Also, in verbal I'm feeling comfortable with all 3 sections now. But, still not able to cross 40 and review of mock answers shows that there are still rules out there that I'm not familiar with (I'm not overlooking a known rule. I simply don't know such a rule exists). Should I concentrate more on:
- revising or reading new concepts or,
- do more of topic-wise practice (where can I find resources of good quality questions, say ~50 questions per topic like probability or inequality) or,
- do more mocks? (which mocks are good? My friend got 750+ in 3 GMAT prep mocks, but final score was 720. I want something that can give close approximation of final score)
6. More importantly, is 750+ a realistic target or should I face the reality? Is it possible I have just become less smart due to being 'out of touch' from studying anything in the past 3 years? I mean, Am I experiencing a brain freeze? Anyone else have been in this boat before and still managed to get a score in 99th percentile?
Appreciate your response/help in advance.
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01 Aug 2015, 08:34
