GMAT Preparation

Hi
I personally suggest you to watch all thursdays with ron videos from youtube for both quant and verbal. They will definitely help u to increase your score.
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCTQlKd ... /playlists
If u want to buy any course you should see the review of those course. You can also take a trial period for some of the co. Better if u take trial period before buying their course!
Thanks__

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I think you should lay your hands on some free stuff here in this forum or do trial of some other courses. Sometimes trying other materials may seem like distraction but it complements majority of the time. Cheers.

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Hi adiforuaditya,

A certain percentage of Test Takers end up getting 'stuck' during their studies, so you're not alone. Thankfully, the GMAT is a consistent, predictable Exam, so you CAN train to score at a higher level. 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) What study materials have you used so far besides the Course that you mentioned?
2) How have you scored on EACH of your CATs/mocks (including the Quant and Verbal Scaled Scores for EACH)?

Goals:
3) What is your goal score?
4) When are you planning to take the GMAT?
5) When are you planning to apply to Business School?
6) What Schools are you planning to apply to?

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

Hi Rich,

Thanks for your revert.

1)So far I have only relied on the E-GMAT course.
2) I'm yet to appear of mocks, as while practicing I have observed that my accuracy is very bad and hence did not wanted to consume my mocks.
3) My target score is 720.
4) Was planning to take Gmat in Aug first week, can postpone it till Aug last week.
5) Planning to apply for fall 21.
6) Presently targeting INSEAD, IIM but honestly want to get over GMAT first and then evaluate b schools.

Thanks for your time and revert.

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Hi adiforuaditya,

Many Test Takers are unhappy with their initial practice scores, but you really shouldn't be. It's just a measure of your skills right now - and we need to know your skills, strengths and weaknesses so that we can put together the proper study plan for you. There are also plenty of quality practice CATs that you can use during your studies (both Official CATs and those from a few from various GMAT Companies), so you shouldn't have any concern about 'wasting' a CAT. Furthermore, until we see how you perform, we'll have no idea whether you're studying in an effective fashion or not - so that initial CAT Score (as well as those from CATs taken at regular intervals) are essential to hitting your Score Goal.

As such, it would be a good idea to take a FULL-LENGTH practice CAT Test; you can take 2 for free at www.mba.com (and they come with some additional practice materials). That score will give us a good sense of your current 'ability level' and will help provide a basis for comparison as you continue to study. A FULL CAT takes about 3.5 hours to complete, so make sure that you've set aside enough time to take it in one sitting. Once you have those scores, you should report back here and we can come up with a study plan.

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

Hi adiforuaditya,

I realize that you may be frustrated, but remember, you’ve been studying for ONLY two months. In the grand scheme of GMAT prep, two months is not all that much time. So, don’t be depressed. We will get things sorted out!

Before providing specific advice, I have a few important questions:

1) What is your GMAT score goal?

2) Have you taken any official practice GMAT exams? If so, what were the dates and score breakdowns of those exams?

3) By when MUST you take the GMAT?

4) When are your application deadlines?

Also, are you looking for general advice on how to improve both your verbal and quant skills?

Hi Rich,

Point taken.

So far was only realying on the advise given to me by egmat experts and hence did not attend any mocks.

Will attempt and share the results here.

Many Thanks!

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Hi scott,

My target score is 720.

2) No i havent taken any official gmat exam recently.Will take one and share the results here.

3) Was planning to take GMAT by Aug end.

4) Application deadline would be 2020, so we have time there.

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Hi Scott,

So I had finally taken a mock test, and further adding to my disappointment I have scored a mere 580 (q47,v24). Which was also mtly raw score, that is for the mock which I took in Jan 2019, before even touching any sought of books or materials.

Also, would like to mention that I was unable to attempt 10 questions in verbal as was running short of time.

Appreciate any advise.Im sure i must he doing something wrong, but am dissappointed with the support im getting from E-GMAT from where i have prepared my course and hence looking for advise here.

Posted from my mobile device

Hi adiforuaditya,

Now that we have an assessment of your current Test Taking skills, we can make the necessary adjustments to your study routine. Raising a 580 to a 720+ will likely require at least another 3 months of consistent, guided study though - and you'll have to make significant improvements to how you handle BOTH the Quant and Verbal sections - so you might need to consider pushing back your Test Date. Thankfully, the GMAT is a consistent, predictable Exam, so you CAN train to score at a higher level.

1) Going forward, how many hours do you think you can consistently study each week?

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

Hi Rich,

I should be able to devote somewhere between 15 to 20 hours towards GMAT preparation

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Hi adiforuaditya,

"Review" is an exceptionally important part of the GMAT training process; your ability to define WHY you're getting questions wrong is essential to defining the areas that you need to work on (and the specific things that you need to 'fix'). As such, I'd like to know a bit more about this CAT. While a full Mistake Tracker would provide a lot more information, there are some basic questions that you should be able to answer (and the more EXACT you can be with your answers, the better):

After reviewing each section of this CAT, how many questions did you get wrong....
1) Because of a silly/little mistake?
2) Because there was some math/verbal that you just could not remember how to do?
3) Because the question was too hard?
4) Because you were low on time and had to guess?
5) How many Verbal questions did you 'narrow down to 2 choices' but still get wrong?

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

Hi adiforuaditya,

Q47 is pretty solid, so it’s clear that verbal is really dragging down your score. I think that a bump of a few points in quant and 15+ points in verbal will put you right around your goal score. Are you looking for some general advice on how to improve your GMAT quant and verbal skills?

Hi Scott,

Yes , as you rightly mentioned, I'am targeting a Q 50. Al tough, on the verbal front looks like I'm stuck at 24-28 range which is dragging my score down big time.

Any kind of advise, be it general or specific would be helpful.

Also, one general question to the forum. Till now, while preparing for Verbal, I have come across tons of rules on Grammar, Idioms etc. Is it required to remember all those, or there is an alternative way of doing this. I though GMAT doesn't test your mug-up skills.


rich,

Would come back with all the analysis by weekend.

Thanks,
Aditya

Here is some advice you can follow to improve your verbal and quant skills. I’ll start with verbal.

For example, let’s say you are reviewing Critical Reasoning. Be sure that you practice a large number of Critical Reasoning questions: Strengthen and Weaken the Argument, Resolve the Paradox, find the conclusion, must be true, etc. When you are working on learning to answer questions of a particular type, start off taking your time, and then seek to speed up as you get more comfortable answering questions of that type. 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. 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, if anything, you would have needed 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. Follow this process for all verbal topics. I understand that you are looking to improve Critical Reasoning in particular, but to get to a 730, you will want to improve in all aspects of GMAT verbal.

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 Reading Comprehension 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.

The process above can be perfected with a lot of practice. However, keep in mind that GMAT Reading Comprehension passages are not meant to be easy to read. So, to better prepare yourself to read such passages, begin reading magazines with similar content and style, such as the Economist, Scientific American, and Smithsonian.

Sentence Correction, on the other hand, 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. Furthermore, the reason that your Sentence Correction performance has not improved is likely that you have not been working on all three of those aspects.

Regarding what you know, to be successful in Sentence Correction, first and foremost, you MUST know your grammar rules. Let's be clear, though: GMAT Sentence Correction is not just a test of knowledge of grammar rules. The reason for learning 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 under 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 in the sentence clearly refer to nouns in the sentence? 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 those reasons are not 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 that 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 meanings that make sense. You also have to make sure that you put some real energy into finding the correct answers. Finding the correct answer to a Sentence Correction question may take bouncing from choice to choice repeatedly until you start to see the differences between the choices that make all choices wrong except for one. Often, when you first look at the choices in a Sentence Correction question, only one or two seem obviously incorrect. It may take time for you to see what you have to see. Getting the right answers takes a certain work ethic. You have to be determined to see the differences 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. For instance, 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 that resulted in your arriving at that answer and what you could do differently in order 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 have done differently that would have resulted in your extending 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 Sentence Correction skills improve, you’ll then want to practice with SC questions that test you on skills from multiple Sentence Correction topics.

Although your quant is stronger, you can follow a similar process for that section. For example, if you are reviewing Number Properties, be sure that you practice 50 or more questions just from Number Properties: LCM, GCF, units digit patterns, divisibility, remainders, etc. When you are working on learning to answer questions of a particular type, start off taking your time, and then seek to speed up as you get more comfortable answering questions of that type.

As you do such practice, do a thorough analysis of each question that you don't get right. If you got a remainder question wrong, ask yourself why. Did you make a careless mistake? Did you not properly apply the remainder formula? Was there a concept you did not understand in the question? By carefully analyzing your mistakes, you will be able to efficiently fix your weaknesses and in turn improve your GMAT quant skills. Number Properties is just one example; follow this process for all quant topics.

Each time you strengthen your understanding of a topic and your skill in answering questions of a particular type, you increase your odds of hitting your score goal. You know that there are types of questions that you are happy to see and types that you would rather not see, and types of questions that you take a long time to answer correctly. Learn to more effectively answer the types of questions that you would rather not see, and make them into your favorite types. Learn to correctly answer in two minutes or less questions that you currently take five minutes to answer. By finding, say, a dozen weaker quant areas and turning them into strong areas, you will make great progress toward hitting your quant score goal. If a dozen areas turn out not to be enough, strengthen some more areas.

So, work on accuracy and generally finding correct answers, work on specific weaker areas one by one to make them strong areas, and when you take a practice GMAT or the real thing, take all the time per question available to do your absolute best to get right answers consistently. The GMAT is essentially a game of seeing how many right answers you can get in the time allotted. Approach the test with that conception in mind, and focus intently on the question in front of you with one goal in mind: getting a CORRECT answer.

You also may find my article with more information regarding
how to score a 700+ on the GMAT helpful.

Feel free to reach out with any further questions.

Good luck!

Thanks A Lot Scott for a detailed advise.

So far have faced one specific issue on SC, wherein I don't seem to remember the Grammar Rules that needs to be applicable and hence make a mistake.

Haven't done a lot on CR & RC and would keep in mind the approach suggested by you. Similarly for Quant have realized that Geometry is my weak point and would follow the approach suggested by you for the same.

Hi adiforuaditya,

Many test aspirants are unhappy with their initial practice test score. What we have observed is this is due to either lack of a detailed study plan or some unreliable resources. In your case, it is good to hear that you are confident in Quant skills, but as you stated that your performance was not up to the mark, I would suggest you remember the principle of “Slow, Hand, Detail”.

Pick a topic, go through the basic concepts and solve the questions slowly during practice. If you are referring to some video tutorials, we would recommend you to solve on your own. Just looking at the video and solution for questions doesn’t cater the Quant solving skills. Track your score by attempting some test-questions within the time frame.

Remember, GMAT Math is logic. And it requires time to improve score from 25 to 30, 31 to 35 and then 36 +. Aspirant like you should also remember that a good score is a combination of Verbal and Quant both. A score of V28, Q 49, V 31 Q 43, V 36 +, Q 41+ would give you the target score.

Initially, you should spend lots of your time in understanding the basics and solve as many questions as possible for both the sections. Here is all that you need and what we will offer you:

1. A detailed study plan (We provide a study guide to all our students based on diagnostic test)
2. Reliable resources(Check out our free trial pack and free video lessons on our site: https://www.mathrevolution.com
3. A diagnostic test to check performance (Our test tool will cater to the entire requirements. Please try our free test.
4. Unique, alternative approaches to solve quant questions in a short period of time, save your time and increase accuracy and hence score.
5. Up-To-Date questions that meet GMAT exam trends. You don’t need to waste your time on outdated questions.

We would request you to provide us certain details like your desired score, how many mocks have you taken in the last 1 month with detail scorecard.

Let us know if you have further questions.
You can reach us at info@mathrevolution.com

Success is within your reach,
Good luck!