Study and Strategy questions relating to the GMAT.
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Help with Improving my Score

by Guest Fri Oct 05, 2007 12:58 am

Hello,

I am currently taking the self-study course with the pre-recorded sessions. I am pretty much done with all the materials (except the last class recording, lab, and SC, and CR homework. My MGMAT CAT exam scores are as follows:

620 (Q 42 / V 33) - took towards the beginning of the course
600 (Q 42 / V 32) - half way through the course
640 (Q 44 / V 34) - a few days ago
650 (Q 44 / V 35) - yesterday

I am planning on taking the exam in about a week and a half. I would like to score between 680-700. I have taken the next week off of work to study. Can you please provide some advice as to where I should be focusing my efforts and what I should be doing from now until the exam? eg, completing the course materials, going through OG problems I previously got wrong, doing question banks, understanding CAT exams, reviewing strategy guides, etc.....
Also, would private tutoring be helpful at this point?

Thank you!
StaceyKoprince
ManhattanGMAT Staff
 
Posts: 9360
Joined: Wed Oct 19, 2005 9:05 am
Location: Montreal
 

by StaceyKoprince Mon Oct 08, 2007 10:05 pm

Generally, the final week to two weeks are mostly about reviewing what you've already done. I tell all of my students not to take the official test until 2 weeks after class ends - so if you're not done with the work yet and you only have 10 days to go, you made need a little more time.

You are a little ways away from your target, so it might be useful at this point to do some private tutoring to target the specific areas that are holding you down. You'd also probably need to take a little more time for this - you'd want time between tutoring sessions to practice and a little time after the last session to review. So if you want to pursue tutoring, plan for maybe 2-3 weeks if you meet with one of our tutors or a little longer if you meet with someone else (I say that just because you've been using our materials, so you'll be able to work most efficiently with our tutors - that isn't to imply that other tutors are slower than we are in general or something like that :).

Also, when doing problems, have you been asking yourself all of the questions listed in the strategy lesson in session 2? If not, that's what you should be doing, with overall emphasis on: how do I recognize what to do on a problem (rather than having to figure everything out from scratch)? All of the individual questions in that lesson will help you to learn to recognize rather than have to figure everything out on the fly. If you don't know what I'm talking about - go watch session 2 again. The strategy lesson is typically given towards the end of class.
Stacey Koprince
Instructor
Director, Content & Curriculum
ManhattanPrep