1 Week Left, Trying to add another 10 or 20 points to pre-existing 710

I understand, marditte. I would recommend checking out some of the free e-resources on the right-hand side of the screen, then. You should be able to see them, unless you have an ad blocker running or something. You can also check out YouTube for some dedicated GMAT™ videos on certain topics, but that is more of a grab bag. If you really want a "virtual boot camp," then you could even pony up (for $100 or less, in some cases) for access to a video prep course. Magoosh, Math Revolution, EMPOWERgmat, and Target Test Prep™ all offer such options, and each one has earned high reviews on this site. You can read more about any of them here:

https://gmatclub.com/forum/best-gmat-courses-169396.html?fl=menu

I hope you find the right resources for your needs.

- Andrew

Do note that there is no guarantee that a third attempt will help in "adding" to your original score of 710. The GMAT score has an error range of amount plus or minus 30 to 40 points. This means that an addition (or deduction) of 10 to 20 points would be within range of possibility.

It may instead help to focus on strengthening weak areas that you identified above, while making sure that your preparation on other sections is also done well. In verbal, it is not clear that you could simply rely on your "ear" to score very high. Such reliance can take one only so far. The higher scores demand more subject knowledge in addition to other personal testtaking elements.

Do not stress too much about "another 10-20 points". Prepare, relax and have fun!

Hi marditte,

I’m glad you reached out, and I’m happy to help. So, although your exam is in just one week, since you have the opportunity to take it again, I‘ll provide some general advice on how to improve your verbal and quant skills. First off, keep in mind that although you’ve identified some of your weak areas in quant, I’d be willing to bet that you have other “hidden” weak areas that also must be strengthened in order to improve your quant score.

With all this said, the best path forward is to cast a wide net, and go through GMAT quant and verbal carefully to find your exact weaknesses, fill gaps in your knowledge, and strengthen your skills. The overall process will be to learn all about how to answer question types with which you currently aren't very comfortable, and do dozens of practice questions category by category, basically driving up your score point by point. For example, if you find that you are not strong in answering Number Properties questions, then carefully review the conceptual underpinnings of how to answer Number Properties questions and practice by answering 50 or more questions just from Number Properties: LCM, GCF, units digit patterns, divisibility, remainders, etc. When you are working on learning to answer questions of a particular type, start off taking your time, and then seek to speed up as you get more comfortable answering questions of that type. As you do such practice, do a thorough analysis of each question that you don't get right. If you got a remainder question wrong, ask yourself why. Did you make a careless mistake? Did you not properly apply the remainder formula? Was there a concept you did not understand in the question? By carefully analyzing your mistakes, you will be able to efficiently fix your weaknesses and in turn improve your GMAT quant skills. Number Properties is just one example; follow this process for all quant topics.

Each time you strengthen your understanding of a topic and your skill in answering questions of a particular type, you increase your odds of hitting your score goal. You know that there are types of questions that you are happy to see, types that you would rather not see, and types that you take a long time to answer correctly. Learn to more effectively answer the types of questions that you would rather not see, and make them into your favorite types. Learn to correctly answer in two minutes or less questions that you currently take five minutes to answer. By finding, say, a dozen weaker quant areas and turning them into strong areas, you will make great progress toward hitting your quant score goal. If a dozen areas turn out not to be enough, strengthen some more areas.

You can work on verbal in a similar manner. Let’s say you are reviewing Critical Reasoning. Be sure that you practice a large number of Critical Reasoning questions: Strengthen and Weaken the Argument, Resolve the Paradox, find the Conclusion, Must be True, etc. As you go through the questions, do a thorough analysis of each question that you don't get correct. If you missed a Weaken question, ask yourself why. Did you make a careless mistake? Did you not recognize what the question was asking? Did you skip over a key detail in an answer choice? Getting GMAT verbal questions right is a matter of what you know, what you see, and what you do. So, any time that you don't get one right, you can seek to identify what you had to know to get the right answer, what you had to see that you didn't see, and what you could have done differently to arrive at the correct answer.

So, work on accuracy and generally finding correct answers, work on specific weaker areas one by one to make them strong areas, and when you take a practice GMAT or the real thing, take all the time per question available to do your absolute best to get right answers consistently. The GMAT is essentially a game of seeing how many right answers you can get in the time allotted. Approach the test with that conception in mind, and focus intently on the question in front of you with one goal in mind: getting a CORRECT answer.

In order to follow the path described above, you may need some new quant and verbal materials, so take a look at the GMAT Club reviews for the best quant and verbal courses. You also may find it helpful to read the following article about The Phases of Preparing for the GMAT.

Feel free to reach out with any further questions. Good luck!

Hello all,

I have noticed myself making strides in my studies over the last few days, and decided to take another practice exam to try to apply some strategy ideas I had.

I took the GmatClub free CAT exam (completed Quant section, waited approx 10 minutes, and then completed Verbal section) and scored a 750 (Q48/V45).

This is the best I have done on any practice or official exam to date, which is very encouraging to me.

My one concern is that perhaps the GmatClub CAT exam is not quite as difficult or does not mimic the real thing as effectively as a ManhattanPrep or Official CAT practice exam.

Can anyone share thoughts on the quality of the GmatClub free practice exam?

Thank you all.

Hello again, marditte. First of all, congratulations on that mock test. The general consensus seems to be that the GMAT Club quant is more challenging than the real thing, so your Q48 is excellent, provided you had not seen any of the questions before. I cannot say I have read as much on the site about the predictive accuracy of its Verbal portion of the tests. Whatever you have been studying for the past week, stick with it. Since you have hit such a high score just once, you cannot predict that that will necessarily be your test day result, but at the same time, you seem to have made gains, and that mental edge is worth more than you might think. Keep going--study, review, study some more, bounce ideas off of experts or your fellow test-takers. Then, right at the end, relax, knowing you have put in all the legwork already. You want to be raring to go on test day, not burned out from over-preparation (a common mistake).

Good luck.

- Andrew

Hi all,

I took the test today, and scored a 720 (Q49/V39), which is my best official score yet.

I just wanted to confirm my result and again say thank you for your insights and guidance.

Sincerely
MA

Fantastic! Thanks for posting an update. Anything in particular you think contributed to your success?

Posted from my mobile device

When I began preparing I was testing around a 640.. My first jump took me to around 680.. My next jump took me to the ~710 range, and I think that today's 720 is closer to my baseline than my ceiling based on recent improvements.. I will likely take the test again because I would project to a 740 if I maintained my V41 (which I have done a few times) with today's Q49, and think that a few more practice exams to work on my technique will help me become more proficient..

Each time my score jumped it coincided with more efficient techniques/timing and better general understanding of how the test works, versus intensive formula memorization. (Although I certainly needed to review lots of content as well)

For me, the key was more effective question identification, which helped me limit my preventable errors. I realized that I knew all required formulas/processes for approx 70% of my incorrect quant problems, and found that slowing down the first 30-40 seconds a Question is on my screen can make all the difference. These first 30-40 seconds I have found to be more important than the remaining 1:20-1:30 because you pick up on more of the shortcuts or key information offered by the Q-stem that you may miss if you are anxious or stressed and allow that negative energy to push you through the exam.

(To use a sports metaphor -- Think of a batter who is relaxed and focused on ID'ing a pitch out of the pitchers hand, vs. a hitter who is anxious and will just see ball and throw bat at ball reactively (i.e. swing/miss on ball in dirt)-- one will get himself out more often than the other, who will put himself in the best possible place to succeed. I found that taking a step back and focusing on properly ID'ing every pitch the GMAT could throw at me led to a far better success rate on questions I should have gotten, which was a greater negative force on my score than advanced formulas or concepts that I was not proficient with)

Hello, marditte. Thank you for following up. I am glad to hear that your score went up. As Hovkial wrote earlier, there is no guarantee that retaking the test will not lead to a result that goes in the other direction. A Q49 is nothing to sneeze at, as the idiom goes. I know you are barred from discussing specifics, but in general, did you find that your targeted approach to address certain shortcomings in quant led to an improvement on the test, whether because you knew how to answer a question you might not have known how to before or because it just gave you a mental edge? In my experience, a one-week gain for a student is more the exception than the rule. As I have read many times on this site, the GMAT™ is not a test you can cheat. Sure, you might get luckier some days than others, but all the luck in the world is not going to turn someone's 600 into an 800. You have to fight for every 10-point increase, and the fact that you made a gain at all is a testament to your willpower. Well done. Will you now give yourself more than a week to try to make that next 20-point leap?

Take some time. Let the dust settle on this one. Smile at a job well done, and down the road, get back to work.

- Andrew

Hey Andrew,

Thanks for the message. I will likely give myself 2 weeks before the next try. (just kidding lol)

My self-assessment has led me to believe that my 710 plateau was in large part due to technique/process inefficiency, rather than specific content. Reinforcing the 2 or 3 areas of relative weakness I had gave me the confidence that I was familiar with every subject covered, which is when the light bulb went off.

The light bulb was that many of my wrong answers were on questions that I knew how to solve, but took the incorrect route. With more presence of mind on each question to think about whether or not I am taking the right route to the answer, (i.e. cleaner ID of what the question is really asking) led to a more efficient overall approach and hence fewer preventable errors. I think that limiting these errors is what has enabled my score to enter the next step above where I had previously plateaued, and believe this technique would become more automatic/2nd-nature with repetition through a couple more practice exams.

Thanks again.