Struggling with improvement, just 1 month remains!

[sina.zarafshan]

Hi,

Its been about 3 months that I getting ready for my 9 oct GMAT. Honestly my first scores are not so good, my first official GMAT was about bad 540. From 3 months ago, again I try to beat my score and raise significantly, so 2 weeks ago I took GMATPrep 1 and get 520 and last week I took Manhattan Free CAT and get higher 600. Now I have 1 month to go for 650+ and get as close as possible to 700. Untill now I read all the theories that I need, and just solving different problems in their time frames. I got many useful and helping takeaways from my last 2 mimic CAT and now I feel somehow frustrated and dont know what to do in coming days to reach my desired score. So I wrote this post to get expert advises. It would be my pleasure to know some helps and develop tips from all of you guys.

Thanks in advance.

[StaceyKoprince]

It will be very challenging to go from 600 to 700 in just one month. Most people would need more time than that - just FYI.

I have the perfect article for you: Developing a Study Plan:
http://www.manhattangmat.com/blog/index ... an-part-1/
http://www.manhattangmat.com/blog/index ... an-part-2/

This 2-part article talks about what resources you need, how to study and analyze things, how to set up study sessions, and so on.

After reading that article and setting up a plan for yourself, feel free to come back here and share your plan with us. We'll help you refine the plan!

[sina.zarafshan]

Hi dear Stacey

First of all thanks for your kind attention. From the time that I posted my original post until now, finally I did devise a plan for my few next days. According to the my knowledge that I get from myself, I really think that the more that I take CAT exams the more I can recognize my weak point in different sectors, in timing and in general strategies. So the more that I can to improve my score. Last Friday I took Manhattan CAT #2 and get 610 (q45 v30, with AWA, but I could not finish the verbal and missed 4 last questions, so I think my verbal score is somehow punished!)
My goal is to reach to v40, so if I do so I think that I can guarantee my 660+. I plan to take all of Manhattan CATs in 24 remaining days because every time that I take a CAT I feel that I get more comfortable with the whole exam. Between the CATs i decide to solve hard questions of OG13 and learn strategies to tackle hard questions which are able to improve my score (not just over solve problems to waste my time but to get as many takeaways as I can). Also I want to review my SC bible and CR bible as well. I remember that I read a topic which said that I you have many desire to read and solve more stuffs it is indicator of that you are well behind, I dont know is this applicable to me? Am I far behind of my goal?
Also I want to try to do Kaplan premier quiz banks. In last days I plan to take GMATprep CAT #2 for my last exam.
In sum, I want to learn good strategies to tackle hard problems in quant and try to decrease my verbal incorrects as much as I can. I really want to improve my score at least 50pts.
I really will be glad to hear back from you and apply your wise tips and strategies to reach my goal.

Very glad to have you here to help me out stacey.
regards.

[sina.zarafshan]

Dear Stacey;

In addition to information above, these days a question always keeps my head busy, especially during the time that I practice and did wrong on the questions that when I read the explanation I say to myself that you shouldn't get this wrong!, and that question is " If I start to push myself harder, decrease my sleeping time, staying up at night and review my stuffs (In verbal only), am I doing the right job?" I say to myself maybe in this way you can eliminate more wrong questions and elevate your score but on the other side I say to myself maybe I burn out and lost my long run efficiency, loosing my sleep cycle, lost my current level of concentration. I am ready to take a risk by the way, if I know that by doing this way I can improve. You know, my goal is getting bigger and bigger every day that past and I feel more and more that I can reach to my 660+ goal, so why not and take a shot? lots of cons and pros in my head about this push-hard action and I stuck between them and do not know which way has more ROI! (I mean Return on Investment, btw)

I will be very glad to tell me some advise so I get the motivation to turn the remaining days into a golden risk period or nice and slow period.

regards.

[StaceyKoprince]

I really think that the more that I take CAT exams the more I can recognize my weak point in different sectors, in timing and in general strategies.

Very very few people can learn well in this way. The vast majority of people will NOT learn much by taking a ton of CAT exams. The people who CAN do this are typically people like me - people who like such exams, who find such exams easier than most, and who think like the test makers. (In other words, people who can ultimately score in the 99th percentile with far less prep than the average test taker.)

(q45 v30, with AWA, but I could not finish the verbal and missed 4 last questions, so I think my verbal score is somehow punished!

Yes, that would hurt your score. Did you also do the IR section? If not, that may lead to an artificially inflated score (because the practice test is shorter than the real test is, and because you didn't tire your brain out as much when taking the practice test as you will on the real test).

How much are you concentrating on your timing? If you don't make this better, then your score won't lift as much as it could. (Note: "working on timing" does not mean "learn to get everything right fast." Part of it involves learning when to get something wrong faster so that you don't waste time that could be better spent elsewhere. And so on.)

Next, you say that your goal is to reach V40. V40 is the 90th percentile - that is, V40 is a *significantly* better score than Q45, which is 68th percentile. You're currently at V30, 56th percentile, not that much lower than your quant percentile.

I'm going to reiterate what I said last time: the vast majority of people would not be able to make that kind of leap in 24 days.

In the article that I linked last time (Developing a study plan), there's a section that talks about how to study / how to learn. Have you read that section yet? If not, do so. (Also, in that article, there's a link to other articles about timing. Read those!)

you shouldn't get this wrong!, and that question is " If I start to push myself harder, decrease my sleeping time, staying up at night and review my stuffs (In verbal only), am I doing the right job?

No. Definitely not. Cramming like this does not work - it only tires you out and makes it LESS likely that you will be able to get to your goal score. Read this:
http://www.manhattangmat.com/blog/index ... abilities/

And this:
http://www.manhattangmat.com/blog/index ... you-crazy/

Again, read that "how to study / how to learn" stuff from the first articles I gave you in my last post. You don't learn more by DOING more. You minimize careless mistakes by analysis - figuring out WHY you made the mistakes that you made, and then figuring out what bad habits to break or what good habits to make in order to minimize the chances of repeating those same kinds of mistakes in future.