2 Failed GMAT Attempts

Question

Dear GMAT Community,

I have given 2 GMAT twice. The first time I scored 560 without much preparation and the second time I studied very hard and inspite of that I scored 550.

While studying for my second attempt, I focussed on solving maximum number of questiosn without timing myself. I scored V23 and Q43 during my second attempt. I want to apply for fall of 2019. And I just have 1.5- 2 months to study.

I need help, kindly let me know what can I do to improve.

Thank You
Sonal

akela · Answer

Hi givinggmat , What score you want to get? How many hours a week you can spend on prep? What materials did you use? You can start here as you'l need a study plan: https://gmatclub.com/forum/gmat-study-plan-217827.html https://gmatclub.com/forum/all-you-need ... 40445.html

EMPOWERgmatRichC · Answer

Hi Sonal,

Before I can offer you the specific advice that you’re looking for, it would help if you could provide a bit more information on how you've been studying and your goals:

Studies:
1) On what dates did you take the Official GMAT? How long did you study before each attempt?
2) What study materials did you use for each attempt?
3) How have you scored on EACH of your CATs (including the Quant and Verbal Scaled Scores for EACH)?

Goals:
4) What is your goal score?
5) Do you have an exact Test Date scheduled (and if so, then what is it?)?
6) What Schools are you planning to apply to?
7) What are the application deadlines for each of those Schools?

GMAT assassins aren't born, they're made,
Rich

ccooley · Answer

So, it sounds like you mostly just did problems while you studied, and there are two things you didn't do: - You didn't time yourself; - You didn't study specific weak areas. Does that sound right? For your next attempt, you'll want to really focus on both of those things. For the specific weak areas, you might start with MPrep's GMAT Interact . I'm obviously biased, since I work for MPrep, but I can tell you that your situation is what Interact is really made for! Since you only have a little time to study, you probably won't want to sign up for a full class, but a self-study program like Interact can give you some structure and some targeted work on specific skills. It's also a good idea, since it sounds like you could use some work on both Quant and Verbal (but a bit more on Verbal.) For timing - the closer you get to your retake, the more you should time yourself while doing problems. And don't just time yourself while doing a single problem, either. Do timed sets of problems to simulate what you'll need to do on test day. Here's a ton of reading material about timing that you might find helpful: https://www.manhattanprep.com/gmat/blog ... art-1-of-3 https://www.manhattanprep.com/gmat/blog ... rt-2-of-3/ https://www.manhattanprep.com/gmat/blog ... nt-part-3/

GMATPill · Answer

Sonal - it's time to try something different. Studying a lot without progress is mentally exhausting. Better to find the right path and get it right this time. Focus on SC sentence structures -- because those sentence structures will also appear in CR and RC passages. Having 100% confidence in the sentence structures will make reading passages so much easier to make sense of. So take baby steps -- dedicate multiple "SC Days" to your studies - where you do nothing except eat, breathe, sleep, and do SC. Then, when you are ready, transition to CR/RC. Here's a brain hack for verbal that might help you: Force yourself to be SUPER EXCITED about a really BORING CR/RC passage . That's right -- your level of excitement actually affects your brain's ability to remember! Just think back to all the memorable moments in your life -- a nervous first date, graduation, driving for the first time, getting your first job, etc.. These are all memorable because of emotions.

Now apply emotional spikes

to your GMAT studying! If you have no emotion when you study, then you will not remember anything by the time you finish the next few sentences! So do yourself a favor and force yourself to get excited -- yes, this is actually a skill in and of itself. Get EXTREMELY super excited -- keep asking yourself what the HECK is this author trying to say? OK, so what's the point of this next sentence? What in the world did you just say? All these questions will force your mind to be super excited -- and as a result, you will actually remember because you were reading with a specific PURPOSE and INTENT. So in summary, force yourself to be super excited about boring passages -- and this will help improve your reading comprehension. This is the tip we've recommended for students at https://www.gmatpill.com Best of luck and check us out if you'd like to learn more.

AjiteshArun · Answer

Were you also working on your concepts? Solving questions is very important, but it isn't the best (most efficient) way to understand the basics. And as has been mentioned above, you should definitely be timing yourself.

sonalchhajed2019 · Answer

Hi,

I had studied for about a month. And that would translate to more than 150 hours.

The resources I used were: 
1. Official Guides 18- All Three. 
2. E-gmat Course.

Though I have used these resources, I have not analysed the answers. And the Questions that I got incorrect. I somehow just wanted to finish and cover all the topics and solve the maximum questions I could.

The second mistake that I did was I did not time myself while solving the questions.

My target score is 740+. I want to apply to HAAS school of business for the fall of 2019.

Regarding the preparation time- I can spend as much as required since getting the desired GMAT score is my no.1 priority. Regarding the materials I need some suggestions on what materials I could use now. I have exhausted almost all the CR/RC Questions from the official guide and the same is the case with Quant.

Kindly suggest the best materials I could use. I have realised my mistake of not analysing my answers and not having timed myself. 2 days back I have purchashed the GMAT club CAT tests. I have already given 2 Quant CATS. I the first one I scored a Q35- I analysed that test completely and the next day I gave another one and score a Q45. While analysing the first test I realised I was spending too much time on the question that I did not know, and this left me with very less time I had for the other questions. The next day I avoided falling in this trap and scored a Q45.

Please let me know what is the best way to improve. I need help in Quant as well as the verbal section.

Thanks in advance.

sonalchhajed2019 · Answer

Hi, 
Thanks a lot for your reply.

Studies:
1) On what dates did you take the Official GMAT? How long did you study before each attempt? - 1st - 15th May 2018 
2nd -3rd October 2018 
For the recent one I have studied on and off for about 2 months, and one month was a sincere study. 
And for the First test I had not studied throughly.

2) What study materials did you use for each attempt?
The first time I used the Official guides and the next time it was mostly the e-gmat course.

3) How have you scored on EACH of your CATs (including the Quant and Verbal Scaled Scores for EACH)?
I scored a Q-43 and V23 in my latest attempt.

Goals:
4) What is your goal score? - 740+
5) Do you have an exact Test Date scheduled (and if so, then what is it?)? - I have not scheduled the exact date yet. For the last 2 attempts I had not given any mock tests. And neither had analysed my the incorrect answers to the questions. The other mistake was not timing myself while answer the questions. In the recent GMAT test I had about 10 questions each from Verbal and Quant section to be completed in the last 5 mins. So all I did was guess randomly and most of the times without even reading the question.

So this time I was to get the desired scores on the Mock tests and then schedule the actual exam.

6) What Schools are you planning to apply to? I am planning to apply to HAAS, Darden and Yale. 
HAAS offers the exact course I need. I want to do an MBA in energy and clean tech. I have checked other schools as well but did not find a similar program.

For Darden and Yale - I would have to do a dual degree program- MS plus and an MBA. Hence, getting into HAAS seems to be the best option amongst these three.

7) What are the application deadlines for each of those Schools?- 
I guess I have already missed round 1 for all these schools. And now I am considering applying in Round 2.

Below are some of the mistakes I had done in the last 2 GMAT Attempts:

1. I started off preparing for Verbal quite late infact only in the last 15-20 days. In terms of my verbal preparation all I had done was completing the e-gmat course videos for all the three sections. RC I started off very late. I have hardly solved around 30 RC Passages. And hence reading and comprehending took a ton for time. Though I had a good accuracy some passages would take as long as 15-20 mins.

2. For the CR Section- I think I do this well. But I had not bothered to analyse my mistakes during the last 2 attempts. And just wanted to solve the maximum number of questions. Somehow I hoped using this strategy I would improve. And here as well some questions took as long as 3-4 minutes.

3. Sentence Correction - I started preparing for this section hardly 10-12 days before the exam. For most of the official questions I could come down to the last 2 choices. But I was not able to select the correct one.

For the most of the SC questions that I was getting correct I did not have a solid reason to justify why my answer choice was correct and the same was the case with the incorrect choices. Somehow, reading the explanation was very boring and I avoided the same. Also, I was not familiar with some of the grammatical terms and hence I would not understand the explanation.

For the Quant Section:

1. I did not time myself while solving the questions. While solving questions on the e-gmat Scholarnium platform some question would take as much as 4-5 minutes to solve. I thought since I was learning this was okay. I was atleast improving the accuracy. But this proved to be quite detrimental on the test day.

2. The second mistake was I was not good at calculations. I was getting simple calculations like multiplication and division incorrect. For most of the questions my logic was correct but many a times my calculations were incorrect.

I would have to use a pen and paper to get the answer to questions like 15X12. So that took a lot of time while solving the questions.

3. I avoided studying topics that I was not good at. For eg: Sets, Probablity, Permutations and Combinations, etc. And some how felt on the test day I would get easier questions on these topics.

Finally, I felt some magic would happen and I would get my desired score of 740+. But, that magic did not happen. I know that I was not prepared. And I was avoiding giving mocks which was a clear sign that I was not prepared. But I kept on deceiving myself into believing I would still get a good score.

Kindly let me know what is the best course of action I can take to improve my score and application.

sonalchhajed2019 · Answer

Hi,

Thank you for replying.

For Quant I did check a concepts for the questions that I was getting incorrect. But I wouldn't say that I followed this strategy for every question. Infact for most of the questions I did not.

For Verbal, I did not analyse and hence did not work on the concepts. My verbal preparation was doing the e-gmat verbal course and solving the questions.

The mistake was not analysing the questions. Infact, for the SC questions that I was getting right I did not have a solid reason as to why the selected option was correct. It was like this looks like to the most correct option and that is how I had prepared.

Please let me know how do I move ahead from here. I was to apply for the fall of 2019. And HAAS school of business is my target.

Kindly let me know.

Thank You
Sonal

EMPOWERgmatRichC · Answer

Hi Sonal,

GMAC has publicly stated that the Official Score that you earn on Test Day is within +/- 30 points of actual ability. Your 2 Official Scores show that you essentially performed the same each time (about 550 +/- a few points). Regardless of how much you may have practiced and the number of questions you may have worked on for your second attempt, you 'responded' to the GMAT in the same general ways as before. You've defined some of the likely issues with your prior studies, but to raise a 550 to a 740+, you'll have to make significant improvements to how you handle BOTH the Quant and Verbal sections. Thankfully, the GMAT is a consistent, predictable Exam, so you CAN train to score at a higher level. However, that type of training will likely require at least another 3 months of consistent, guided study.

1) What are the exact Round 2 application deadlines for each of the Schools that you plan to apply to?
2) Going forward, how many hours do you think you can consistently study each week?

GMAT assassins aren't born, they're made,
Rich

sonalchhajed2019 · Answer

Hi Rich,

Thanks a lot for your reply. I have just checked the round 2 deadlines of all the B-schools I wish to apply to.

1.Haas - Janurary 10 
2.Darden - Janurary 5 
3.Yale - Janurary 7

I understand that I would need a systematic approach and a lot of improvement in both the sections. How do you think I should prepare ?

As stated earlier getting a very GMAT score is my no.1 priority. What many hours would be necessary ? And what it that I should be doing ?

Waiting to hear from you.

Warm Regards, 
Sonal

EMPOWERgmatRichC · Answer

Hi Sonal,

To hit your Goal Score before the Round 2 deadlines that you listed, you are going to have to be really efficient with the next phase of your studies. You'll likely find it beneficial to invest in GMAT Course of some type (either Guided Self-Study or instructor-led), so you should plan to look into the available options. Most GMAT Companies offer some type of free materials (practice problems, Trial Accounts, videos, etc.) that you can use to 'test out' a product before you buy it. We have a variety of those resources at out site (www.empowergmat.com). I suggest that you take advantage of all of them then choose the one that best matches your personality, timeline and budget.

If you have any additional question, then you can feel free to contact me directly.

GMAT assassins aren't born, they're made,
Rich

sonalchhajed2019 · Answer

Dear Rich,

Thanks a lot for your email. I already bought the subscription of e-gmat course. I have been using the same for the past one month.

I don't know how far investing in other course would help.

I want to know given the situation I am in what study method would suit me the best ? What would be the best materials to practice ?

Thanks, 
Sonal

ScottTargetTestPrep · Answer

Hi givinggmat,

I’m sorry to hear how things have been going with your GMAT. The main thing that jumps out to me regarding your post is that for your second attempt, you focused on solving questions but managed only a V23/Q43. So, what does that mean? Well, it’s clear that by jumping straight into practice, you never fully learned the quant and verbal fundamentals needed for a high GMAT score. Thus, to improve your GMAT score, you must follow a linear study plan that allows you to slowly build mastery of one GMAT topic prior to moving forward to the next. Within each topic, begin with the foundations and progress toward more advanced concepts. To accomplish this, consider using a resource that allows you FIRST to learn the concepts and strategies related to quant and verbal and SECOND to practice with a large number of realistic questions.

For example, if you are learning about Number Properties, you should develop as much conceptual knowledge about Number Properties as possible. In other words, your goal will be to completely understand properties of factorials, perfect squares, quadratic patterns, LCM, GCF, units digit patterns, divisibility, and remainders, to name a few concepts. After carefully reviewing the conceptual underpinnings of how to answer Number Properties questions, practice by answering 50 or more questions just from Number Properties. When you do dozens of questions of the same type one after the other, you learn just what it takes to get questions of that type correct consistently. If you aren't getting close to 90 percent of questions of a certain type correct, go back and seek to better understand how that type of question works, and then do more questions of that type until you get to around at least 90 percent accuracy in your training. If you get 100 percent of some sets correct, even better. Number Properties is just one example; follow this process for all quant topics.

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.

Follow a similar routine for verbal. For example, let’s say you start by learning about Critical Reasoning. Your first goal is to fully master the individual Critical Reasoning topics: Strengthen the Argument, Weaken the Argument, Resolve the Paradox, etc. As you learn about each Critical Reasoning question type, do focused practice so that you can track your skill in answering each type. If, for example, you get a weakening question wrong, ask yourself why. Did you make a careless mistake? Did you not recognize the specific question type? Were you doing too much analysis in your head? Did you skip over a keyword in an answer choice? You must thoroughly analyze your mistakes and seek to turn weaknesses into strengths by focusing on the question types you dread seeing and the questions you take a long time to answer correctly.

When practicing Reading Comprehension, you need to develop a reading strategy that is both efficient and thorough. Reading too fast and not understanding what you have read are equally as harmful as reading too slow and using up too much time. When attacking Reading Comprehension passages, you must have one clear goal in mind: to understand the context of what you are reading. However, you must do so efficiently, so you need to avoid getting bogged down in the details of each paragraph and instead focus on understanding the main point of each paragraph. That being said, do not fall into the trap of thinking that you can just read the intro and the conclusion and thereby comprehend the main idea of a paragraph. As you read a paragraph, consider how the context of the paragraph relates to previous paragraphs, so you can continue developing your overall understanding of the passage. Furthermore, as you practice Reading Comprehension, focus on the exact types of Reading Comprehension questions with which you struggle: Find the Main Idea, Inference, Author’s Tone, etc. As with Critical Reasoning, analyze your incorrect Reading Comprehension answers to better determine why you tend to get a particular question type wrong, and then improve upon your weaknesses. Keep in mind that GMAT Reading Comprehension passages are not meant to be easy to read. So, to better prepare yourself to analyze such passages, read magazines with similar content and style, such as the Economist, Scientific American, and Smithsonian. 
 
Sentence Correction is a bit of a different animal compared to Reading Comprehension and Critical Reasoning. There are three aspects to getting correct answers to GMAT Sentence Correction questions: what you know, such as grammar rules, what you see, such as violations of grammar rules and the logic of sentence structure, and what you do, such as carefully considering each answer choice in the context of the non-underlined portion of the sentence. To drive up your Sentence Correction score, it is likely that you will have to work on all three of those aspects, and it is also likely that your Sentence Correction performance has not improved because you have not been working on all three of those aspects. 
Regarding what you know, first and foremost, you MUST know your grammar rules. Let's be clear, though: GMAT Sentence Correction is not really a test of knowledge of grammar rules. The reason for learning the grammar rules is so that you can determine what sentences convey and whether sentences are well-constructed. In fact, in many cases, incorrect answers to Sentence Correction questions are grammatically flawless. Thus, often your task is to use your knowledge of grammar rules to determine which answer choice creates the most logical sentence meaning and structure.
 
This determination of whether sentences are well-constructed and logical is the second aspect of finding correct answers to Sentence Correction questions, what you see. Likely, the main reason that Sentence Correction has not "clicked" for you is that you have not put enough work into developing your skill in seeing what is going on in the various versions of the sentence that can be created with the answer choices. To develop this skill, you probably have to slow way down. You won't develop this skill by spending under two minutes per question. For a while, anyway, you have to spend time with each question, maybe even ten or fifteen minutes on one question sometimes, analyzing every answer choice until you see the details that you have to see in order to choose the correct answer. As you go through the answer choices, consider the meaning conveyed by each version of the sentence. Does the meaning make sense? Even if you can tell what the version is SUPPOSED to convey, does the version really convey that meaning? Is there a verb to go with the subject? Do all pronouns clearly refer to nouns? By slowing way down and looking for these details, you learn to see what you have to see in order to clearly understand which answer to a Sentence Correction question is correct.
 
There is only one correct answer to any Sentence Correction question, there are clear reasons why that choice is correct and the others are not, and those reasons are not that the correct version simply "sounds right." In fact, the correct version often sounds a little off at first. That correct answers may sound a little off is not surprising. If the correct answer were always the one that sounded right, then most people most of the time would get Sentence Correction questions correct, without really knowing why the wrong answers were wrong and the correct answers were correct. So, you have to go beyond choosing what "sounds right" and learn to clearly see the logical reasons why one choice is better than all of the others.
 
As for the third aspect of getting Sentence Correction questions correct, what you do, the main thing you have to do is be very careful. You have to make sure that you are truly considering the structures of sentences and the meanings conveyed rather than allowing yourself to be tricked into choosing trap answers that sound right but don't convey meanings that make sense. You also have to make sure that you put some real energy into finding the correct answers. Finding the correct answer to a Sentence Correction question may take bouncing from choice to choice repeatedly until you start to see the differences between the choices that make all choices wrong except for one. Often, when you first look at the choices, only one or two seem obviously incorrect. It may take time for you to see what you have to see. Getting the right answers takes a certain work ethic. You have to be determined to see the differences and to figure out the precise reasons that one choice is correct.
 
To improve what you do when you answer Sentence Correction questions, seek to become aware of how you are going about answering them. Are you being careful and looking for logic and details, or are you quickly eliminating choices that sound a little off, and then choosing the best of the rest? If you choose an incorrect answer, consider what you did that resulted in your arriving at that answer and what you could do differently in order to arrive at correct answers more consistently. Furthermore, see how many questions you can get correct in a row as you practice. If you break your streak by missing one, consider what you could have done differently to extend your streak.

As with your Critical Reasoning and Reading Comprehension regimens, after learning a particular Sentence Correction topic, engage in focused practice with 30 questions or more that involve that topic. As your Sentence Correction skills improve, you will then want to practice with questions that test you on skills from multiple Sentence Correction topics.

In order to follow the path described above, you may consider using an online self-study course, so take a look at the GMAT Club reviews for the  best quant  and  verbal courses .

You also may find it helpful to read this article about
 how to score a 700+ on the GMAT .

Feel free to reach out with any further questions.

Good luck!

AjiteshArun · Answer

Analysis is critical. It's what helps you understand what went right, and (perhaps more importantly) what went wrong, so that you can work on your weaknesses. By the way, analysis does not have to be limited to the questions you got wrong. And whether something just "looks" right is not good enough

You need to get into the reasoning involved. Otherwise, you'll be doing the same thing during your exam: marking whatever looks right, without really being sure of your answers.

sonalchhajed2019 · Answer

Hi,

After almost 2 years of studying for the GMAT I appeared for an Online GMAT. Below is the score report. When I appeared for the exam on the 6th I wasn't very sure of the sentence correction part. Infact I had not studied sentence correction much. I wasn't very confident about the same. And that's the reason I think I got a low verbal score.

I am planning to give the GMAT again in the next 15 days after preparing enough for the sentence correction. Since this was an Online GMAT I do not have access to the ESR. What do I need to do to make sure that in the next 15 days I am able to improve enough to get a V40 - V41 on the GMAT verbal. I am also a bit scared that I what if I am not be able to replicate the Quant performance the next time I give the test. I have exhausted almost all the official tests. And I have also given the tests by Manhattan, Veritas and Kaplan. How should I be studying for the next 15 days.

Please guide

Thank you 
Sonal

GMATWhizTeam · Answer

Hi Sonal,

First of all, congrats for improving your score to 680. But I understand that you wish to improve further. Before suggesting you how to improve your verbal score, I would like to know your approach towards solving questions. That is, whether there is any flaw in your approach or are you using the right methods to solve questions.

I suggest that we get in touch over a call to discuss the same. This will help me analyze your way of solving questions and based on that suggest you the further plan. You can use the below link to get in touch with me.

Click here to schedule a call

ScottTargetTestPrep · Answer

Hi Sonal,

Improving by 7 verbal points in just 15 days is a pretty tall order. Is there a particular reason why you must take the GMAT in 15 days? In any case, here are two very helpful articles that you can read regarding how to improve on RC and SC.

GMAT Sentence Correction: 8 Essential Tips

GMAT Reading Comprehension Tips: Top 8 DOs and DON’Ts

sonalchhajed2019 · Answer

Thank you for your reply. I have scheduled the call for Dec 12th. Thanks for your reply. The reason that I think improvement is possible in 15 days is I know that my weakest area is Sentence Correction. And I had not revised the topics well. I feel that I am doing fairly well in the RC and CR sections. And I feel that if I am able to do considerable improvement in the SC section I would be able to get my desired score.

GMATWhizTeam · Answer

Great Sonal! As you are clear with your weak areas, it makes our discussion really effective. We will work out a clear study plan so that you can utilize your time in the best way possible. Looking forward to interact with you.

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