Actual GMAT D-day tips

[StaceyKoprince]

I'm sorry I'm only getting to this today, on 9 Sep. I'll still answer for the benefit of others who may have similar questions.

FYI, it can sometimes take up to a week to get a reply here, so post early!

You only need those two things in order to get into the center / take the test, but you should also take:
- food and drink
- a sweatshirt or sweater (not a coat / jacket - nothing super bulky with lots of pockets)
- some VERY EASY practice problems that you do right before entering the test center; throw away the practice problems before you enter the test center (you're not supposed to bring prep materials with you)

If you are anxious about the pen and laminated paper, it's a good idea to practice with that stuff ahead of time. You can buy the same pen and a replica of the laminated paper on our web site. You can also create your own by going to Kinko's (or equivalent) and getting some paper laminated.

Your practice tests are great - I hope your real test reflected the same thing! For others, it's not very useful to take tests more frequently than once a week. For instance, you can see that this student's results are all about the same (all within one standard deviation), so after the first test, the additional tests aren't providing much new data about strengths and weaknesses or what to improve. Also, just in general, it's really important to take practice tests under full official conditions, including essays (as this student did) and breaks.

CAT exams are really good for (a) figuring out where you're scoring right now, (b) practicing stamina, and (c) analyzing your strengths and weaknesses. The actual act of just taking the exam is NOT so useful for improving. It's what you do with the test results / between tests that helps you to improve.

I also counsel my students not to take a practice test within 5 days of the real thing. That's like running a practice marathon right before the real marathon - you run the very real risk of tiring yourself out or injuring yourself (say, getting a lower score and losing confidence). Plus, there's no upside - it doesn't better prepare you if you take a practice test 3 days before.

Ratheesh, if you have a chance, we'd love to hear how things went!

[StaceyKoprince]

Wow! That's a great score - congratulations!

Thanks for offering your tips for other students.

Re: taking the test again. Well, you certainly don't need to for admissions purposes, so taking it again would be SOLELY for yourself. So it's really up to you. There are a few different scenarios:

1) you take it again and get the goal score; you're ecstatic
2) you take it again and don't get the score; are you the type of person who would rather know you tried, even if you fail to reach the goal - and can you "get over it" easily if you do fail to reach the goal? Or will it bring you down/ hurt your confidence / stress you out?
3) you don't take it again; are you the type of person who would drive yourself crazy wondering "what if?" - or can you "get over it" and move on without having tried again?

For what it's worth, a 730 and a 750 do not represent a statistically significant difference. The two scores are within one standard deviation of each other.