URGENT: Is it the right time to take MGMAT CATs ???

[rashmitha.reddy]

Dear MGMAT,
I have 20 days to go for my GMAT and this is my second attempt.I got a 620 (41m,31v)in my first gmat. I have been preparing for last 3 months and i think i am done with the preparation. I have been using KAPCATs and scoring consistently around 620 (620,590,620,620---M around 49 and V around 30). I am a math person. My verbal is not so bad. But for some reason i never cross this 32.

I have completed 1000sc(80% probability),12 gmat pdf sets and OG11(twice),OG Verbal review and math review. I also practised 20 tests from 1000 CR document and about 100 Qs from LSAT(60-70%). when i took GMATPREP-1 ,about 2 weeks back, i got 650(48m and 31 V).

What i dont understand is why am i not improving in verbal. My strongest part in V is SC and i think i have improved on CRs now( in last week). I am confused whether should i buy MGMAT CATs now. I know that MGMAT CATs are very tough and ofcourse are the best for practice. When i tried the free online test a couple of weeks ago....i just could not continue the test and stopped it after 20 questions in math.Now, I am worried if MGMAT cats would pull down my confidence if i start doing them just 20 days before the exam.

I need help from you guys.What should i practise now?? should i redo the KAP tests and all the other material i practised.Kindly suggest.
Stacey?? Dan?? please reply!!

Thanks,
Rashmi

[StaceyKoprince]

You don't mention what score you are trying to get. What's your goal? You should be scoring in your goal range on practice tests by the time you are ~2 weeks away from your real test. If you are not scoring in that range, then you need to think seriously about whether you should reschedule your test.

For example, if you are going for a low to mid-600s score, you are in that range right now. That's good. If you are going for a 700, though, you are not in that range now and it is unlikely that you will lift your score that much in a few weeks. (I would say that to anybody, not just you - it's unlikely for people to make great score improvements in just 2-3 weeks.)

You mention doing a LOT of practice tests and problems. I think your problem might be that you are substituting quantity of study for quality of study. You don't get a lot better at this test merely by doing tons and tons of practice problems. You get better by intensively studying / analyzing the best problems available (official problems, typically).

When you do a problem and you go back to check it over, how much time do you spend and how do you spend that time? If I take 2 min to do a problem, I then take 5-10 minutes to analyze it (even if I got it right!). If I got it right, did I get it right for the right reason? If I got it wrong, why did I get it wrong? What does the explanation say - is the explanation a better way to do it than the way I did it? Is there a better way to do it that isn't in the explanation and that I didn't think of when I tried it the first time? How would I make an educated guess - how can I tell which answers are wrong even if I don't know how to get to the right answer? What are the traps or tricky parts of the problem? Why are they traps / tricky? How can I avoid making mistakes on similar traps / tricky wording in the future? On verbal questions, what's the most tempting wrong answer? Why would someone think it's right? Why is that reasoning wrong? Why would someone eliminate the right answer? Why is that reasoning wrong? Etc. There are so many things you can study in a single problem - and that's how you get better: analyzing problems. You only get marginally better by doing tons and tons of problems without this analysis.

I would much rather see you do 1/4 of the problems you're doing but seriously study the ones you do (and use official questions as much as possible - a lot of the free stuff floating around the Internet for free is poor quality, including the 1000 sets.

I haven't directly answered your question about buying our tests now, but that's because you're only 3 weeks away. You shouldn't do more than 3 tests (MAX) in that timeframe anyway, so if you still have some left from other sources, you might as well just use those.

In general, if you want to get a score that's significantly higher than your current test scores, then you're going to need more time and you're going to need to change the way that you study. If that's the case, then you might want to use our tests as well. If you want to get a score that's in the range you're already scoring, then just reinforce / review everything for the next couple of weeks so that you can perform to your current ability on test day.