New User - Knewton Free Diagnostic -460 - the way forward ?

Question

Hi,

a big hello to everyone on this forum and thanks to the moderators for approving my membership.

I am a 30 Year old male from India, working in the IT industry with close to 7 years of IT experience. planning to appear for the GMAT in December'11.

as far as Quant and verbal skills for competitive exams are concerned, i have been completely out of touch and decided to take the first step towards my goal by appearing for one of the "freely" available GMAT CAT Tests on the internet.

appeared for Knewton Free Diagnostic and scored a dismal 460.

Verbal 26/40%
Quant 27/19%
Total 460/26%

I understand that i am looking at a really task road ahead of me, what are chances to reach the 750 range considering the fact that i wasn't even able to recall the formula for calculating the Median when i appeared for the diagnostic today :oops:

Planning to brush my fundamentals up and appear for another free prep test in 20 days.

this is a fantastic forum, looking forward to being here and learning from you all.

thanks

Planning to brush my fundamentals up and appear for another free prep test in 20 days. this is a fantastic forum, looking forward to being here and learning from you all. thanks

akhileshgupta05 · Answer

Well your score is better than mine when I had started!

First understand what is the GMAT, every single of its 5 sections.

Brush up your Quant Fundamentals using Manhattan Math Foundations or any of our text books.
Then don't look anywhere jump into MGMAT 5 Strategy Guides! They are solid.

Strategy Guides + OG 12 problems (twice) + Quant Supplement = sufficient to get a quant 40-45. (Get some help in understanding DS framework, very interesting and different from anything we have ever done)

Beyond the Q45 till max 51 use the non-standard material - GMATclub Tests, Jeff Sackmann Extreme, MGMAT Quant Advanced!

Verbal: VERY HARDWORK!
Preferably start Quant and Verbal simultaneously. Start Reading some good GMAT Fiction books on this forum - provided you have the liberty of time. Then move on to MGMAT Verbal Foundations.

Then:
SC: Manhattan SC
CR: Powerscore CR Bible
RC: Lot of concentration and patience!

Most important resources:
OG 12
GMATprep
Any other official material - OG 11, 10 and 2 supplements - Use them all very wisely.

Best Mock Tests:
GMATprep
MGMAT
Kaplan

AMUSE · Answer

I would take the GMATPrep to get an idea of where you truly stand. I got a 470 on Knewton Diagnostic and then got a 600 on GMATPrep the next week. IMO Knewton, or any test prep co. for that matter can predicate where you stand.

pinkray · Answer

@akhileshgupta05 ,@AMUSE - Thanks for the encouragement.
@ akhileshgupta05- Thanks for chalking out this plan. this is really helpful for a newbie like me.

started going through the OG12 and had a shot at OG12's diagnostic today 7/13/2011-
Problem Solving - 7/24
Data Suff - 10/24
Reading comp - 14/17 ( yeah right

)
Critical Reason - 5/17 (Yeah right

)
Sentence corr - 9/18

now i'll get to studying the Quant basics and appear for a free test again in couple of weeks time.

thanks.

) Critical Reason - 5/17 (Yeah right

) Sentence corr - 9/18 now i'll get to studying the Quant basics and appear for a free test again in couple of weeks time. thanks.

pinkray · Answer

Getting on with my preparation on Quant, i am Seeking your input on the following :

Book : MGMAT The Fractions ,Decimals and Percent guide 4th edition
Chapter : 3 , Percent Strategy ,Page 55 (Percent problem set) 
Question5 :A 7% car loan, which is compounded annually, has an interest payment of $210
after the first year. What is the principal on the loan?

my query: this is a fairly straight forward problem but by question is at what point should i be able to figure out that this problem is not to be solved using the compound interest formula?

bschool2014 · Answer

If I were you, I would take one of the tests that come with the GMAT Prep software to gauge the initial point. I don't believe Kaplan, Knewton etc diagnostic tests are accurate. I took the Kaplan Free test last week and scored a 640, even though my quant was in the 85th percentile and verbal in the 92nd percentile. I got a 750 on both the GMAT prep and MGMAT test this week. There is no way I could have improved 100 points in a week.

garimavyas · Answer

i think the knewton diagnostic is meaningless .
i think that the kaplan diagnostic is equally meaningless. these companies i think try to entice customers by giving low scores deliberately , so you should focus on gmatprep diagnostic.

goodbyeboy · Answer

First of all, welcome! This indeed is a fantastic site. All the practice tests, especially free ones from prep companies - you'll need to take their scores with a grain of salt. I personally used Knewton and although I really like them, I felt that their practice test scores are really inaccurate. I would suggest you to become familiar with how GMAT works and use GMAT Prep software to see where you're at more accurately. Don't be too stressed out b/c of your initial score.

My first practice test score was 480 and I even received 500 for my first GMAT test back in March....and trust me - I come from a music school and I haven't done any kind of math in last 7 years. If someone with that kind of background can increase score - so can you. In fact, I'm positive that you'll do a lot better than I did. You have a lot of time before December so if you make a solid plan and stick with it I'm sure you'll do great. Good luck and feel free to PM me if you have any questions.

pinkray · Answer

@bschool2014, @garimavyas and @kychoi87 ( stewie avatar?, you're my kinda guy buddy, ah sage stewie and his infinite wisdom)

i see almost everyone here on this forum is of the opinion that the non-GMAC diagnostics are not to be taken too seriously and this for me , i feel is a good thing.

still, such scores give you a "reality check", its always good to start with a 460..i know i can only go up after hitting rick bottom in my first attempt.

i am working with MGMAT strategy guides for Quant and i feel its all coming back to me , albeit slowly. hope things will continue to improve..
ill appear for my GMAT Prep diagnostic sometime around second week of august ( having gone thru the basic formulaes), on the result of this diagnostic will depend my need of subscribing to classroom coaching.

this is a lovely forum of highly motivated and helpful folks.
ciao.

krishp84 · Answer

pinkray - From what I understand you have a good Verbal score - But is this the score you want ?
Because one thing to remember is this is a psychometric test.
Verbal questions are consolidated - RC,SC,CR (we split them to get our strength/weakness)
So if you do bad in 2 sections, then you will get relatively easy qn.s in the other section - that will be your strong area in most of the cases - and you will wrongly assume that you are really good in the other section.

Do a reality check by timing yourself and checking the accuracy in the easy section by doing some difficult ones. That will give you fair idea of your range on section easy for you.

OG is sorted in increasing order of difficulty.

In your case - RC is good we assume- So check it.

pinkray · Answer

@krishp84 - Thanks for the analysis! really helpful.

I'll surely go back, move through a set of RC problems to confirm if the score is truthful.
however, i am a little confused when you say, and i quote,  "So if you do bad in 2 sections, then you will get relatively easy qn.s in the other section - that will be your strong area in most of the cases - and you will wrongly assume that you are really good in the other section"]

this result is from the OG12 Diagnostic which is a paper based test. trying to understand if OG questions are set in a certain manner e.g. RC<CR<SC ( increasing order of difficulty)

Thanks for stopping by this post.

krishp84 · Answer

1st I assumed you took the CAT and not paper test - Here imagine you get many CR , SC questions wrong - You can expect to get relatively easy RC questions - that you answered correctly. 2nd you mentioned that it was the paper based diagnostic test ==> Difficulty level will not change, so it tells you are good at RC - But in real CAT, there are multiple factors. Listing down some, cannot do all(its all in mind) --- Are you solving the RC questions in correct time even when performing well in the other sections ? --- Will you answer the questions correctly even when they are in the middle of CR and SC questions ? --- Once your CR/SC are good, will the current time suffice for your RC section ? --- Are you prone to silly mistakes in RC ? --- Will you get sleepy after 2 hrs 30 mns and 3 hrs 30 mns when you will get theses RCs ? How well will you perform then ? .................................etc, etc You need to find the Answers to all these questions and many others ---- These all will be clear when you start to write Practice tests after your preps... For now do not get bogged down by what I say. Just do not side-line your RC section assuming that it is good. Keep practising a little bit even if it is good so that you can improve your speed and use the extra time in other sections - After all choose the strategy that is best for you... Do not forget to give kudos to all who help you :-D

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