Hello All,
I am currently preparing to take the GMAT, and I've been preparing since about the last 3 months. I used Veritas Prep at home self study and supplemented with the individual
MGMAT guides to help fill in the blanks. I've been periodically taking practice tests to track my progress. They are as follows:
5/14: 590 Q40/V31 (Veritas)
6/10: 650 Q45/V34 (Veritas)
7/09: 680 Q46/V38 (Veritas)
7/30: 680 (GmatPrep - can't find the breakdown at the moment)
8/05: 680 Q46/V38 (Veritas)
As you can see, my performance the last month has been almost impossibly consistent. I have a pretty good idea of which areas where I am conceptually weak (Quant - Word problems specifically involving sets with variables; Data Sufficiency specifically with regards to integers, number properties, and absolute value; Verbal - Sentence correction) and plan to really brush up on my underlying skills, but I think at this point I really need to evaluate my approach.
I actually went through and documented my actual errors today and actually tallied up the data to really focus in on my weak areas. Does anyone have any personal recommendations? I'm fortunate enough to work in an industry that affords me an ample amount of PTO to make up for the poor hours and below-market salary, so I'm off the next two weeks to fully commit to improving my score.
I think I can improve in DS by having a set of approaches to take to every kind of problem. I feel like I spend too much idle time thinking about the best way to attack a specific problem, and I'm wasting my most valuable resource. I've looked for any documented set of approaches within the "Downloads" section and haven't really turned up anything (there is good material in Veritas and
MGMAT, but GMAT club does a pretty awesome job of offering these in super-condensed, notes form that's easy to digest and skim).
I think SC is just going to have to take a ton of reps with MCQs. I'm trying to exhaust every available resource I have for official test questions (OG17 and GMAT club). It may take some more studying of the subject matter in the
MGMAT guide (although I'd like to be done with digesting the actual material at this point and focus on attacking the test). Does anyone here have any strategies that worked for them?
As for my final score, I think a 720 (higher if possible) puts me within eyesight of the schools that I plan on applying to (Rice, UT-McCombs, Yale, Colombia). If I can achieve a higher score, all the better as it increases the odds of $$ from Rice/UT and an interview invite from Yale/Colombia. Also, I'm a first time poster, so my apologies if I failed to use the proper forum etiquette in the wall of text above.