How to evaluate first CAT score?

[RyanB172]

I just finished my first practice CAT. The only prep I did was read Book 0 and I received a 580 (Q38, V32), I had 30 minutes remaining in verbal and feel like I made quite a few mistakes on quant because its been a while since i've done the same type of questions. How realistic is it for me to get my score up to above 700? I have about 120 hours left to study before my actual test day.

I guess more or less what I'm asking is by how much can people improve with 120 hours of studying?

Thanks!

[StaceyKoprince]

It's a good starting point, particularly with not much prep beforehand. Plenty of people have made it up to 700 from that starting point* and with a good number of study hours (100-ish).

No guarantees in life, of course—not everyone will get to 700. That's a really high score. (*And the asterisk is to say: if someone has already studied 100 hours to get up to 580, then that person is likely to find it harder to get up to 700.)

So your goal is ambitious but still reasonable—is that what you were really asking?

Good luck! Let us know if you have any other questions!