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01 Sep 2021, 10:42
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Hi Everyone,
So I wanted to write this post because my GMAT studies have been painfully slow, I am not sure what to do or if I am taking the right approach.
I started studying for the GMAT in December 2020. I started working through all the veritas books, live courses and private tutor. After finishing all the Veritas books we went go the OG and spent around 2 months there. I took a couple practice tests where my score was around 500, I was very surprised but told myself trust the process as I felt I was in good hands. I took the official gmat and I scored a 330, then I got completely scared. After sharing this with my veritas tutor he mentioned if I had thought about taking the GRE I was perplexed as why had he not mentioned this before seeing my results during our study time. After 8 months of studying I felt I was back at square 1 not knowing what to do.
I decided to take the Target Test Prep course as I felt there are a lot of holes in my basics in math. Now after studying for a couple weeks with TTP I realize maybe I might not be able to reach my target score by December. I feel very unmotivated and don't know what do, I have accomplished a lot of things in my life and thought that reaching my target score of 700 in the Gmat was completely possible. Now I am not sure if I am going to make to be able to apply for round 2. Any thoughts or advice you'd give me? I feel completely lost.
BTW this is not a post against Veritas because I think it is a great company but I don't know what happened.
Thanks!
So I wanted to write this post because my GMAT studies have been painfully slow, I am not sure what to do or if I am taking the right approach.
I started studying for the GMAT in December 2020. I started working through all the veritas books, live courses and private tutor. After finishing all the Veritas books we went go the OG and spent around 2 months there. I took a couple practice tests where my score was around 500, I was very surprised but told myself trust the process as I felt I was in good hands. I took the official gmat and I scored a 330, then I got completely scared. After sharing this with my veritas tutor he mentioned if I had thought about taking the GRE I was perplexed as why had he not mentioned this before seeing my results during our study time. After 8 months of studying I felt I was back at square 1 not knowing what to do.
I decided to take the Target Test Prep course as I felt there are a lot of holes in my basics in math. Now after studying for a couple weeks with TTP I realize maybe I might not be able to reach my target score by December. I feel very unmotivated and don't know what do, I have accomplished a lot of things in my life and thought that reaching my target score of 700 in the Gmat was completely possible. Now I am not sure if I am going to make to be able to apply for round 2. Any thoughts or advice you'd give me? I feel completely lost.
BTW this is not a post against Veritas because I think it is a great company but I don't know what happened.
Thanks!
01 Sep 2021, 11:13
Kudos
Bookmarks
Hi and welcome to GMAT Club!
I am sorry about this stagnation.
I think you are doing a few things wrong (which is good news in situations like these) since it means you can fix things and get on the way to get out of the GMAT hell.
1. You are studying for way too long. Don't wake it the wrong way but studying from Dec to Dec - that's a year. Ideally you would do 3 months. I did 3.5 and up to 5 is fine but you want to set the deadlines and timelines around that time. This may not be as easy or as possible in your current work situation so you may have to make adjustments to your life. GMAT was #1 priority for me, so I put it first and everything else came second. If you stretch too long - you forget a lot of things in the process. It is like cooking a meal - you can cook it in 2 hours or you can spend 3 days... and it will probably taste a lot better if cooked in 2 hours
2. This does not mean studying 8 hours a day. I think you can definitely study 8 or 23.5 hours a day but it is not always productive. The goal would be do 2 hours of intensive studying per day but move faster as the result. e.g. study first thing in the morning (e.g. 6 to 8 AM). Every morning review yesterday's questions (esp the ones you got wrong).
3. It is very important to check yourself as you go. If you covered Word problems today for example, check your work/success rate by end of the session. Did you hit 80%+? I was aiming for 90%. 80% likely would be around 700 and 90% would be closer to 750. If yes, move on. If not, then you need to figure out why you missed the questions and take actions to ensure tomorrow you hit your goal of 80-90%. If at the end of tomorrow you are still not there, work on addressing your hurdle and get past it. Until you get past it, I would not move on.
4. Starting at a low spot such as 330 is hard. Improvement takes time. It is possible but it requires a lot of work to fix and build up. Many people improve about 100 points from their first test. 200 points is a lot more rare (I improved 210 points and I felt it was huge). Very few people improve by 300 points. There is only 1 case I know of 400+ point improvement. https://gmatclub.com/forum/530-point-gm ... 56872.html and it took a lot of changes and modifications to learning, behavior, best practices, and focus.
P.S. Sometime in the next few weeks we will be releasing GMAT Ninja's study plan so that may help. You may also want to take a break if you have been studying non stop for 8 months. I think taking a week to relax and rearrange your days may be healthy and helpful, esp during the pandemic times.
I am sorry about this stagnation.
I think you are doing a few things wrong (which is good news in situations like these) since it means you can fix things and get on the way to get out of the GMAT hell.
1. You are studying for way too long. Don't wake it the wrong way but studying from Dec to Dec - that's a year. Ideally you would do 3 months. I did 3.5 and up to 5 is fine but you want to set the deadlines and timelines around that time. This may not be as easy or as possible in your current work situation so you may have to make adjustments to your life. GMAT was #1 priority for me, so I put it first and everything else came second. If you stretch too long - you forget a lot of things in the process. It is like cooking a meal - you can cook it in 2 hours or you can spend 3 days... and it will probably taste a lot better if cooked in 2 hours
2. This does not mean studying 8 hours a day. I think you can definitely study 8 or 23.5 hours a day but it is not always productive. The goal would be do 2 hours of intensive studying per day but move faster as the result. e.g. study first thing in the morning (e.g. 6 to 8 AM). Every morning review yesterday's questions (esp the ones you got wrong).
3. It is very important to check yourself as you go. If you covered Word problems today for example, check your work/success rate by end of the session. Did you hit 80%+? I was aiming for 90%. 80% likely would be around 700 and 90% would be closer to 750. If yes, move on. If not, then you need to figure out why you missed the questions and take actions to ensure tomorrow you hit your goal of 80-90%. If at the end of tomorrow you are still not there, work on addressing your hurdle and get past it. Until you get past it, I would not move on.
4. Starting at a low spot such as 330 is hard. Improvement takes time. It is possible but it requires a lot of work to fix and build up. Many people improve about 100 points from their first test. 200 points is a lot more rare (I improved 210 points and I felt it was huge). Very few people improve by 300 points. There is only 1 case I know of 400+ point improvement. https://gmatclub.com/forum/530-point-gm ... 56872.html and it took a lot of changes and modifications to learning, behavior, best practices, and focus.
P.S. Sometime in the next few weeks we will be releasing GMAT Ninja's study plan so that may help. You may also want to take a break if you have been studying non stop for 8 months. I think taking a week to relax and rearrange your days may be healthy and helpful, esp during the pandemic times.
01 Sep 2021, 21:20
Kudos
Bookmarks
Hi gmatstudier07,
To start, it's worth noting that the 700+ Score is approximately the 90th percentile, so clearly most GMATers never score that high on the Official Exam (and some of the ones who do each year are people who score at that level multiple times - along with GMAT Teachers/Tutors and other industry folks - meaning that the number of unique Test-takers who score that high is probably smaller than you think it is). In addition, you don't necessarily "need" to earn a Score that high to get into your first-choice School. While that type of Score would probably help your applications, Business Schools understand that not everyone is a fantastic Standardized Test-taker - so you might end up needing to put extra effort into making other aspects of your profile stand out.
It's been approximately 2 months since we last discussed your studies, so I'd like to know a bit more about how you've been studying since early July:
1) What type of study routine have you been following? How many hours do you typically study each week?
2) What study materials have you used during that time? What “brands” of CATs/mocks have you used?
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)?
GMAT assassins aren't born, they're made,
Rich
To start, it's worth noting that the 700+ Score is approximately the 90th percentile, so clearly most GMATers never score that high on the Official Exam (and some of the ones who do each year are people who score at that level multiple times - along with GMAT Teachers/Tutors and other industry folks - meaning that the number of unique Test-takers who score that high is probably smaller than you think it is). In addition, you don't necessarily "need" to earn a Score that high to get into your first-choice School. While that type of Score would probably help your applications, Business Schools understand that not everyone is a fantastic Standardized Test-taker - so you might end up needing to put extra effort into making other aspects of your profile stand out.
It's been approximately 2 months since we last discussed your studies, so I'd like to know a bit more about how you've been studying since early July:
1) What type of study routine have you been following? How many hours do you typically study each week?
2) What study materials have you used during that time? What “brands” of CATs/mocks have you used?
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)?
GMAT assassins aren't born, they're made,
Rich
