Re-start studying for GMAT after a vacation

[ezequiel.halac]

Hi -

I took the MGMAT online course and have made tremendous progress. My first CAT was a 560 and now I am scoring in the 700 range. The plan is to take the actual test sometime in the next month or so.

However, I am going on vacation for 10 days in two weeks and I will not be studying, at all, during that time. I am a bit concerned that this 10 day distraction will affect my current status and I might not be able to get back to the 700 range.

What do you suggest as a 're-start' strategy for when I come back? What would be the first steps that I should take to get back on track to where I am now in the shortest amount of time after a vacation? Basically, I was hoping that within a week after I return from vacation I can get back to my current status and then continue studying from there for another week or two before I take the exam.

Thanks in advance,

Ezequiel

[StaceyKoprince]

10 days will not cause you to lose your level permanently. You might be a bit rusty when you get back - but you might even find that you haven't lost anything. :) That's not really a huge length of time (at least as far as this stuff is concerned).

So go and enjoy your vacation. When you get back, do a little quant and verbal review and then do some random questions across every question type and content area, just to see how you feel. If things feel about the same, just continue with your normal study plan, picking up wherever you left off.

If, on the other hand, you feel really rusty or you feel like you completely forget certain things, then take a practice test. Analyze that to figure out your current strengths and weaknesses and base your study plans off of that.

Use this to analyze your test:
http://www.manhattangmat.com/blog/index ... ice-tests/

If you'd like, feel free to come back here and tell us the results of your analysis and what you think you should do based on that analysis. We'll tell you whether we agree and advise you further. (Note: do share an analysis with us, not just the raw data. Part of getting better is developing your ability to analyze your results - figure out what they mean and what you think you should do about them!)

Have fun on your vacation!

[ezequiel.halac]

Hi Stacy -

So I came back from my vacation and studies for 2 weeks. I took a practice test today and scored 640 (Q43 V35). A lot lower than expected. I was expecting to be a bit rusty with timing. However, I was very rusty with timing in Quant... I had 17 questions left with only 20 minutes left on the clock...

For Quant, I got several 600-700 question incorrect and most of the 700-800 questions incorrect. Hard to pinpoint to a specific topic with so many question wrong. There is definitely a correlation with the time I took to answer questions which I got incorrect for the first half of the exam. Then its obvious how much quicker I started answering questions given that the time was running out..

However, I am mostly disappointed with my Verbal score, given that i have been studying harder for this section and I didn't have to rush though it like I did in Quant... My last 2 practice exams (one MGMAT and one GMAT PRep) I scored 38-39 in Verbal. I have been studying SC pretty hard. I was expecting an even higher score in the low 40s. I got 5/12 incorrect in CR, 7/15 in SC and 4/12 in RC... I got most of the 700-800 level ones incorrect and several errors in the 600-700.

So, looking at this test. I am a bit lost in terms of my plan of action. I am scheduled to take the test on May 6th. Do you think I have time to get back to my previous Q47-V39 ish levels? Or am I being too ambitious here?

Thanks,

Ezequiel

[StaceyKoprince]

The timing issues that you describe in quant are serious enough that, no, you probably shouldn't take the test in about 10 days. That's not enough time to fix those kinds of timing issues.

For verbal, I can't tell from the information you gave me why your score dropped - the number incorrect in various categories tells us very little, actually. :)

I'm going to repeat something I said in my last post:
Use this to analyze your test:
http://www.manhattangmat.com/blog/index ... ice-tests/

If you'd like, feel free to come back here and tell us the results of your analysis and what you think you should do based on that analysis. We'll tell you whether we agree and advise you further. (Note: do share an analysis with us, not just the raw data. Part of getting better is developing your ability to analyze your results - figure out what they mean and what you think you should do about them!)

It should take you at least 45 minutes to go through that analysis and it's going to get a lot more complicated than the # wrong and even the difficulty levels - you've got to weave in the timing data as well. You'll see when you read the article.

It's possible that your quant performance affected verbal, in two related senses. You knew that you'd messed up the timing, which stresses you out and makes it harder to perform on verbal. And you spent way too much brain energy on some earlier questions (which is why you spent too much time)... and once you use up that brain energy, it takes a while to build back up again, so you were also probably more tired in verbal than usual. (Plus, I'm guessing there's a decent chance you may have had timing issues on verbal as well, though on a smaller scale.)

Do that analysis and let me know.