GMAT Reattempt Strategy: 680 in First Attempt (Q49,V32)

Question

Hey everyone!
I had been preparing for the GMAT since Dec 2020. I took the GMAT on 19th March and ended up scoring an unexpected 680. I had been scoring 710-760 on my mocks. 
Here is a detailed breakdown of my GMAT Mocks:

GMAT Prep1: 650 (No Study)
Kaplan 1: 670
Kaplan 2: 700 (After 1 month of real study)
Kaplan 3: 680
Manhattan 1: 660
EGMAT 1: 710
EGMAT 2: 720
EGMAT 3: 740
GMAT Prep2: 750
EGMAT 4: 760
EGMAT 5: 740

The last mock I took was on 15th March (4 days before my GMAT)
I was good at Quants but Verbal became my confident side till the end time. I was getting an average of V40 on every mock. But, I feel a little problem in my preparation. I was a bit of overconfident in RC and that played the turning role in my actual GMAT (Visible through the ESR too)
Now after a few days of rest and self-loathe I have decided to retake GMAT in next 2 Months.
I would love if someone gives out a strategy for me. The ESR has been attached for your reference
I really need a self-study pattern so I am not looking for any paid courses (Already paid few companies a lot with not great experience)

PS:- Go for Charles GMAT Ninja on Youtube he gives you stuff that is really vital and worthy on GMAT. If you need repository of the best free resources for GMAT, message me I will put loads of links for you.

GmatKnightTutor · Answer

Based on the V32, you may need to work on your Verbal approach. It may help to gauge yourself with the Official Mocks you've not attempted.

MathRevolution · Answer

Hello Kabir,

A score of 680 is decent and a target score of 700+ seems realistic.

Also, with my GMAT tutoring, guidance, and counseling experience, we have to accept a fact with a pinch of salt that diagnostic/ mock test scores are above then what one should expect in a real test. There is often dropping in the score. Some students have even experienced a drop of 100 pointers. It is one of the realities, and your preparation should not sideline this fact.

A couple of things that can be a noticeable barrier to your scores would be some or all of the below.

• Inefficiency by using time-consuming Conventional method to tackle DS and PS questions still
• No expert support (maybe) who can tutor, analyze, and guide you during your learning especially on hard level questions while stably hitting middle-level questions.
• Lack of many updated questions and practice in the recent exam trend
• Not well aligned with time to solve questions.

We would recommend you make a note of various possible combinations of your target score. The possible scores will help you track your performance after taking the mock or practice test. It will also help you maintain balance in both the sections, and you will always be in a great position to allot the study hours to a specific area accordingly.

The possible score combinations for 700 or 700+: Q should be Q 46, 47, 48, and V should be V38, 39, 40.

You can try our free diagnostic test and receive a comprehensive study guide by topic. This test will clearly help you understand your weak areas.

You can schedule a Comprehensive counseling session for 30 mins with one of our experts: https://calendly.com/mathrevolution/1-on-1-session for detailed advice on your current study plans and also to learn self-preparation strategies. You can also discuss your ESR.

You must schedule your day smartly to revise the topics and also practice more questions. We would suggest you register with MathRevolution https://www.mathrevolution.com/member/signup to get access to our 7-day full on-demand course (27 topics, 490 subtopics, and 1,500 questions) for free trial lessons.
Since we are a math expert, we will recommend you go through our post on the GMAT club: Breakdown of GMAT math questions and types: https://gmatclub.com/forum/overview-of- ... l#p1641411

Regular tests will reflect the positive change in the score, and hence, your confidence will boost up. Gradually, with the help of mock tests, you will be able to compete with time and hence will be able to learn time management.

We appreciate your time and patience in reading this reply.

Should you need any further information, please do not hesitate to contact us at [email protected]

Success is within your reach.
Good luck!

Punit Joshi
Math Revolution Team

EMPOWERgmatRichC · Answer

Hi Kabir,

First off, a 680/Q49 is a strong Score, so it could be enough to get you into your first-choice School. As such, a retest might not be necessary. Depending on the Schools that you plan to apply to, you would likely find it beneficial to speak with an Admissions Expert about your overall profile and plans. Those Experts should be able to answer your Admissions questions and help define the specific areas of your profile that could use some improvement. There's a Forum full of those Experts here:

https://gmatclub.com/forum/ask-admissio ... tants-124/

When these types of score drops occur, the two likely "causes" involve either something that was unrealistic during practice or something that was surprising (or not accounted for) on Test Day. Before we discuss any of those potential issues though - and the data in your ESR - it would help if you could provide a bit more information on how you've been studying and your goals:

Studies:
1) What type of study routine have you been following? How many hours do you typically study each week? What studying have you done over the last 3 weeks (since you took the Official GMAT)?
2) What study materials have you used so far?
3) On what dates (or approximate dates) did you take EACH of your CATs/mocks and how did you score on EACH (including the Quant and Verbal Scaled Scores for EACH)?

Goals:
4) What is your overall goal score?
5) When are you planning to apply to Business School and what Schools are you planning to apply to?

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

ScottTargetTestPrep · Answer

Hi KabxW,

I’m sorry to hear how things went with your GMAT. Assuming that you took your official practice exams under realistic testing conditions, the results show that, on a good day, you are capable of scoring higher than 680. Thus, it’s quite possible that nerves, stress, tiredness, or a combination of all three negatively affected your test-day performance. However, it’s also possible that you have some lingering weaknesses that were exposed on test day. Although I’m unsure of how you prepared, it’s possible that, in your preparation, particularly in verbal, you did not really learn to do what you have to do in order to score high on the actual GMAT. Rather, you picked up on some patterns that were effective in getting you relatively high scores on practice tests. So, for you to hit your score goal, your preparation, particularly for verbal, probably needs to be more complete, meaning that you have to go through the various types of GMAT questions carefully to find your exact weaknesses, fill gaps in your knowledge, and strengthen your skills.

For verbal specifically, you have to become more skilled at clearly defining the differences between trap choices and correct answers. Otherwise, you will get stuck guessing between two choices or be surprised to find that you incorrectly answered questions that you thought you answered correctly. Becoming more skilled in this way takes carefully analyzing all of the answer choices to lots of verbal questions to develop an eye for the logical differences between the choices. In other words, you have to go beyond answering practice questions and reading explanations to doing deep analysis of questions to learn to see everything that is going on in them.

Lastly, you may find it helpful to read the following articles:

how to score a 700+ on the GMAT

Why Was My GMAT Score Lower Than My Practice Test Scores?

GMATWhizTeam · Answer

Hi KabxW,

Seems like there is a scope for improvement in all the three modules in Verbal. And your average time seems to be a bit high for Critical Reasoning section. So, let me concentrate on that.

How to approach CR questions?  
Most of the CR questions are based on one of the four frameworks:

Plan-goal 
 Causality 
 Quantitative 
 Comparison

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rCrobt7hZl8

And each framework has a set of guidelines to pre-think. So, once you know the frameworks and understand the guidelines to pre-think, the process of solving CR questions will become a lot more simple and structured. But before that, you need to understand the individual elements such as the argument, premise and the conclusion. Only then, you can start learning the process.

The process of solving CR questions includes many steps:
  Reading the argument 
 Identifying the premise and the conclusion 
 Reading the question stem 
 Identifying the missing link 
 Eliminating answer choices which are irrelevant, out of scope or distorted

As you see, even if you falter in any one step, the entire process goes wrong. Here are a couple of articles which will help you understand the right way to solve CR questions.

Basics of Causal arguments

Causal arguments practice question

So, I suggest you to focus more on the process than on practicing questions.

And coming to Reading Comprehension, you seem to be struggling with drawing the right inferences. While reading the passage, try to understand the intention behind writing that passage. Try to summarize the individual paragraphs and finally come up with the main idea of the passage.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yx7sB0Ade50

And coming to Sentence Correction, try to focus on the intended meaning the original sentence is trying to convey. Learn the grammar rules. They will help you eliminate at least a couple of incorrect answer choices. But make sure to focus on the meaning.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9SGA8bwFNJM

All in all, I suggest you to:

Revisit the concepts of CR, learn the methodology to solve questions 
 For RC, go through the passages you have previously solved. Go through the detailed solutions of the questions, identify the exact step in which you made the mistake and learn the right approach 
 For SC, fill the conceptual gaps you have and analyze the solutions of the questions you have solved previously. This way you will be able to understand the difference between your approach and the right one. 
 Only after you finish working on the weak areas of the individual modules, start practicing questions of that module.

Hope it helped. If you have any more queries regarding the study strategy or if you want me deep dive into your ESR, you can get in touch with me using the below link.

Click here to schedule a call

KabxW · Answer

Hi  EMPOWERgmatRichC !
So just to answer the questions:

The study routine leading up to my exam was really hectic. I was giving 6+ hours per day on average. However, in last week I was calm and gave 4 or sometimes 3 hours a day. The study material has been only EGMAT Course and MGMAT. I have done OG sparingly, to be honest. So for most of my mocks the average scaled score hovered from V38 Q48 to V41 Q51. Manhattan Mock score was never above V40 Q48 and EGMAT V40+ Q48+ was the average.
My overall score aim is 720+ I am already in an IIM (India) pursuing my bachelor's so Indian colleges except for ISB and SP Jain are not on my list. I am looking for MiM at LBS, Gallen, HEC, INSEAD, etc. along with Deferred MBA at MIT Sloan, GSB, Harvard, Yale, and so on. So, in a nutshell, top colleges but an underwhelming score. Please provide me a self-study pathway I just have 2 Months as my budget has mostly been utilized.

EMPOWERgmatRichC · Answer

Hi Kabir,

I've sent you a PM with an analysis of your ESR and some additional notes and questions.

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

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