CAT Scores

[mumar]

I scored 690 on my first CAT during the first week of the course (I had been studying before so it wasn't cold) and then after 6 classes and tons of prep I took the second CAT and got a 660 - totally bummed out :( Any advice (or morale boosters) would be appreciated!

Mariam

[StaceyKoprince]

Oh, that's annoying, but it's not that unusual for scores to stay the same or go down when you're mid-course.

Basically, you've learned a bunch of stuff, but you're not totally efficient with it yet, so you likely spent too long on some things you're just learning, which messed up your timing on other questions. Plus, you did also get questions on things you haven't learned yet.

Use this article to analyze your test:
http://www.manhattangmat.com/blog/index ... ice-tests/

Also, if you did have timing problems, read this and start doing what it says:
http://www.manhattangmat.com/blog/index ... anagement/

The good news is that this CAT is doing exactly what it's designed to do: help you figure out what your weaknesses are at this stage of the game so that you can fix them!

[mumar]

Thank you so much for the quick reply! I really appreciate it :)

[StaceyKoprince]

you're welcome :)

[mumar]

Stacey, thanks for sharing the articles. I did exactly what they suggested and spent the week drilling the areas that showed weakness throught the assessment report. I scored 700 on CAT4 (through improvement in verbal - I spent the week really focusing on sentence correction becuase in all 3 exams I got almost 8 or so wrong!) My quant score however isn't really moving - 45 (not properly timed), 43, 44 and 44.

My exam date is Feb 11. I have also signed up for the 3 advanced workshops coming up.

I have covered all of the strategy guides including all Official problems listed in them which means I have done all of the quant OG +Official Suplement problems. I feel though that OG problems are somewhat easier than the CATs and as well as the GMAT prep software.

I'm doing pretty bad in number properties, absolute values and inequalities (sometimes 0 right and somtimes 25% right).

I also just discovered the question banks and am doing those now (also finding those easier than the CATS and getting a decent percentage right so far).

I will definitely go back and redo all official problems that I ever got wrong (I did that once already). But I'm wondering if I should do more OG problems or if you could refer me to some other resource for practice.

I honestly don't think I'm going to get above the mid 40's in quant. Yesterday I received the advanced strategy guide and upon browsing I became skeptical abouth whether those problems are the best use of my time - I mean if I'm just in the mid 40's I probably won't even see problems like that right? I wanted to know what you think about that too.

Sorry for such a long message. I've heard sooo many great things about you so wanted to see if you have any advice for me through the last few weeks.

Thanks very much!
Mariam

[StaceyKoprince]

Thanks for the vote of confidence. :)

Also, nice job on that last CAT!

Your quant scoring range right now is about the right level to think about using the Advanced Quant book, but that's also geared toward someone who's going to be taking significant time to push up to 48, 49, 50. If you aren't that invested in raising your quant score, then you may just want to work on tweaking things to try to get to 45-46 and leave it at that.

In terms of problems covered... you don't yet have the score that you want on quant, right? So that means you didn't get everything out of those problems that you could have. If you're not getting everything you can out of the problems you study, then continuing to do new problems isn't a super-great use of your time, right?

Read this article; do you ask yourself these kinds of questions when reviewing problems?

http://www.manhattangmat.com/articles/a ... roblem.cfm

If not, start doing that. Go back to old problems first in areas of weakness. Only when you feel that you've actually improved / learned some substantial things should you go test yourself on new problems to see how it goes.

When you get to that point, you can try GMAT Focus (www.gmatfocus.com). This is a quant-only mini-CAT (24 questions) made by the real test makers. (Note: there is a fee; I think it's about $30 for each set of 24 questions.)

Also, is your course still going on? Sign up for office hours and talk to your instructor for more advice before or after class.