Should I even go to my appointment?

Question

Hello everyone, I just took my first diagnostic test and I got a 510

I am currently aiming for 690-700 as a desired grade but mu exam is on the 14th of December. Do you have any recommendations for me or is all hope lost ? Thanks in advance for your answers

EMPOWERgmatRichC · Answer

Hi Denislava,

Based on this recent CAT/mock Score, it seems unlikely that you'll hit a 690+ on December 14th. At this point, you have a few options: you can save some money by rescheduling this Test or you can take it and use it as an overall 'learning experience' (so that you can better prepare for your next attempt). You could also 'skip' the Exam - meaning that while you'll lose the Test Fee, the appointment won't count against your 8-lifetime-attempt limit.

Before I can offer you any additional advice for your studies, it would help if you could provide a bit more information on how you've been studying and your goals:

1) How long have you studied? How many hours do you typically study each week?
2) What study materials have you used so far?
3) What were your Quant and Verbal Scaled Scores for this first CAT/mock?
4) When are you planning to apply to Business School and what Schools are you planning to apply to?

760+: What GMAT Assassins Do To Score at the Highest Levels

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

Contact Rich at: [email protected]

ScottTargetTestPrep · Answer

Hi Denislava,

Although "in general" I believe that you can improve from 510 to 690+, I just don't think it will be possible in the next 2 weeks. Is there any way you can push back your GMAT, give yourself more time to study, and take it once you are ready to do so? In the meantime, here are a few articles that you may find helpful:

The Best Way to Study for the GMAT

How Long Should I Study for the GMAT?

GMATinsight · Answer

Hi  Denislava

It's important that you take several reputed mock exams and then look at the average score that you are getting to know the correct score that you may get as of now so my suggestion is to not get carried away from just one test score.

In case your scores in mock are too low that the target score that you believe you can get then considering deferring the date as one generally can't improve from 530 to 690 but improving from 630-650 to 690-700 is possible based on several conditions.

For any further suggestion, feel free to tag me in your post,

GmatKnightTutor · Answer

Do you have any recommendations for me or is all hope lost ?

Quick turn arounds are possible depending on the situation/person but generally speaking going from a 500 to a 700 in 14 days is not the norm/likely. If the 510 was absolutely cold and you took 10 days off work (recently suggested taking a leave to a student), probably fair to say people wouldn't be utterly shocked to see a 100+ point jump (from the 500 range).

Not sure what your score break-up was but here is a blog with some free tips/suggestions for the gmat:

https://www.gmatknight.com/blog

GMATWhizTeam · Answer

Hi Denislava,

Generally speaking, it takes around 300 hours (give or take) to prepare from scratch. This includes everything from concepts to mock tests. Of course it depends on a number of things such as your target score, your strengths and weaknesses, your structure of preparation, the resources you use, your pace of learning etc. So, it would depend on all of these.

If you are at 510 now, it may be unrealistic to expect to hit 690+ in such a short span of time. Such significant improvement is challenging but possible only with a structure prep with consistent efforts guided in the right direction. It’s always better to spare some more time on your preparation until you are ready instead of missing out on your dream colleges/ b-schools in hurry.

First let us understand the right way to prepare for GMAT.

How to prepare for GMAT in the right way?  
Before you start preparing for any test, it's important to understand the structure of the test, what is tested on it and then prepare accordingly. In this case, GMAT is a test which focuses on your application skills along with the conceptual knowledge. So, just learning the concepts and practicing questions without focusing on the right methodology will not do any good. So, I suggest you to first focus on the methodology to solve questions of a particular topic and only then move to practicing questions of that topic.

So, the right way to prepare would be to first

learn the concepts of a topic,  
 learn the right methodology to solve questions of that topic 
 practice a few questions of that topic to solidify your learning and then move to the nest topic 
 Repeat the process for all the topics

And working on weak areas is equally important. You move to the next topic only if you get a decent accuracy in the previous topic. If not, you revisit the concepts, fill the conceptual gaps and then move to the next topic only when you are 100% confident. There are a couple of articles which you might find helpful.

How to effectively plan your studies for GMAT

How to score 700+ on GMAT

How to start preparing for GMAT

And you can go through the recording below to understand how to strategize your GMAT prep in an effective way.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=65n8_LIbPIM

Hope this helped and feel free to contact if you have any further queries.
You can always write back to me here or the better way would be to connect over a call and have a discussion. You can schedule a free consultation call using the below link.
    Click here to schedule a call

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