Gmat postponed from 17 Oct to 31 Oct ...... Please advice what I should do in t

tfgarychan

Dear all,

I am Gary from HK.  Today I took the CAT 1 test of the official preparation software and scored only 640.  I am frustrated and have postponed the test from 17 Oct to 31 Oct.  Any suggestion about my study plan in the coming weeks?  Before that let me briefly describe my target, materials studied, my progress and my plan.

Target: 700 above to ensure my app will be read by top 20 B-school and my job app will attract audit firms in US, UK and Australia (since my local open exams result in HK is not that good......)

Material studied: Kaplan 2006 as the backbone.  In addition, I have read additional materials for different parts -

SC: Official guide for the first 120 questions.  Around 70% accuracy.  Find it not very helpful as the ETS explanation is ambiguous.  Any suggestion on other material?

CR: Official guide for the first 100 questions.  It seems fine as I scored around 90%.  But is the difficulty similar to the real test?

RC: OG again.  Also score around 90% but heard that those are not as difficult as the real one.  Again, any suggestion on additional material?

Math:  OG and real test.  Actually I have taken 2 Kaplan tests, which will be explained below, and results are quite different.  First one with 10 mistakes and second one with 4 mistakes.  I find myself particularly weak in probably and those X > Y or not? question type.  lanning to read through all the basic principles.  What material should I study for?

AWA:  Download the 800 Score hand out and find it very useful.  I have tried 5 AWA questions each for AI and AA and no. of words in average is about 300...... Read from the forum that 400 words should be minimum, but the 800 score handout and sample essays in the sample essays downloaded from CD are usually around 300.  Any idea?

Status: I have taken two Kaplan tests.  First one was done in its centre in HK as I asked for private tutorial and they needed to know my progress.  I scored only 610 and was weak in Math at that moment because I was not familiar in Data Sufficiency part.  I did not decide to take private tutorial at that moment.  Then the day before yesterday I took the online test of Kaplan and scored 700.  Today I took the prep. test of ETS and scored only 640......

Planned actions:

1. I have brought the GMAT 800 Score which covers all sections of GMAT except AWA and teaches how to tackle difficult questions in each section.  I plan to finish it within this week.  After that I will do the sample test of 800 score from CD.  I want to do the GWD but could not find answers and explanations to download.  Read from the webs that you guys post those wrong questions to discuss on the web and want to try, but afraid that I cannot get the response in short period and that I may have to post many messages everyday.  Are there any answers for GWD with explanations?

2. I am thinking about taking the private tutorial of Kaplan.  The teacher was from laceType>UniversitylaceType> of laceName>ChicagolaceName> and has taught in Kaplan in HK for 7-8 years.  Heard from him that he had written books on GMAT exams. He told me he is confident to raise my score by 40-80 marks at least.  I am struggling if I should take it......

Although I have to work in daytime, I will have training for the next two weeks so I can spare 1.5 hrs on weekdays and the whole weekend for GMAT.  1.5*14 + 8*6 = 69 hours to study for it.  Sincerely asking you guys to give me advices on how to study for 700+ score in coming weeks!

ring_cheng

Well, it's hard to judge your situation, but i 'd say it will be no easy for you, yet still hope ahead.

My two cents:

SC: find the most difficult questions in OG , looking into the discussion posts in CD,

CR: post-#100 CR questions in OG are more important than the first 100, so , i recommend you to stick to those and find the best intuitive feeling of cracking them.

RC: still OG is the best. I'd say the real RC is easier to read but harder to find right answers. So you gotta know the reason why A is right, but why B is wrong. It's a time-consumeing process yet the most fruitful.

If you do have extra time, i recommend you to take GWD as a mock test. You don't need to finish all of them, but do it occassionally. Taking it seriously will offer you more feeling about real test, as well as the gap between where you are and where you should go.

I never attended any KAPLAN's tutoring programs. But i dislike the test made out by kaplan/princeton.  So you have to make the final call.

BTW, Math JJ is among the most valuable. You should really take the JJ of october into your daily work.

AWA: Preparing the templates and grabbing some current JJ for daily practice will be just fine.

OK, finally i wish you my friend gooooooooooooooooooooooooooood luck! Don't forget to tell us about your gooooooooooooooooooooooood news and share your JJ with the rest of us.

ring_cheng

In addition, schedule your time efficiently will provide you with more confidence.

tfgarychan

Thanks.  I will stick to your advice and for sure will report my result in the web site!

By the way, what is JJ?  Do you mean the posting in relevant forum?