590 (Q37 V34) w/ ESR: What is my problem?

Hi gmatser,

To start, we have to ignore your last two CAT scores - they were retakes of CATs that you had already taken and you skipped the Essay/IR sections - thus, those scores were almost certainly significantly 'inflated.' Prior to those 2 CATs, the last realistic CAT that you took was back in JANUARY. It's not perfectly clear what you did during your studies in the prior 9 months, but without taking realistic, FULL-LENGTH CATs, you weren't properly measuring your progress and you likely were not properly focusing on the areas that you needed to focus on.

GMAC has publicly stated that the Official Score that you earn on Test Day is within +/- 30 points of actual ability. Assuming a similar 'swing' in how your CATs function, your CAT score results show a general ability in the low-600s (with 660 at the upper end of your 'range' and 590 at the lower end). To score at a much higher level, you will need to make some significant improvements to how you handle BOTH the Quant and Verbal sections.

Considering your score goal, you will likely need at least another 2 months of consistent, guided study. You will also likely need to invest in some new practice materials and learn/practice some new Tactics. Thankfully, the GMAT is the same consistent predictable Test that it's always been, so you CAN train to score at a higher level.

1) Do you know when you will deploy?

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

Rich,

Thanks for the candid advice. I've been reading a lot about practicing GMAT strategy and a lot of folks here say "work on your weaknesses." This makes sense given the adaptive nature of the GMAT and how it tries to find your weakness. However, in the very next sentence, everyone says to work on your weakness you need to just redo problems by keeping an error log. This is exactly what I tried to do. Yes, it felt like memorizing the problem. Was I doing it wrong? Should I have tried to generalize about the concepts? It's hard to when the concepts seem so specific to every problem, except for like venn diagrams and probability.

1) I deploy next month and come back in May. I'm not sure how much time I'll have but I obviously can't take a prep course while I'm deployed. I might be able to study a little bit though.
2) Why are my current prep materials insufficient? I'm using the same as many others, but I'm not using them in the right way I think.

If you look at my ESR, you'll see I actually got 86% of the medium questions right, but then collapsed on the last difficulty. I think the last difficultly was the same as the first? Not sure what that means.

Hi gmatser,

Based on everything that you've described, your situation is such that you're probably not going to be able to hit your score goal in the near term. There's not enough time to study before you deploy, and you won't be able to study much while you're deployed - we can't change those factors, so we have to try to plan around them. Like most skills, GMAT skills fade over time, so you'll likely need to start almost 'from scratch' when you get back from deployment. Thankfully, you'll likely have retained some of your skills and the Round 1 deadlines in 2017 are far enough off that you'll have plenty of time to study, take the GMAT and work on your applications before the deadlines hit.

At this point, we have to think in terms of the skills that you can hone until you get back from deployment - areas that won't require lots of long-term, concentrated study. With a Q37, you would have made a bunch of little mistakes throughout the section - and those mistakes could be due to a variety of issues - 'math' mistakes, incomplete knowledge, dis-organized work, etc. For free math practice and help, I recommend that you set up an account at Khan Academy (www.khanacademy.org). The site is completely free and makes the learning a bit more fun and 'game-like' (as opposed to the dry academic approach taken by most books). While the site is vast, you should limit your studies to basic Arithmetic, Algebra and Geometry. Having stronger overall math skills should make it easier for you to focus on Tactics and pattern-matching later on. In the Verbal section, your pacing in all 3 major categories (SC, RC and CR) was 'off', which implies that there is room for improvement in your grammar/idiom knowledge (for SC) and your note-taking skills (for RC/CR). You can work on each of those skills in 'small chunks' while on deployment.

As far your current study materials are concerned, you've used them long enough that you've probably gotten as much out of them as you could. Continuing to studying in the same ways as before, with the same materials as before, is likely not going to get you to your goal score. 'Your way" of approaching this process has gotten you to this 'level', but you'll need to make some fundamental changes to get to the next. Unfortunately, the big steps probably can't happen until next May, so you'll have to work on the little ones until then.

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

Hi Rich,

Thanks again for all your help. You are very truly a linchpin for this forum.

You mention how in my Verbal section my timing is off, can you explain how? My timing for Verbal overall was 1:47, I thought I was right on track? My SC was in the 79th percentile, how do you know my problems are idioms? Since my ESR shows a 33 CR and 28 RC I'll try to work on those both. That frustrates me because even in my raw mocks I was scoring high in Verbal at 38/39, but my SC was only at 37. So something is missing there. Do you have any recommended materials for Verbal?

Also, my Math PS 35 and Algebra / Geometry at 30 were horrible. However, DS 43 and Arithmetic 44 were ok. Do you have any recommended resources for PS and Algebra / Geometry? Why am I decent at DS and Arithmetic but not Algebra / Geometry? I know PS is more error prone for small mistakes and I do have that problem.

Hi gmatser,

When I noted that your timing was 'off' in the Verbal section, I was referring to the average amount of time that you spend on each SC, RC and CR prompt. You're spending too much time on your CRs and SCs (on average), which means that you have less time than you need to properly deal with RC. While there are practice materials that I would recommend that you use for BOTH the Quant and Verbal sections, I don't think that you'll have the necessary time to properly use them while you're on deployment (they would require a more consistent study routine than you've stated that you probably would not be able to maintain). You should be able to hone your general math and verbal skills during that time though.

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