GMAT 1 month Away - finished with MGMAT CATs

[Touloumis]

Hello,

This forum has been very helpful and I just wanted to see if my strategy for the remaining 4 weeks before my test is a good one.

I have the GMAT scheduled for March 23. I have been studying (believe it or not) for 9 months. I have taken all 6 MGMAT CATs and 1 reset CAT (saw a lot of the same questions and scored 50 points higher than usual).

My plan is to study 2 hours every weeknight after work (i.e., watch a Thursdays with Ron video and then do problems in my weak areas and review) and use each of my remaining weekends for one practice test (take and review; with this plan I'd take 4 practice tests before my real test). I have three questions:

1) Is one practice test a week for the month before your test recommended?

2) Considering I have already taken a rest MGMAT CAT and saw many of the same questions, should I move on to two free GMAT CATs given with my registration (GMAT Prep I believe they are called) and take them twice each?

3) I have the test scheduled for a Saturday - Should I take my last practice test 3 days before (Wed.) or should I do it 7 days before?

Thank you in advance!!

[StaceyKoprince]

Good questions. No, don't take a test every week.

Until about 10-14 days before your test, your focus is on trying to get better, using the data you have about your strengths and weaknesses from your practice tests. During this stage, it's not typically worth it to take a practice test more often than once every 2-4 weeks because you can *easily* get enough data out of one test to study for weeks.

If you have already taken a practice test within the past week or so, don't bother to take another again now. Instead, use this article to analyze your results (if it was an MGMAT CAT): http://www.manhattangmat.com/blog/index ... ice-tests/

Feel free to come back here and tell us the results of your analysis and what you think you should do based on that analysis. We'll tell you whether we agree and advise you further. (Note: do share an analysis with us, not just the raw data. Part of getting better is developing your ability to analyze your results - figure out what they mean and what you think you should do about them!)

Also, use the "how to study" section of this article to tell you HOW you can get the most out of the problems that you study (from tests and other sources):
http://www.manhattangmat.com/blog/index ... -the-gmat/

Once you hit the time period about 10-14 days before, your focus changes - now, you're no longer trying to get (much) better. Instead, you're trying to do a comprehensive review. Note that this means you want your practice score to be in your desired scoring range already about 10-14 days out. If it's not, then you may have to consider postponing your test.

These two articles will help you with what to do during that last "review" period:
http://www.manhattangmat.com/blog/index ... an-part-1/
http://www.manhattangmat.com/blog/index ... ew-part-2/

(Make sure to follow the links to the other articles contained in the How To Study section.)

Re: your other questions:

GMATPrep is good but has a smaller database - so you will likely see repeats if you do them again.

Also, there is only 1 IR section for both tests (it's identical for both), so you'll want to set up a separate IR section for yourself for both the 2nd GMATPrep test and any others if you do repeat. (But just note that you don't need 4 tests now - see my notes above - so maybe the repeat issue is moot.)

Finally, you'll see this in the "last 14 days" articles above, but don't take a practice test within 5 days of the real test. :)

[Touloumis]

I have done an assessment report on my 5 most recent CATs:
1) 11/15 Q44 V31
2) 12/30 Q45 V32
3) 1/12 Q44 V36
4) 1/21 Q41 V36
5) 2/10 Q44 V 37

Quant: My worst area is Geometry (29% correct). Within Geometry, Polygons are 17%, Triangles & Diagonals are 25% and Circles & Cylinders are 33%. These three are my most inaccurate sections and my slowest is Polygons (right answers 2:11, wrong answers 2:48). Aside from Polygons my timing falls between 1:45 and 2:15. I plan to study in depth geometry problems in these three areas while timing myself of course. I will also analyze why I got the wrong answers. I am not sure what other drills I can do to increase my geometry aside from practicing and reviewing problems. My other weak areas are Exponents and Roots (30% correct), Percents (42%), Overlapping Sets (29% and slow at 2:39 for right and 2:40 for wrong), and Probability (20%). Aside from analyzing the CAT problems that I got wrong, I plan to watch relevant Thursdays with Ron videos on these sections and do/review problems in these areas using the OG as well as other needed sources.

Verbal: Within CR, my weakest area is weaken the argument (46%; ~2:10 minutes) and within RC my weakest is inference (44%). My SC is actually strong with an average right answers of 720 and wrong answer of 750, so I will do limited work on this section. For RC and CR, I plan to read Art & Design articles, Science articles, and foreign relations articles from credible sources daily. While I read I will be focusing on the main idea of each article despite the technical language. For inferences, I will be practicing making inferences on problems WITHOUT having to assume real world scenarios (my biggest flaw apparently).

In all timing actually does not appear to be my biggest issue (for all sections on the assessment summary my timing was between 1:45 and 2:15 except word problems where I am a little bit slower at 2:45), but conceptualizing the problem and making it simple for myself seems to be the biggest issue. I've noticed that on many quant problems, I find myself unsure where to begin. So I will try to learn as many methods as there are to answer problems in my weak areas.
I appreciate your help so far and feel free to advise where you see fit.

[StaceyKoprince]

Just a note - it's usually most useful to look only at the 2-3 most recent CATs, especially if older ones are older than 4-6 weeks. When you go back too far, the data no longer actually reflects your current strengths and weaknesses.

For any of these weak areas, figure out:
(a) WHY you got something wrong, and / or
(b) WHY you took too long

If you don't know why, then you don't know what you need to do to try to improve. If you realize that you didn't know some rule or formula, you study it. If you realize that you don't feel comfortable doing certain math manipulations, you go drill / practice those things.

If you realize that you didn't really get what they were asking, then you seek out explanations that will help you learn how to better "decode" these questions and figure out what to do (and things like Thursdays with Ron can help with this, as well as articles on our blog - pay attention to when we talk about HOW TO KNOW that the problem is talking about a certain thing how to know to do a certain thing).

If you realize you made a careless mistake, then you figure out why you made the mistake and you implement some new good habit (or break some old bad habit) that will help you minimize this kind of careless mistake in future. Etc.

Exponent, roots, and percents are common, so spend more time there. Sets and probability are not very common, so get those wrong faster and spend the time elsewhere (I mean this in two senses: both during the test when you do get one and outside of the test when you're studying). Geo is of medium importance.

To address your "where to start?" issue, get some flash cards. On one side, write "when I see..." and on the other "I'll think / do..."

The first side will contain specific clues (if a problem contains several numbers / values such as 2, 3, 5, and 7... I'll notice that they all "happen" to be prime, so I'll suspect that the problem is likely about prime!) or actual text from a question but NOT the entire question - just the relevant text that could appear in many questions (eg, when I see >0 or <0 in a quant problem, I'll suspect that the problem is really about positives and negatives and try to approach it from that direction).

Awesome on SC.

CR weaken:
http://www.manhattangmat.com/blog/index ... n-problem/

RC infer:
http://www.manhattangmat.com/articles/a ... estion.cfm

[Touloumis]

Stacey,

I took the test today and received a 650. This was after receiving a 700 and 690 on my two GMAT Prep tests. My nerves definitely got to me and this was after 9 months of studying. The funny part is I felt so bad about my quant section, which I ended up doing ok in, and so strong about my verbal section, which I ended up doing 5 points lower than in any of my previous practice attempts. I am not sure where I went wrong with the verbal, but hopefully it was just nerves.

I wanted to get your opinion on taking it again as soon as I can (30 days from now), but during the next month taking a little break and just reviewing the materials lightly hoping to refresh my mind and get back into this with more confidence. I want to do it ASAP so that I do not lose the 9 months of studying I have done. Would you recommend this strategy? Thank you in advance.

[StaceyKoprince]

I'm sorry you didn't get the score you wanted - but congrats on the 650. That's still a very good score. :)

Do you think stamina issues came into play? Verbal is the last section. Read this - did anything like this happen?

http://www.manhattangmat.com/blog/index ... you-crazy/

Note for next time: the better you're doing, the harder it should feel - because you should be getting a bunch of crazy hard questions! If you feel like you're breezing through / it's easy... something's probably wrong. If that happens in verbal, it might be the case that you're so mentally fatigued that you're just not picking up on the usual details / clues, so you're making mistakes without realizing it.

Re: when to take it again, certainly you'd want to do so in the nearer term, not 9 months from now. 32 days* might not be quite enough time though - we really need to figure out what happened so that we then know what to do (and can estimate how long it might take).

*Note: technically, you have to wait 31 days, which means you're eligible to take it again 32 days later. :)

Take a look at this - are there any other things here that might help to explain what happened with verbal?
http://www.manhattangmat.com/blog/index ... ent-wrong/