GMAT CAT EXAMS of VERITAS and STUDY PLAN

This may sound counterintuitive, but you should try to focus on "enjoying" the learning and test taking experience, instead of thinking of a (lower) target score. Your target score of 500s is just about the average, which means that you are almist sure to score in thet range. To score higher into the 600s, you would need to master your verbal section.

You can try structured courses, but I feel that your time would be better utilized by learning with the official guides. The OG has plenty of good summaries of rules and techniques. If you intensely devote yourself here, you may be able to raise your score in verbal in the two months you have available. It is doable.

Again, do not focus on the score. Focus on the positive aspects of the test experience. GL!

Hi ngocnguyen2410,

While you can take certain practice CATs/mocks more than once, you should NOT plan to do so - since you would likely see some 'repeat' questions that you would already know the answers to. Unfortunately, seeing even a couple of repeats can 'throw off' the Scoring Algorithm and impact your pacing, energy levels, fatigue, etc. (meaning that they would likely all appear to be better than they actually are). Thankfully, beyond the 6 Official CATs, the CATs from Kaplan, MGMAT and Veritas are all 'close enough' to the real thing that they will provide you with a relatively realistic score assessment (assuming that you correctly take the CAT in a realistic fashion). Thus, you are not in any immediate danger of running out of reputable CATs; that having beens said, to properly train for the GMAT, you should plan to take each CAT in a realistic fashion (and not waste any of that practice material).

Beyond that, a Goal Score of 600+ is certainly realistic given the timeframe that you have described. 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:

Studies:
1) How many hours do you typically study each week?
2) What study materials have you used so far?
3) What Schools are you planning to apply to?

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

Hi,

Thank you for your reply. As you suggest, I'll save all the CAT tests when I'm fully ready.

I already started GMAT from the beginning of August this year, but at a slow pace. During August, I only dedicated 2-3 hours/day, and 2-3 days a week, and I was kinda drowned with all the material. I pushed myself again in September, I bought an online course in my native language, I think it helps me quite a lot with Quant, but Verbal is still my problem. I already solved half of the OG 2019, and now, I'm reading Manhattan Verbal books to improve my score. I always find troubles in RC because I read quite slowly, and time management is also one of the weaknesses.
I'm not in the U.S, I live in Europe and I'll apply for a business school here. Their requirements are not super high, as they said min 550 for GMAT, but I hope I can score higher than that to make sure I get a place there.

Hi ngocnguyen2410,

Taking practice CATs/mocks at regular intervals is an important part of the overall training process; since you're still in the early phase of your studies, you should plan to take a new CAT every 2 weeks or so- and make sure to take each one in a realistic fashion (take the FULL CAT - with the Essay and IR sections, take it away from your home, at the same time of day as when you'll take the Official GMAT, etc.).

1) In your last post, you mentioned that you were enrolled in a course. Is that course still running or have you completed it?
2) What 'steps' do you go through when dealing with a typical RC, SC and CR prompt?

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

Hello,

Thank you for the advice, that would help me a lot!
1) I enrolled for a course, it provides me with video materials about all the subjects and it lasts for 6 months. I still followed some exercises and videos from there to improve my Quant. Other than that, I rely heavily on GMAT OC.
2) When I do the mock test, I feel like I cannot control my time, especially with Verbal. I know I can have an answer but it takes me almost 3 mins to get one. I tried to improve SC and CR cuz I think they are the most improvable parts. RC is my nightmare, it's pretty hard for me to understand the whole passage in one-time reading, and I think my most failure comes from RC.

Hi ngocnguyen2410,

From your last post, it does not sound as if you are approaching the Verbal section with a consistent set of Tactics - so you end up dealing with each individual question on a case-by-case basis (re: using whatever 'default approach' that you think is best). The Verbal section of the GMAT is as consistent and predictable as the Quant section is, but Verbal questions have no 'safety net' - meaning that if you make a little mistake or miss a vital piece of information, then you will convince yourself that one of the wrong answers is correct (and not realize it). This is meant to say that you CAN train to score higher in the Verbal section. In addition, you do NOT need to correctly answer ANY of the hard/weird questions to hit your Score Goal, but you will have to keep the little mistakes to a minimum on all of the 'gettable' questions.

You might naturally improve as you continue to study, so I suggest that you continue to study as you choose for the rest of this week and then take a NEW CAT this weekend - and make sure to take it in a realistic fashion (take the FULL CAT - with the Essay and IR sections, take it away from your home, at the same time of day as when you'll take the Official GMAT, etc.). Once you have that score, you should report back here and we can discuss how best to proceed.

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

Hi njocnguyen2410,

Although you can take some GMAC practice exams multiple times, since you will see repeated questions when repeating the tests, I recommend taking each test only once. Furthermore, I would hold off taking any further practice exams until you have sufficiency completed the “learning phase” of your quant and verbal prep. Since you scored V16 on your most recent practice test, you clearly need to make some major improvements in verbal in order to hit your score goal. Here is some advice you can follow to improve your verbal skills. I’ll start with CR.

When learning about Critical Reasoning, your first goal is to fully master the individual topics: Strengthen the Argument, Weaken the Argument, Resolve the Paradox, etc. As you learn about each question type, do focused practice, so that you can track your skill in answering each type. If, for example, you get a weakening question wrong, ask yourself why. Did you make a careless mistake? Did you not recognize the specific question type? Were you doing too much analysis in your head? Did you skip over a keyword in an answer choice? You must thoroughly analyze your mistakes and seek to turn weaknesses into strengths by focusing on the question types you dread seeing and the questions you take a long time to answer correctly.

When practicing Reading Comprehension, you need to develop a reading strategy that is both efficient and thorough. Reading too fast and not understanding what you have read are equally as harmful as reading too slow and using up too much time. When attacking Reading Comprehension passages, you must have one clear goal in mind: to understand the context of what you are reading. However, you must do so efficiently, so you need to avoid getting bogged down in the details of each paragraph and instead focus on understanding the main point of each paragraph. That being said, do not fall into the trap of thinking that you can just read the intro and the conclusion and thereby comprehend the main idea of a paragraph. As you read a paragraph, consider how the context of the paragraph relates to previous paragraphs, so you can continue developing your overall understanding of the passage. Furthermore, as you practice Reading Comprehension, focus on the exact types of questions with which you struggle: Find the Main Idea, Inference, Author’s Tone, etc. As with Critical Reasoning, analyze your incorrect Reading Comprehension answers to better determine why you tend to get a particular question type wrong, and then improve upon your weaknesses. Keep in mind that GMAT Reading Comprehension passages are not meant to be easy to read. So, to better prepare yourself to analyze such passages, read magazines with similar content and style, such as The New York Times, Scientific American, and Smithsonian.

Sentence Correction is a bit of a different animal compared to Reading Comprehension and Critical Reasoning. There are three aspects to getting correct answers to GMAT Sentence Correction questions: what you know, such as grammar rules, what you see, such as violations of grammar rules and the logic of sentence structure, and what you do, such as carefully considering each answer choice in the context of the non-underlined portion of the sentence. To drive up your Sentence Correction score, you likely will have to work on all three of those aspects.

Regarding what you know, first and foremost, you MUST know your grammar rules. Let's be clear, though: GMAT Sentence Correction is not really a test of knowledge of grammar rules. The reason for learning the grammar rules is so that you can determine what sentences convey and whether sentences are well-constructed. In fact, in many cases, incorrect answers to Sentence Correction questions are grammatically flawless. Thus, often your task is to use your knowledge of grammar rules to determine which answer choice creates the most logical sentence meaning and structure.

This determination of whether sentences are well-constructed and logical is the second aspect of finding correct answers to Sentence Correction questions, what you see. To develop this skill, you probably have to slow way down. You won't develop this skill by spending less than two minutes per question. For a while, anyway, you have to spend time with each question, maybe even ten or fifteen minutes on one question sometimes, analyzing every answer choice until you see the details that you have to see in order to choose the correct answer. As you go through the answer choices, consider the meaning conveyed by each version of the sentence. Does the meaning make sense? Even if you can tell what the version is SUPPOSED to convey, does the version really convey that meaning? Is there a verb to go with the subject? Do all pronouns clearly refer to nouns? By slowing way down and looking for these details, you learn to see what you have to see in order to clearly understand which answer to a Sentence Correction question is correct.

There is only one correct answer to any Sentence Correction question, there are clear reasons why that choice is correct and the others are not, and none of those reasons are that the correct version simply "sounds right." In fact, the correct version often sounds a little off at first. That correct answers may sound a little off is not surprising. If the correct answers were always the ones that sounded right, then most people most of the time would get Sentence Correction questions correct, without really knowing why the wrong answers were wrong and the correct answers were correct. So, you have to go beyond choosing what "sounds right" and learn to clearly see the logical reasons why one choice is better than all of the others.

As for the third aspect of getting Sentence Correction questions correct, what you do, the main thing you have to do is be very careful. You have to make sure that you are truly considering the structures of sentences and the meanings conveyed rather than allowing yourself to be tricked into choosing trap answers that sound right but don't convey logical meanings. You also have to make sure that you put some real energy into finding the correct answers. Finding the correct answer may take bouncing from choice to choice until you start to see the differences that make all choices wrong except for one. Often, when you first look at the choices, only one or two seem obviously incorrect. Getting the right answers takes a certain work ethic. You have to take the time to see the differences between answers and to figure out the precise reasons that one choice is correct.

To improve what you do when you answer Sentence Correction questions, seek to become aware of how you are going about answering them. Are you being careful and looking for logic and details, or are you quickly eliminating choices that sound a little off, and then choosing the best of the rest? If you choose an incorrect answer, consider what you did to arrive at that answer and what you could do differently to arrive at correct answers more consistently. Furthermore, see how many questions you can get correct in a row as you practice. If you break your streak by missing one, consider what you could do differently to extend your streak.

As with your Critical Reasoning and Reading Comprehension regimens, after learning a particular Sentence Correction topic, engage in focused practice with 30 questions or more that involve that topic. As your skills improve, you will want to practice with questions that test you on skills from multiple Sentence Correction topics.

You also may find it helpful to read the following article about The Phases of Preparing for the GMAT.

Feel free to reach out with any further questions. Good luck!