450 first mock score HELP NEEDED for five weeks strategy

I’m sorry to hear how things have been going with your GMAT. Since your latest GMAT score is 450, you clearly lack the foundational skills you need for a high score, right? Moving forward, make sure that you follow a study plan that allows you to learn GMAT quant and verbal from the ground up. In other words, learn each GMAT quant and verbal topic individually, and then practice each topic until you’ve gained mastery. Let me expand on this idea further.

Let’s say you are learning about Number Properties. First, 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 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 New York Times, 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.

Regarding what you know, first and foremost, you MUST know your grammar rules. Let's be clear, though: GMAT Sentence Correction is not just a test of knowledge of grammar rules. The reason for learning 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. To develop this skill, you probably have to slow way down. You won't develop this skill by spending less than 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 answers were always the ones 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 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 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 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!

Hi Nitishnautiyal,

To start, a CAT/mock is really a 'measuring device' - when used correctly, it will give you a realistic score and help define your strengths and weaknesses, but it will NOT help you to fix any of those weaknesses. To raise your scores, you have to learn the necessary Tactics and put in the proper practice and repetitions. The CAT will show you whether your studies are helping you to improve or not. As such, you really shouldn't take more than 1 FULL CAT per week.

While I have no doubt that you've worked through lots of practice questions over the last couple of months, it's not clear HOW you were working through them. A 650+ Score is currently a bit below the 80th percentile (meaning that most Test Takers will not score that high on the Official GMAT). By extension, raising a 450 to the point that you can consistently score 650+ will likely require at least another 3 months of consistent, guided study - and 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, but your current timeframe gives you less than 2 months of study time so you might need more time than you have currently allotted.

Before I can offer you any additional advice for your studies, it would help if you could provide a bit more information on your timeline and your goals:

1) What Schools are you planning to apply to?
2) What application deadlines are you currently facing?

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

First of all I would really like to thank rich and Scott for taking out the time to write such lengthy as well as custom strategy specific notes for me , I cannot appreciate how much this means to me , I am printing out what Scott said and going to read this everyday before bed , I have spent considerable amount of time studying concepts for verbal but I honestly think it’s the approach more than anything , I still have 1/2 quant concepts to finish like geometry etc , I did the egmat for verbal which helped clear concepts I guess or rather made me aware of what the concepts are , I am also feeling a bit dumb , but I wish to overturn this by putting in hardwork . I wish to apply and start my mba by jan 2021 and looking for schools In Singapore namely SMU NUS INSEAD ESSEC AND NTU AS WELL , my profile is entrepreneurial setting up two businesses from scratch in fitness centres and a fitness atheisurewear brand I just need a good gmat is what I feel to prove to the business schools I am worthy as my undergrad is not the best either . I haven’t renewed the egmat course but I have bought 15mocks from expertglobal and the gmat club subscription for practise , I made some really good notes with the egmat so I think that can help me with revision conceptually and careful analysis of each question should make some improvement , with math so far I have a friend who goes over each topics with the entire scope of that topic for example numbersystem he taught the topics and then there are some 26 questions that he made me practise which covers basically all the types of questions that can come and the rest is just upto me to practise , hope this might be enough

I’ll start my pre right away , with the correct focussed effort and hardwork I hope to increase my ability , i really hope I can achieve this as I have take. The whole exam personal now as a point to prove , even if I take longer than expected like let’s say April do you think it might be too late for the mba program and that I’ll have to wait another year ?
I am 28years old turning 29 in March and I am kind on the edge which is maybe making me
More stressed and not letting me able to concentrate on the exam , I have always been making short term goals like I need a score in two months etc and putting pressure on myself aligning this with my life long vision and career growth and what not which I feel is making me
More clogged and stressed and not letting me see things clearly despite putting in 5-6 hours a day

Thanks everyone and thank you sooo much Scott for such a detailed personalised strategy I can’t thank you enough

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Hi Nitishnautiyal,

Since you know the specific Schools that you plan to apply to, you would likely find it beneficial to speak with an Admissions Expert about your overall profile and plans. Those Experts should be able to answer your Admissions questions and help define the specific areas of your profile that could use some improvement.

There's a Forum full of those Experts here:

https://gmatclub.com/forum/ask-admissio ... tants-124/

Beyond that, it's important to remember your REAL Goal: to get into your first-choice School. There is NO benefit to rushing in an application if it will not be strong enough to earn you an invite, so pushing back your applications (so that you can put together a stronger overall application) is not something that should be seen as negative. You are likely going to need at least another 3 months of additional study time to hit your Score Goal; if you can commit to that schedule, then there is a Study Plan that we can put together for you.

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

You must be having a lot of experience when you give those sorts of advice so I am sure your right

I am gonna move forward with a solid three month plan as well as also give an official gmat in feb which will just be like a mock just to get into the habit of test taking

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Hi Nitishnautiyal,

I’m always happy to help! Regarding your timeline, you may need more than 3 months to hit your GMAT score goal, so I agree that you shouldn’t rush the study process. Work hard, but go at your own pace. In other words, give yourself as much time as you need to master GMAT quant and verbal. If you have any further questions, feel free to reach out. Good luck!