Help! GMAT Retake Advice

Hey Sara,

Congrats on 710!

You need to work on RC and you have a lot of scope for improvement in Quants. But I think 10 - 15 days of prep will be fine if you do more than that you may get burned out.
This time focus more on 700+ level questions.

Regards

710 is a great start! To maximize your score increase, you should look to improve in all aspects of GMAT quant (to hit Q50) as well as Reading Comprehension in verbal. I’ll start with quant.

In order to improve your quant skills, you need to go through GMAT quant carefully to find your exact weaknesses, fill gaps in your knowledge, and strengthen your skills. The overall process will be to learn all about how to answer question types with which you currently aren't very comfortable and do dozens of practice questions category by category, basically driving up your score point by point.

For example, if you find that you are not strong in answering Number Properties questions, then carefully review the conceptual underpinnings of how to answer Number Properties questions and practice by answering 50 or more questions just from Number Properties: LCM, GCF, units digit patterns, divisibility, remainders, etc. When you are working on learning to answer questions of a particular type, start off taking your time, and then seek to speed up as you get more comfortable answering questions of that type. As you do such practice, do a thorough analysis of each question that you don't get right. If you got a remainder question wrong, ask yourself why. Did you make a careless mistake? Did you not properly apply the remainder formula? Was there a concept you did not understand in the question? By carefully analyzing your mistakes, you will be able to efficiently fix your weaknesses and in turn improve your GMAT quant skills. Number Properties is just one example; follow this process for all quant 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 types of 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 quant areas and turning them into strong areas, you will make great progress toward hitting your quant score goal. If a dozen areas turn out not to be enough, strengthen some more areas.

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.

To improve in Reading Comprehension, you need to focus on understanding what you are reading. When you are incorrectly answering Reading Comprehension questions, it’s partly because you do not truly understand what you have just read, right? Thus, you likely have to slow down in order to (eventually) speed up. At this point, your best bet is to focus on getting the correct answers to questions, taking as much time as you need to see key details and understand the logic of what you are reading. You have to learn to comprehend what you read, keep it all straight, and use what you are reading to arrive at correct answers. If you don't understand something, go back and read it one sentence at a time, even one word at a time, not moving on until you understand what you have just read. There is no way around this work. Your goal should be to take all the time you need to understand exactly what is being said and arrive at the correct answer. If you can learn to get answers taking your time, you can learn to speed up. Answering questions is like any task: The more times you do it carefully and successfully, the faster you become at doing it carefully and successfully.

Another component of understanding what you are reading is being “present” when reading. Don’t worry about how things are going at work, or what you will eat for dinner, or even how long you are taking to read through the passage. Just focus on what is in front of you, word by word, line by line. Furthermore, try to make reading fun. For example, even if you are reading about a topic that bores you, pretend that you are the person making the argument. By doing so, you will make the passage more relatable to YOU, and ultimately you should be able to read with greater focus.

One final component of Reading Comprehension that may be tripping you up is that RC questions contain one or more trap answers that seem to answer the question but don't really. So, a key part of training to correctly answer RC questions is learning to notice the differences between trap answers and correct answers. You have to learn to see how trap answers seem to follow from what the passages say, but don't really, while correct answers fit what the passages say exactly.

In order to follow the advice above, you may need some new verbal and quant materials, so take a look at the GMAT Club reviews for the best quant and verbal courses.

Also, you may find it helpful to read this article about [url=(https://blog.targettestprep.com/how-to- ... 0-on-gmat/]how to score a 700+ on the GMAT[/url].

Good luck!

Hi Sara12,

First off, a 710/Q48 is an outstanding Score - and you can comfortably apply to any Business Schools that interest you. As such, a retest is probably not necessary. Since you're interested in some highly-competitive Schools, you would likely find it beneficial to speak with an Admissions Expert about your overall profile plans. There's a Forum full of those Experts here:

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

There's certainly no harm in continuing to study and retesting, so before we discuss the data in your ESR, I have a few questions about your prior studies and timeline:

1) Did you use any other study materials besides the books that you mentioned?
2) On what dates did you take EACH of your CATs and how did you score on EACH (including the Quant and Verbal Scaled Scores for EACH)?
3) When are you planning to apply to Business School?

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

A Q50/V40 would be one way to get that 740 that you want. Your ESR shows that something went wrong in your quant (given that you got a Q48, which is a good score, that "EQUAL./INEQUAL./ALG." score doesn't look like something that you'd normally get). What do you think happened in the quant section?

Hey Rich,

Thanks so much for getting back to me!

1) No other materials used.
2) Last 4 official mocks: (taken every 2nd/3rd day in the 10 days before the exam on July 8)
740 Q50 V40
720 Q47 V41
730 Q48 V41
730 Q48 V42
3) Planning to apply September, 2020 2021 Intake

Looking forward to hearing back from you!

Thanks so much for this!

Yes, that seems unusual to me as well. Don't recall what went wrong in this aspect.

Could I also work on pushing my verbal up to V42-44? It's definitely my strength. Last time round I spent a lot of time on quant. Though I'd happily work on pushing quant as well- whatever gets me to a 740-750.

Looking forward to your tips on how I can achieve this, and for how long I should study before the next attempt. (First attempt was on July 8- took a break since). Given that I'm applying next year, I can devote as much time as is required

Thanks so much, Scott. This is super helpful.

Additionally, would you have a personal recommendation for a source of quant questions? Is the extra question pack from GMAT worth it?

Hi Sara12,

I've sent you a PM with an analysis of your ESR and some additional questions.

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

I think it's a great idea to work on both quant and verbal. It's just that your verbal score is already very good, so I'd prioritize quant if I were you.

All the best for the next attempt.

Thanks so much! Messaged you.

TARGET TEST PREP:)

Hello,

I gave my GMAT last week and got 660 (V 38 , Q 44). Need advice on retake strategy. I have already booked my retake exam on 15 Oct,2019.
I am looking for guidance on how do I proceed further?

Any suggestion or pointers would be appreciated.

Hi Same Good Kid,

660 is not a bad start! To improve your GMAT score to a higher level, you need to go through GMAT quant and verbal carefully to find your exact weaknesses, fill gaps in your knowledge, and strengthen your skills. The overall process will be to learn all about how to answer question types with which you currently aren't very comfortable, and do dozens of practice questions category by category, basically driving up your score point by point. For example, if you find that you are not strong in answering Number Properties questions, then carefully review the conceptual underpinnings of how to answer Number Properties questions and practice by answering 50 or more questions just from Number Properties: LCM, GCF, units digit patterns, divisibility, remainders, etc. When you are working on learning to answer questions of a particular type, start off taking your time, and then seek to speed up as you get more comfortable answering questions of that type. As you do such practice, do a thorough analysis of each question that you don't get right. If you got a remainder question wrong, ask yourself why. Did you make a careless mistake? Did you not properly apply the remainder formula? Was there a concept you did not understand in the question? By carefully analyzing your mistakes, you will be able to efficiently fix your weaknesses and in turn improve your GMAT quant skills. Number Properties is just one example; follow this process for all quant 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, types that you would rather not see, and types 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 quant areas and turning them into strong areas, you will make great progress toward hitting your quant score goal. If a dozen areas turn out not to be enough, strengthen some more areas.

You can work on verbal in a similar manner. Let’s say you are reviewing Critical Reasoning. Be sure that you practice a large number of Critical Reasoning questions: Strengthen and Weaken the Argument, Resolve the Paradox, find the Conclusion, Must be True, etc. As you go through the questions, do a thorough analysis of each question that you don't get correct. If you missed a Weaken question, ask yourself why. Did you make a careless mistake? Did you not recognize what the question was asking? Did you skip over a key detail in an answer choice? Getting GMAT verbal questions right is a matter of what you know, what you see, and what you do. So, any time that you don't get one right, you can seek to identify what you had to know to get the right answer, what you had to see that you didn't see, and what you could have done differently to arrive at the correct answer.

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 quant and verbal materials, so take a look at the GMAT Club reviews for the best quant and verbal courses. You also may find it helpful to read the following article about The Phases of Preparing for the GMAT.

Feel free to reach out with any further questions. Good luck!

Hi Same Good Kid,

You will likely receive more of a response if you start your own post-thread (instead of piggy-backing on this one). 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. You should include this information in your new post:

Studies:
1) How long have you studied? How many hours do you typically study each week?
2) What study materials have you used so far?
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

Thanks a lot for your reply Scott, Rich. I am (kind of) new to the club and have never been on any such forum. Tha should Explain my ignorance on the forum rules. I will start a new thread.


regards,
Gowrish

My pleasure! I'll provide the same response on the new thread as well.

What you should realise and do is that, try to understand your weak areas and improve upon them. Maybe you can start with ESRs.
I offer free ESR evaluation service to help students get the best GMAT score possible.

Check out this link.
https://gmatclub.com/forum/reach-out-to ... l#p2361754