Please Help. 2 weeks to the test.

[artem.kolomytsev]

Can you, please, give me an advice on what I can change in my preparation in the last two weeks, or whether it is better to postpone the test.

I am taking the test on May 22nd

MGMAT Practice test 1 (3/7/2012): 640 (Q43, V34), no essays
MGMAT Practice test 2 (4/14/2012): 730 (Q45, V45), no essays
MGMAT Practice test 3 (4/28/2012): 670 (Q44, V37), with essays
MGMAT Practice test 4 (5/8/2012): 650 (Q44, V35), with essays

I took Practice test 1 with little preparation, but with quite a good idea about the test as a whole, and received 640.
I though I would not have any problem reaching my goal of a 700+ score, since the test was more than 2 months away. Now, less than 2 weeks before the test I seem to be back at the starting point.

The most distressing fact is that I received 730 on the Practice test 2, which made me enthusiastic, and somewhat complacent, I admit, yet I still kept studying. In two weeks I took Practice test 3 and was taken aback by the horrid slump (I got 670). I realized there would be some downward change because this time i wrote the essays too, but not 60 points!!! In about a week, and after more studying (I increased it from 2 to 4-5 hours a day) I took Practice test 3 and received an even worse result - 650.

I seem to be getting around the same quant score all the time, even after studying a lot. And I don't understand how i got 730 on the 2nd practice test (and finished both sections about 2-3 minutes early), and wasn't even close afterwards, both times almost running out of time.

If you can help me make sense of my situation, and advise a strategy for reaching 700+ with only two weeks left, I would greatly appreciate it. Or should I postpone the test? If, so, till when, considering that I will have to study for the new IR section?

Thank you much!

Artem

[StaceyKoprince]

Hmm. I'm guessing that at least part of the drop is due to the fact that you finally started doing the essays - in other words, T1 and T2 were artificially inflated to some extent. :(

This is reinforced by the fact that it's mostly your verbal score dropping. On a no-essay test, you finish right around the time you would be starting the verbal on a with-essays test... in other words, you're now doing the verbal at a time when you're used to being done.

There may also be timing problems - that can often result in score fluctuations / score drops as well. Ah, and I just read the later parts of your post where, indeed, you mention timing problems.

Given that your most recent, under-official-conditions tests were 650 and 670, you have to assume that this is your current scoring range. It's unlikely that you will lift your score 50 points in 2 weeks. Not impossible - but most people would need more time.

Ordinarily, I'd say it's an easy decision: postpone. But the IR thing complicates the situation. It's not the end of the world to have to study for IR, but it'd be nice not to have to do so.

So, you've got a choice:
(1) Go for it for the next 2 weeks, but with the flexibility of mind to know that you might have to postpone. The drawback is that what you'll need to do for the next 2 weeks is going to be a mad rush and may not really work and you'll have to start from this point all over again.
(2) Decide right now to postpone and set up a comprensive plan from here. Take about 6-10 weeks (flexible, since you'll have to see how IR goes - if it's not too bad for you, you may be ready sooner, but you may also need more time).

How to decide? I'd like to know more about the timing problems. Significant timing problems often take 4-6 weeks to fix. If a significant amount of the score drop is due to timing issues, then you'll probably need more time to address the issues.

If the issue is primarily stamina (because you were skipping the essays before), then you have more of a shot of lifting your score in 2 weeks (although, again, it's going to be tough).

You can use this article to analyze your most recent MGMAT CATs:
http://www.manhattangmat.com/blog/index ... ice-tests/

Then come back here and tell us your analysis. (Note: don't just give us the raw data. Tell us what you think it means!)

[artem.kolomytsev]

Thank you for the advice and sorry for not replying sooner.

Took the gmat yesterday and got 730 (Q49, V41).

After all 2 more weeks of studying was enough. I did no more practice tests and just focused on going through all the problems in the gmat review book and the additional quant and verbal review books.

Especially I was surprised with the lift in the quant score which i could not achieve in the practice tests. I probably could have done better on the verbal too, because I think I rushed through it. With 4 question to the end I had 12 minutes left.

At least for me, doing all 6 practice tests would have been just a waste of time. They were just making me doubt myself. Once I knew my weaknesses, after taking a few of practice CATs, the strategy of focusing on mastering the question types seemed best.

I guess postponing it would have been the worst idea, so i'm glad i didn't. Anyway, finally it's over:)

[v-taseng]

Hey,
How often do you think you should be taking practice tests?
I seem to be having the same problem as you have.
I scored good particularly on MGMAT 1 2 3..but then i got a sudden drop of more than 100 points when i took GMATPrep.
I keep taking tests regularly (I actually took 5 tests within a span of 6 days) which i think affected my performance and after i scored low on the last test ,i am doubting my capability.
I have my exam on the 31st of may ,i took it now because i do not want to go through the IR section.
Do you think i should stop taking tests for the moment and concentrate more on the existing pattern of problems and clearing basic flaws ,what i hav?

A reply will be highly appreciated,because i am practically freaking out here!

Thanks,
Tanushree

[artem.kolomytsev]

Hey, most important is not to freak out. I started to freak out after seeing my scores drop, and thought of postponing. But I tried to reason by thinking that if I was able to score well on at least one of the practice tests, it means that I do have the ability to do the same on the real test. The drop could have been caused by anything.
Personally for me, I need to really get into test mood. On the day of the real gmat i tried to keep my thoughts only on the test, while when I did practice tests i think i was not fully concentrated, since i get too emotionally drained and i might have tried to avoid that when it did not count.

You are saying that you took 5 practice tests in 6 days. Well, i'd be dead by the third day. Really, what worked best for me, and this should work for you since you had good results on MGMAT Practice tests, is just mastering problems from the OG. Stop taking any more practice tests because you already know your weaknesses, and any possible negative result will just freak you out even more (just as the one you just got is doing).

After getting 650 on my last practice test (this was two weeks before the test), I decided to finish all the OG problems that were left in the book, and then redo and try to understand the ones in which i made mistakes. I timed myself by doing 15 minute blocks of 8 quant questions (4 of each type) and 9 verbal question (3 of each type, except for RC, since many RC paragraphs in the OG have 5 to 7 questions; in that case i increased my 15 minute block by a minute for each additional RC question). Considering that I definitely hadsome timing problems on my last two practice tests, this strategy seemed to help me with that. Because each section is 75 minutes, its 5 blocks of 15 minutes, and by training myself to do 8 math questions and 9 verbal questions I would do respectively 40 and 45 question in 75 minutes, which allows you a bit of buffer time. However, after each 15 minute set I would analyze the mistakes I made, which of course is not something you'll be able to do on the test. But also it is not as energy draining, since you don't have to focus all the time. All this time I did not do a single GMAT Prep test.

Sorry for the long post, but I think you have no reason to freak out. You know you can get a good score since you've done it before on the practice tests, so just focus on doing OG questions every day. And try to relax a day or two before the test by doing something fun. It worked for me.

[v-taseng]

Hey there,
Thanks a lot your post was a relief.And Congratulations for coming out of the lion's den with flying colors!!:D
One question here:Do u think the standard of Problem Solving Problems or DS in OG is much lower than the Standard of problems in MGMAT?
Because the OG questions are doable very easily but i feel the lack of time during my timed tests(May be it is because of that irritating timer ticking away to glory on the side of the screen!:P)
I generally feel my biggest problem area is CR.I keep on assuming facts and figures.May be it will help me if someone can tell me some quick CR recovery tips?(within a span of 8-10 days)

Let me know if you have any more tips for me!

Thanks,
Tanushree!

[artem.kolomytsev]

I also thought that OG problems were easier than MGMAT problems. But that's good because you get used to solving harder questions and taking multiple steps to solve them. During the real GMAT i thought i didn't do quant section that well, because few questions seemed easy, but the result turned out to be better than on the practice tests.

As for CR, it was my weakest area too. I wish I could see now how i did CR question on the real test, but doing all the questions from OG seemed to at least train me on recognizing the patters of wrong and right answers. On the GMAT a few of the CR questions I answered in about a minute, and I'm pretty sure I did them right, because I recognized the same right answer reasoning as in some OG problems. Also I heard PowerScore GMAT CR book is very good, but I didn't have time to go through it, and nor do you by now, so just focus on practicing problems and review what reasoning is used to arrive at the right answer.

Also, not sure if it applies to you, but the T diagram method taught by MGMAT didn't seem to work for me, it just confused me more. So I would just jot down notes as you would in reading an RC paragraph, and underline any extreme words or border terms that are likely to be used in arriving at the right answer.

Oh yeah, and get into a habit of not assuming anything, unless of course it's a find an assumption question.

I hope this helps. Good luck on the test, and remember that you can get a good score: you already did it on few practice tests, so you can do it again.

[v-taseng]

Thanks Again.
Lat question i promise:Which OG Version were you referring to?

[artem.kolomytsev]

12th edition + verbal and quant review 2nd editions. i'm not sure if there are any newer versions.

[StaceyKoprince]

artem, congratulations - that's excellent!

Agreed that simply taking practice tests doesn't do much to lift your score. Practice CATs are really used to figure out your strengths and weaknesses so that you can then take the appropriate steps to get better.

v-taseng, take a look at this article, which might help you to figure out why you experienced a 100-point score drop:
http://www.manhattangmat.com/blog/index ... ent-wrong/

I keep taking tests regularly (I actually took 5 tests within a span of 6 days)

No, no, stop doing that! :)
Practice CATs are really good for (a) figuring out where you're scoring right now, (b) practicing stamina, and (c) analyzing your strengths and weaknesses. The actual act of just taking the exam is NOT so useful for improving. It's what you do with the test results / between tests that helps you to improve.

Note to others reading this: when doing RC passages from OG, only do 3-4 questions, not all of the questions they give you. The more questions you answer, the more of an advantage you have on the later questions - and that advantage is artificial, since the real test won't give you more than 4.

So just do 3-4 for now. In a month or two, you can do that passage again with the remaining questions!

artem, thanks for advising v-taseng.

The 13th edition of OG was just published a little over a month ago. Most of the questions are the same, but there are 200+ (maybe 250? can't remember exactly) new questions in OG13.

If you already have OG12, it's fine to use that. If you don't have either book yet, might as well buy OG13.