Frustrating Plateaue at "Very Hard" Questions

Question

Hello, I previously sat for the GMAT in 2023 and scored a 640 (Q45, V32). Back then I only used free resources and OG. For the past 2 months, I have been preparing for the GMAT with Magoosh subscription. After completing the lessons, I would practice the recommended questions.

Across the 4 difficulty levels there, I am really struggling with the "very hard" questions. I have gone through all the learning materials and I am consistently getting the hard questions correct without any guesswork.

The magoosh analytics tool is estimating my score to be in the 575-615 range, while my target score happens to be 675+. The struggle is significantly more in the verbal section. I have attached the estimated scores across sections as well.

Any suggestion on how I can break this plateau I have been stuck at for the past two years?

HarshaBujji · Answer

Try to improve your accuracy without timing the questions initially. It will help to build your accuracy then concentrate on timing once you hit 80-90% accuracy.

Archit3110 · Answer

Give official mocks check preparation stage you are at.. use GC quiz & tests

Theorist · Answer

Do the schools differentiated between candidates wrt which exam they choose to give GMAT FE vs GRE ?
Does your choice of exam also affect the amt of scholarship you are able to bag from the respective b-schools ? 
Which out of the two is easier to score in provided one has very less time left to prepare for the exams ?

Theorist · Answer

Do the schools differentiated between candidates wrt which exam they choose to give GMAT FE vs GRE ?
Does your choice of exam also affect the amt of scholarship you are able to bag from the respective b-schools ? 
Which out of the two is easier to score in provided one has very less time left to prepare for the exams ?

TechKnight · Answer

I am having to employ this strategy in case of very hard questions. However, the questions seem very unique and each one requires a very specific approach to solution.

hr1212 · Answer

I would advice you to not waste too much of your effort on very hard questions. In the real test, even if you get a perfect score, you will hardly see 3-5 very hard questions. And even if you get all of this wrong, there's a high chance you will reach your desired score.

The real game here is to not loose points on your easy/med questions. I wouldn't rely on Mangoosh analytics to predict your score, instead try attempting Official Mocks and understand where you are really struggling. Once you break down your scores, you will identify that in most of the cases, getting a very hard question was never the issue as the penalty is very little on those questions. But it might either be the concept gap or timing issues with relatively easier ones.

If I were in your shoes, I’d focus on mastering what I already know rather than stressing too much about the ultra-difficult questions.

TechKnight · Answer

Thank you for the suggestion. I did take the official mock five weeks back and the result really rattled me so I didn't utilize the insights from there. Scored a 615 with Q83, DI80, and V79. The verbal is most definitely the weakest part where I am struggling with timing the most. To put things into perspective, I got only one answer right in the last 7 questions. Any other suggestion based on the additional information?

bb · Answer

Wow. 2 years!

I think focusing on getting easy and medium questions well is spot on. Often the strategies for addressing different difficulty questions are different, quite different, and thus it is not worth chasing all and esp harder ones.

I think it is good you are using Magoosh - it is a comprehensive course that should get you where you need fast. But the key is for you to digest what you are seeing and not moving past a topic unless you are hitting about 9 out of 10 easy questions and perhaps 8/10 medium. If you are not hitting these targets you should ask yourself why not as you should be and diagnose the "why not"?

TechKnight · Answer

Thank you for the suggestion! While chronologically my involvement with GMAT has been for a long time, I have been actively preparing for it since late July of this year.

As seen in the screenshot I provided, my aggregate easy and medium question accuracies are 96% and 85% respectively. However, some topics are dragging the average down. That is something I will be taking more care of.

With concentrated effort, I have seen some improvement in quant and DI. However, I am yet to notice a similar change in verbal. With concentrated effort, how big of a jump in score can I achieve in 5 weeks?

bb · Answer

For verbal, my improvement in accuracy and speed came from following strategies for critical reasoning and reading comprehension. There are some important steps such as knowing what answer is needed for each particular question type such as how do assumption questions or must be true questions work but once you know that, the main next step is to apply consistent approach such as for critical reasoning for example answering questions in your own words.

But because critical reasoning and reading comprehension is so different I wouldn’t clump them up into a single verbal category. There’s nothing really similar between them so treat them separately

ScottTargetTestPrep · Answer

Hi TechKnight,

Since verbal is an issue for you, here is some advice, you can follow to improve your verbal skills.

To increase your verbal score, you must identify your exact weaknesses, fill in any knowledge gaps, and strengthen your skills. The overall process will be to find weaker areas, learn all about how to answer questions of types that you aren't that comfortable with now, and do dozens of practice questions category by category, basically driving your score up point by point.

For example, assume you begin studying Critical Reasoning. Your first goal is to master the individual Critical Reasoning topics: Strengthen the Argument, Weaken the Argument, Resolve the Paradox, etc. As you go through the questions, do a thorough analysis of each question that you don't get correct. If you missed a Weaken question, ask yourself why you didn't get it right. Did you make a careless mistake? Did you not recognize what the question was asking? Did you skip over a key detail in an answer choice? Getting GMAT verbal questions right is a matter of what you know, what you see, and what you do. So, any time that you don't get one right, you can seek to identify what you would have had to know in order to get the right answer, what you had to see that you didn't see, and what you could have done differently to arrive at the correct answer.

Regarding RC, when students get those questions wrong, it’s partly because they don't truly understand what they have just read. To understand what you are reading, you may have to slow down even more (for now) in order to eventually speed up. You have to learn to comprehend what you read, keep it all straight, and use what you are reading to arrive at correct answers.

At this point, your best bet is to focus on getting the correct answers to questions, taking **as much time as you need** to see key details and understand the logic of what you are reading. If you don't understand something, go back and read it one sentence at a time, even one word at a time, not moving on until you understand what you have just read. There is no way around this work. Your goal should be to take all the time you need to understand exactly what is being said and arrive at the correct answer. If you can learn to get answers taking your time, you can learn to speed up. Answering questions is like any task: The more times you do it carefully and successfully, the faster you become at doing it carefully and successfully.

Another component to understanding what you are reading is being “present” when reading. Don’t worry about how things are going at work, or what you will eat for dinner, or even how long you’re taking to read through the passage. Just focus on what is in front of you, word by word, line by line. Furthermore, try to make reading fun. For example, even if you are reading about a topic that bores you, pretend that you are the person making the argument. By doing so, you will make the passage more relatable to YOU, and ultimately you should be able to read with greater focus.

One final component of Reading Comprehension that may be tripping you up is that RC questions contain one or more trap answers that seem to answer the question but don't really. So, a key part of training to correctly answer RC questions is learning to notice the differences between trap answers and correct answers. You have to learn to see how trap answers seem to follow from what the passages say, but don't really, while correct answers fit what the passages say exactly. Of course, the better you become at noticing the differences between trap answer choices and correct answers, the faster you will answer RC questions.

Here is also a great article that you can check out:

How to Score High on GMAT Verbal on the Focus Edition

TechKnight · Answer

Thanks for the detailed guideline. I definitely have to incorporate a lot of these tips into my approach to answering questions.

Another thing that I wanted to know- in my last attempt back in 2023, I went through the 2022-23 OG. This time around, I haven't really gone through the 2025-26 OG. Should I do it? If so, how should I approach it as I am still planning to apply in round 2.

anushree01 · Answer

yeah I agree, this worked for me too!

ScottTargetTestPrep · Answer

Hi TechKnight,

Before jumping to any further conclusions, why don't you take an official practice test to see where you stand?

TechKnight · Answer

Hello, everyone. A bit of a late update, but I am in the last mile of my prep.  I really need some expert advice as I will be taking the test by the end of this month . With roughly 25 hours or prep time remaining, I need some guidance on how to improve my chances towards reaching my target score.

The following has been my performance on official practice tests.

Official Practice Test 1 on August 23, 2025: 615 (Q83, V79, DI80) (Sequence Q-V-DI)
Official Practice Test 2 on October 11, 2025: 595 (Q78, V80, DI80) (Sequence Q-V-DI)
Official Practice Test 1 on December 14, 2025: 555 (Q81, V76, DI75) (Sequence Q-DI-V) (Got absolutely decimated and I don't know whether it was fatigue or the change in sequence)
Official Practice Test 2 on December 15, 2025: 635 (Q82, V80, DI82) (Sequence Q-V-DI) (Reverted to previous section sequence. Took this 12 hours after the previous one after a night long sleep. Somehow, I started seeing repeat questions from the previous day's test 1 and deliberately marked them the same as I did in the previous test.)

Following are some of the issues I have been able to identify. Requesting some expert advice on these and anything else that I might be missing out on.

1. Pacing is one thing I am struggling with a lot. The idea that missing early questions will decimate my score is making me spend way longer in the initial questions- to the point I am just randomly selecting answers in the last 3-4 questions on both Verbal and DI, and 1-3 in quant.

2. Another major struggle has been verbal in timed conditions. I get upwards of 70% correct in CR when untimed. However, in the timed tests, the accuracy is dropping significantly- around 50%. Reading a bit slower and taking notes on RC has helped me with accuracy. However, rereading questions on CR is proving to be a challenge.

3. While GI, TA, DS have been okay, MSR and TPA have been major challenges for me. The accuracy on MSRs have been hit or miss for me depending on the question. However, TPA is where I truly lose it. I guessed most of the TPAs in my last two official practice tests. In fact, in the last attempt where I got DI82, I got total 6 incorrect in DI, 4 of which were the last 4 questions in the section- all TPA.

4. As for quant, I have gone through the basic concepts of quant from multiple sources- books, 2 prep courses, and GMATClub videos. Nevertheless, I am getting 4-8 questions wrong on a regular day (Q83, 82, 81) and 9 on a bad day (Q78).

ScottTargetTestPrep · Answer

If you hit a score plateau, your move is to look for new levers to pull. For example, you may need to find new practice techniques, such as  the Streaks Method  to boost your GMAT score. Or you may need to learn to solve questions in new ways. For example, perhaps you’ve emphasized using orthodox methods to answer Quant questions. It may help to work on finding more creative paths to correct answers.

To find new levers, try new prep resources or read debriefs from people who have scored 705+ on the GMAT. I’ve seen people use everything from reading coaches to hypnotherapy to increase their GMAT scores.

Here’s the key: something will work. Something will have a new impact that will result in your GMAT score increasing.

If you’ve been practicing in one way, practicing in a new way will make a difference. If  test anxiety  or a  negative mindset  are holding you back, work to address them. If your reading speed is too slow, practicing by reading articles or working with a coach will speed you up. Your performance will improve, and your GMAT score will increase because effective preparation works.

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