Manhattan CAT correspond to actual test?

[brady.shannon]

I am currently enrolled in the 9-session prep course. My first CAT netted me a 530 (28 quant, 35 verbal), which I was comfortable with as a pretest score. My most recent CAT score, taken today, netted me a 480 (26 quant, 31 verbal). I was, as can be imagined, not thrilled with this score.

Though I work full time as a charter school administrator I have been keeping pretty true to the studies each week, but the latest score has me discouraged. I am not sure whether this is a sign that my quant weakness is too much to overcome or whether I just need to put in the GMAC/OG work once the course is over with.

Any thoughts for studying moving forward and ways to manipulate my test data?

Thanks.

[StaceyKoprince]

You can overcome it - don't think that you can't. :)

It's not unusual for people to see similar scores or lower scores on a second practice test. The key is to figure out WHY. If you can figure out why, then you can figure out what to do to reverse the trend.

Here are some places to start:
http://www.beatthegmat.com/a/2009/10/26/my-score-dropped-figuring-out-what-went-wrong

and

http://www.beatthegmat.com/a/2009/09/23/evaluating-your-practice-tests

Start with the first article to see whether you can diagnose what happened from the first test to the second. Then use the second article to figure out what your current strengths and weaknesses are. That information will help you to prioritize your study better - and also give you ideas of where to ask for extra help during office hours. (You are using office hours, right? If not, sign up right away!)