...although I've gotten quite close! The GMAT is a test that I've pushed off for years, studying multiple times only to get to the stage that I'm at now - a borderline 700 score on mocks and then life getting in the way. Mainly due to the fact that I'm now on the "wrong" side of 30 (and finally have a decent career), I've decided once and for all that come "heck or high water", I'm finally at least going to take the actual test and at least see what happens (the relatively new score cancellation policy means at worst, a poor performance is "only" a monetary loss which I could live with).
I've taken one Veritas CAT roughly once a week the past few weeks, simulating test conditions as faithfully as I can, other than the AWA at the end (I've always been a good English student, and I truly enjoy writing; I don't believe it will take much effort to get a 5+ for me, here). Results are as follows:
Q46/V36/IR 5 - Score: 670
Q45/V38/IR 5 - Score: 680
Q47/V33/IR 3 - Score: 650 - this test, particularly IR/Reading comprehension, I was pretty fatigued; I had one RC passage I completely misread and got all questions wrong ( a first for me)
Q44/V41/IR 6 - Score: 690 - Just wrapped this up moments ago. Q score left me truly baffled; my percentage accuracy on Quant overall was 81% (much higher than all my other tests), so I guess I must have missed a lot of "easy" questions; My verbal score helped me to finally truly believe I can hit a 40+ on the real test (V42 is my "dream" Verbal score and probably realistically the highest I can get)
Tentative Goal: Take the actual exam by end of January 2019, at the latest (ideally by mid-December 2018)
Target Score: 720 - Q50/V42 would be my "dream" result
Important to note: I am taking a vacation at long last from mid December through New Year's Day. This can be a lengthy time to study, if needed, but I'd selfishly love to avoid that, as I've only taken 5 days off all year (and physically am starting to feel a bit burned out)! I am hoping to get a push that I need during the 4 days off for Thanksgiving at the end of this month
A few things that leave me scratching my head: I struggle massively with time on the Veritas quant section, especially compared to
GMAT Club tests. There are questions on these tests where my work matches the suggested solution and it still takes me considerably over 2 minutes. Any question that takes me over 2 minutes on GMAT Club typically is me missing an elegant/optimal way to solve a problem (and ends with me invariably slapping my forehead and saying that's brilliant when I see the solution -_-). I also tend to do a bit better on
GMATClub tests (48 on my last two tests; I hit a 50 once earlier in the year but not recently). I think I had about 10 minutes left when I got to my last question on my last
GMAT Club test, Veritas I have virtually no time ever and am rushing throughout the section.
Resources available:
3 remaining
GMAT Club tests (through 12/2018) - I plan to review 600 and 700 level questions, here, as my primary method of Quant studying
Magoosh (through 12/2018) - answered questions here and watched a few videos when I first started my GMAT prep; haven't really used since (through 12/2018)
Veritas books/practice tests/some remaining Qbank questions (books indefinite; tests/Qbank through 3/2019) - almost entirely utilized
Critical Reasoning Bible - read one time through a while ago, felt like I adapted well enough to CR afterwards, haven't returned to (indefinite)
Manhattan books (indefinite) - these are a friend's books; I've only used Manhattan for Sentence Correction and Advanced Quant thus far (Veritas for the rest)
(Official) Exams Packs 1/2/3 and Official question banks - Not yet touched. I am planning on starting to take official CATs after taking my one last remaining Veritas exam.
Known weaknesses:
Visual Geometry questions - plan to just review questions, here
Combinatorics (need to refresh) - plan to review the Veritas book, here
IR Section (have never specifically studied this section), much of it due to timing crunch - plan to read Veritas book, and review questions from mock tests
Sentence Correction - I say this tentatively as I've made substantial leaps here by starting to do some problems and seeing some core things (like how the GMAT appears to hate Passive Voice even when grammatically correct, whereas I personally like it, for one thing); even from the start, I typically never got anything below a 650 level wrong - plan to review questions, here; debating watching
Magoosh videos for a primer on rules I may not have seen, yet
So I should also indicate, I studied pretty extensively at the start of the year. I then had some severe allergy/sinus problems that completely derailed my studying by early March. I restarted studying again at some point in September, or so, and started taking CATs starting in October. I am definitely still rusty on some quant items that I was handling well better before, but have been pretty encouraged how much I've retained/how quickly I'm picking up. I hadn't really studied verbal at all prior, so my current results there, other than the one V33, are pretty encouraging.
Thanks in advance for any tips and advice that anyone can give, here! It's much appreciated! And my apologies for the lengthy post!
close
04 Nov 2018, 09:59
