GMAT Retake. Please Help.

Question

Hello all.
I attempted the GMAT and scored a 690 Q42, V42.

This is after scoring 730 Q49, V40 and 770 Q49, V47 in GMAT Prep in the week leading up to the test.

I have gone through and am familiar with almost all of the sums in the OG and the Quant Review.

I am really lost; could someone please give me suggestions as to what I should do to improve my quant? I am retaking the test on the 25th.

I have purchased the GMAT Prep Question Pack 1 and my plan is to solve 600-700 level questions from GMAT Club, and from next week do 700+ level questions from GMAT Club.
I have also solved medium level quant questions from GMAT Prep Question Pack 1, I am keeping the hard questions for the week before the test.

Any suggestions and advice will be highly appreciated.

EMPOWERgmatRichC · Answer

Hi mbastu,

First off, a 690 is a fantastic score (it's just shy of the 90th percentile overall), so it could be enough to get you into your first-choice School. As such, a retest might not be necessary. If you've already paid to schedule your next GMAT though, then there's no harm in taking the Test as scheduled.

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.

If you can answer a few questions, then we should be able to figure this out. When you took your CATs:
1) Did you take the ENTIRE CAT each time (including the Essay and IR sections)?
2) Did you take them at home?
3) Did you take them at the same time of day as your Official GMAT?
4) Did you ever do ANYTHING during your CATs that you couldn't do on Test Day (pause the CAT, skip sections, take longer breaks, etc.)? 
5) Did you ever take a CAT more than once? Had you seen any of those questions BEFORE you took those CATs?

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

mbastu · Answer

1. I took 2 4 hour CATs in the week leading up to test. All the CATs before that were sans AWA/IR.
2. Yes I took them at home.
3. No I took my CATs in the evenings, my test was in the morning.
4. No I made sure I did not move out of room during the CATs, and took 6 minute breaks. The CATs I took were GMAT Prep so I couldnt pause or skip them.
5. I must admit that in the GMATPrep CAT 2 where I scored 770, I did see a couple of questions before.

mbastu · Answer

EMPOWERgmatRichC

In the week leading up to my test, I solved all the medium and hard questions from the OG 15 and QR 15. I have access to the OG 16 right now, should I focus on solving medium/hard questions from there?

What else should I do to ensure I get atleast a Q49?

Also, I realize that 690 is an above average score, but I was targetting something in the range of 730+. My target school is the Indian School of Business, which has an average GMAT of 710.

I really appreciate your inputs.

EMPOWERgmatRichC · Answer

Hi amt88,

The extra information that you've provided is quite useful, as it helps to define why your score was lower on Test Day. In real basic terms, you took your CATs in such a way that you were NOT properly training to face the Official GMAT - so you were not ready to face it on Test Day.

Test Day is a rather specific 'event' - the details are specific and they matter, so you have to train as best as you can for all of them. The more realistic you can make your CATs, the more likely the score results are to be accurate. The more you deviate, the more "inflated" your practice scores can become - and that's what happened here. By skipping sections, taking the CATs at home, taking them at a different time of day, etc., you weren't properly training for the FULL GMAT 'experience.'

Thankfully, this is a relatively easy set of problems to fix. The big question now is "how long will it take you to properly get 'used to' taking the full GMAT?" You'll certainly need a new set of practice CATs to work with and you have to put in the necessary time to train your brain (and body) for the FULL GMAT. You might also need to invest in some new GMAT training materials.

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

mbastu · Answer

Ill make sure to buy the GMAT Exam Prep package and take the CATs from there at 9 am sharp.

Beyond that, what do you think I should do to boost my quant ?

rahulprasad11 · Answer

Hi, Have you seen the enhanced score report for the first GMAT attempt? If not, then you should immediately get and analyse it to see why you did not perform well in the quant section. Did you spend too much time in the first 10 questions? Did you rush through or spend too much time in any subset of 9 questions in the quant section? What was the average time taken to solve DS and PS questions in the 1st GMAT attempt and how do the times compare with those in your mock exams, do you see any discrepancy there? Did you get over-confident or tensed mid way through the quant section? All these info you can get from the ESR. As a fellow IBS aspirant who would kill to have a V42

, I can honestly say that please do not take tension for your 2nd attempt and complicate the matter. Looking at your scores in mock exams,its obvious something really went wrong during your 1st attempt in the quant section; you just need to identify that and not repeat it, then you will surely get the result you want. P.S. 1 more suggestion, I have scored at least 49 in 4 different GMAT mock tests, in my 1st attempt and GMAT club's mock test, but I did not solve all the questions in Bunuel's 700+ list of quant questions. I downloaded the pdf and have browsed through it, but have avoided solving it completely. This is so because it has a lot of questions(86 pages with almost 11 questions per page) and they are all tough/energy draining questions and most of us will get a number of them wrong while solving them for the first time. This can really demotivate the student and more importantly 12 days before the exam, the student should revise everything: even sections in which he/she does well. These questions should be ideally done on a per day basis long before your actual exam date, leaving them for the end can fluster you, take a lot of your precious time and most importantly they do not follow the pattern in your real exam. In GMAT exam we do not have to solve one tough question after another continuously to get Q49. Those 700+ questions are actually needed to take someone from 49 to 50/51. Best of luck, Rahul

EMPOWERgmatRichC · Answer

Hi mbastu,

With a Q42, you would have done pretty well on most of the 'math questions' that you faced on Test Day, but you would have made some little mistakes throughout the section and missed out on lots of 'strategy-based' points. From your prior practice scores, it seems as though you likely know all of the necessary Quant content, but your use of Tactics is inconsistent and you've developed some 'bad habits' during your studies (re: doing math 'in your head', etc.).

I'd like to know a bit more about how you studied:

1) How long have you studied?
2) What materials have you used?

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

GMAT Retake. Please Help.

Prep Toolkit

Top 5 GMAT Debrief Videos

615 to 715 in 15 Days (Ria's Strategies)

More than Quant/Verbal Abilities: Speed vs. Accuracy

745 with Only Self-Prep and GMAT Club

From 555 to 765: 210-point Improvement

Perfect 805 Score Debrief by Julia

My Rewards