September or October? Help

casti412

Hello,
I am registered to take the test in September. However, I don’t feel ready for it. I’ve been studying since mid-May with 7Sage, My diagnostic test was 140 then 142. I took another one and scored 150. After finishing the 7Sage LR curriculum I took another one and scored 156 and last week I took another and scored 148. I attribute this 148 to the fact I was not practicing all types of questions, so I forgot some stuff. All these months I’ve been only absorbing concepts and trying to understand some questions, but not really practicing. I started to take practice sections since last week, and I’ve improved a lot. Now that I know the concepts, I want to start practicing and come back to resources if I need to. The thing is that I feel like I want to take ALL the tests and understand the problems properly before the official test, and I do not think I can do that before my official test in September. I know still have a month and a half to get way better, but should pressure myself like that or just extend it one more month? I also wanted to take it in September because of the admission process. I don’t want to apply too late.

Should I just study really hard before the test in September (take like 3 tests weekly) or just cancel and take it in October?

Also, English is my second language so I want to improve my RC way more. I also feel bad because I have seen so many people improving fast but I am not.

I want to score at least 170+

darman45

I think that if your goal is to score 170+, and you're choosing between September or October, maybe go for October.

The advice I've heard a few times now is to register for the test once you're scoring within a handful of points of your goal score. This isn't to say that you don't have a chance of doing really well in September, but the odds are probably higher for October. Another thing to consider is that as you improve, your remaining areas of growth get smaller - you begin to deal less with big misconceptions and more with issues of timing or small nuances between sentences. For me, correcting these mistakes has taken more concentrated effort than the mistakes I made early on, which were much more conceptual.

On the other hand, plenty of people take the test more than once. So if you're okay with hustling until September, taking the test, and potentially hustling some more after that, then maybe stick with your September date. There are so many different ways of achieving your goal, so I don't think this one decision has to be endgame if you feel like it's all riding on September/October.

Hope this helps and good luck!!