Am I following the right direction ?

Question

Dear experts,

Ive been preparing for the exam for about 2 months alrteady. I do this as follows:

Take the section, (Quant or Verbal), then in each thread (Assumption, for example, or Percents) do 30-60 questions with the maximum number of Kudos. 
I proceed questions 1 by 1 : open the question, turn on a timer, click the answer. If it is wrong I look through the thread, find the best explanation and make sure that I understood it correctly. Then the next question.

To date I covered Quant part and almost the whole Verbal part. Overall - about 1500 questions. What am I particularly concerned about is the % of correct answers which is 50% on average. While the number that is suggested here on the forum is about 90%. Is it normal just because when a new topic is taken then the first n`th questions will obviously be answered badly ? Or do I do smth extremely wrong ?

Thank you for any help !

RichEconomistGMAT · Answer

Hi Kreol,

Forgive me if I misunderstood your message, but based on what I read, it sounds like you've been chugging away at practice sets. While this is one element of a strong strategy, I'm curious about the following:

1) What other materials are you using?
2) When are you hoping to take the GMAT?
3) When do you want to apply for business school?

Best,
Rich

Kreol · Answer

Thanks for you response ! 
I plan to take GMAT at the beginning of the August and apply straight afterwards. I`ve been using gmatclub math book and gmat club grammar book. I also shortly looked through the Kaplan Premier.
Am I missing something in my preparation ? Already covered about 1500 questions overall with almost no results...

EMPOWERgmatRichC · Answer

Hi Kreol,

Have you taken any FULL-LENGTH CATs (including the Essay and IR sections)? If so, then what were your scores (including the Quant and Verbal Scaled Scores)? You've mentioned that your GMAT is scheduled for the beginning of August, but what is your overall score goal?

GMAT assassins aren't born, they're made,
Rich

Kreol · Answer

Hi EMPOWER,

Unfortunately, not yet. I know it s a HUGE drawback ! The only reason I havent taken it yet, is that I didnt cover AWA and Inductive reasoning sections as well as RC one. I will solve this problem during this weekends. 
However, I spent some efforts to collect statistics for each sub-section. This is for 600-700 level questions with greatest number of Kudos from this forum (pls find a picture attached). The problem is that I can`t understand whether this is
correct to look at the results per sub-section (with 50-60% correct ones) or I should evaluate my performance based on CATs only ?

Thank you !

EMPOWERgmatRichC · Answer

Hi Kreol,

The only real way to truly measure your skills and determine your 'readiness' to take the GMAT is to take FULL-LENGTH CATs under realistic and test-like conditions.

Practice set results can help to pinpoint some of your 'weak spots', but Test Day involves more than just answering GMAT questions.

What is your score goal?

GMAT assassins aren't born, they're made,
Rich

Kreol · Answer

Understood. 
700 minimum. Could you please clarify how comparable are the 600-700 questions with greatest kudos number and the real questions on gmat ? Approximately. 
Also, If you were me, how would you structure your next steps, (except full length CATs) taking into account less than a month till the exam ? Maybe try some other books ? 
Again, thank you very much for your help. Your 800 score completely blows my mind up )

EMPOWERgmatRichC · Answer

Hi Kreol,

Since you haven't taken a FULL CAT yet, I can't offer much perspective on what you should be doing next. As such, you should take that CAT as soon as possible (maybe this weekend)!
Once you have that first set of scores, you should report back here.

With a 700 score goal and your current Test Day, it's likely that you'll need to reschedule your Exam. There is so much that you have to learn from the CAT-taking experience (that you 
haven't learned YET) and from whatever strengths and weaknesses that the CAT points out that I wouldn't expect you to perform at your goal 'level' just yet.

Of course, that's just speculation on my part - we can talk through all the options once you have your CAT score.

GMAT assassins aren't born, they're made,
Rich

Kreol · Answer

Dear EMPOWER, thanks for you patience. I just scored 660 on Kaplan CAT test. 49 Q and 34 V 
Several biases: 
1) I didnt repeat quant section, which I havent been doing for about 1 month. So couldnt remember several concepts.
2) I havent covered RC section yet.

Conclusions and observations. :
1) In quant section on the 27 question I started to hurry and since 32nd I was guessing. So extreme lack of time. 
2) All questions in quant I knew how to solve but failed just because I didnt remember a formula. 
(Definitely 700level questions on the forum are MUCH harder than hard questions on the test) >> repeat the quant
3) In IR I scored 1/12
4) In verbal section I failed 2nd and 3d questions so guess thats the reason why I wasnt given high level questions. 
5) In verbal started to hurry since about 27. Completely guessed just the last 2 questions. 
6) Since havent covered RC section yet, I understood each 5th world in the text. Spent a lot of time on that as well as on some CR questions.
Because of the lack of time I couldnt analyze deeper the CRs.
7) In sentence correction section failed 54%. Despite the fact that its the best sub-section in verbal I am good in. At least accroding to my statistics.
8) Average % of correct answers along the test - 50-60 . So quite surprised about the score. Thought that 70-80% was needed.

What are your suggestions, please ? I can provide you more comprehensive statistic if you need.

Thank you !

EMPOWERgmatRichC · Answer

Hi Kreol,

A 660 is a really strong first CAT score. Since you're still working under a limited timeframe, I'd like to know some more details about how you took this CAT:

1) Did you take the ENTIRE CAT (including the Essay and IR sections)?
2) Did you take the CAT at the same time of day as your Official GMAT?
3) Did you do anything during the CAT that you will not be allowed to do on Test Day (pausing the CAT, taking it at home, listening to music, etc.)?

If you did take the FULL CAT and did so under realistic conditions, then you ARE in a good position to score 700+ in August. The more your CAT 'experience' deviates from the reality of Test Day
though, the more likely your score is to be inaccurate.

GMAT assassins aren't born, they're made,
Rich

Kreol · Answer

Dear EMPOWER,

Yes, I did take CAT under realistic conditions. Thanks for your feedback. 
Could you kindly suggest any resources that aim to help candidates with verbal part of the exam but in a very  concise  way ? As you can see, I don`t really have time (my exam is at the  beginning  of August) and need some
extra short, step-by-step strategies. Not the detailed explanations of what the verbal is and etc. 
Thank you !

EMPOWERgmatRichC · Answer

Hi Kreol,

With your current Test Date, you have less than a month to continue studying. To improve your Verbal score, you'll have to focus on learning/practicing tactics (and not just burning through an
endless number of practice questions. As you can see, performing well on a FULL CAT is different from performing well on practice sets, so you also have to work on dealing with the physical and
psychological 'challenges' that come with the FULL GMAT.

Given all of these variables, you should plan to take 1 FULL CAT per week and spend the bulk of your practice time working on your Verbal skills. For your Verbal training, I recommend the 
EMPOWERgmat Verbal Score Booster. Most of our clients finish that Study Plan in under a month, so it would fit your schedule perfectly. During that time, you'll also be able to access any 
of the Quant resources that interest you.

What are the application deadlines for the Schools that you're considering?

GMAT assassins aren't born, they're made,
Rich

Kreol · Answer

Excellent. Thanks for that ! Will check it asap. 
What about our forum resources ? Anything helpful so far ? 
I haven`t checked the deadlines yet ... in october - december on average ...

Kreol · Answer

Let me update the thread and kindly ask for your piece of advice.
Today I had my first GMAT exam. Please consider my pre-exam scores :
CAT 1 (Kaplan) = 660
CAT 2 (Kaplan) = 660
CAT 3 (Kaplan) = 670
CAT 4 (GMATprep) = 690
CAT 5 (Kaplan) = 720 Q51V35
CAT 6 (Veritas prep, the same day as CAT 5 in the evening) = 610
CAT 7 (Final, yesterday, GMATprep) = 700 Q48V37

Aaaaand my today`s score .... 560
I was really shocked with the score ! Q48 but I COMPLETELY failed the verbal part V20. I used this calculator https://gmatclub.com/gmat-score-calculator/ to estimate the possible score and intended to update this thread with
700-750 score (I normaly score higher under stress with Q51 and V around 35-40) but I don`t really know what to do now. Furthermore, I have no idea how to continue my preparation.
Could you please suggest any possible reasons that might have affected my score ? During the exam I was pretty sure that I was choosing the right answers.
Does that mean that Kaplan, Official guides and questions from this forum are NOT representative of the verbal part ?

Thank you in advance !

EMPOWERgmatRichC · Answer

Hi Kreol,

I'm sorry to hear that Test Day didn't go as well as planned. Your practice CAT scores clearly show that you're capable of scoring at a much higher level. 
When these types of score drops occur, the two likely "causes" involve either something that was unrealistic during practice or something that was 
surprising (or not accounted for) on Test Day.

If you can answer a few questions, then we should be able to figure this out:

When you took your CATs:
1) Did you take the ENTIRE CAT (including the Essay and IR sections)?
2) Did you take them at home?
3) Did you take them at the same time of day as your Official GMAT?
4) Did you ever do ANYTHING during your CATs that you couldn't do on Test Day (pause the CAT, skip sections, take longer breaks, etc.)? 
5) Did you ever take a CAT more than once?

It's possible that you just had a "bad day"; but if we can figure all of this out quickly, then you shouldn't wait too long to retest.

GMAT assassins aren't born, they're made,
Rich

Kreol · Answer

Hi EMPOWER,

Thank you for your reply !

1) Did you take the ENTIRE CAT (including the Essay and IR sections)? - Yes
2) Did you take them at home? - Yes, without any disturbing (helping) factors
3) Did you take them at the same time of day as your Official GMAT? - Yes. +-1 hour
4) Did you ever do ANYTHING during your CATs that you couldn't do on Test Day (pause the CAT, skip sections, take longer breaks, etc.)? - No, nothing like that.
5) Did you ever take a CAT more than once? - You mean the same one ? No, never.

I could agree with you regarding the "bad day" cause. But 560 vs 700 ? I felt quite confident + my quant was at the normal level.
Based on that, I assume that I failed first Nth questions that were marked as very important ones by test makers. What do you think ?
Please, could you kindly check this thread too :
complete-disaster-680-to-660-but-how-on-earth-202977.html
Very similar case. We also had our test on almost the same day and both scored V20 despite previous 35-40.

Thank you !

EMPOWERgmatRichC · Answer

Hi Kreol,

Based on the extra information that you've provided, there's only one possible 'red flag' - taking the CATs at home. This is probably not enough to explain the score drop on its own, so I have
a few follow-up questions about Test Day itself:

On Test Day:
1) How did you sleep the night before your Exam?
2) How long was the ride to the Test Center from your home?
3) Were there any distractions at the facility or during the Test?
4) What did you do during the two 8-minute breaks?
5) Did you finish any sections early?
6) Did you have to rush to finish any sections (and guess on questions just to finish on time)?

GMAT assassins aren't born, they're made,
Rich

Kreol · Answer

Hi EMPOWER,

1) How did you sleep the night before your Exam? - obviously not that good, but about 7-8 hours.
2) How long was the ride to the Test Center from your home? - 1 hour 
3) Were there any distractions at the facility or during the Test? - no. Pluged in ear plugs plust the headphones. Wasnt disturbed at all
4) What did you do during the two 8-minute breaks? Walked for a while, ate a sandwhich and drank some water.
5) Did you finish any sections early? 
6) Did you have to rush to finish any sections (and guess on questions just to finish on time)? 
This is normal for me to rush the last 5 questions on each section. 
I am working on it but again all the mocks I took with the same amount of time.

Plus My quant score didn`t suffer at all. Had there been any externalies like long trip to the test center, then it would be affected too.

EMPOWERgmatRichC · Answer

HI Kreol,

A long drive/trip to the Testing Center CAN absolutely impact your performance (especially in the Verbal section, since it's at the end of a 4-hour long Test and you were likely tired).

When you say that you 'obviously' did not sleep well the night before your GMAT, what do you mean by that?

Can you think of ANYTHING else that was noteworthy about Test Day or the last few days before Test Day?

GMAT assassins aren't born, they're made,
Rich

Kreol · Answer

Hi EMPOWER,

Saying "obviously" I meant that before an important exam day almost everyone (average) will be nervous in the evening. And thus it will be harder to fall asleep. Compared to an average day )
Honestly, there wasnt anything abnormal. I just took GMATprep exam the day before (in the morning), scored 700, then solved several quant questions from GMATprep and went to sleep.
The week before the exam I had 5 "super days". Was solving ~180 questions a day (verbal + quant, 58 PS+ 43 DS + 30CR + 16 SC + 35 RC) from official guide, verbal and quant reviews. From easiest to hardest ones. My percent of right ones and average time per question :
Day 1
PS 93% / 1:25
DS 92% / 1:03
CR 77% / 2:51
SC 73% / 2:03
RC 84% / 2:19

Day 2

PS 80% / 2:24
DS 76% / 1:45
CR 87% / 2:42
SC 90% / 1:26
RC 66% / 2:00

Day 3

PS 83% / 2:04
DS 73% / 2:04
CR 87% / 2:47
SC 80% / 1:42
RC 76% / 2:12

Day 4

PS 87% / 2:33
DS 78% / 2:34
CR 78% / 2:50
SC 67% / 1:50
RC 70% / 2:54

Day 5

PS 82% / 2:07
DS 87% / 1:20
CR 58% / 1:37 (here I tried to do questions faster)
SC 77% / 1:32
RC 63% / 1:40 (here I tried to do questions faster)

I scheduled my next GMAT at the beginning of September. My plan :
Quant : solve all GMATprep questions. Actually realized that their level is different from OG the day before my exam.
Verbal : read Powerscore CR notes here powerscore-critical-reasoning-bible-full-chapter-notes-115864.html + GMATprep
Then probably notes for MGMAT SC(not the full one) + Gmatprep
Then RC for the rest of the time.
Also CAT every week.
I have a lack of time, since I work full time (that could not affect my result - I took 2 days off) so not sure I will be able to finish the full versions of the books. What do you think ?

Thanks for your help !

Am I following the right direction ?

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