the plan

[mg]

HI Stacey - So I am finally in the place again where i need to take the exam in 2 weeks or 3 weeks. (this will be my third attempt over the last five years). I don't have a date yet but I am sure I will be able to get one in my center.

Here is the plan that I need your feedback on.

Through this week, I will go over the OG and write down the stuff that did not work for me. I will work through the math. I will not only look at what i got wrong but also look at what I got right. This is for quant. I will aim at finishing quant OG over the next 3 days. Then I will give 2 days to Verbal OG, and will make sure I revise the key stuff I have written down in quant. Then I will take a break and do a test next Monday. Then for the rest of next week, I will go over the test I have done and deeply analyze every question type and where in the test did I take too much time, what did i guess, what did i get wrong, what is the simplest way to do those problems, etc.?

My questions:
1. Please feedback the plan above.
2. Any suggestions on what test to do? I have developed a mental block against MGMAT and feel it is too tough for my level. With all due respect, I realize that is one of the best out there, but after I did MGMAT the last time, my confidence was severely bruised.
3. I have exhausted the GMATPrep... So please suggest any other if you can.
4. I have been getting very anxious and my heart pounding. And I have difficulty falling asleep at night. What can I do to calm myself down?
5. Any other words of wisdom.

[mg]

Question continued.

Shall I take the test in 2 weeks or 3 weeks? I am confused on this too. Please advise. Many thanks!

[StaceyKoprince]

Hi - sorry it has taken me a while to get to this. We had a holiday here last week and I was traveling for 5 days.

You don't mention what you're currently scoring on practice tests and what you'd like to score on the official test. How far are you from where you would like to be? According to your plan above, it seems like you have taken a test by now, so reply and let me know.

Because you are experiencing serious anxiety, it may help for you to take a little more time (so, closer to 3 weeks than 2). Follow this link to an article with some ideas about how to manage your stress; try some of the different suggestions and see what might work for you. http://www.manhattangmat.com/strategy-series-stress.cfm It's important to work on this - the GMAT is not worth losing sleep at night!

It's definitely a good idea to let your results on a specific test drive what you review and how you review. I wouldn't necessarily review every last thing, though. You don't have much time left, so your time is best spent on your weaker areas that are ALSO very commonly tested on the exam. Here are the more commonly tested areas:
- number properties (all)
- FDPs: fractions and percents
- WT: rates, work, ratios, statistics
- algebra: basic, quadratic and exponential equations; inequalities for DS
- geometry: triangles and circles
- SC: parallelism, modifiers, sub-verb agreement, verb tenses, pronouns
- CR: strengthen & weaken, find an assumption, draw a conclusion
- RC: inference, specific detail questions

Also, remember that the test can (and will!) always give you something that you can't do in 2 minutes. Sometimes, your solution should be, "I should have recognized that I couldn't do this one and I should have found some way to make a guess within 2 minutes - either a random guess or, if possible, an educated guess (that is, I identified and crossed off some wrong answers before guessing)." Do NOT feel like you have to know how to answer every single question.

Re: what tests to do, I do believe that GMATPrep and MGMAT are the closest to the real thing. I haven't closely examined tests from other companies, so I can't advise which ones are closest to the real thing - you may want to ask other students who have used different tests what they think.

[mg]

Hi Stacey - I just took MGMAT test 2. I got a 550. My score is Q35, V31.

My concern is not so much that this shakes up my confidence, as it is whether I am doing the right tests. I do feel that the MGMAT level is much higher than that of the actual GMAT.

But then - is this a true indicator of scores that people get? Please advice. Thanks!

[mg]

I did not complete the verbal test. I was on Qs. 41 in verbal when the test timed out on me. How does that affect the verbal score on the MGMAT on the verbal test? Any indication on number of points will be helpful. Thanks Stacey.

[StaceyKoprince]

Our tests have a standard deviation of about 50 points, but that's either up or down, so some people do better on our tests and some do worse - but there isn't a systematic pattern. So it is not the case that most people tend to do either better or worse on our tests compared to the official test.

On the official test, the penalty for not answering a question is minus 3 percentile points. On our tests, last I checked (but that was a few months ago), the penalty was 4 percentile points - we made it a little harsher to "train" our students NEVER to leave any questions blank. I know that our people who handle the algorithm were considering adjusting it down to 3, because that's what it is on the real test, but I don't know whether they've done so. Short answer: either 3 or 4 percentile points were taken off for that last question you didn't answer. So, that definitely brought your score down a bit.