530 - 660 - Goal 720

Question

Hi Everyone!

I am scheduled to test on November 17th. My goal score is a 720.

I started my studies back in June with a score in the low 400s (been a bit since I have taken a test!). From June to September, I focused on general review and moved up to a 620 during that time. Test day came, and I panicked - moved down to a 530 (V33/Q33). Neither score is where I want to be, so I refocused.

After taking several practice tests, I have had the following scores:

660: V41, Q38
610: V33, Q42
660: V38, Q42

When reviewing my performance over time, I see that I am consistently missing SC questions on rhetorical construction and parallelism. For Quant, my errors are integer questions and a mix of careless errors. I also realized that I need to have better test health (I need to eat before testing, for example!)

My question for you: What would be the best use of my time for these next couple of weeks? I have a flexible work schedule, so I can devote a good amount of time to ensuring that I have a good score. I know that I can get my Verbal score up with some concentration but feel like I am not sure what the best resources are.

Thanks everyone! I have been actively following this forum for the last six months and have found all of the postings to be extremely helpful.

EMPOWERgmatRichC · Answer

Hi WHT0,

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) What study materials have you used over the length of your entire studies?
2) How have you scored on EACH of your CATs (including the Quant and Verbal Scaled Scores for EACH)? Are any of these recent CAT Scores from CATs that you had already taken before?

Goals:
3) When are you planning to apply to Business School?
4) What Schools are you planning to apply to?

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

WHT0 · Answer

Hi Rich,

Thanks for responding!

Studies:
1) What study materials have you used over the length of your entire studies?
Khan Academy (review); Magoosh; Veritas, Official Guides 2018

2) How have you scored on EACH of your CATs (including the Quant and Verbal Scaled Scores for EACH)? Are any of these recent CAT Scores from CATs that you had already taken before?
Sorry not to be clear before. Here are my scores from my CATS

1. GMAT's CAT #1 610: V40; Q35 (8/11)
2. GMAT's CAT #2 530: V35; Q27 (8/18)
3. Official Exam: 530: V33, Q33 (9/15)
4. RETAKE GMAT's CAT #2. 660: V41, Q38 (10/13)
5. RETAKE GMAT's CAT #1. 610: V33, Q42 (10/20)
6. GMAT's CAT #3 660: V38, Q42 (11/3)

I also have purchased GMAT's CAT #4 and can go ahead and purchase #5 & 6 if necessary. It's funny because I used to be an English teacher and would have to analyze test scores as part of my job. Right now...I can't tell what the pattern is! But I do know on the tests that I scored better on, I only had two or three questions incorrect for the first ten.

Goals:
3) When are you planning to apply to Business School?
The hope was to be part of Round 2. I currently have the other parts of the application - essays, recommendations, resume - in progress and am not worried about completing those parts in time. I enjoy writing and vision setting, so the rest of the application is...fun?

4) What Schools are you planning to apply to?
I am looking into first schools in Chicago (Booth and Northwestern) and then to schools across the country with strong non-profit/public sector programs. I currently work in non-profit and would like to deepen those studies through an MBA. I had a 3.7 GPA for my undergrad and my first master's (in teaching).

Happy to answer any additional questions!

rohan2345 · Answer

Hi WHT0,

Since you only have a couple of weeks for your GMAT, if you are particularly looking to discover and improve on your weak areas in Quant; a subscription to GMATCLUB tests is the best way to do that. They are indeed phenomenal and will not only pinpoint your weak areas but also help you improve on them.

Further taking multiple mocks might help. Apart from the GMATPREP, Manhattan GMAT tests and Veritas Prep Tests in my experience have good verbal and Quant section and will certainly help you point out and improve your weak areas.

Further another advantage of taking many mocks is to build up your stamina. Apart from the GMATPREP tests, taking practise tests of any major GMATPREP company ought to do that.

Lastly I would also encourage you to purchase GMATPREP QP 1 for some great additional practice.

Hope this helps. All the best.

EMPOWERgmatRichC · Answer

Hi WHT0,

At higher-and-higher score levels, the GMAT becomes really 'sensitive' to little mistakes. Unfortunately, retaking a CAT that you've already taken will almost certainly lead to seeing repeat questions - and fewer opportunities for little mistakes to happen. Seeing even a few of those repeat questions will throw off the Score Algorithm as well as the 'realism' of the experience, meaning that your pacing, stress and energy levels will all be 'better' than they normally would be. Thus, we have to essentially ignore two of your CAT scores. By extension, I have a few additional questions about how you took your CATs:

1) Did you take the ENTIRE CAT each time (including the Essay and IR sections)?
2) Did you take them at home?
3) Did you take them at the same time of day as when you plan to take your Official GMAT?
4) Did you ever do ANYTHING during your CATs that you couldn't do on Test Day (pause the CAT, skip sections, take longer breaks, etc.)? 
5) Had you seen any of the questions BEFORE (re: on a prior CAT, in an online forum or in a practice set)?

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

WHT0 · Answer

Good questions!
1) Did you take the ENTIRE CAT each time (including the Essay and IR sections)?
Yes! My testing order is: Quant, Verbal, IR, Essay. I've been getting half right on the IR section and the essay...I feel very confident with. I think that the essay is fun to write.

2) Did you take them at home?
My first GMAT test day experience was horrible. The center was very loud with many people coming in and out. After that experience, I have been taking all practice tests at coffee shops.

3) Did you take them at the same time of day as when you plan to take your Official GMAT?
I am! My test is scheduled for 12:00 - practice tests have been at 12 as well.

4) Did you ever do ANYTHING during your CATs that you couldn't do on Test Day (pause the CAT, skip sections, take longer breaks, etc.)? 
I have not been skipping, extending, etc. with the practice tests. I have been drinking water, which I know is not allowed. I will stop that now.

5) Had you seen any of the questions BEFORE (re: on a prior CAT, in an online forum or in a practice set)?
I have reviewed the questions that I had on the various tests and have not had repeats (!). I think part of this is because the previous tests scores were not that good. I did have one of the same reading passages (Founding Fathers). The other reading portions were different. I have actively trying not to see questions on the forums or general internet, so I think that has helped.

I remembered today that my friend gave me her Manhattan GMAT prep materials, so going through those now. In those include paper versions of the GMAT - are those worthwhile in taking at this point in time?

Many thanks!

ScottTargetTestPrep · Answer

Hi WHT0,

I’m glad you reached out, and I’m happy to help. First off, improving from the 400s to the mid-600s is fantastic, so nice job so far! That being said, improving another 60 points to 720 in just 2 weeks will be a challenge. Are you able to take your GMAT at a later date? Either way, to achieve a 720, you will have to improve both your quant and verbal skills. I see that you have self-diagnosed a few of your quant and verbal weaknesses; however, I bet there are more that you are unaware of lurking in the shadows. After all, if your only issues were careless errors (in quant) and a few areas in Sentence Correction, you’d probably be scoring closer to your score goal, right?

You probably need to cast a wide net by going 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. 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.

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 and types that you would rather not see, and types of questions 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 verbal and quant materials, so take a look at the GMAT Club reviews for the  best quant  and  verbal courses .

You also may find my article with more information regarding
 how to score a 700+ on the GMAT  helpful.

Please reach out with any further questions.

EMPOWERgmatRichC · Answer

Hi WHT0,

I've sent you a PM with some additional notes and questions.

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

WHT0 · Answer

Hi Everyone,

Big update: After reflecting yesterday, I decided to reschedule my test. So, now I have a month - (December 10th) to grow my score.

So....what does that mean for me? Should I continue forward with the advice listed here? Should I take a different approach given the additional time?

Thanks everyone!

Sajjad1994 · Answer

Hi

In the last two weeks, you should better focus on your weak concepts. If you have already made en error log, track your mistake and review those concepts. Take CATs and review them. Make your Stamina for sitting 3 hours in the test and don't study more than 2 hours in one sit and 4 hours per day.

Top CATs for Practice

1. Official GMAC CATs
2. Manhattan CATs
3. Kaplan CATs

Good Luck

EMPOWERgmatRichC · Answer

Hi WHT0,

You didn't respond to the PM that I sent, but if you can provide that additional information then I'll be happy to help you put together a Study Plan for the next month.

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

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