Improving 30-50 points in 3 weeks!!!

[mani1071]

I've been studying for GMAT around 3 month and mostly I went for MGMAT books and materials + OGs. They were indeed perfect in many aspects for all type of students. I started taking MGMAT CATs recently and I've taken 3 of them. My result is as follow:

CAT 1: Quant 45 - Verbal 25 Total: 580
CAT 2: Quant 46 - Verbal 26 Total: 600
CAT 3: Quant 46 - Verbal 27 Total: 600

I reviwed all OGs and your Math book series and I'm so good in math but your math is sort of annoying and make me nervous because they are very tricky and time consuming. I plan to get 630 - 650 and my exam will be 3 week later. In the verbal section I'm not 100% alert during the CATs and it affects my verbal score. How the fatigue can be prevented? I reviewed your SC book 3-4 times and I'm quite learned all the concepts in the book but of course you know verbal on the real thing is something different from only knowing the concepts. I'll be appreciated if you give me some pieces of advice to get my desired score.

[StaceyKoprince]

First, use the below to analyze your most recent MGMAT CAT(s):
http://www.manhattangmat.com/blog/index ... ice-tests/

Then come back here and tell us the results of your analysis and what you think you should do based on that analysis. (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!)

Next, to deal with mental fatigue:
http://www.manhattangmat.com/blog/index ... you-crazy/

And careless errors:
http://www.manhattangmat.com/blog/index ... -the-gmat/

3 weeks may or may not be enough time - it depends what your specific weaknesses are. If, for example, you have significant timing problems in either section, then 3 weeks will almost certainly not be enough time.

You may also want to read the How To Learn section of this article:
http://www.manhattangmat.com/blog/index ... an-part-2/

[mani1071]

Dear Stacey

Thanks for your reply. I've already read most of the articles in MGMAT about timing and educated guess on either sections however the articles for mental fatigue and careless mistakes were perfect indeed and I didn't notice them before. Likewise I made lots of careless mistakes on quant on account of overconfidence and after finishing the test I found that I just missed a tricky point in the question stem. How can I attach my performance chart to the posts? Please let me know and I will evaluate it for you. I'm going to say that, my major problem is fatigeness during verbal section although I mostly am on track and have an almost constant pace during the CATs. Any advice from you, I'll glad to hear that. Thanks again.

[StaceyKoprince]

Don't attach your performance chart to the posts - I won't look at them. :)

You need to go through all of that data yourself, figure out what's relevant and what you think it means, then come back here and compose a post in which you tell me what you think and you support your analysis with the *relevant* parts of the data. (Not ALL of the data.) Again, the ability to do this analysis in the first place is one of the key skills you need to improve on this test.

I will then tell you whether I agree with your analyses and conclusions based on what you present, and we'll discuss next steps - but I won't go through all of the data for you. :)

Even for private tutoring students - for whom the teachers DO go through the data - I still ask the students to do an analysis themselves too, and I don't share my analysis until they tell me what they think!

[mani1071]

Dear Stacey!

How r u doin'? Hope you got rid of all those SANDY hurricanes which interupted your website too for a very short period. Unfortunately my OS crashed and I was quite busy to fix up everything and hopefully I didn't lose any important data. Ok, I go staright to the point. today after taking first CAT of Gmatprep, my result was different from those 5 CAT I tried by Manhattan. I got 48 on quant and I have to say thank you so much because your quants part of the cat were much harder and made the Gmatprep cat quant a piece of cake for me likewise I have 4 stupid mistakes because of overconfidense and I can gor for 49 in real thing at least.

The saddest part: :(
I got 16 score in Verbal and I was numb for 2 minutes. when I saw my score. previously I got score between 27-30 in MANHATTAN cats in verbal with around 17 incorrect and 24 correct. Here in the Gmat prep I got 23 correct and 18 incorrect and I really don't know how that stupid software generated this score and a total of 520. I at least need a 600 and my exam on the next week. my CAT average in Manhattan in around 600. and what I need is only a 600 for my purpose.

Only One possibility:
from the first 10 question I got 7 incorrect since 2 difficult RC including 7 questions has thrown at me at first ten question. The first questions have really more weights????
Would you please help me what is the best strategy in RC? Since I'm ok in SC & CR and most of my verbal mistakes are from RC parts. However Never got less than 27 in last Manhattan CATS. I also read all the articles about educated guessing and those things. I will be appreciated of your help.
BTW, I didn't know that your GMAT score is 780. I lose all my hopes when I see such scores. :)

[StaceyKoprince]

Hi, we did get pretty slammed by Sandy (our NY office was closed for 6 days) but I think things are getting back to normal now. (I'm in Montreal, so we weren't really affected up here.)

Your quant news is amazing - nice work. For verbal, it isn't that the earlier questions are worth more but that any string of wrong answers is going to hurt you a lot. If you get 7 out of 10 wrong anywhere, that's going to lower your score a great deal. (The two worst places for this to happen are at the very beginning and the very end. The beginning because that puts you in a big hole and you have to dig out, though you still do have some time to dig out. The end because that's it - the test is over, and there's no opportunity to lift yourself back up.)

There may have been other things going on too, so make sure to analyze that test / the data thoroughly. It sounds like your test is coming up fast, so the next thing you need to think about is whether to keep the same test date or postpone for a couple of weeks to give you time to figure out what went wrong on this test and deal with the issues so that you can minimize the chances of experiencing the same kind of score drop on the real test.

Here are some RC resources:
reading:
http://www.manhattangmat.com/blog/index ... p-passage/
http://www.manhattangmat.com/blog/index ... -passages/
http://www.manhattangmat.com/blog/index ... c-passage/
http://www.manhattangmat.com/blog/index ... rehension/

question types:
http://www.manhattangmat.com/articles/a ... estion.cfm
http://www.beatthegmat.com/mba/2010/09/ ... prehension
http://www.beatthegmat.com/mba/2010/11/ ... il-problem

Also, just check our blog because I wrote an RC article recently but I don't have the link handy!