Study Strategy

[youngrae]

Hello,

I've been studying GMAT for a while and exhausted most of CATS on various resoures including MCAT, Kaplan, Princeton and GMAT Prep (couple times).
I figured that my score range is still in 580-610, which is lower than my target score of 650. I am planning to study a few more months, but my question is what kind of resource do I have to use to assess my score range as I exhausted the most of CATS? I feel like I don't have a good indicator of my score anymore as most tests give me inflated scores with some repeat questions.

Please advise me.
Thank you.

[dapplegate]

What are your percentile ranks on each side - Verbal vs Quant? Are you consistent in scoring better on one side than the other?

IF you used ALL of the MGMAT tests, you should review each one. Study each question you missed, each question that was hard & you got right, & all questions that took too long.

You will likely find one TYPE of question you always got wrong. Do you have the MGMAT books? If so, you can use them to study on the THEORY behind the questions you're getting wrong - by studying the theory, rather than just a wrong question, it will help in getting future question TYPES right.

[dapplegate]

From what I understand, you can reset the MGMAT tests after you have taken them. Yes, there will be some repeat, but as you score better, the tests should adjust to HIGHER LEVEL questions - since it's computer adaptive. If you're answering more higher level questions there won't be as many repeats of the tests when you scored in the mid 500's.

[StaceyKoprince]

dapplegate is right that, if you have improved significantly, then questions will be selected from a higher part of the pool on practice tests. It's not clear to me, though, that this is youngrae's situation. It sounds as though youngrae might not have seen a big increase so far.

youngrae, you can still take both GMATPrep and MGMAT CATs with repeats as long as you follow a few guidelines to minimize the chance of artificially inflating your score via question repeats. First, anytime you see a problem that you remember (and this means: I know the answer or I'm pretty sure I remember the answer, not just "hmm, this looks vaguely familiar..."), immediately look at the timer and make yourself sit there for the full length of time for that question type. This way, you don't artificially give yourself more time than you should have. Second, think about whether you got this problem right the last time. If you did, get it right again this time. If you didn't, get it wrong again. If you *completely honestly* think that you would get it right this time around if it were a new question (even though you got it wrong last time) because you've studied that area and improved, then get it right this time.

More importantly, how often are you taking practice tests? I'm guessing way too often. 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.

It's pretty much never a good idea to take a test more than once a week, and even that situation is reserved only for the last 2-3 weeks before the official test. Prior to that, most people need at least 2 to 4 weeks from the last test in order to make enough progress that they can see any significant difference on a practice test.