GMAT Focus Quantitative online tool

[omar.a.ahmad]

Hi,

I have been studying for a month and started taking tests two days a go. I got 690 on one MGMT CAT and 620/640 in two Kaplans. So i was comfortable that my score on the real GMATwould be above or close to 700.

Then I decided to take one of the official GMAC GMAT focus quantitative tool tests which is a 24 questions / 45 minutes test. I discovered that the questions are much harder than the OGs and my score was 41-47, which is nothing close to 700!! So I was greatly disappointed...

Do you know these focus exams have the same level of the GMAT?

Thanks,
Omar

[StaceyKoprince]

You can get a 700 if you score in that 41-47 range on quant, depending upon your verbal score - so GMAT Focus shows that you have the necessary capability on the quant side.

You can't take a single section sub-score (quant or verbal) and use only that to predict how that will translate into the 3-digit score. Both pieces of data are necessary in order to convert to the 3-digit score, and the 2-digit subscores are on completely different scales. Even the percentiles don't help - you can get a higher 3-digit (overall) percentile than the two individual percentiles you achieved on the quant and verbal sections.

So, basically, you're fine. Keep up the good work. And you'll probably want to do more GMAT Focus to get some more practice with really hard problems. (Note that you also had a little less time on GMAT Focus - 24 questions and 45 minutes - than typical, so that's going to increase the pressure too!)

[omar.a.ahmad]

Hi Stacey,

Thanks a lot for your reply; it makes full sense.

Actually, I have just finished my first GMATprep test and I got 720. I discovered that I have the following issues after I took the test; please help me figure out how to solve them. My real GMAT test is scheduled on the 16th of August.

1) I have more data s. mistakes than problem solving. and I take more time solving data sufficiency problems as well. what would be the best and most practical solution to minimize mistakes and time in data sufficiency. I am thinking of revising the most popular data suffieciency areas: like postives/negatives, odds/evens, and averages. Then I plan to take sets of 20s from the most difficult data sufficiency problems in the OGs to test my timing and measure improvement in my ability to get the right solutions. What do you think?

2) Idoms are killing me-I always forget them as I am not a native english speaker. How should I solve that?

You advice regarding these two issues and regarding how to plan my next days will be much appreciated.

Thanks in advance,
Omar

[StaceyKoprince]

If your test is in 2 days, there's not a whole lot you're going to do to change your weaknesses into strengths, so the better plan at this point is to prevent your weaknesses from bringing you down. Do NOT spend more time than you're supposed to (on average, which means it's okay to go as long as 2m30s on SOME DS problems). If you can't get it in that time, then you just can't get it. Get it wrong now, so that at least you aren't prevented from getting other questions right later due to lack of time.

Ditto on the idioms - you know what you know, and you're going to have to let the rest go. As you can see from your practice tests, you can still get a great score even though you're getting a lot of questions wrong, so don't stress too much when you get something that you don't know. It's okay!

For others reading, once you have about 7-10 days to go, what I wrote above still applies: there's not much you can do in that short a period of time to make major improvements to weaknesses. If you are scoring in the range you want to score on the real test, then your task in that last week is to review all of your strategies, solidify your strenths, and remind yourself to let go on your weaknesses when it's just not working.

If you are NOT scoring in the range you want to score on the real test, then your task is still exactly the same as above, with one possible difference: you may want to postpone your test. Generally speaking, most people will get an official score that's similar to very recent practice test scores - there aren't usually big improvements on the real test.