Struggling after 2nd CAT

[FrankA132]

Hi Stacey,

I am currently enrolled in a MGMAT Course which has 4 classes remaining. I just took my second practice test and I am starting to doubt whether I can reach my target score. My goal is to score 700. Below are my two test scores. The CAT 2 was taken with Essay and IR.

CAT 1- 590 35Q 35V
Cat 2- 600 41Q 32V

I have 8 weeks until the exam and want to know if my 700 goal is still reachable. I’ve utilized the blogs about analyzing CAT scores and have determined some of my weaknesses. Timing does not seem to be an issue on the practice exams as I’ve reviewed the overall time and the time spent on each question and very few come close to the “Danger Zone”. I’ve also adapted the strategy where at around the 1:00 mark if I realize the question is above my level, I take an educated guess and move on (this occurred a few times on the CAT 2). Also after reviewing it does not appear that careless errors are an issue either and the easier level questions I am able to get correct with time to spare. The greatest amount of questions I am seeing on the tests is in the 600-700 range and that’s where my % correct begins to dip.

For my Cat 2 I had 7 Geometry questions which we have not covered in the class and I was very rusty at (only got 1 correct). Also had a significant amount of Critical reasoning type questions which I have yet to study. Should this make me feel better? Assuming once I cover these topics I would be able to at least get a few of them correct. I’m not sure how much this would actually bump my score.

Besides the above noted areas there isn’t one specific area in which is truly a weakness, I think across all topics I am struggling to cross that mid 600 border as my Average Difficulty Right for Q is 640 and V is 650 while my Average Difficulty Wrong for both Q 680 and V. Do you have any advice on when I’m am going back to review the topics I have already learned on where to focus my studying and how best to try and cross this threshold? Generally I have been just doing then reviewing OG questions Medium and up difficulty (based on Navigator). Would going back to the strategy guides be useful? I have focused most of my time in the OG book and have not don’t many questions from the Supplement. I have not reviewed any material in the Advanced Quant Strategy Book as I did not think I was ready.

Any advice would be greatly appreciated. Thank you

[StaceyKoprince]

Hi, I'm sorry that I'm just getting to you now - we've been slammed. Welcome to application season!

It is very common for your 2nd test score to stay the same (or even go down a bit), for several reasons. (In fact, this is more common than the 2nd test score going up!)

First, from your comments, I'm guessing that you didn't do essay and IR on test 1. Most people don't, because they haven't started studying those sections yet - but that means that when you do them for the first time on CAT 2, your performance on Q and V is going to suffer. A full test is a lot longer and harder. You'll continue to develop the necessary mental stamina over time.

Next, it is extremely common to have this scenario on CAT 2:
You learned a bunch of stuff (and did get better!) and so you get some harder questions right, but you take a bit too long to do so (since you're still getting comfortable with the material). Then, you're offered harder questions, and you spend too much time on them because you studied this! You should be able to answer this correctly now!

You don't, though, because the question really is too hard, and you've also lost time that you have to make up elsewhere, so you try to pick up some time on questions that you do know how to do.

Unfortunately, that leads to careless mistakes, pulling your score down - and getting easier questions wrong hurts your score more than getting harder ones wrong. As you get later in the section, you have to go faster and faster (or you continue the pattern of taking too long on some and then rushing on others to catch up), leading to an eroding scoreline.

By the end of the section, your score has dropped...and the GMAT is a "where you end is what you get" test. So even though, sometime earlier in the section, your score was a lot higher, your final score is where you are at the end of the section.

Could that have happened to you on your second CAT? I'm noticing in particular that your quant score went up a good amount but your verbal score dropped - and you would be most mentally fatigued during vebal, given the scenarios above.

If this is the case, then your "true" scoring ability is probably closer to the mid-600s now, but you still need to solidify your timing and mental stamina in order to show that in a testing situation.

Timing does not seem to be an issue

I review student exams every week and maybe 1 out of 100 CATs will not have a timing issue. You may be one of the rare ones in that category, but I want you to look very carefully.

Also, mental fatigue can often lead to you speeding up (especially towards the end of a section) - you just don't care any longer and want the test to be over with. When this happens, the incidence of errors increases. Look at the end of your sections - how is your score trajectory doing over the last 10 questions?

You may also want to ask your teacher whether you can go over some of the timing data with him/her to see whether s/he spots anything.

Yes, it's a good sign that a lot of your errors were clustered in the areas that you have not studied yet. You should presumably be able to get at least some of these right once you study those topics.

Finally, tell me more about why you're missing the 600+ questions that you miss. When you review, what are you finding the issues are? Content? Computation? Knowledge of rules? Not sure what the question is asking? Falling into traps? Mis-reading or not understanding something in an argument or passage? Etc.