I'm currently in mid to high 600's. How can I achieve 700+?

[gyanez]

Here is how I've approached my studies:

1. Beginning of August I started reading Kaplan Premier and read that cover to cover and did practice questions along the way
2. Read Manhattan Critical Reasoning and Sentence Correction after done with Kaplan and did those practice questions
3. Took my 1st Manhattan CAT test towards end of August
4. Reviewed my wrong answers and retook test to see where my problems were. Coupled this with taking practice questions from OG book.
5. After a few days I would take another Manhattan CAT test
6. rince and repeat

So far here is my progress:

Manhattan Test 1: 40 Quant, 32 Verb: 590 Total on 8/25/11
Manhattan Test 2: 45 Quant, 36 Verb: 670 Total on 8/29/11
Manhattan Test 3: 41 Quant, 38 Verb: 650 Total on 9/1/11
Manhattan Test 4: 43 Quant, 38 Verb: 670 Total on 9/5/11

I still have 2 manhattans to take, 2 kaplan cat tests, and 2 gmatprep tests. I am scheduled to take the real GMAT on 9/27. I am wanting to apply to Kenan-Flagler so I am really trying to get a 700+ score to help out my app.

Any advice on what I should be focusing on to close that gap from 670 to 700?

Seems percentile-wise my quant is weaker then my verbal (which is surprising to me since I consider myself much stronger in math over English).

Anyway any help any of you can provide while I close in on my actual test date would be most appreciated.

[gyanez]

If helpful here are my assessments using the last 3 CAT tests since they all seem to hover btwn 650-670:

http://www.brinkleys.org/users/tsl/File ... ummary.png

http://www.brinkleys.org/users/tsl/File ... iculty.png

http://www.brinkleys.org/users/tsl/File ... _topic.png

http://www.brinkleys.org/users/tsl/File ... iculty.png

http://www.brinkleys.org/users/tsl/File ... _topic.png

[reagan88]

Hello, i would like to ask you a question.
When you did the CAT tests, in the respective sections, Quant and Verbal, were the sub-sections random? It seemed to be this way when i did it!
One question was PS, the next was DS!
So, is it going to be like that for the Real Gmat too?

[StaceyKoprince]

reagan - yes, the questions can come in any order within quant and verbal. They will be mixed.

gyanez, you've made some nice progress so far, but the way in which you're studying is a bit inefficient. Practice questions and practice tests are a great way to test yourself to see whether you have learned new things from what you have been studying - but you don't learn much (in terms of how to get better) while you're in the act of doing timed practice sets. Most of your improvement comes from analysis and review of problems you've already done.

Read these two articles:
http://www.beatthegmat.com/mba/2011/09/ ... e-mistakes
http://www.manhattangmat.com/articles/a ... roblem.cfm

In particular, the kind of analysis described in the above articles especially helps to push people to the higher scoring levels.

Next, have you been taking these tests under 100% official conditions, including the essays? If not, then your score may be artificially inflated. (For example, a lot of people skip the essays becuase they don't care about the essay score, but the essays come before the multiple choice... so skipping them gives you a stamina advantage.)

I'm glad that you're using the score reports to review your CAT data - we will help you interpret the results, but you have to analyze it yourself first (it's important to be able to analyze your own data and come up with next steps / a study plan on your own, since you need to do this repeatedly). You can use the below article to help:

http://www.manhattangmat.com/blog/index ... ice-tests/

Then come back here and tell us what you discovered (and tell us any ways in which you deviated from official testing conditions), and we'll tell you (a) whether we agree with your analysis, and (b) what we think you should do as a result of the data!

[reagan88]

Hello.. I just completed a GMATPREP practice. And it was literally draining!
The results are Q45-Quant and Q31-Verbal. Score- 630.
This is a timed test. Breaks are timed too.

My test is in 2 weeks' time, i have been doing consistent work for 2 months and i am gunning for a 700+

Is there any advice for me to help me improve? Thanks very much!

[StaceyKoprince]

The good news, yes, in general. The bad news, probably not in 2 weeks. Going from 630 to 700+ is typically a *minimum* 4 week process and usually more like 6+. I know you're probably not excited to hear that, but it's better to have a realistic idea now so that you can think about what you want to do and make some good decisions for yourself.

We need more detail from you in order to advise you, and we also need you to start your own thread (gyanez started this thread, and we like to keep everybody's cases separate).

So go ahead and start your own thread. Tell us your study history, your practice test scores, what you feel your strengths and weaknesses are, etc. Tell us whether you took those tests under 100% official conditions (including essays!). Also, use the below article to analyze a recent MGMAT test (if you've taken one - or you can go take one if you haven't):
http://www.manhattangmat.com/blog/index ... ice-tests/

(Note: the reason I'm not telling you to analyze your GMATPrep test is that GMATPrep doesn't give us any of the necessary data to analyze our results.)