Registered for GMAT - Oct 8 - Goal 740+

Question

Hey everyone,

I just finished my online Veritas prep guides this last week and today I registered for the GMAT: D-day is Saturday Oct 8. For the next month I am going to work through the Official Guide, as well as MGMAT's Advance GMAT Quant guide. I've done some problems here and there from the OG, but not a ton. I've calculated out how many problems I will need to do per day to finish the entire guide a few days before my test. I will be reviewing my errors as I go along and I will go through all the questions I miss again towards the end.

I will also do a practice test each weekend. I still have two more MGMAT practice tests to take, plus 1 GMATprep. I will probably also try to retake the GMATprep tests a second time.

Additional study time I have will be used to study SC, gmat club tests, and other weak points as they crop up.

At the end of each day I will try to post my progress and what I've worked on. This is mostly for my own motivation, but feel free to follow along.

Brief overview of my progress so far: Starting out, my math was very weak, so I've focused much more heavily on quant than verbal. I've read through most of the Manhattan math guides, and as I said, I recently finished the Veritas guides. My math has improved significantly, but I would really like to get it up a bit higher.

Some of my practice test scores:

MGMAT test 1: 630 (36Q, 40V) - first test, math was very pitiful - 48th percentile
MGMAT test 2: 700 (44Q, 41V) - 3 weeks later, studied math exclusively, including entire foundations of math book
GMATPrep test 1: 730 (46Q, 44V) - Could tell the math was a little different than MGMAT. The verbal felt really good, I only missed 4 questions, 3 of which were SC, 2 of which were Idioms. 
MGMAT test 3: 740 (47Q, 45V)
800 Score test: 760 (46Q, 53V) - I don't trust this test, math was way too work intensive, verbal way too easy, and a 53 on verbal??
MGMAT test 4: 750 (50Q, 42V) - Obviously pleased with the Q, but bummed about the V.

My goal is to score around a 740 - 760 on the real test.

321kumarsushant · Answer

hey rjdunn03,

how was your GMAT exam.
do you like to share your experience here.

liftoff · Answer

All the best brother. You look set to achieve the 750 based on your prep test results. The extra practice should help push you up. All the best.

rjkaufman21 · Answer

Thanks for the message. I take it one month from today, but yes I will definitely post my experience afterwards.

Thanks brother, I appreciate your message. I hope so.

sudhir18n · Answer

Good work bro !! you are on right track 
All the best

rjkaufman21 · Answer

Thanks man I appreciate it. Your practice scores are crazy!! Good luck with your test on the 12th, you appear prepared to conquer it. Hope to see a debrief.

rjkaufman21 · Answer

Sep 8: I've been working through the MGMAT sentence correction book on my free time. Today I worked through part of the chapter on Idioms while I was at work.

This evening when I got home I jumped into the OG 12th edition. I did 9 PS, 6 DS, 5 RC, 5 CR, and 5 SC. I am still in the low level questions so they are quite easy, but I managed to miss a PS question due to incorrectly reading a question stem.

After working through my OG questions, I worked on chapter 2 of the MGMAT advanced quant guide. I'll post my thoughts after I finish it, but so far I'm liking this guide.

I purchased Jeff Sackmann's Extreme Challenge set earlier this week, so the last thing I did today was the first 5 problems from that. I missed one of them, it was a combinations problem that I accidentally calculated as a permutation. I'm going to do a few problems from this set a day. Today I did 5 PS, but from now on I'm going to do a couple PS and a couple DS per day. A few of these I was able to derive pretty quickly, but one of them I really had to think about for a while.

321kumarsushant · Answer

sudhir18n :
what a fabulous score you are getting !!!!
i hope you will cross 780 barrier & all the best for 12th Sept.

rjkaufman21 · Answer

Just wanted to give an update. I've got 18 days til test day. I've taken two more practice tests, one each of the past two weekends. Two weekends ago I took my 5th MGMAT and got a 740 again with Q47 and V45 which is ok but was hoping to get a little higher in Quant. Yesterday I retook the GMATprep 1 and got a 770 - Q50, V47. I was obviously happy about this, but I'm not going to put much weight in it since there were a few repeats.

Next week I'm going to take GMATprep 2 and that should give me a good indication of where I really stand.

Aside from my tests, I have been working through the OG and the MGMAT Advanced Quant guide.

Next week I'm going to take GMATprep 2 and that should give me a good indication of where I really stand.

Aside from my tests, I have been working through the OG and the MGMAT Advanced Quant guide.

rjkaufman21 · Answer

Checking in for another update. I've got 12 days until my test.

I just took the second GMATprep test and scored a 760 (50Q, 44V). I felt really good about the quant starting out, but in the end I started to choke a bit. I only missed 3 of the first 27 questions, and then missed 5 of the last 10. Not sure if it was just because the difficulty ramped up or my timing was off or what. If I can get a 50 on the real test I will be pleased. I do feel as though my Q has stabilized as I've been working through the OG.

In verbal I missed 4 questions which isn't bad.

Now I'm hoping I can replicate that score on the actual test.

OptimusPrimea1 · Answer

Just wanted to ask you guys on retaking the GMATprep software.

1) Should i reset the exam (say GMATprep1) for a new pool of questions or should i reinstall the software all over again? What is the normal practice?

2) How many new questions should i expect in GMATprep software?Or a better question is what percentage?

3) General Question(not related to GMATprep) : I tend to get nervous in Verbal since i am not a native speaker. In turn, i stop taking any notes during the exam. Probably this is one of the reasons i am getting low scores in verbal in all exams(ranging from 27 to 35. No consistency). How important is note taking in CR and RC? What pointers do you suggest in note-taking for both CR and RC? I found the shorter RC's quite tough in terms of complex data.

Being a non-native plus a slow reader does not help.Any suggestions?

For example, Yesterday i took my GMATprep(Q50,V27). V27 is just about the lowest score i have ever got. But there are certain things i have noticed in all my verbal sections till date. There are atleast 50-60% of the answers in which i was confused between to answers and i ended up selecting the wrong one.

rjkaufman21 · Answer

Hey optimus thanks for stopping by. I'll try to answer your questions.

1) I just reset the exam. I have heard that people reinstall but I didn't do that. I'm not sure what the benefit would be to doing so - not saying there isn't one, just that I don't know what it is and didn't really think about it when I retook the GMATprep1.

2) I would guess that I saw about 4, or maybe 5 repeat questions in both Q and V. So probably around 10-15% repeats. I retook GMATprep 1 about 3 weeks or a month after taking it the first time which I think was enough time that it didn't help me TOO much. On Q I know I saw 2 questions that I got right the first time and got them right again, 1 which I missed the first time and got right the second time, and 1 which I missed both times.

3) I may not be the best one to ask about this since I am a native speaker, and verbal has always been my strong point. But here is what I do:

For RC I always take notes as I'm reading the passage. I find that it really helps me internalize and understand the passage better. I usually don't even reference my notes as I answer the questions, but just making brief notes as I go along really helps with my comprehension. Also, if there is a line or paragraph that I don't understand I will read it a couple times until I feel comfortable with it. I can get away with this because I am a fast reader - I almost always finish the verbal with 10-15 minutes to spare - so you will have to find the right balance between speed and thoroughness of reading.

For CR, I hardly ever take notes. I can think of maybe two or three times where I wrote anything down for CR and it was because the prompts were very convoluted and I just wanted to work something out on my scratch paper. I feel that the passages are short enough that you can easily glance back at it them, as needed, as you scan answer choices. This is what I've found works for me, but CR is my strongest question type, I have a high accuracy rate in my error log. You, being a non-native speaker, may want to experiment with take notes on CR if that helps you comprehend it better.

My point is, figure out what works for you. When I started studying, I was the opposite of you, good verbal but poor in math. I've focused pretty much exclusively on studying math, in fact the only material I have used for verbal is the MGMAT SC guide. I've been studying now for over 3 months and its only been in about the last few weeks that I feel like I've really been able to pull everything together in terms balancing speed and accuracy in Quant. You'll have to go through the same process in Verbal.

rjkaufman21 · Answer

Thank you!

Thanks, hopefully I can pull through on the real thing.

rjkaufman21 · Answer

I took my last MGMAT practice today and scored a 760 (49Q, 45V). I was able to finish the quant just a couple minutes early which is nice because I often struggle on timing in the Q of the MGMAT tests. Math section was actually going very well until the very end. I was at the 99th percentile until the last 5 questions and for some reason I missed 3 of the last 5 and ended up with a 49 in quant.

Verbal was fine, I missed a few but still got a 45 and ended with about 12 minutes to spare which is usually how Verbal goes for me.

I finished the last of the OG this week. I will be going through what I missed this week and doing a bit of review on any weak points. The results were interesting, CR which I was doing very well in through about the first 80 questions I ended up missing quite a few of the difficult ones and ended up with just a 92% accuracy overall. In RC and SC I got a 93% accuracy overall. And in Quant I got 92% in DS and 93% in PS.

My overall accuracy for the entire OG was 92.6%.

6 days til my test.

Capricorn369 · Answer

Good work bro..!! Keep the momentum going.

Cheers!

rjkaufman21 · Answer

Thanks buddy yeah I just have to make sure i keep everything fresh this week and then hopefully I'll be well rested and won't be too stressed on my test day

rjkaufman21 · Answer

My test is the day after tomorrow - Saturday at noon. I planned it for noon so that I can make sure I can get a good nights rest, have breakfast, and because the testing center is about an hour from my house. My wife is going to drive me so I can review flash cards and do practice problems on the way down.

Tomorrow I'm planning on calling in sick to work so that I can study and review. I'm also planning on retaking GMATprep 2 tomorrow (taken it once) and doing the essays. I'll take it at noon to mimic saturdays test. I know a lot of people like to relax the last day or two before their test but I would rather study hard and feel confident going into the test that all the concepts are fresh in my mind.

Tonight I'm debating what I want to do after work, I'm thinking about maybe taking GMATprep 1 again. I've taken it twice already so it obviously won't be a good indicator of my score but I think it will be good because I'll see some fresh questions (I've exhausted the OG) and practice a wide range of topics, and then tomorrow I should have some time to review what I miss.

rjkaufman21 · Answer

Yesterday I decided to take the a power prep test rather than retake a gmatprep test. I got a 770 with a 50 Q and 44 V. I wish I had done some other one though because MANY of the questions were from the OG which I have already worked through, more on the Q side than V. Also I don't know what the problem was, but after I finished I could only review questions 1-30. It wouldn't let me see how many or what I missed past the first 30 questions. Unsurprisingly I only missed 1 of the first 30 questions in Q since there were a lot of repeats. In verbal I missed 3 of the first 30.

Today I called in sick to work. Got up around 8 and studied for a bit, did a few of Jeff Sackmanns extreme challenge set to get myself warmed up, had some breakfast and surfed the computer a bit. At noon I started my practice test, a retake of GMATprep 2. Did two full essays, spending the half hour on each. The AWA veritas guide has all of the available prompts so I opened to random ones and did them since I had already seen the two gmatprep essays. I got a 770 (first time I took it I got a 760). 50Q 46V, I missed 6 in quant and 4 in verbal. I wasted a lot of time on a particular word problem that I thought I could get but ended up guessing, this threw off my timing and I ended up rushing at the end a bit. I gotta make sure I don't do that tomorrow. I ended up missing that word problem btw.

I'm a bit nervous about tomorrow, I still don't feel super confident about certain quant concepts. But if I get around a 740-760 I'll be very pleased.

Aj85 · Answer

After a few questions in the real test you will get lost in solving problems and forget about nervousness. If you have read veritas guides ,they mention you can get 700+ even after missing a few questions. At-least in quant you can miss a few and still get a 50. Just keep your cool and if you ever need to guess, see that you eliminate all answers which don't lie in ballparking area. Also you should not spend much time on studies or on practice from here on. Just go and rock the paper tomorrow. Best of luck ! Wish you get your target score.

eragotte · Answer

I hope you aced it, the flash cards on the way to the exam is risky business, not what I would do, but you know how you learn better than I do. GLGLGLGL

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