GMAT study plan advice

[ankur.kapur4]

Hi Stacey,

Over the last 4 weeks I have taken 2 MGMAT CAT. I am scoring around 45 in Quant and 31-33 in verbal. What I do after each CAT is review the exam, identify areas of weakness/strength and then attack the weakness. I want to score in the range of of 48-50 in Quant and 35+ in verbal but I don't have a lot of time (2.5 weeks to go). In quant, I have seen that my time management is poor, not so much in verbal though. I tent to spend lot of time on few questions and then speed up, end up making silly mistakes hence not able to meet 48+ in quant. In verbal, I have observed that whenever I do not perform well on RC, I get a low score. However, even an excellent accuracy in SC does not add a lot of value. Definitely, I feel RC has more weight on verbal score than SC.

I have also observed a pattern on both quant and verbal that when the section starts I am a bit anxious and get even 300-500 category questions wrong (first 5-7 questions). But later I get comfortable with the test and I get even 700-800 category questions correct (on similar topics).

I need your expert advice to counter my weakness i.e. time management in quant, RC focus, and initial anxiety on each section.

Thanks and regards
ak

[StaceyKoprince]

Let's see, from 45 to 48-50 in quant is from 68th percentile to 78th-90th percentile. On verbal, 31-33 is 59th to 67th and 35 is 74th.

Those are decently ambitious targets for 2.5 weeks. Most people would need more time. Do you have any flexibility with your test date?

You mention time management and you *might* be able to make some progress on that in 2.5 weeks. You probably won't fix it completely (that usually takes 4 to 6 weeks for most people), but if you can make some progress, that might help you pick up another couple of points on quant.

Read these two and start doing what they say:
http://www.manhattangmat.com/blog/index ... to-win-it/
http://www.manhattangmat.com/blog/index ... nt-part-1/

Also read this:
http://www.manhattangmat.com/blog/index ... -to-do-it/

If you can be really ruthless about cutting yourself off on those "But I should know how to do this!" problems, then you might be able to see some improvement in a shorter timeframe.

For verbal, each question is worth the same - RC is not worth more than SC. It is the case, however, that getting a string of questions wrong in a row can be very harmful to your score, so that might be why you're seeing issues when you struggle with RC (because, of course, then you might get 3-4+ wrong in a row).

What do you think are the common factors when you do NOT perform well on RC? Are you having to race to read and answer, so you don't spend enough time on any one question? Are you struggling to comprehend the topic / passage? Are there certain topics that give you more trouble (eg, science / technical)?

Re: the early anxiety, why do you think you actually get them wrong? I assume that you're making careless mistakes - you do know how to do the problem after, but you make a mistake in the moment from nerves. Are you rushing a bit on these because of the anxiety, and not double-checking your work? What kinds of careless mistakes do you tend to make? (eg, math / calculation errors, solving for the wrong thing, not reading all of the answer choices carefully and/or picking something too quickly, etc)

Go back and try to figure out HOW the errors actually manifest. Then we can come up with habits that will help to minimize them. (eg, if you solve for the wrong thing, you'll double check your work on the early problems. If you rush through the verbal answers, you'll make yourself mark down a symbol for each answer that indicates that you actually did read it / pay attention to it. And so on.)