Help Needed: How to improve from 680 to 750+ in a month

Question

Hello gmat experts,

I took my gmat in Nov 2014 after studying for ~4-5 months and scored 680 (awa-6 and IR-6).
Material used:
- MGMAT all cats and SC,CR books (I am thankful to gmatclub posts that recommended mgmat. It is truly "the gmat bible" for me)
- Kaplan tests and books (I found the books to be pretty useless although tests are OK. Still it's scoring is off I feel.)
- OG 13, verbal review and quant review for extra practice.
- Some difficult questions from gmat club posts (but not all) since OAs aren't always available for every question.
- Veritas free question set.(found it quite difficult and of good quality)

Overall I had solved OG and verb+quant review 3-4 times easily and had done good amount of practice before the actual exam. Still, I believe due to pressure, I literally flunked my verbal with the score of just 35(I did not take 8 min break-BLUNDER!!). My quant was 49 because of which I think I reached 680. I was totally heartbroken because I always believed that my first attempt was the last attempt and wanted to give my 100% in it. After looking at this score I was saddened and didn't look at the study material for 2 months. Now I am back to gain back the lost ground and conquer my fear of failure.

Overall scores before the first attempt -
My aim was always 720+ but I couldn't reach that mark in MGMAT cats. I was always hovering around 690. In 2 kaplan tests and Veritas free test I scored around 710 and in gmat prep I scored 720. That is why I thought maybe I can reach 720 on the actual gmat. After some introspection I have realized that my strong points - SC and 600-700 difficulty CR - turned out to be my weak points on the actual test.

What I am planning to do now is to get SCs absolutely correct within 45-60 sec. and find out some strategy to destroy 800 difficulty CRs. Because in difficult CRs, especially after completing about 30 problems in cats, the already difficult wording seems even more difficult to understand and break down in 90sec. I really want to concentrate on this and raise the bar for CR.

I understand that SC and CRs are the relatively easier areas to improve than is RC. That is why I wanna make sure that I literally destroy every question of these types that comes in my way before my D-Day. I admit that I wasn't completely confident on my first D-Day, because I was under a LOT of pressure. I am going to work on this to make sure that I am calm and confident from now on. Now my target is 750+ because I do not want to leave any margin of error.

I would really appreciate if you could suggest me some innovative ways of achieving this goal and extra study material because solving the same problems again is not giving me a clear idea about my improvement.
Plan of record:
- Already solved OG and verb+quant review again.
- Solved a few veritas problems again.
To be done:
- Solve 1000 sets from gmat club.
- Solve all the 700-800 problems.
- Maintain error logs and track my progress
- Take each gmat prep test twice (Previously I gave each test only once)
-Take all mgmat cats, kaplan cats again and solve mgmat club cat. (Any more suggestions?)

Please suggest me new material that I can use and ways to tackle the highest difficulty CR problems. Also would like to know reviews about knewton practice problems and cats.

Thanks a ton!

dabral · Answer

pathomkar

I will make couple points about materials. I would highly recommend you to work with official GMAT materials, if you have taken the two free official gmatprep tests then go ahead and practice with the pool of questions in the database. you can find the entire set of quant and verbal questions in this post: all-gmatprep-questions-quant-verbal-187679.html

The other thing is to not waste your time by redoing official gmat problems, the reason is that gmat problems lose their effectiveness if you have attempted them once before. it is important to keeping practicing with fresh problems. i would target the harder problems from gmatprep question pack 1. if you need new official CATs, then get the exam pack 1.

in summary the more time you spend on the official gmat problems, the better a sense you will get of how the test writers want you to think about the exam.

cheers,
dabral

GMATPill · Answer

Well, you may be interested in the story of one of our students who was in a similar situation. SilverBull wrote an excellent debrief here that you may find helpful: debrief-my-journey-to-193367.html

DmitryFarberMPrep · Answer

Hmm, I can't agree with dabral that it's a waste of time to revisit problems. Most people burn through way too much material because they don't spend enough time mastering the problems they've done. You should spend the majority of your time reviewing previous work. Below is a post in which I suggest some techniques for doing that (along with some sources of material if you need them).

where-to-practice-after-og-154845.html#p1239328

pathomkar · Answer

Thanks a lot everyone for your replies.

DmitryFarber,
You are right. Understanding and analyzing my mistakes is indeed helping me because my accuracy in solving OG questions has increased. 
I will start giving mock tests soon to analyze my progress, but I feel that my CR is still not where I want it to be. I have been solving CRs and trying to create some strategies, but its tricky to understand a complex argument, think about what I want to look for and find the right answer choice in 1-1:30 mins. Any suggestions there?

Thanks !

EMPOWERgmatRichC · Answer

Hi pathomkar,

If you're still building your skills in CR, then you shouldn't be focused on the speed of your work. Accuracy comes first. As a general rule, a typical CR prompt should take about 2 minutes to solve (on average), so if you're attempting to solve CR questions in 1 to 1.5 minutes each, then that might be hurting your accuracy.

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

DmitryFarberMPrep · Answer

I agree that 1-1:30 is a tough (and unnecessary) goal to set for yourself. That's the pace you have to set on the LSAT, so it's humanly possible, but you don't need to go there. Having said that, how do we LSAT pros get there? By making the process of analyzing the argument, identifying assumptions, and predicting possible answers as routine and comfortable as possible. As you work through more problems and review them carefully, you should start to spot some patterns in the arguments. "Here's another one where they assume no unforeseen complications interfere with the plan. Here's another one where they switch terms from the premise to the conclusion." As you notice these things, you'll be more and more likely to predict the correct answer, and you'll save time on the back end. That may well take you 2 minutes, but 2 minutes is just fine.

pathomkar · Answer

EMPOWERgmatRichC ,  DmitryFarber ,

I am trying to get CRs done in that time frame to allow more time for RCs. I see my accuracy increased when I am solving CRs daily/on alternate days and I would like to continue that without too many gaps. The main thing is that CR and SC cover most of the verbal test so I would like to increase my accuracy for them. As you said, I am practicing on detecting patterns in CR and it does help, but the problem is I have done OG, mgmat prep, kaplan at least twice in last 2 months .

Going forward I am thinking of taking tests frequently, while practicing some good quality material to improve my strategies and to increase accuracy. Since I have solved the OG, mgmat, and kaplan already, I was planning to buy the gmatprep question pack1, which has about 404 questions in total. I think this book might work as a good supplement, in addition to taking tests. I thought of continuing to practice the material I have, but I cannot gauge my accuracy if I see the same questions too many times.

Do you have any other ideas about which practice material I can use during this phase or what overall approach to use during this phase (basically abt 3 weeks before the exam. I am planning on targeting april end to take the test)?

Thanks !

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Help Needed: How to improve from 680 to 750+ in a month

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