going from 650 to 720

Question

Hi,

I have my GMAT on 9th August 18. I am currently stuck at 630-650 score range.
my score history is as below-
Manhatten prep test 1- 620 Q42 V 33
GMAT official Test 1- 650 Q50 V30

i have access to the official tests 2-6, i shall be giving those in the coming days.

study material-
OG 18 and a list of questions from OG 11-17
GMAT club posts.

during most of my study sessions and also during tests i am facing issues in Verbal.
with 24 days in hand how can i prepare to cross the 700 mark?
i am working but can devote around 5 hours on the weekdays and 8-10 hours on sunday.

please help.

Arro44 · Answer

In general, it appears like you already have a quite solid foundation with regards to the Quant section, thus I agree that you should focus your remaning study time predominantly on Verbal.

With regards to Verbal there are a couple of options:

1. Check out the SC specific threads on this forum, some of them (generally those with a lot of kudos) are very helpful

2. Listen to some of the videos on the YT chanel from Veritas, Magoosh and GmatNinja

3. Maybe check out the link in my signature, it adresses some verbal topics in general.

If any points are unclear please feel free to reach out.

All the best for your prep my friend,
Chris

EMPOWERgmatRichC · Answer

Hi rsd1991,

To start, it's important to remember that taking lots of CATs will NOT make you a better Test Taker. A CAT is really a 'measuring device' - when used correctly, it will give you a realistic score and help define your strengths and weaknesses, but it will NOT help you to fix any of those weaknesses. To raise your scores, you have to learn the necessary Tactics and put in the proper practice and repetitions. The CAT will show you whether your studies are helping you to improve or not. As such, you really shouldn't take more than 1 FULL CAT per week.

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) How long have you studied?
2) When did you take each of these 2 CATs?

Goals:
3) When are you planning to apply to Business School?
4) What Schools are you planning to apply to?

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

egmat · Answer

Hi  rsd1991 ,

A lot of students tend to get stuck on a score of early 600s during their preparation. At e-GMAT, we call this the score plateau. While it may seem difficult, it is possible to overcome it.

How to score 720 on GMAT in 24 days! To score a 720 on GMAT, you will have to score Q50/51 (86/96 percentile) and V39/35 (88/76 percentile). It is clear that most of your improvement will have to come from Verbal. To improve from a V30 (58 percentile) to a V39 (88 percentile), you would need about 60-70 hours of effort. Since you have much more time than that, it will only be about putting in that effort.
 • Martina improved from V31 to V46 in just 3 weeks.   Click here   to learn how she achieved this feat.
• Nipun improved from V25 to V38 in 4 weeks.   Click here   to learn how he improved his RC and SC ability tremendously.

How to Improve in Verbal from V30 to V39? A score of V30 indicates that you have good understanding of certain concepts but need to work on certain others. It is essential that you identify such topics and focus on the application process. This would require you to do more than just solve OG questions. You need a process of solving questions that is repeatable and reliable on tougher GMAT questions. Here are success stories of students who were in your shoes while they were preparing:
 • Chintan gave too many mocks in his first attempt and ended up getting only a 630. In his second attempt, he realized his mistake, followed a methodical approach, got his fundamentals strong and improved to a 710.   Click here to read his de-brief  .
• Murali (740) started his GMAT journey only by practicing questions from OG. Soon realized that it requires a methodical approach to ace GMAT.   Click here   to read his amazing debrief.

Learn the approach Chintan & Murali used in CR this weekend We are conducting a free webinar on strategies required to ace CR in GMAT.  Register here  and get a jumpstart in CR.

Regards,
Aditee

ScottTargetTestPrep · Answer

Hi rsd1991,

I’m glad you reached out and I’m happy to help. For starters, you have an awesome quant score, so nice work!

Regarding your verbal score, you will have to put in a lot of time and effort to improve your verbal score enough to bring your overall score to 700+. Such a score improvement may take longer than just three weeks. Are you able to take your GMAT at a later date?

To improve your verbal score, you are going to want to use a resource that allows you to FIRST learn the concepts and strategies related to SC, CR, and RC, and then you will need to put in a lot of dedicated practice to test yourself on the areas you have reviewed. For example, let’s say you start by learning about Critical Reasoning. Your first goal is to fully master the individual CR topics: strengthening, weakening, resolve the paradox, etc. As you learn each CR problem type, do focused practice so you can track your knowledge in the topic. If, for example, you get a weakening question wrong, ask yourself why. Did you make a careless mistake? Did you not recognize the specific CR question type? Were you doing too much analysis in your head? Did you skip over a keyword in an answer choice? You must thoroughly analyze your mistakes and seek to turn weaknesses into strengths by focusing on the question types you dread seeing and the questions you take a long time to answer correctly. Follow this process for all verbal 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 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 verbal areas and turning them into strong areas, you will make great progress toward hitting your verbal score goal. If a dozen areas turn out not to be enough, strengthen some more areas.
 
When you do dozens of the same type of question one after the other, you learn just what it takes to get questions of that type correct consistently. If you aren't getting close to 90 percent of questions of a certain type correct, go back and seek to better understand how that type of question works, and then do more questions of that type until you get to at least around 90 percent accuracy in your training. If you get 100 percent of some sets correct, even better.
 
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.
 
In order to follow the path described above, you may need some new verbal materials, so take a look at the GMAT Club reviews for
 verbal courses .
 
You also may find it helpful to read my article for more information regarding  how to score a 700+ on the GMAT .
 
Feel free to reach out with any further questions.
 
Good luck!

NitinAnand · Answer

I tried twice and had similar situation. The score was 680-690 respectively. Then I took help from a friend had notes from a GMAT consultant. Those notes helped me a lot and scored 720 in 3rd session.

Need to check if they are still in my store. In case if they are not, I would advise to consult to a GMAT consultant, they will surely help you.

going from 650 to 720

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