GMAT ESR Advice (610, Q46 V28)

Question

Hi, I'd like to ask for help from the experts who can give advice regarding my ESR, I took the GMAT about three days back and got 4 out of the 6 Official GMAT Prep Mocks within the 700 region. IR has consistently been 8/8 on all of the mocks. These mocks are as follows:

GMAT Prep 1: 670 (Q49/V32)
GMAT Prep 2: 700 (Q49/V37)
GMAT Prep 3: 650 (Q50/V28)
GMAT Prep 4: 700 (Q50/V34)
GMAT Prep 5: 700 (Q50/V34)
GMAT Prep 6: 700 (Q50/V35)

GMAT Official Score: 610 (Q46/V28/IR7)

Somehow, the quant section felt harder than the usual mock exams, with most question difficulties around the same as GMATClub's quant, and so I unfortunately rushed my last 8-10 questions given that I got stuck on some particularly difficult ones. However, the verbal section felt fairly manageable but somehow the algorithm felt too strict, barring me from getting to the medium to hard difficulty questions. What are some ways to improve on Verbal based on my ESR, and how can I move forward given this setback? I'm looking into the GMAT Focus Edition as my next exam since the classic GMAT will sunset on the 31st of January, which might not be enough time to bring me to my ideal GMAT score of about 750. My weakness which was SC became my strength on the actual GMAT most likely due to my consistent efforts in improving in on the last leg, but since this is going away Any help is appreciated

GDrive Link (Can't post the file due to lack of posting so kindly add the usual google drive link before the link):

file/d/1HneFlnU7NVnrPBS5_P_izkkOpyxf9XUT/view?usp=sharing

GDrive Link (Can't post the file due to lack of posting so kindly add the usual google drive link before the link): file/d/1HneFlnU7NVnrPBS5_P_izkkOpyxf9XUT/view?usp=sharing

GmatKnightTutor · Answer

In case you're thinking of or decide to retake the classic GMAT: If time management is an issue, question/time markers may be useful to leverage. For RC, becoming familiar with how inference questions work could be helpful as well. For CR, Manhattan-Prep's 6th edition for SC and CR may be worth checking out. If you feel your fundamental are solid, consider working on your solving approach. May boost your score a bit. Had a 6-hour student for example who went from from a V31 to a V40 in about 30 days. Perhaps include working with a study buddy who is really strong on Verbal. There's a study buddy thread on gmatclub you could have a look at/sign up to.

5 Verbal tips

MartyMurray · Answer

For Verbal, as you're aware, you need to work more on CR and RC, especially CR.

You can get some ideas for how to improve in CR from this post and video.

The Final Key Step in Getting a Critical Reasoning Question Correct

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IVKp3TvCWxI

Also, for what it's worth, as far as I can tall you rushed a little on Verbal and finished the section about four minutes early. You could have used those four minutes to spend more time on some questions and scored higher.

Regarding Quant, it appears that you still have some weaker areas to work on, though it's not clear whether you missed questions because you were weaker in certain topics or mostly just ran out of time.

I think you probably have to work on Inequalities and Absolute value and that you probably have room for improvement in a fair number of other topics as well.

Getting stronger in just a few topics could take care of your timing issues in Quant as well.

Harshani · Answer

Could you please share with me your experience on getting 95th on SC? That was impressive. What sources did you use? how many questions did you solve? please elaborate more

Uzake · Answer

Hi GMATKnight, I appreciate the feedback! For the my primary resources, I did use Manhattan-Prep for my Verbal as a primary resource, and watched some videos from GMATNinja and TTP mostly for my review on CR and RC. I somehow found myself in a rut and am not sure how to proceed if this may simply be a lack of practice, since there were instances where both of these subsections seemed strong, but by the last leg of my review, it had suddenly fallen downward. I think I may try to perfect easy to medium questions though, since I find that the algorithm is much stricter on the actual exam.

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Uzake · Answer

Hi Marty, I appreciate your feedback on my ESR! On the Verbal side, I think I may have panicked near the end of the exam since I feared that I might get some CR questions on the last few questions. Fortunately, it was composed mostly of SC questions but I think at that point my Verbal score was already set in stone. I think I had about a few seconds when I clicked “Next” on the 36th question though; I really took a lot of time with most critical reasoning questions and I think that, in terms of time management, really gave me a pain on the section as a whole.

For Quant, you’re right that I rushed through the last quarter of questions on the GMAT. For inequalities and absolute values, the accuracy was really low since those last quarter of questions consisted primarily on that exact topic. If I were to take a guess, it might have been the difficulty of the questions that destroyed my time management skills, since on practice exams I have not experienced the same difficulty as ones from the official GMAT. I found that the difficulty of most questions on GMAT Prep, even for the hardest ones, might only be a medium at best, while most of the questions on the official one are couple notches higher. I think this might be the reason I faltered on the third quarter of the section as seen from the ESR. I guess I’d like to know if there really are techniques or strategies to solve insanely tedious quant questions at that caliber in under 2 minutes, or would it always take more? Since the GMAT Focus might be even stricter for every question missed, it might be best to leave no stones unturned.

Posted from my mobile device

Uzake · Answer

Hi Harshani! I had prepared for 4 months, and during the last month of my preparation phase, what I tend to notice on my free GMAT Prep exams and GMATClub Tests was my abysmally low sentence correction accuracy of about 40-50 percent, and was undoubtedly my weakest section. As a lot of experts have mentioned on GMATClub, SC is the fastest to improve, and I think doing practice questions from the Official GMAT Guide will help you a lot. I finished all the SC Official Guide questions (which may have been about 200+ questions iirc), and watched the last few videos of GMATNinja’s playlist on how to tackle SC questions effectively. I think that the right mindset will help you make a better SC taker. For my case, what worked for me was checking for each difference from the five questions first, then remembering four primary SC topics: SVA, Modifiers, Parallelism, and Verb Tenses. All questions but one will contain an error with at least one of these topics, and crossing them out immediately once you see one will help you find the correct answer in about 1 minute or less. With only a V28, however, I stand to question the difficulty of the SC questions I faced, so it might be good to take my advice with a grain of salt.

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GMAT ESR Advice (610, Q46 V28)

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