Hey
AnandRB,
I'm so sorry to see that you haven't been able to get to your target score despite putting in so much effort.
I’m sure you’re aware by now that to answer the questions on the GMAT, you must possess a few
Core Skills. We need to ensure we have all the essential skills needed for each section of the GMAT in order to increase our score even further.
You were able to obtain a 640 because you have these abilities up to a certain extent. But refining these abilities is necessary to move on. It's critical to determine which of these abilities is the bottleneck keeping you from achieving your desired score. One of the most frequent causes for students' failure to break through their score plateau is that they work on the incorrect skills.
To understand how you could achieve a 740+ score, watch the below video where I explain your next steps in detail and also share my analysis of the ESR:
AnandRB_GCResponse - Watch Video
Here’s a summary of the video:- The major reason behind your low score in verbal is CR. So, most, if not all, questions that you got incorrect were from CR. This could be because of not having strong conceptual knowledge and/or your methodology for CR not working out for you.
For SC and RC, since you’re not very confident, there is a chance that you were only tested on some of your strong areas of these 2 subsections in your GMAT. However, there could still be lingering weaknesses that need to identified and fixed.
- Revise the concepts once you have identified your weaknesses. At this stage, it is very necessary for you to bridge all the underlying conceptual gaps. Go through Stage 1 using a fine-tooth comb, figuring out what you have not learnt and then take the remedial measures.
Stage 1 is the Learning Stage wherein you learn the different concepts and their application. For subsections where your score is below the 60th percentile, start your prep from this subsection. Successful completion of this stage demonstrates that you have reached between 50-60th percentile ability.
- You need to CEMENT your core skills for each subsection properly. This will help you identify all the underlying conceptual gaps, application difficulties, and time management related issues that you have. Once you have mastered the skills for one subsection, you can then move on to the next.
Stage 2, as we call the Cementing Stage, is where you cement your application skills for each sub-section in Verbal and each topic in Quant by solving medium and hard level questions and getting a good score consistently in a timed manner. For subsections where your score is between 60th to 80th percentile, spend a major proportion of your time and effort on this stage.
Here’s how you can create and attempt cementing quizzes:
- Each sub-sectional quiz should have a mixed bag of 10 questions solved first under relaxed timing (20 minutes) and then under standard timing (15 minutes).
- Start with medium difficulty. Proceed to hard once you have qualified 3 medium level cementing quizzes consistently.
- For each difficulty level- Medium or Hard, there is a clearly defined accuracy threshold.
- For a Medium Cementing Quiz, the cut-off is 70% accuracy and,
- For a Hard-Cementing Quiz, the cut-off is 50% accuracy.
For further understanding, click here to watch a video that explains the cementing process in detail.
Successful completion of this stage demonstrates that you have crossed the 70th percentile ability in each sub-section.
- Once you have successfully completed Stage 2 for all individual sub-sections, start with the Test Readiness Stage. Since this is the last stage, here the focus is on maximizing your score at Sectional Quizzes under proper test conditions. In this stage you will solve multiple cross-sub-sectional quizzes to build your stamina for the actual GMAT exam. You can also take a few full-length mock tests to assess your overall test readiness and identify any lingering weaknesses.
Successful completion of this stage demonstrates that you have reached the 91st percentile ability.
- Before your test, make sure you spend enough time on revising your notes and error logs. Make sure you review all your quizzes and mocks in detail to make sure that you got questions correct for the right reasons; and for the incorrect questions or questions where you took excessive time, try to figure the gaps and bridge those gaps.
Some Motivation for YouSince your target B-School is ISB read below about two such people who aced GMAT and achieved an admit at ISB:
- Learn how Aviral achieved a 750 and went on to secure an admit from ISB. GMAT' s proprietary methods to solve hard questions, data on weak areas in Scholaranium, and our top experts' strategy support helped him achieve this feat. Click here to watch his debrief.
- When you have a structured and methodical course, you need not worry about your tight work schedule. Learn how Anupriya leveraged GMAT Online course architecture and scored a 760 in her first attempt. Click here to watch her amazing video debrief. She secured an admit form ISB.
You can read more success stories of our students who got an admit from ISB here:
https://e-gmat.com/admits-scholarships/indian-bschool-admits/ I sincerely hope that you find this insightful and motivational. Feel free to reach out to us on
[email protected] if you need any help with creating an
actionable study plan for you to improve from 640 to 740+. Wishing you luck and success with your GMAT!
Best Regards,
Mansi