Likelihood to score 700+?

[jhwang116]

Hi Stacey,

I'm back again with a bit of a philosophical question for you. I'm currently deciding when I should take the test again. I certainly don't want it to drag on much longer and I'm very quickly running out of material to study. The way timing works out, I can either take it mid-Sep or early October.

I've been scoring 720 (Q47, V41), 720 (Q47, V41), and 740 (Q47, V45) in the past three practice exams. My biggest goal after my first real GMAT was to improve Quant to be consistently 47+ and have a better handle on subtle changes in meaning for SC. Ideally, I wanted to be scoring consistently 750+, since my actual exam was 30-40 points lower than my previous CATs.

Unfortunately, my Quant has been consistently 47, even with a few repeat questions (although I have done my best to negate the benefits of seeing a repeat question--purposely getting it wrong if I truthfully didn't know it and making sure I spent the full 2 minutes on the question).

I suppose the best gauge would be to take the GMATPrep tests, but I'm hesitant to "waste" them this far in advance.

My question is this--how can I determine if I'm "ready" to take the test again. I obviously haven't achieved my goal of Quant 47+, but I've hit a plateau that I can't seem to get above.

I understand that this is the type of question that doesn't necessarily have a concrete answer, but any insight is greatly appreciated.

Thanks,
Jason

[StaceyKoprince]

It's a good question - and, you're right, a tough one to answer. (Also, I'm assuming that these practice CATs were under 100% official conditions, including essay, IR, length of breaks, etc. Yes?)

We do know that your goal is to push quant higher than it is right now, so part of what you need to figure out is what's holding you back from a higher score. Timing? Content? Technique / solution process? A combination? Dig into the data and the individual Qs to try to figure that out. Maybe you're already capable of scoring 48 or 49 but timing issues are holding you back and so you need to go work on that. Maybe you're struggling with certain weaknesses in either content or technique and you're having trouble getting over the hump there on your own - in which case, maybe some targeted tutoring would help. Or maybe there are certain things you just haven't studied well enough from the existing materials and you don't even need a tutor - you just need to go do the work.

I agree that GMATPrep is the best gauge - but you're already not hitting your Q goal on MGMAT tests on which you're seeing some repeated questions (an advantage), so taking GMATPrep at this point is probably not going to cause a jump to 750, right? :)

Re: the other question, when are you ready, it's when you feel that you've hit your goal in practice (under official conditions). Now, you could change your goal, right? You could decide that maybe 720 in practice is enough. In that case, you would try a GMATPrep to see if you can still maintain that 720.

But if you still want a 750 in practice first, then the issue is figuring out why you're stalling out at the 47 level - once you figure that out, you'll have a better idea of what to try in order to move up!