Last Week Prep: MGMAT CAT and GMAT Score Correlation

[YYJ]

I started my prep in the beginning of April and have been taking CATs every 2 weeks.

Here are my MGMAT CAT scores so far:
CAT #1 640 (Q43 V34)
CAT #2 670 (Q44 V37)
CAT #3 700 (Q47 V39)
CAT #4 750 (Q48 V45)
CAT #5 750 (Q48 V44)

I wanted to know how representative MGMAT scores are of my ability to do well on the GMAT. I have been reading debriefs and noticed that most people receive similar (or better) scores than MGMAT CATs. But I have also seen some people do a lot worse on the actual test.

I am very happy about the improvement I made on my MGMAT CATs but I am starting to get nervous as the exam is only 1 week away. I saved GMAT PREPs for the last week and plan to take them on Monday and Thursday (2 days before the exam). I also purchased the GMAT FOCUS and received 46-51 on the 2 quizzes I took.

Also do you have any suggestions for the last week before the test?

Thank you for your help!

[guest]

Wow, this is great progression. Can you list what you have been doing to prepare for the test?

eg. study habits, time spent studying, any special tools or strategies that have helped you prepare for the test, etc.

Thanks!

[StaceyKoprince]

Our tests have a standard deviation of about 50 points, compared to a standard deviation of about 30 points on the official test. I haven't seen an officially published standard deviation for GMATPrep, but I assume that it is either the same as the official test or a little worse (maybe around 40), depending upon how exactly it mimics the official test.

So, that does mean that some people do better and some people do worse than what they've been scoring on the practice tests.

I generally recommend that my students do NOT take practice tests within 3 days of the real thing - that's a hard requirement, and I actually prefer 5-7 days. Two reasons:

1) Practice tests are tiring. You wouldn't run a practice marathon two days before a real marathon. This test is the mental equivalent of a marathon.
2) Practice tests are taken to figure out what you want to do the same and what you want to do differently the next time. It takes a couple of days of concerted review of the test to figure out what those things are. And then it takes a few more days to do whatever study / practice you feel you need to do as a result of the things you've decided to do the same vs. differently next time. Just taking a test and not doing anything with the data is a waste of your very valuable time!

So my first suggestion for the last week before the test is to load up on GMATPrep now, not in the couple of days before the exam.

Second, you're not going to learn a ton of new stuff in the last week. This should be about reinforcing your strategy: timing, techniques for each problem type, educated guessing strategies, minimizing careless mistakes, etc.

Good luck! Let us know how it goes!

[Guest]

YYJ,
You will score > 730 in the actual GMAT based on my experience

[StaceyKoprince]

Thanks for sharing your experience, guest. Others: just take that with a grain of salt. Much as I'd like to say that this will be true for everyone, one data point does not make a slam-dunk case. :)