Likelihood to score 700+?

[jhwang116]

I'm about to embark on the MGMAT self-guided prep program this week, and I started by taking the first MGMAT diagnostic with absolutely no preparation. I'm very disheartened at my score of 570 (Q28, V40). As it currently stands, I know I need to work on quant quite badly--I would say around 1/3 - 1/2 of my errors were due to a bad combination of nerves and accuracy in my calculations.

With that said, based on previous experience, is expecting an improvement to 700+ in the next 2-3 months unlikely?

Thanks,
Jason

[StaceyKoprince]

In 2 months, 700+ would be a challenge. Most people would likely need 3-4 months to have a chance to hit that level. (Note: of course this does not mean that everyone will be able to achieve that score given a certain amount of time.)

The fact that you really hadn't prepared at all is a good sign, though. You're at a good starting point given that fact - so don't feel disheartened.

Use this to analyze your results and help set up your study plan:
http://www.manhattangmat.com/blog/index ... ice-tests/

also read this:
http://www.manhattangmat.com/blog/index ... ould-i-do/

If you have any timing problems (everyone does!), read this:
http://www.manhattangmat.com/blog/index ... anagement/

If you'd like to share your analysis of your first test with us (using the article above), please feel free to do so. (Note: please share your analysis, not just the raw data. You need to learn how to interpret the data for yourself! :) You can also share any plans you have for studying and ask us what we think.

[jhwang116]

Hi Stacey,

Thanks for your insight. You're probably right that my 2 month plan was too aggressive. I'd prefer to prepare and take the GMAT far enough in advance that I would be able to take it again if necessary before it changes in June. However, as it currently stands, I'm not sure if this will be realistic.

I haven't gotten around to analyzing my diagnostic results yet, but I'll try to soon.

In terms of a study plan, I plan on following the 9-week syllabus provided with the self-guided prep program very closely. More specifically, I'm trying to cover everything listed on the syllabus (i.e. priority items A, B, and C), as I'm trying to maximize the probability of improving my score.

With that said, after a week of covering all the material (4-5+ hr/day), I'm not entirely sure if this is sustainable, as I'm also working full time. I was wondering if you could provide some insight/advice. How necessary is the advanced material to scoring well? Is there a way that I can streamline my study plan or study more effectively?

Thanks again,
Jason

[StaceyKoprince]

The June switch is definitely complicating things. You'd need to take it the first time in about 3 months in order to have time to take it a second time before the June change.

I was just speaking with someone yesterday who's in a similar situation, and I advised him to aim for an early May date for his first take, but to realize that he may not make his goal on the first take, and that's okay. In other words, view the "real" test date as the second one in early June and think of the first one as more of a practice run. (And if you get it on the practice run, great!)

I agree that it's tough to cover absolutely everything, and that's where setting your own priorities becomes crucial. It's critically important to do that test review because that tells you where you need to spend your time. So my best advice to you right now is to do that analysis and then come share that with us here.

You'll still generally follow the 9-week syllabus, but you'll customize how much time you spend and how deeply you go based upon your strengths and weaknesses.

As far as the advanced material, the first task is to master the main material - until you do that, the advanced material is somewhat moot. Note that when I say you need to master that main material, I don't expect you to get it all 100%. You're still going to have strengths and weaknesses there. That will actually then help you determine which advanced areas you should tackle. If you're struggling already with the main material in a certain area, then don't worry about the advanced material there.

In general, for a 700, you're going to have to master some of the advanced material, but not all of it - enough for you to get some of the advanced questions right (but, again, you're going to miss a bunch too - that's ok).

So go do that analysis and come back to share. :)

[jhwang116]

Stacey,

Thanks again for the helpful response. I had actually come up with a similar goal for the first test. Hopefully I'll be ready by then.

I took a look at the article you sent me and analyzed my quant section, since that's the area that needs the most work. There are certain areas that I know I'm more or less comfortable with. As a result, my ability to see WHAT they were trying to handle, how to HANDLE it, and how well I could RECOGNIZE it differed depending on the type of question.

Overall, I could definitely improve on how I handle questions--I can complete them, but not in the most efficient manner.

Unfortunately, since I've only done one CAT exam, it's difficult for me to stay which areas I'm the strongest at, since my sample size is 37 questions. However, after the first 1-2 weeks of studying, I know I have a lot of difficulty with HANDLING and RECOGNIZING questions within the prime numbers and divisibility category. I understand the basic concepts of these questions relatively well from reading the strategy guides, but I have difficulty applying them to unfamiliar questions. I only have a 48% accuracy rate on my OG problems with an average difficulty of 560.

Do you have any advice for improving upon prime numbers and divisibility?

Thanks,
Jason

[StaceyKoprince]

Those types (and NP questions in general) are often disguised - it isn't easy to figure out what they're actually talking about!

Try these articles to see what I mean:

http://www.beatthegmat.com/mba/2010/09/ ... t-problems
http://www.manhattangmat.com/blog/index ... qualities/
http://www.manhattangmat.com/blog/index ... -problems/

So there's some more work to be done on NP. I'd recommend setting up some flash cards that have "When I see _____" on one side and "I'll think / do _____" on the other. Think of it as translating from one language to another - they're writing in an "alien" language and you're learning how to translate to "normal" language. The two above articles will give you some ideas about what I mean, but then you're going to need to go search for more of these yourself as you study. (And, of course, continue to use us as a resource here!)

[jhwang116]

Hi Stacey,

Thanks again for the helpful response. I'm just starting the 6th week of the self-guided course and I was wondering if I could get your opinion on my progress.

To be specific, I've been using the OG Archer to track my progress on practice problems. To date, I have about a 77% accuracy rate on the OG quant problems (80% PS, 71% DS) listed on the Study Organizer up until week 6. I've been focusing mainly on quant, since I scored in the 91 percentile in the verbal section of the first diagnostic. With that said, I've worked on SC, by far my weakest verbal section, so I still hope to improve verbal overall.

I know there's room to improve, especially with my time management (I average 1:16 on each quant question) and with number properties (67% accuracy dragging my average down), but is this generally in line with how I should be performing to achieve my goal? I know answering this question may be difficult due to the varying difficulty of questions, but any insight/benchmarks would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks again,
Jason

[StaceyKoprince]

It's good in general but, as you guessed, I can't really know because I don't know the difficulty levels of the problems you're doing.

How long has it been since your last practice CAT? If you're following the 9-week syllabus, we recommend taking a CAT sometime during week 6 or 7, so it may be time! That'll give you a really good sense of what is coming together and what needs more work.

Some tips:
- Do the essays (yes, I know you don't care about the essay score, but you do care about your ability to perform well on the multiple choice after spending an hour to write essays, just like it'll happen on the real test)
- There are two 8-minute breaks, between essays and quant and between quant and verbal. Stick to them. In fact, make them about 5-6 minutes rather than 8, because during the real test, it takes time to get in and out of the testing room.

Good luck! Let us know how the practice CAT goes and feel free to share your analysis using that article that I posted up-thread.

[jhwang116]

Hi Stacey,

You're right--I'm scheduled to take the second diagnostic this weekend. I just wanted to get a general sense of my progress before I took it. I'm rather apprehensive for some reason. Perhaps because I want to see that I've made acceptable progress.

According to the OG archer, the average difficulty of the quant questions that I've completed is around the 500-600 range. Is this still "good in general" or should someone who is aiming for 700+ be much more accurate in this range?

Thanks again,
Jason

[StaceyKoprince]

I agree that you want to see whether you've made progress. Don't think tha the overall score is the thing that will tell you whether you have. You could have made really good progress in certain areas, and yet mess up your timing by spending too long on areas you haven't studied yet or something like that and then that could drop your score. You really have to dig into the data to see what's going on!

For OG, as a general rule, the higher the question number, the harder the problem. So we just guessed and assigned difficulty levels based on that (since they don't release the real data).

If you are going to hit 700+, then at some point, yes, you can't afford to get many sub-600 level questions wrong. But you're still making progress - don't necessarily expect to be at that point with everything right now. :) Just use that info to learn and that data to know where you still need to review.

[jhwang116]

Hi Stacey,

I completed my second CAT exam and it didn't go as well as I had hoped. I scored a 600 (Q34, V38) compared to my first 570 (Q28, V40). I'm discouraged because I've been studying intensely for the last 6 weeks and this isn't the improvement I was expecting.

For the past 6 weeks, I've focused about 90% on quant and 10% on SC. I've been following the syllabus on those subjects precisely. Quant did improve, albeit not as much as I had hoped.

My success rate in quant in CAT #2 was as follows:
300 - 500 (5 total): 80%
500 - 600 (13 total): 62%
600 - 700 (17 total): 29%
700 - 800 (2 total): 0%

My success rate in quant in CAT #1 was as follows:
300 - 500 (7 total): 43%
500 - 600 (14 total): 50%
600 - 700 (13 total): 31%
700 - 800 (3 total): 33%

I'm not as disappointed by the drop in verbal, as I've only really focused on SC, which did improve from ~40% in the 600 - 800 range to ~60% in that same range. It seems the improvement in SC was offset by slight decreases in both CR and RC.

Coming out of the quant section, I felt much more comfortable and confident, which is why I was so surprised about my score. I was able to finish the quant section this time, unlike last time, and I thought I was much better overall on time management. I've looked at my results, however, and it appears that I spent more than 2:30 on 10 questions, but only got one of those correct. So I obviously still need to work on my timing. Additionally, 6 questions were incorrect due to careless errors.

I've put a lot of time and effort into studying and it just doesn't seem like I've improved much. I know it has only been 6 weeks, but only a 30 point improvement from no preparation seems a bit low.

With all of this said, should I change the way I'm studying or change my hopes of scoring in the 700+ range before June? As always, any help and/or insight is greatly appreciated.

Thanks,
Jason

[StaceyKoprince]

Sorry, I have to disagree. Your quant went from 28 (21st percentile) to 34 (36th percentile) in 6 weeks. That's a good improvement. :)

Also, I'm sure you have timing problems (because everyone does) and timing problems will typically depress your score. You can't fix timing problems in a couple of weeks - a large part of the improvement comes over time as you learn more material - so you're going to see things getting better and better as you also improve your timing.

(The above, by the way, is why improvement is typically not linear for most people - you start off slowly, gain momentum, have some lulls, then some jumps, etc.)

Okay, now I'm down to your percentages for quant - that's fantastic!! I love what you did with your sub-600 quant questions - you are totally going in the right direction. Look at something for me - how much time did you spend on those ones that you got wrong (especially the 600+ Qs)? You may be able to pick up more points simply by reallocating time: not spending so much time on Qs you're going to get wrong anyway, so that you can make sure you do spend adequate time on problems you can do (that is, so you don't make careless mistakes due to speed).

Ah, I just got to your comment about the timing and the consequences. Yep, all of that definitely depressed your score. Your raw ability level is almost certainly higher than 36th percentile, but your performance is suffering due to the timing issues. That's fine - that's typical at this point. Just keep working on it.

Just make sure you really are studying timing and process just as much as the actual content. When you can do a problem and get it right in 2 minutes, say to yourself: Great! Okay, now is there a more efficient way?

If you haven't already, go read that time management article (linked way upthread) and start doing what it says religiously. :)

Also note one thing: if you neglect a certain area, your performance will likely drop. That's okay for right now because your focus has been on other things, but remember for future that you're going to need to start doing more of a mix of activities / question types at some point.

[jhwang116]

Hi Stacey,

As always, thank you for the reply. I did some quick calculations on my average time and here are the results:

Correct:
300 - 500: 1:07
500 - 600: 1:25
600 - 700: 1:38

Incorrect:
300 - 500: 1:48
500 - 600: 2:01
600 - 700: 2:48
700 - 800: 2:40

I definitely see your point that I should reallocate my time better. However, I'm hoping in the future to be able to answer these questions instead of simply playing the time game. But the lesson isn't lost--I will start making educated guesses once I start approaching the 2:00 mark without an answer or idea.

I wouldn't have guessed that I would have so much difficulty with timing, as I averaged around 1:30 per question in the OG, but I guess things are different when there isn't a 2:00 timer on each individual question.

By the way, I finally bit the bullet and scheduled to take the test on June 2nd. I'm hoping I'll be ready by then.

Thanks again,
Jason

[StaceyKoprince]

A CAT is giving you questions clustered around your ability level. The OG has questions at all difficulty levels (the lower numbers are generally easier), so you can't really make an easy comparison in terms of anticipating your CAT performance based on your OG performance. (Also, mental fatigue is a factor - exams are typically longer than your usual OG problem sets.)

However, I'm hoping in the future to be able to answer these questions instead of simply playing the time game.

I want to address this. I agree that you're trying to improve, which means learning to answer higher-level questions correctly. But you also know that you'll never be able to get everything right... right? As you improve, the test will just throw a harder mix of questions at you, so you'll *always* have a number of too-hard-for-you questions.

The question to ask yourself at this stage (for these too-long-and-wrong Qs) is: which of these do I think I can learn to do in 2 minutes right now. These will be ones where you already know the material and maybe even the solution method, but your feeling is more one of "Oh, why didn't I think of that?" or "Oh, that's what they were asking?" after you read the explanation. You get it. It just didn't occur to you in the moment to think of it that way.

So you learn what that solution method or line of reasoning was and then you also figure out what the clues were in the problem that should have triggered you to think of this particular solution method.

For the others, you say, "Yeah, I should've let that one go. When? How should I have guessed?" Don't neglect to study when and why you should have known that it was too hard - you have to get used to making accurate assessments of problems so that you don't go too far in the other direction and guess too quickly.

Have you read this yet?
http://www.manhattangmat.com/blog/index ... anagement/

And finally I just have to quibble with the words "timing game." :) The "game" is when people spend way too long on some problems and then have to rush on others to make up the time. The best way to take the test is NOT to play that game, but to allocate *roughly* even time to each question. (Which, on quant, means most questions in the 1.5 to 2.5 min time range. Note that I'm not saying everything has to be right around 2m.)

[jhwang116]

I'm (somewhat) happy to report that I've seen an improvement in my last practice test, albeit I believe it was slightly inflated. My internet connection cut out a few times during the quant section, which ultimately gave me more time than I should have gotten, as the clock didn't count during the loss of internet. My score was 680 Q44 V38.

The quant section felt awful, truthfully. I felt that I was stumped by almost every question and I believe that I may have just gotten lucky with a lot of my guessing. Regardless, I noticed that there are a lot of holes in my fundamentals and I'm trying to work through them now--how could I have scored so highly if I still have so many weaknesses? Is it a fluke?

As a generally skeptical person, I'm wondering if my huge improvement in quant is most likely due to the combination of internet issues and lucky guessing...

I've since read your timing article and I'm trying to work on that. I had over 6 questions I had to speed through at the end! I'm starting to practice on a string of 10 quant questions at a time, rather than each one separately using the Archer. I need to develop that 2-minute sense!

I've noticed that I tend to struggle with questions that are somewhat heavy in calculations. From what I understand, higher level questions tend to be less about brute force calculations and more conceptual and strategy-focused. Please correct me if I'm wrong.

Regardless, I do need to brush up on the speed and accuracy of my calculations, as they almost immediately ruin my pacing. Do you have any suggestions on how to do this?

Moving forward, I plan to spend more time on my verbal, as I've pretty much been neglecting that area, except for SC, which has improved drastically.

One final question--should I only take another CAT once I've worked my way up to addressing 600-800 level questions? Or once I've hammered out the fundamentals?

Thanks again for all of your help,
Jason