Going from Quant Q50 to Q51 and Verbal V27 to V42

Hi Aviral1995,

First off, a 650/Q50 is a solid 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. There's a Forum full of those Experts here:

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

There's certainly no harm in retesting though - and you have the potential to pick up some serious points in the Verbal section. Before we discuss the data in your ESR, I would like to know a bit more about your studies so far and your goals:

Studies:
1) How long have you studied? How many hours do you typically study each week?
2) What study materials have you used besides the course you mentioned?
3) On what 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?
6) What Schools are you planning to apply to?

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

Aviral, there is nothing much to say in Quant. You have a great score and should be able to replicate it with little effort. 50 and 51 are not very different and on a good day, you may get 51 easily.
As for Verbal, it does need improvement in all areas. I am not sure why your score in CR is low since it is quite mathematical. I suggest you to try out some other curriculum. We all learn in different ways - what may click for one may not for another.
Also, it is not very hard to improve in SC and it gives maximum return for your time.
Progress in RC is usually a slow process.
I suggest you to try out some of our free resources here: https://www.gmatclub.com/forum/veritas-prep-resource-links-no-longer-available-399979.html#/free-resources/
Check out our videos of solutions to verbal OG questions. They will give you ideas on how to think differently and that might prove to be quite beneficial for you.

Hi Aviral1995,

First off, 650 with Q50 is not a bad start! So, nice job so far. Regarding how to improve your score, it’s clear that verbal is holding you back right? After looking at your ESR, it’s clear that you need to improve in all aspects of verbal. Here is some advice on how to do so. I’ll start with CR.

When studying Critical Reasoning, you need to ensure that you fully understand the essence of the various question types. Do you know the importance of an assumption within an argument? Can you easily spot a conclusion? Do you know how to resolve a paradox? Do you know how to properly evaluate cause and effect? Do you know how to properly weaken or strengthen an argument? These are just a few examples; you really need to take a deep dive into the individual Critical Reasoning topics to develop the necessary skills to properly attack any Critical Reasoning questions that you encounter.

As you learn each Critical Reasoning problem type, do focused practice so that you can track your skill in answering each type. If, for example, you incorrectly answered a Weaken the Argument question, ask yourself why. Did you make a careless mistake? Did you not recognize the specific 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.

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 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 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 questions with which you struggle: Find the Main Idea, Inference, Author’s Tone, etc. As with Critical Reasoning, analyze your incorrect answers to better determine why you tend to get a particular question type wrong, and then improve upon your weaknesses. You can perfect your reading strategy with a lot of practice, but keep in mind that GMAT Reading Comprehension passages are not meant to be stimulating. So, to better prepare yourself to tackle such bland passages, read magazines with similar content and style, such as the New York Times, Scientific American, and Smithsonian.

Sentence Correction 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 likely reason that your Sentence Correction performance has not improved is 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 less than 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 clearly refer to nouns? 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 none of those reasons are 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 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, only one or two seem obviously incorrect. Getting the right answers takes a certain work ethic. You have to put in the necessary time to see the differences between answers 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. 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 to arrive at that answer and what you could do differently 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 do differently to extend 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 skills improve, you’ll then want to practice with questions that test you on skills from multiple SC topics.

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 questions.

Good luck!

Scott ,
What a thunderous reply to a post!! I feel that you are going to kill it with your Verbal course as well. The TTP quant is flawless and comprehensive.

Its your selfless attitude in helping others in actually scoring high which has garnered a huge amount of goodwill. This will certainly payoff in the long term.

Moreover , the courses are appropriately priced , considering the PPP for countries like India. Kudos to you!!

Most importantly , you and your team are always a message away and receptive too.

Warm regards
Aniriddha Wakchaure

My Pleasure!!

VeritasKarishma GMATNinja AjiteshArun and other experts - Thank you so much for your help in my GMAT Journey so far.
I took my second attempt at gmat yesterday and score a 710 (Q-49, V-36, IR-7). Although this is below my expected score of 730-740 range, which i was getting in my last few Expert's Global mocks and also in GMAT PREP -2 (740 score)

Need advice if retaking would help me improve my chances as i am looking for top 25 US B-Schools in General Management.

Thanks,
Aviral

Hi Aviral1995,

A 710/Q49 is an outstanding Score - and a great improvement over your prior 650 - so you can comfortably apply to any Business Schools that interest you. In my prior post, I recommended that you speak with an Admissions Expert about your overall profile and plans - and that suggestion still holds. There's a Forum full of those Experts here:

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

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

710 is a good enough score. Another 20 points won't make much difference to your application. If you were to bump it to 780 or 790, it would make your application stronger though still, it would be no guarantee of admission, so the amount of effort needed to do this may not be worth it. A good GMAT score is necessary but not sufficient for admission and 710 is a good GMAT score.
I would suggest you to focus on your applications now. You can get a free phone consultation from our admission team here: https://www.gmatclub.com/forum/veritas-prep-resource-links-no-longer-available-399979.html#-sc ... valuation/

Congrats on your 710! That's a great score! Great improvement from V27! What did you use/do?

Hello Aviral,

That's a great score. Congratulations!!

I have a question for you. What did u do differently between your first attempt and second attempt? Which resources did you use? I am stuck @ 640 650 score. I would like to know what helped you break the 700 barrier. Any inputs would be appreciated.

Thanks in advance.

Hi Arien3228,

I used the same resources - Manhattan GMAT guides in addition to Ron's Video for my first and second attempt. Only think I guess different was the confidence in implementing the approach.

Let me know if I can help you out.

Thanks,
Aviral

Posted from my mobile device