Advice on a Study Plan for someone retaking GMAT (Quant focus)

Question

Hi All,

First, thank you for welcoming me to the GMAT Club. I first found the forum when I was searching for answers to some of the questions in the official GMAT prep. My aim is to get a score good enough to have me considered for scholarship funding.

I have been studying for about 4 months after signing up for the Magoosh GMAT - Premium + Live Classes and the Magoosh Admissions Support late last year. I completed this and also purchased official GMAT tests 1-4, which I did while doing the Magoosh course. I also have access to the GMAT Quant Review questions and I have quite a few questions left. My practice exam scores were as follows:

Practice Exam 1: 670 (Q46 V36 IR7)
Practice Exam 2: 680 (Q45 V38 IR 4)
Practice Exam 3: 680 (Q43 V40 IR 5)
Practice Exam 4: 700 (Q48 V38 IR 5)

Given my progress I thought I was ready for the exam, but after I completed the exam last week my unofficial score was 640. I can't remember what my section scores were but I can update when I get the official results.

My frustrations are that (1) I know that my weak area is quantitative but I seem to be hitting a wall, and (2) I did not anticipate exam anxiety. I've looked at a number of threads (650- 700+, two threads on improving quant score from 30 - 40+, 44 - 50) but it seems like I'm trying to drink water from a firehose. I have seen in one of the threads that it states that one should start from scratch with the fundamentals, so my question is, given what I have access to, how should I approach retaking the test? I don't have a hard deadline and I would prefer to spend 2 or 3 months to improve my quant score rather than just schedule another test in a month. Should I start from scratch and go over all of the fundamentals for the next few weeks before doing more questions?

GmatKnightTutor · Answer

Consider getting the ESR to get some data about the 640. Perhaps you notice something interesting in the sub-sections of Quant to work on. For Verbal, if you feel your fundamentals are solid, consider working on your solving approach. May boost your score a bit. This sort of learning doesn't necessarily have to take very long. Had a 6-hour student for example who went from a V41 to a V45 in about 10 days. Perhaps work with a study buddy who has strong Verbal skills. There's a thread on gmatclub to find one you may want to check out.

joohwangie · Answer

Do not start from scratch. ESR seems like a good option in your case. See where most of your mistakes are at is a good start.

MartyTargetTestPrep · Answer

Hi hugosroberts.

I agree that just scheduling a test for a month out doesn't make sense. You should schedule a test once it's clear you'll be ready to achieve your score goal on test day.

To develop your skills, you probably should start with review of fundamentals, but not all of them at once. Rather, it will work better to work on one topic at a time.

You can proceed in the following way for each topic.

- First, review the concepts and strategies the topic involves.
 
- Then, do practice questions involving that topic UNTIMED until you're achieving high accuracy
 
- Finally, work on reducing the time per question until you're correctly answering questions involving that topic at test pace

Then, move on to the next topic and do the same thing.

For more on how to master GMAT Quant, see this post.

How to Increase Your GMAT Quant Score: Top 25 Tips

Also, to learn how to increase your Verbal score into the 40s, see this video.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GyyPP9XQBxI

EMPOWERgmatRichC · Answer

Hi hugosroberts,

I'm sorry to hear that Test Day didn't go as well as planned - although a 640 is a solid overall Score. Your Official Quant and Verbal Scaled Scores are certainly relevant pieces of information, so once you have that data, you should post back here (you can also feel free to PM or email me directly). When these types of score drops occur, the two likely "causes" involve either something that was unrealistic during practice or something that was surprising (or not accounted for) on Test Day. Before we discuss any of those potential issues though, it would help if you could provide a bit more information on how you've been studying and your goals:

Studies:
1) Over the last 4 months, how many hours did you typically study each week?
2) Have you used any other study materials besides the course that you listed?
3) On what dates (or approximate dates) did you take EACH of your CATs/mocks?

Goals:
4) What is your overall goal score?
5) When are you planning to apply to Business School and what Schools are you planning to apply to?

If you took your Official GMAT at a Test Center, then you might also choose to purchase the Enhanced Score Report. While the ESR doesn’t provide a lot of information, there are usually a few data points that we can use to define what went wrong on Test Day (and what you should work on to score higher). If you purchase the ESR, then I'll be happy to analyze it for you.

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

Contact Rich at: [email protected]

hugosroberts · Answer

Hi All, thank you for the responses. I will be posting an update later today with more detail from the ESR.

ScottTargetTestPrep · Answer

Hi hugosroberts,

Marty provided some great advice. Here is some further thoughts on how to improve your GMAT quant skills.

To improve your quant skills, you may find it helpful to engage in topical quant practice.

For example, let’s say that you want to practice Number Properties. You can do so by answering 50 or more questions just from Number Properties: LCM, GCF, units digit patterns, divisibility, remainders, etc.

After each problem set, thoroughly analyze your incorrect questions. For example, 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 fix your weaknesses efficiently and, in turn, improve your GMAT quant skills. Number Properties is just one example; follow this process for all quant topics.

hugosroberts · Answer

Hi All,

I have taken in all of the comments and I've come up with a study plan. I have accessed my ESR and this has allowed me to identify my weak areas. I've broken Quant into 13 sections (General Math, Arithmetic & Fractions, Percentages & Ratios, Integer Properties, Algebra / Equations / Inequations, Powers & Roots, Geometry, Coordinate Geometry, Statistics, Counting / Sets / Series, Probability, Word Problems, Data Sufficiency) and I've formulated a schedule over the next 7 weeks where I will do each Quant section (or 2, if the sections are "short" like percentages & ratios plus integers) over 3 days (lessons --> review --> questions) with IR / AA / SC / CR / RC on weekends. The schedule will be 3 hours a day with double time on weekends. Weeks 1 - 4 will be review, weeks 5 - 6 will be questions and week 7 will be full exams. In addition to the tools I used before I will also be using the GMAT Ninja videos on review days.

Again, thank you for the responses. They helped me to come up with a concrete plan that I could commit to.

Advice on a Study Plan for someone retaking GMAT (Quant focus)

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