Road to 730+

Question

I'll use this thread to chronicle my experience, share what I learn and hopefully recieve some encouragement along the way. I'm going to move my posts from this thread: guess-what-score-would-have-been-106624.html , so I appologize for posting the same thing twice but this is a better forum and title.

My background -

29 years old
Business economics undergrad from 2nd tier school
Below 3.0 GPA.
CFA charterholder and 5 years of progessive work experience in finance

Goal: 730+ GMAT.

Hoping for UCLA/USC and I think a 730 along with the rest of my application should be sufficient to compensate for the GPA/school.

abmyers · Answer

What I have done up to this point:

1. I purchased the full MGMAT package with the books, OGs etc. MGMAT and OG are my only reference materials (along with this forum!)

2. Dec 20th, I took GMATPrep Test 1 to see where I stood. I didn't finish quant, with 6 questions unanswered. My score was 41 veral, 31 quant, 660 total. I'm told if I finished I could have expected a higher score, but I didn't so 660 is my starting point.

abmyers · Answer

January 11th (after studying halfheartedly through the holidays)

Since my last post, I have studied exclusively quant, and have barely opened the cover of verbal. My focus has been on MGMAT Number Properties and Word Translations.

Today I took MGMAT Test 1, untimed (I did it at work with periodic distractions).

Total score 710 - 94nd percentile.

Verbal score = 39……89th percentile. 25 out of 41 correct
I missed 1 question in 500-600 range
I missed 1 question in 600-700 range
The rest 700-800 range

Quant score= 48…. 86th percentile. 22 out of 37 correct 
I missed 2 questions in 600-700 range
The rest 700-800 range

Avg difficulty of right answer was 670 PS, 720 DS.
Avg difficulty of wrong answers was 750 PS, 720 DS.

Interesting notes from my results - I missed 4 of the first 6 questions in quant. The CAT test had assessed me as 25th percentile after 6 questions. Yikes!.

abmyers · Answer

January 24th (1 month in)

Today I took GMAT Club Diagnostic Test 1 and GMAT Math Test 25

32/45 on Diagnostic (80th percentile)
28/37 on M25 (75th percentile)

I finished the M25 with less than a minute to spare. I did not finish the Diagnostic (4 remaining Q's)

The Diagnostic was BRUTAL.

Any context for these scores? I'm aiming for a 49+ quant score.

abmyers · Answer

Real time - January 25th.

After spending a considerable amount of time on quant and SC, I thought I'd give a full test another shot.

I took MGMAT CAT #2 today. Again I did the test untimed. My score was a 700.

TYPE SCORE ESTIMATED PERCENTILE RANK 
Quantitative 51 99 % 
Verbal 35 77 % 
Total 700 93 %

I'm really building confidence in quant but I'm slipping in verbal. I think its time to realign my focus.

I scored 29/37 on quant. The ones I missed were very difficult. The chalenge now is answering these questions in under two minutes....

Verbal...what a meltdown. Whats frustrating is I have been focusing quite a bit on basic SC and I'm still missing easy problems. I now see that RC and CR need some work.

Interestingly, my verbal scores were better when I was relying exclusively on my "native ear" and have been falling since I have started relying on SC rules. Trust the process?

skbjunior · Answer

Nice posts abmyers! Good luck to you!
I have a question about your MGMAT CAT #2. How many did you miss in the verbal to get 35?

Thanks!

abmyers · Answer

I missed 18 of 43.

5 of the ones I missed were 600-700 level, the rest 700+ level. Really disappointing.

johnnyGMAT2k10 · Answer

Good job with your progress, if ur getting 50/51 quant in manhattan gmat your in great shape in that area. I think you should start taking the exams timed at this point, i think thats the next step in your improvement

abmyers · Answer

Today, after spending the last week or so on SC, I took a timed test. MGAT3.

Quant 48 86% 
(15 out of 22 PS)
(8 out of 15 DS)
Verbal 36 81% 
(9 out of 14 CR)
(7 out of 12 RC)
(9 out of 15 SC)
Total 690 91%

I finished the verbal in time, but not the quant

rg1 · Answer

I hope you're categorizing your mistakes in a bucket from previous MGMAT tests and practicing problems of specific types. e.g. if you find your incorrect questions are of parallelism, you will pick 30 problems testing parallelism concept. I did diagnostic last weekend, and bucketed my problems in Inference questions for CR and RC, meaning/Idioms questions for SC, and Word translations/DS for Quant. I'll practice on these topics, and try to reduce mistakes in these areas.

I'm just suggesting and will try to do the same thing this weekend after giving MGMAT1.

I'm also in the same boat and updating my progress here.
my-gmat-journey-108768.html

abmyers · Answer

Thanks thats a good idea

desiaggie1980 · Answer

That's an excellent suggestion; I realize I never followd this approach of bucketing into possible categories, one month into prep, I think this comes at the right time.

Posted from my mobile device

akshathbs · Answer

great improvement..

abmyers · Answer

Since my last test, I did all of the problems in OG Quant review, and about 100 SC questions across OC Verbal Review and 1000 SC. I also went through MGMAT SC Guide one more time up to advances and I'm starting to peek at advanced now.

I also went through advanced in MGMAT Number Properties, which was awesome.

I spent some time, maybe an hour or so looking at the CR and RC guides but they were a snoozer.

Last night I took MGMAT CAT 4. Very surprising results. I took quant untimed, verbal timed.

Quant 48 (86%th)
Verbal 45 (99%th)
Total 750 (98%th)

Yes, I'm thrilled about the score, but surprised at how well I did on verbal and how poorly I did on quant.

My raw score on quant and verbal were significantly higher...

16/22 PS
9/15 DS
11/15 SC
10/14 CR
10/12 RC

I just did the MGMAT assessment report across the 4 tests and it looks like I need some work in word translations. I'll hit that book tonight.

abmyers · Answer

Just took MGMAT 5. I'm jazzed. 760 overall!!

Quant 49 (90%th)
Verbal 45 (99%th)
Total 760 (99%th)

PS 18/22
DS 8/15
SC 13/15 <-work is paying off!
CR 11/14 <-improving here too
RC 9/12

If I can rely on these scores being somewhat accurate, its time to spend a day or two on AWA, get the general feel. A 5.5 would be fine for me. I'm native English so I should get the concept quickyl right? After some practice there, schedule the exam, then kill it

ibbys · Answer

For AWA, check this out if you have not come across it already how-to-get-6-0-awa-my-guide-64327.html

AmrithS · Answer

The chineseburned template is awesome for AWA :D

abmyers · Answer

Well, because I wanted to be sure I could believe what MGMAT was telling me, I took GMATPrep 2 today.

48 Quant
44 Verbal
750 Overall

It didnt give me pecentages?

My thoughts.....first, +90 points in a little over 2 months! Second, wow, time pressure for the GMATPrep was intense. I fell behind in both quant and verbal, and on verbal I had to guess on two of the last three and didn't get my answer in for the last question. I rarely have worried about time on verbal, but it was an issue here. I think I also had to guess on two quant questions at the end. Some tricky SC questions where the correct answer was very awkward and a few CR questions that racked my brain. I'm hoping when its game time, I will be able to "move along" and won't have anxiety about clicking next on a problem I wasn't sure on.

In terms of problems I missed...

25/37 on quant...48 raw score. I missed A LOT and still got a 48.
Verbal....37/41! I missed two of the three guesses at the end, otherwise I only missed two. Not sure I can consistently repeat that kind of performance.

Plan from here.....go over mistakes on this one, adjust my knowledge in those areas, work on AWA and schedule the exam. Any last minute advice?

denisedomesta · Answer

Good luck !

AmrithS · Answer

Don't worry about the number of problems that you missed. Instead, focus on the reason why you answered them incorrectly. Be particularly concerned about the problems which you could have answered correctly but somehow managed to mess it up

Last moment tips: As you get closer to the Test Date, it becomes a game of nerves. You will start doubting your abilities

It happens to even the best of 'em... lol... So have some sort of a mantra to repeat to yourself when you feel pangs of anxiety! I used to say "**** it... I'm gonna do this! Yippie Ka YaY GMAT..." (try putting one or two swear words in the phrase... It helps vent out the frustration

But make sure you don't say it out loud... cause if you do, people might think you're a nutter!)

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