Practice test scores all over the place, test in 17 days!

[ginasuk]

My test is scheduled for April 10th (17 days from now).

I completed a MGMAT course last month and have almost completed and reviewed every problem in the Official Guides. I've taken 4 practice tests, I do not count the first one since it was before I began coursework.

My target score is 700+, but I will be okay with something in the high 600s. My practice test scores were 550, 680, and then 600, which was today, but under tired conditions, taken after a long day at work and with not much sleep. My 680 was the closest to test-day conditions (at the MGMAT testing center on a Saturday at 2PM - my test is 4PM on April 10th).

I know where I need the most practice, and I need to really work on my test taking skills. I've been studying pretty much 3 hours each day since last week and plan to continue to do so until the test, the last week before the test dedicated to reviewing practice problems and previous tests.

But with that said, I don't know if I'm ready to take the test in 2.5 weeks. How do you know you're ready? I'm planning to take another practice test this Sat at the MGMAT center and then another during the week, probably under similar conditions as I was in today (tired from work). Do I not take these mid-week practice tests since I am not in peak condition? Esp if I may need to "save" the practice tests for longer term studying or if I'd like to retake the exam?

How do I know that its time to throw in the towel and postpone the test? How do I know if I'm ready to take the test? Please help!

[StaceyKoprince]

Good questions.

1. It's a waste of time to take practice tests under very conditions that don't mimic the real test pretty well - so mid-week when you're really tired would qualify as "not a good time to take a practice test"

2. CAT exams 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. There's really no good reason to take a test more than once a week.

3. It would be a good idea to figure out what happened on that 600 test, so that you can know what to do to prevent that from happening again (which will have the beneficial side effect of improving your confidence). Your 680 is very encouraging, so if you can figure out what happened for the 600 and feel like you have a reasonable chance of avoiding that again in future, then you might be in good shape (though see #5 below). Read this article and do the analysis described; if you have any questions, post again here:

http://www.beatthegmat.com/a/2009/10/26/my-score-dropped-figuring-out-what-went-wrong

4. You need a plan. Read this article (and the other articles linked within this article):
http://www.beatthegmat.com/mba/2010/02/09/developing-a-study-plan

5. As a general rule, you should be scoring in your desired score range on practice tests within a week to two of the real test. If your practice test score range is NOT really within your desired official score range, then you are not ready to take the real test and you should postpone. The data is mixed right now, with the 680 under good conditions and the 600 under bad conditions, so this is something that you can decide either this week-end or next week-end after taking another practice test under official conditions. Feel free to post here again if you want to discuss after you've taken the next test.

If you do decide to postpone, you can change your GMAT test date for a $50 fee as long as you change it more than 7 days in advance of your currently scheduled test date.

[ginasuk]

Thanks so much for your response, Stacy!

I took a practice CAT again this past Saturday, under official conditions. I scored a 650. My score breakdown was: 38M, 40V.

The past Saturday when I received a 680, my score breakdown was 43M, 39V.

So, my math score went down tremendously, but verbal is staying strong. I noticed that as I was taking the CAT, during the math section I was so flustered, was running out of time, and my brain just stopped working. I did not feel as terrible during the verbal section, although that has been the case for every CAT that I've taken.

Honestly, I've spent the last few weeks concentrating on verbal and did not have a chance to review or practice any math since my class ended (at the end of Feb). I am spending this week concentrating on reviewing all of the math concepts, and going through advanced math sections and problems.

My current plan is to concentrate on math all week, then take one more practice test this coming Saturday, from 10AM - 2PM (although my test is actually on a 4PM the following Saturday). The reason why I'm taking the practice test at this time is because I will decide whether I will postpone the real exam the right after the test (and only have to pay the $50 penalty). Do you think that this is not a good idea since it does not mimic the testing conditions?

If I do decide to take the real exam (which I think I probably will at this point), is a good study plan for the week leading up to the exam to review old practice tests, re-do problems I got wrong, and go through some of the question banks? That was my plan for next week. Or rather, do you think I should be concentrating fully on math in the next week and half?

Any advice would be helpful.

[StaceyKoprince]

You can use that "My Score Dropped!" article to see whether you can figure out (in more detail) why your quant dropped on the last test. If you really know why, then you have a better chance of fixing whatever the problems were.

I think taking the last practice exam at 10a instead of 4p is okay. (Ideal would be the same time, yes, but that's still okay.) The thing I would check beforehand, though, is what the exact rules are with rescheduling the official exam. It might just be "7 calendar days before" meaning Saturday would already be too late to reschedule with only a $50 penalty. Call them up and ask.

The last week before the exam should really be all about review - reviewing content (math, grammar), techniques (all question types), pacing strategies (how do I keep track of time, what do I do if I find myself ahead or behind, etc), educated guessing strategies (how can I guess on a problem of this type? how should I decide that I need to guess? at what point should I actually make the decision to switch to guessing? etc), and so on.

Some of the review can come through doing sets of problems or going over old problems. Some of it can come with flashcards you've made for yourself. Whatever works, basically, for you to review.

I wouldn't focus exclusively on quant, no, because then you run the risk of having verbal drop. You need to make sure you're reviewing both fairly equally.

[ginasuk]

Thanks for all your advice, Stacey! Your articles are definitely very helpful I took the last practice this morning at 10AM-- scored the same exact score as 2 weeks ago -- 680 with 43Q, 39V. Felt really good on the verbal, but quant is consistently my weakness-- taking too long to set up problems and ending up running out of time or making careless mistakes. I know I can get my quant much more improved if I really hard work on my timing and recognition, but I decided I'm going to just take the test this coming Saturday anyway since I'm not shooting for perfection at this point.

I did go through all of my old exams and see where my problems are-- it is going to be hard to improve them in the next week. My current plan is to just do practice problems (question banks) and review concepts all week. Do you think it would be a good idea to concentrate on any problem areas this last week or just focus on an overall review? I spent all last week on my math skills and the score did not really improve.

Thanks again for all your help!

[jeremy.hansen]

ginasuk,

what about working specifically on problem recognition? This is one of my struggles right now so my plan is when going through problems to slow down and first ask myself - what type of problem is this? What strategy should I use to solve and to actually write those answers down as if they were part of the original problem.

To save time you could even go through problems without solving and just focus on those two questions and then check yourself. Review and think about what cues led you to either correctly or incorrectly choose the correct answers.


Good luck on Saturday!

[StaceyKoprince]

Great, I'm glad you solidified your test score.

The last week is really just review, not improvement, so yes - your focus should be on a high-level review. You don't need to review every last fact and rule, but you do need to review major strategies for the different question types, pacing strategies, and major facts and knowledge that will definitely be tested. (Eg, you know you're going to have to know how to solve a basic algebra problem; you know you're going to have to translate some stuff from words to math; you know you're going to have to know parallelism. Will you get tested on some random idiom or the formula for the area of a rhombus? Who knows, so don't worry about stuff like that at this point.)

Good luck - let us know how it goes!!

[ginasuk]

Thank you Stacey and Jeremy for the last bits of advice before the test!

So, I took the test on Saturday, got a decent enough score that I do not feel that it is necessary to take the test again. I got a 660 (43Q, 38V)-- I had decided my minimum threshold score not to retake the exam would be 650. I'm hoping to attend the NYU part time MBA program in 2011, and the middle 80% is 620-730, so I figured 650+ would be an acceptable level.

Actually, something terrible happened during the test-- during the last 3 minutes of the verbal, my computer froze for about a minute and half! was really upset because I ended up having to guess on the last couple of problems because I lost so much time (1.5 minutes is a lot in GMAT time!). I was convinced I had scored under 650 because of this, but turns out I made it. I will not dwell on this but it really did mess me up a bit and probably brought down my score a little bit.

My advice to those taking the test (things that helped me cope with the anxiety and obtain needed energy).. take deep breaths when you catch yourself feeling anxiety, listen to some music to pump you up before the test, shovel some trail mix in your mouth during breaks, and eat a dark chocolate bar before the test (cacao is brain food, and calming too)!

[StaceyKoprince]

I'm really glad you got a 660! Congratulations! But I'm sorry that the test froze on you.

Did you alert the proctors? For anyone else reading this, always alert the proctors IMMEDIATELY if anything like this happens. They may be able to fix it or to give you back the time that was lost. If not, they will at least report to GMAC that there were technical problems and they may offer to let you take the test again for free or something like that.

Good luck with apps - let us know how it goes!