GMAT Debrief: Road from 670 to 720

GMAT Debrief: Road from 670 to 720

Hi All,

I am writing this blog for 2 reasons – 1. To give hope to those who are stuck in the 670-700 range and can’t seem to get out, and 2. To give general study tips for getting to 720.

Background:
I am a Business Major student from a school in the US – and I have been working at a technology company for the last 4 and a half years. I started prepping for the GMAT last fall (August 2015). I started by taking the Manhattan Prep GMAT class – which I think really helped me understand the basics and the tips & tricks. After taking this prep class and studying for another two months, I took the GMAT for the first time in December 2015.

Test # 1: December 2015

Prep Materials:
• Manhattan Prep Course (the group course)
• Manhattan Prep Strategy Guide’s – 2016
• Official Guide 2016 + Verbal and Quant Reviews
• Kaplan Premier 2016
• Official Guide 12th Edition + Verbal and Quant Reviews

How I prepped:
As stated previously, I enrolled for the Manhattan Prep Course. The HW and the course overall gave me a better understanding of the concepts and some of the tips/tricks. After the course was over, I re-did all the homework assignments, and started doing every question in the OG, and reviews.
• Daily Prep: 10-15 questions/day
• Weekly Prep: 1 practice test
• Last two weeks before exam: 2 tests/week (4 total)


Test Day:

My test was at 4pm. I had no idea what the test center would be like, so I got there early. (I later found out that GMAC has a tour of the test center on YouTube.) I knew I wasn’t going to give much focus on the AWA or the IR, so I went through both of them pretty fast, and took a quick break right before the quant section.

The quant section started off well, and I was ahead on time throughout the first half of the section. About halfway through the quant, I got stuck on a question, and ended up spending 7+ minutes on it. Despite being completely thrown off with time and rushing through, I completed the section just in time

Verbal section – Since most of my study focus was on the Quant, I did not give much importance to the Verbal, and went through the section quickly. As the end of the exam was approaching and I knew my score was a few buttons away, my concentration began to shift. I did not finish as strong as I could have. I was somewhat content with scoring a 670, but I knew I would have to do it again.

Result: 670/82% Q44 V38


Test # 2 – August 2016

Prep Materials:
• Same books as above
• Kaplan GMAT 800 book
• MPrep Video Lesson

How I prepped:
I had taken a few months off after my first test (which turned out to be a bit of a mistake as I had forgotten some of the tips/tricks).

Since I realized that improving my verbal even slightly could increase my score by a significant amount, I decided to focus a lot more of my preparation on the Verbal than the Quant.

I started off by going through all the MPrep Video lessons for Sentence Correction, and doing the related homework. I showed slight improvement in Sentence Correction, but unfortunately I did not focus enough on CR or RC. Once again, I went back to doing multiple practice tests. I continued to show slight improvement on tests – scores started averaging between 680-710. During my last week of studying, I did 2 tests (official GMAT – got a 670 and a 710), and I was confident I could get above a 700 (my target score).

Day Of:
I finished the AWA and IR very quickly. The Quant started off strong, but I got stuck with a question in the middle and ended up rushing through the early 2nd half. My last 5 questions seemed really easy, so I thought I had really screwed up. I just wanted to get through the rest of the test, so did not take a break (critical mistake)

About halfway through the Verbal, I wanted to use the bathroom, but still decided to finish the first part of the exam. Anxiously waiting to see my score, I lost concentration towards the end of the section.
Got the result screen – was expecting 670-690, but got a 640. I cancelled the score.

Result: 640/71% Q47 V31 (Cancelled)


Test # 3 – November 2016

Prep Materials:
• Same books as above
• Veritas Prep Sentence Correction (1&2) & World Problems Books
• Veritas Proper Sentence Correction Youtube video (Free)
• Downloaded of the Advanced Quant ebook from Manhattan Prep
• Official Guide 2015 (but did not really use either)

After my second attempt I realized I needed to focus, go back to content, and not let previous questions or sections get to my head. I went back through to every Manhattan Prep online video lesson, redid all the homework to make sure I understood the content, and had a strategy for every kind of question. I also attended a free Kaplan online class (they have them from time to time) on CR mastery. I think the most useful online lesson I saw was the Veritas Prep YouTube video on Sentence Correction – Veritas’ strategy for SC was very different from Manhattan – it was a focus on logic and meaning vs actually knowing every single grammar rule. I think this helped a lot, because SC questions now became a more logical decision, as opposed to a grammatical decision. I also bought the Vertias SC and Word Problems books (used) – I liked the format of the Veritas books over the Manhattan ones, as the Veritas practice questions are more similar to actual GMAT questions, whereas Manhattan has more drill-like questions. I also hired a tutor for a few sessions (Stuart Park from simply Brilliant – who I strongly recommend) – he was extremely helpful in getting me ready for the test in terms of overall strategy, reviewing concepts I was weak in, and also for specific more difficult questions. I started maintaining an error log – every practice test that I did, I would take a note of any question that I got wrong, any question that I knew I guessed and got right, and also any question I spent too much time on (>3min) and got right. The log included what the topic of the question was, what level it was (Manhattan and Veritas tell you the rough range), and also why I got it wrong (for instance, did I forget that variables could be 0 or negative or non-integers?), etc. The error log helped identify recurring weaknesses – which I could then focus on and make sure that I didn’t make those again. Finally, after doing a bunch of practice test, my advice is that you really can’t tell how well a test is going – every time I felt like I did terrible on the Quant, I ended up getting a 48-50, and sometimes when I felt it went well I would get a 44/45 – so the moral is that you really cannot tell how a test is going – the best thing you can do is move on, focus on the next question/section and DO NOT LOOK BACK. Don’t worry if you have or have not gotten certain types of questions, if you know you got your last question wrong – there is nothing you can do about it. You can make up for that mistake by getting the next question right.


Day Of:

• Took an earlier test this time (noon) – got to my center early and did the test early. Was in a good mood – kept telling myself it was going to go well and that I had this.
• Finished the AWA quickly – took some time towards the end of the AWA to gather my thoughts before submitting the essay.
• Moved on to the IR – again, wrapped it up quickly, there was one multi-source analysis question which looked slightly complicated, so I decided to just guess it (ended up getting a 7 in IR)
• Quant Section – started off really strong, questions seemed easy, was far ahead on time – around the 15th question I started taking more time on ever question – just to make sure I was right (they started getting more difficult but not impossible) – because of this I was just about caught up with time by the 25th question. I ended up spending 5 minutes on the 25th question – and still couldn’t get to the answer, but I figured I already wasted 5 minutes it was best to just guess. Had to rush through the next few questions, finished the last question with about 15 seconds to spare. I ended the section thinking I definitely could have done better but it still went OK – and more importantly I have to focus on the Verbal section as that would make or break my score.
• Verbal section – went pretty well (I had always been good with time on the Verbal so was never worried about that). As I got towards the end I started spending more and more time on every question as I knew those were the ones that mattered the most. Every time I worried about the score, I would calm myself down, think straight and not think about the result.
• Wrapped up the section a few minutes early – went through the next few screens and was very relieved to see my score – 720.

Result: 720/94% Q48 V 41

My advice to get to 720:
• If you are constantly scoring between 650-700 on practice tests –I strongly recommend going back to the content. Look through every subject once again and just make sure you know how to attack every question you see. Every question on the GMAT covers a specific topic – if you feel like you have never seen that before, then you have not identified it correctly.

• Maintain an error log – absolutely must do – this helped me immensely in understanding why I was getting certain questions wrong and what general mistakes I was getting wrong (things like – when it is not explicitly stated – variables can be 0, negative, non-integers, etc). Make sure you make a note about why you got the question wrong and more importantly come back and do the question over and over again until you can do it under 2 minutes.

• Verbal Section – best advice is to think of this as a reasoning / logic question – and not a grammar test. This helped me a lot personally as I did not know all the grammar rules. For CR questions you absolutely need to read the question first, and then the statement and then answer it.

• Quant Section – stay focused, stay calm, and trust your preparation. You need to be confident that you have all your bases covered (if you are not – then would suggest postponing the test). This will really help your confidence. Remember that every Quant question is designed to be solved within 2 minutes, and if you can’t solve it in about 3, you will likely not get it right – just guess and move on. There were questions on my first test that I knew I could get right and I spent 5+ minutes – but then I didn’t have time to do other questions, the point is – the GMAT does not test IF you can do a question, it’s a test of how you can manage your time and allocate resources efficiently – one question cannot make or break your score.

• Most importantly, no matter what happens on the last question, or the last section – you need to move on and look forward. Dwelling on the last question/section can severely affect your mindset and you can end up with a much lower score.

Resources/Free Online tools I recommend:

GMAT Tour of test center (by GMAC) - YouTube
Veritas Prep Sentence Correction Lesson (Youtube)