6 months of studying with no results.

Question

I started my gmat classes in june, I kept studying for 2-3 hours daily,

I got good at verbal but was struggling with quant,

I had planned to give the exam in October but realized I am not prepared at all,

I then started studying from scratch again,

My classes are over now (they were literally of no use I feel because they were too advanced and never covered basics)

I studied the basics in the month of november for almost 80% of quant topics,

I am now practicing questions from OG & gmat club,

I can solve 600-700 level questions (struggle a bit with time)

700 level questions 60% I can solve,

Gave my first mock last weekend and got 370 which is pathetic after all the time I have put in,

Now I have finally decided to give the exam on 31st Jan or 14th feb (the 2 dates available in 2 months)

What do you suggest? I have already invested 6 months into this while others have aced the exam in 2-3 months.

I am at a point where I feel stuck.

Manat · Answer

can someone please answer? I took another mock test today scored even worse on quant.

u1983 · Answer

Hello Manat .... the first step would be finding out the week areas and work on them to improve. Please donot get me wrong .....but,unless something really went wrong ...... 370 means ... you need to start almost from scratch. Please go through the link below , you will have a fair idea how plan & proceed.
https://gmatclub.com/forum/gmat-study-p ... ml#p605856

Hope it helps!!

CAMANISHPARMAR · Answer

I understand that this could be very frustrating.

I would like to make following points after reading your post:-

1) Firstly GMAT is different from other school/college exams. GMAT is a reasoning test. Familiarize yourself with the question types and how to approach them. Don't compare your self with others. You might have seen some cracking this exam in few days while other might take years to crack this exam. There are many factors like your background, how good you are at reading, how good is your foundation knowlege etc.

2) Which prep company did you join?

3) Which mock did you give?

4) Are you maintaining an error log?

Kindly answer these questions & give a mock test. Once you share your results of the mock test & answer these questions then we could help you with other questions which you have asked in this forum.

All the very best!!

Manat · Answer

Hi, thank you for replying. I joined jambhoree for my coaching. I gave the offical free mock at gprep and a jambhoree mock, scored exactly 370 both the sundays. I have started again from scratch, when i analyse the mock, i feel i knew this but i made a silly mistake or i ran out of time. I am maintaining an error log but don’t really know the purpose or how to use it.

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Gladiator59 · Answer

Also  Manat , regarding the available dates. Keep checking the site, it keeps changing based on cancellations and all. So the available dates might be more if you check in a few days.

Best
Gladi

Manat · Answer

u1983   CAMANISHPARMAR   Gladiator59  Hi Just wanted to update everyone. I have been studying the basics and taking two topics per day & practicing 600-700 level questions on the forum, i was able to achieve 90% accuracy though i am not using the time tracker for now. I released another thing that once i am able to understand what the question wants me to find, i can easily solve it, so the problem lies in reading and understanding the question in 30 seconds, as i'll only have 2 minutes per question (fyi im taking 3-3.5 mins currently approx) . Will practice improve my speed to read & understand quant questions or i need to do something else? Planning to give another mock on Sunday.

CAMANISHPARMAR · Answer

You may try the trial versions of other prep companies. For error log: check out this link - https://gmatclub.com/forum/importance-o ... 68428.html

CAMANISHPARMAR · Answer

Yes, reading is one of the most important skills on GMAT. If you read carefully and comprehend what you are reading then this solves most of your problems. I would advise you to spend some time with sub-600 level questions as well. If you get all the sub 600 level questions right then you score will shoot up from 370 to 550+.

Also its okay if you take 2.5 - 3 mins on few questions provided you are able to solve few questions in less than 1.5 mins.

Do share your mock experience. All the best!!

Manat · Answer

u1983 CAMANISHPARMAR Gladiator59 Hi Good morning, i gave the mock today and im so happy. I got Q41 & V29. Im so happy with quant, I know my verbal score is bad but i know i can improve it, it was better in all the prevision test. Solving 600 level questions indeed helped me alot. I gave the Manhattan CAT & got 580, I skipped IR & AWA, had i not skipped IR, would i have got a higher score than 580? just curious. Thank u all again, u saved me.

CAMANISHPARMAR · Answer

Hi Manat Good progress! Happy to know that you are so happy with these improvements. Just few pointers:- 1) Your verbal score is better than your quant score. Kindly refer about "What Your GMAT® Percentile Ranking Means" on this page:- https://www.mba.com/exams/gmat/after-th ... means#tab3 Q41 means you did better than 41% of the candidates on the Quant section of GMAT where as a V29 means you did better than 56% of the candidates. Having said that you should aim to improve on both the sections as their is a huge scope for improvement. Since you are dedicated and committed towards studies with consistent efforts you should get there!! 2) Skipping IR and AWA sections do not affect your Quant and Verbal and overall score out of 800. Hope this helps!! Keep up the good work and all the best!!

Manat · Answer

u1983 CAMANISHPARMAR Gladiator59 merry Christmas to all of you. Had an off from work today, so decided to give the Kaplan free mock, scored 660 today with a Q43 & V38. I am very satisfied with the progress. Going to relax the afternoon and analyse the mock in the evening. Once again merry Christmas and a happy new year to everyone

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Gladiator59 · Answer

Merry Christmas to you too my friend.

Happy holidays.

Best,
Gladi

Manat · Answer

u1983   CAMANISHPARMAR  @Gladiator59:-Hi Guys, i gave the gmat club quant CAT, scored a Q35, is that really bad? I found some questions to be a bit difficult

These are the stats

RESULTS BY DIFFICULTY

500 Level-83% correct
600 Level-64% correct
700 Level-8% correct

u1983 · Answer

Hi  Manat  ....... adjectives are subjective.

But anyways ........ looking at your score......(if you are targetting Q49-50ish), I would try to get at the split-level below at GCTests :
500 Level >90%
600 Level >80%
700 Level >70%

But I would not go for 700levl now. I would rather concentrate on 600 level at GC Club practice and try to get my accuracy >85% there within 2 min limit. If you can achieve that you will see you are already at least at 30-50 % accuracy range for 700 lvls

Hope this helps

Manat · Answer

u1983   CAMANISHPARMAR   Gladiator59  -I gave the offical gmat free test 1, i had given it the first time and scored 370 (dec 03), this time i reset the exam and saw only about 3-4 repeat questions, so i got a 560 on this one (dec 30), scored a Q39 & V28.
Now in verbal i fell short of time, because of which i could 5 questions straight wrong.

Quant-14 incorrect questions
Verbal-17 incorrect questions.

Suggestions please guys?

Finished with the Verbal analysis,

I bifurcated the questions i got wrong in 2 categories

1.The ones i did within time 
 SC:-3 Wrong
 CR-3 Wrong
 RC:-5 Wrong

2. The ones i skipped due to shortage of time
 SC:-2 Wrong
 CR-0
 RC:-Skipped the last 3 questions in the RC para, so 3 wrong.

Quant Analysis

14 incorrect

1. The ones i did within time

Exponents:-3 wrong
 Statistics:-3 wrong
 Progression-1 wrong
 Geometry-1 wrong
 Algebra-1 wrong
 Speed & rate:-2 wrong
 Venn:- 1 wrong
 
2.The ones i skipped due to shortage of time

02 incorrect.

u1983 · Answer

Hi  Manat  ....... I would not concentrate much on the number of Qs I got wrong... I would concentrate on why I got them wrong and learn from the mistakes. Btb..... You are really making good progress ..... really happy for you.
And one more thing... RC is a very important piece in Verbal ( so do not miss any of it... if you get some of them wrong, though not advisable, is still ok)

All the best.

Darshi04 · Answer

Hello Manat You've received some really valuable advice from many people here already. I just want to add something that has helped me personally (and not necessarily will help you, but you may meditate over this). I am in a similar condition as you (confident about improvement in verbal, but gradually improving in quant with practice). My scores are similar to yours. There's 1 difference. I'm not giving mocks at all right now. I gave one 3 months back with a score of 530 or so. It was with only 3-4 days of studying. What I realised then is that scores can be improved with targeting 1 sub-section at a time. E.g HCF-LCM in Number properties, then Divisibility and Remainders, etc. >>So here's what I'm doing: I achieved accuracy of 85% in 600 level questions of 1 sub-section and then another 3-4 days of practise (sometimes more) and error analysis to achieve 70-80% accuracy in 700 level questions. ONLY at this stage, do I move to the next sub-section and then I take an assessment of mix 600 and 700 level problems of the main section (e.g Number properties) using GMAT Club questions. Then repeat the process with Algebra. What I found is that I am really confident in facing tough Number Properties questions now. So when they turn up in my mock test later, I'll be better equipped to handle them. Same should happen with Algebra, etc. The point is to be absolutely thorough with one topic and only then move to the next one. It's a little time consuming in terms of "Oh it has been 10 days and I'm still doing number properties", but the process has been worth it for me and I feel I'm improving the quant score dramatically. You may try this method and see how it works for you. This method was recommended to me by e-gmat, which as they claim, is proven amongst thousands of 99%ile scorers. I'm simply following what successful people do and SO FAR I am extremely satisfied. I'll give the mock only once I'm at 80%+ accuracy in 600 and 700 level Qs, so that there's lesser chance of disappointment - and all I'll have to work on is time management then.

The point is to leave the mocks for later and use practice questions to figure out where you're going wrong and absolutely hammer the right concepts and approach in your head. Hope this helps.

Manat · Answer

Darshi04  hi thank you for the help. I’ll definitely make up a plan to follow your advice. The only problem is my exam date is in 40 days, so I won’t be able to start each topic from scratch, however i will certainly do the weak topics as per your advice. Thanks again ?, wish you a happy new year.

Also you helped me out, i want to as well, give your mocks, i made this mistake because that helps you understand the pattern of the exam, for ex how many RC’s your gunna get, what DS questions you get? I knew the concepts but i screwed up when i was faced with a timer on my head and an actual test like feeling really helps. Hope you get a 700+ all the best.

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Darshi04 · Answer

Manat I give my exam in 30-40 days as well (with the same story of original plan to give it by end of Dec., but later realising that this will take more time). So yeah, we can do it. I do get 5-6 hours a day to study so may be that helps. I think since you've already been preparing for quite some time, you know where you can get 50% accuracy, where 70% and where 80%. I guess divide the time accordingly. Do get in touch if you need a hand with anything. It could help me as well to learn from your experiences.

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