jadac wrote:
Hello!
I am looking for some guidance on next steps (study plans? resources?) and possible recommendations for a private tutor (specifically verbal).
I will preface this post by saying, I am extremely frustrated and I am trying not to down on myself. I (wrongly) assumed I could make my way to a decent GMAT score quickly (~3months). I also know that I need to hear the critical feedback, as much as I don't want to
My Story: I am struggling on increasing my Verbal score - I have not been able to make any real progress in ~3months. My first mistake was dedicating most of my time on Quant, since my first score started low 30's, however I now average around 44 (which is better but I'd like to score higher, my best coming at ~47) As for Verbal, I realize at the start that I had an issue with time, so I needed to start skipping questions to give myself more time for problems I could solve. Once I finally gave in to that basic strategy, my score increased but not as much as I need for my goal score of 690+. I recently took the online GMAT, which provided me some issues (details below) and I realize I need to make changes to my study plans, as what I am doing right now is obviously not working for me.
I will share a little bit more about my studies below, I am hoping I could get the opinion and guidance of more experienced GMAT folks. Thank you!
More on my GMAT Studies- I work a full-time job (english is my native language)
- I am able to put in a min of 2hrs a day and more on the weekends. This is about the time and effort I've been putting in for the past couple of months +/-.
- I started studying November 21' but didn't really feel like I was dedicating my full time until Dec/Jan 22'
- Resources: Dec/Jan I went through the
Manhattan Books and Veritas Books (overlapping on subjects I had issues with).
- Practice Problems: I have only been working off of the 2019
OG GMAT books. I have finished problems for the
OG books and Verbal/Quant Review books. Going through the problems I have issues with, but looks like they are not sticking well enough.
- Verbal: I am struggling... missing questions in all areas and usually rushed for time. SC is a huge weakness of mine, I keep going through it and feel like I get it (and then result obviously show that I don't). As for RC, it's not terrible but I've been trying different strategies and ended up with not taking notes - it's been working but I am obviously not 100% accurate. As for CR, it's similar as RC.
- Timing: I have been following Manhattan's white board recommendations for time check/pacing
Practice Exams/Scores (I realize I also made the mistake of running out of
OG Practice Exams + retaking them)... for context, I took an Exam 1x a week b/c I was hoping to take my exam earlier, but based on result I pushed it back much further than I anticipated.
- 11/14/22, Manhattan Mock: 530 (Q36, V27)
- 11/27/22,
OG Mock: 480 (Q31, V26)
- 12/24/22,
OG Mock: (Q47, V31)
- 1/2/22, Veritas Mock: 550 (Q35, V31)
- 1/9/22, Veritas Mock: 620 (V41, Q35)
- 1/21/22,
OG Mock: 590 (Q44, V27)
- 2/2/22,
OG Mock: 650 (Q47, V34)
- 2/6/22,
OG Mock: 630 (Q42, V34)
- 2/18/22,
OG Mock: 570 (Q35, V34)
- 3/4/22,
OG Mock: 610 (Q44, V31)
- 3/10/22,
OG Mock: 620 (Q44, V38)
- 3/14/22, Official GMAT - Online: 570 (Q41, V28, IR 5, AWA 5), issues below
- 4/1/22,
OG Mock: 630 (Q44, V32)
Official Online GMAT, I had a pretty poor experience (1) I move my lips when going through the verbal section, 10min into my exam my proctor interrupted me -- this obviously effected me throughout the entire section/exam, since I start with Verbal (2) My proctor was not present when required, i.e. I had to keep speaking/messaging on the video chat to get his attention. I even ended my test and waited for about ~10min before I could leave b/c no one came back when I called for guidance. I even had to reach out to support for someone to help me. Additionally, my grandfather passed away the week of... it was a rough week.
Goals- I realize I need to adjust my expectations. I took the online exam (3/14) to finally "pull the trigger" and see how I'd fair (that obviously did not work out), so I planned on retaking the exam in person next week (4/12). 1 month after my online exam with the assumption I could make more improvements in between that time. Per my last mock exam, I have made minimal/no progress. Although my initial plan was to give myself a fighting chance to see what I could actually score in a testing environment (due to my poor Online experience). I am not very hopeful for 'dream' score, so I obviously need to make some changes....
- Target Score 690+
- Apply First Round, Fall 2022
Sorry for the word vomit, I was hoping to provide as much context as possible to pre-answer any possible follow-up questions.
My thoughts lean towards a private tutor for some 1:1 guidance and possible study plans, but as you can tell I am at a loss for what should be my next steps.
Thank you for taking the time to read, any and all advice is welcome!
Hi jadac
Let me share my 2 cents from my experience of scoring 740 on GMAT and helping many students reach their target score.
Taking extra time to solve questions is a symptom and not the disease itself. Let me elaborate.
There are 2 things that you do while solving questions - 1. You think about how to solve the question and 2. You solve the question. It's the first point that eats up unnecessary time. Now how do you tackle Point 1. Most people think the best solution is by solving additional questions. It does help but sadly is not the most effective solution because
by just practising more questions you end repeating the same mistakes.
The better solution is to learn the right logical methods to solve questions and then master these methods with additional practice. Now before suggesting you the right methods, I would like to understand how you approach questions at present and then accordingly I can suggest you what's the way out.
Coming to Private Tutoring:
Private tutoring is the best option if you feel you need a personal mentor to guide you through your preparation. Your performance will be constantly monitored by the mentor and based on the feedback you can prepare accordingly. This mostly works when students face difficulty in understanding concepts and require a
one-on-one interaction with tutors with personalised learning. As a working professional, you also need the flexibility of time as your schedule may permit. Moreover, if you feel you get distracted now and then, and need a mentor to
keep you right on track till the end, I suggest you to go with private tutoring.
If you are open to suggestions, I would recommend you to check the private tutoring course offered by
GMATWhiz. We offer you a
tailor made learning experience with highly experienced teachers at an affordable price and help you indulge in flawlessly
personalised learning process. Our tutors have a minimum of 10 years teaching experience and we offer a
hybrid learning experience where we combine the best of online learning (technology) with private tutoring. Also, the
round-the-clock availability feature allows you to book the slot of your choice not having to worry about our availability on your convenient time. We use an
AI based learning platform to do 3 things:
1. Get you a personalized trackable study plan that adapts in real time
2. Track your performance on the portal against 20+ data points for each question.
3. Help you learn the basic concepts through video lessons, thereby saving the number of private tutoring hours you need. (These video lessons are created by the same experts who teach you)
The tutor uses these data points before each session to identify the gaps in your learning and create relevant content for discussion. Hence each session is
5 times more effective than those offered by other private tutors as you get
pin-point advice on exact reasons behind your mistakes. As a result, you get the maximum output with minimum number of sessions.
You can check out the
GMATWhiz private tutoring and decide for yourself if it is the one you are looking for.
You can also check out the reviews on:
https://gmatclub.com/reviews/gmatwhiz-345345722?fl=menu You can go through the below link to see how William, with a full time, hectic job schedule, achieved a Q50 and V40 with
GMATWhiz private tutoring, exhaustive videos, and the strategies, bringing it to a GMAT 740:
Feel free to contact if you have any further queries.
You can always write back to me here or the better way would be to connect over a call and have a discussion. You can schedule a free consultation call using the below link.
close
Updated on: 03 Apr 2022, 19:21
