Bombed the GMAT - Looking for Guidance

Question

Some might be able to relate to this particular scenario... Mediocre prep for approximately 30 days, focusing more on CAT exams than actually studying, walking into the testing center cocky and walking out mentally crying. The GMAT now owns me because I let it destroy me.... I completely ran out of time and had to guess 12 problems on Quant and 8 problems on verbal.... I am a sllllloooww test taker..

Manhattan GMAT CAT - 420 Q35/V14 YIKES!!
Veritas Free CAT - 500 Q34/V26
GMAT Prep CAT - 550 Q43/V23

So my thought process... After reading about the CAT exams supposedly being more difficult than the actual GMAT I should surpass the 600 mark... I was wrong... Completely and embarrassingly wrong. Lets just say I bombed the actual GMAT to the point that I would have done better just randomly guessing.

My intention was to always take the GMAT twice due to getting test anxiety and knowing that I would do better the second time. Now I am rethinking the entire prep process. At this point, I need to reevaluate my plan and would appreciate some insight from the 700+ club.

Current Materials - 
MGMAT Sentence Correction (Skimmed through the book)
OG GMAT REVIEW 12th Edition (Worked through some quant problems randomly)
GMAT Official Guide 2018 (Didn't open it)
McGraw Hill's 2011 GMAT (Skimmed through a section)
Kaplan GMAT Premier 2010-2011 (Didn't open it)

Please critique my plan.

Narrow in study materials to MGMAT and OG-2018
Purchase the entire Manhattan GMAT series. Is there any difference in version material? Going to Half Price Books to save money...

Quant -
I assume the consensus among those that score extremely high on quant is to get the fundamentals down then repetition.
I would like to break down each section of quant - IE Geometry.. Probability.. Number Properties ETC. and focus on questions per subject to increase my speed. Any input here would be great.

Verbal -
I am a native English speaker so I was thinking verbal would be an easy task. I didn't study for it at all (other than the completely cat exams). Looking back I believe I could improve the most on my score improving verbal. But how do you study for this?

Sentence correction, I randomly looked at the problems and went with the answer that sounded right. Most of the time I could narrow it down to two answers and I would go with one, 50/50 right?

Reading Comprehension, how do you study "reading a paragraph" and answering questions about it? Obviously, I am missing something here because it is burning me.

Critical Reasoning, this is pretty easy for me and I typically go with what makes sense. I typically do well on these questions; however, at the 600-700+ level not so sure.

IR - This kicks the absolute crap out of me... On the practice CAT's, I typically only get 5 questions right out of the 12. How does the IR section impact the overall score? Any insight on this?

AWA - I structured this as an introduction paragraph stating 3 issues with the argument, 3 body paragraphs detailing the issues, and a conclusion with my final thoughts. Is this acceptable?

Any insight is appreciated. I plan to take the GMAT again in March to make round 3 deadlines. My goal is to hit 600+, but 700+ would be nice as well. Looking to get into a top 20 program.

Thanks for your help!

GMATPill · Answer

If your goal is 600 - make sure you are at least able to reach your target score during practice before walking into the exam room. If you can't even get 600 during practice - why bother walking into the exam?

You can't just expect to magically get there on exam day.

So build that confidence during your studies - let that incremental confidence give you the speed and confidence to mark answers and then move onto the next one - so that you won't run out of time.

It may also be helpful for you to look at how others approach the same questions so you can see things from a new perspective.

Try this: https://www.gmatpill.com/sentencecorrect ... ythons.mp4

You can learn more about us at https://www.gmatpill.com/testimonials

EMPOWERgmatRichC · Answer

Hi RollingGMATDice,

I'm sorry to hear that Test Day didn't go as well as hoped. Thankfully, Business Schools generally don't care if you take the GMAT more than once - and now that you've faced the Official GMAT, you know exactly what goes into "Test Day", so you can better train to face everything on your next attempt. All of that having been said, you'll have to take this next phase of your studies a lot more seriously than you took the initial attempt. Thankfully, the GMAT is a consistent, predictable Exam, so you CAN train to score at a higher level.

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:

1) What was your Official GMAT Score (including the Quant and Verbal Scaled Scores)?
2) What Schools are you planning to apply to?
3) What are the exact application deadlines for each of those Schools?
4) Going forward, how many hours do you think you can consistently study each week?

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

AjiteshArun · Answer

You should be fine using the earlier editions. The concepts tested on the GMAT haven't changed.

Yes, you should work on the basic concepts first. There are prep books targeted at building basic skills, but you could even use free resources available on the internet.

The whole "native" bit is part of the marketing of certain test prep companies. Whether a test taker is a native speaker or not has very little to do with how he or she should prepare for the GMAT.

There are a lot of concepts that you should work through, so that you don't have to resort to "sound" as often.

You can't. Make sure that you practice a lot and analyze everything you're reading. Take notes if that helps you.

Don't worry too much about higher difficulty questions just yet. Try to go step by step.

IR does not impact the overall score at all. It might be used by schools, but I think it has much importance.

It's fine. In fact, it's more than what most people would do. What was your AWA score?

R3 isn't normally a good option. If you do go ahead with it, just be open to applying again. An application that works for R1 might not work for R3.

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