Requesting advice for a stressed test taker

Hi been having some trouble reconciling my gmat practice test scores with my studying. I’ve used Manhatten prep, TTP and the Official GMAT book to study and have scored 700 on 4 official practice gmat exams in the past. (My goal is 730+) However in preparing for my gmat I plan to take in the next two weeks I have taken a number of online gmat exams this week and my scores don’t feel like they make sense. I got a 680 and 660 on the official ones I took yesterday and today and a 620 on the MGMAT. Some of the questions I got wrong were due to silly mistakes and some were due to not having time in Quant. Any tips on why this is happening or ways I can improve my approach

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Need to practice various difficulty level questions using Forum Quiz functionality on GMATClub.

Finding shorter ways to solve questions, for example, by using the answer choices can be helpful sometimes. Plugging in "friendly numbers" can also be a nice way to solve certain questions.

How to get better at GMAT Quant. Pick numbers you can actually use.

How to get better on the GMAT. Note down your repeated careless errors.
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While memorizing the formulas for Quant may not be of much help, understanding the formula derivation basics will assist in solving the DS questions.

Hi Ari777.

Your score on the Manhattan test is likely lower than you'd score on the real GMAT. Those tests are known to produce lower-than-normal scores. So, the 660 and 680 you scored on your recent official tests likely more accurately indicate where you stand at this point.

To get to your 730+ score goal, you can work on quant in two ways.

One way is to continue to strengthen weaker areas. To strengthen a weaker area, review the relevant concepts and strategies, do practice questions in that area UNTIMED until you're achieving high accuracy, and then work on answering questions in that area faster until you're answering them at test pace while maintaining high accuracy.

The other way is to reduce the number of careless errors you make and improve overall accuracy. For a detailed discussion of how to do that, see this post.

Improving Your Accuracy on the GMAT
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Thank you, I definitely think I need that do you recommend any Data sufficiency formula breakdown sources?

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Hey Ari777,
I can understand what you are going through, I agree with what all the experts are saying above.
You can check The Ultimate Quant Megathread out: https://gmatclub.com/forum/ultimate-gma ... 44512.html for any formula related info.
When it comes to making silly errors, I would recommend that you take a minute and try to understand why the errors are happening? If it was because of time crunch, then efficiently managing your time makes sense, but if the mistakes were happening because you were losing focus than that's a problem.

Hi Ari777

Official mocks are the most reliable ones as they are believed to be the closest to the actual GMAT. Hence, they are considered to be the best indicators of your performance.

Don't feel demotivated. You have come a long way and you know it all. You should consider to spend more time on analyzing the solutions of the questions from the topics in which you are weak. By analyzing I mean, go through each step of the solution, identify the exact step at which you made the mistake, compare your approach with the right one and then learn the right approach.

Coming to time management, taking extra time to solve questions is a symptom and not the disease itself. Let me elaborate.

There are 2 things that you do while solving questions - 1. You think about how to solve the question and 2. You solve the question. It's the first point that eats up unnecessary time. Now how do you tackle Point 1. Most people think the best solution is by solving additional questions. It does help but sadly is not the most effective solution because by just practising more questions you end repeating the same mistakes. The better solution is to learn the right logical methods to solve questions and then master these methods with additional practice.

This should help. All the best!

Feel free to reach out in case you need any help with your prep. Would be happy to help!
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