1st GMAT Practice CAT

I took my first GMAT Practice CAT (Cambridge Educational Services) this afternoon (i’d taken a couple diagnostic tests, but they weren’t computer-adaptive and didn’t include the one hour written essay section).  I’ve been putting off the CAT because the perfectionist side of me dreaded the timed writing section.  But with only 5 weeks left to prep, I didn’t have much of a choice.  

The AWA (writing) section wasn’t all that bad.  I probably did decent (though not spectacular) on that section.  But considering that it’s my first AWA, hey, i’ll take it. 

Next, was the Quantitative section.  Although it was not nearly as challenging as the GMAC Challenge questions, the questions seemed tougher than the ones on the two diagnostic exams that I took last month.  The computer returned “Very Good” for both Quantitative and Verbal sections, but I think the Quantitative results were on the lower end of the “Very Good” spectrum.  From the breakdown by question type, I’m still missing more Data Sufficiency (DS) questions.  Which means I’ve really got to buckle down and spend more time to master DS questions. 

The Verbal section seemed easier than the Quantitative.  I got 13 out of 14 Reading Comprehension questions correct (the only question I missed was considered “easy” by the computer, go figure).  As with the Diagnostic tests, Critical Reasoning (CR) is my weak spot in Verbal.  I probably did improve my CR the last couple weeks, but there’s still more room to improve.  I seemed to have improved in Sentence Corrections (SC) from before (or maybe the SC questions are easier?) as I got 11 out of 14 correct. 

Total score of 640-660.

One way to look at it:  If I had done as well on my Quantitative as I did on Verbal, I would probably be at or very close to my target score by now.   And seeing that I only have about 5 weeks to prepare for the actual GMAT (i’m currently about 60 or so points from my target score), it would behoove me to spend 3 times as much time working on Quantitative than Verbal.  Data Sufficiency is my weak Quantitative area, so that will be my main Quantitative focus.  Critical Reasoning will be my focus for Verbal (with some spattering of SC reviews here and there).  The good news is that I have yet to really study effectively and consistently, and I’ve managed to cut out all major distractions since my declaration to do so last week.  The bad news is that 5 weeks isn’t too far away and the margin for error is very low.