Help with GMAT reattempt

@EMPOWERgmatRichC- Thanks for your inputs. Yes, you're correct in assuming that I have taken all the CATs in a realistic fashion.

1) How many hours do you typically study each week? - I must have studied 1-1.5 hours on average each week day and 3-4 hours each on Saturdays and Sundays. In the last one week, I must have studied for about 4-5 hours everyday (This time includes the time spent on writing the CATs)
2) When are you planning to apply to Business School? - I'm planning to apply this year and would like to apply as early as I can in order to give myself the best shot at admission and scholarship
3) What Schools are you planning to apply to? - Scheller, Foster, Rotman, Smurfit. Still to decide a few others

I'll surely order the ESR and send it across.

Hovkial - I think that's very good advice. I do agree that I might have got so absorbed in the preparation so as to not give myself enough breathing space. I couldn't even control the urge to study even the day before the test, which possibly tired me out and contributed to the low score. I will take this as a lesson and not repeat it during the preparation to my next attempt.
Thanks. Much appreciated.

Any advice on how long the ideal gap between the two attempts would be for me?

This is a complex situation and is more than about prep materials, etc.. Please contact directly. Cheers.

Posted from my mobile device

Hovkial wrote about some bitter truths but so true with respect to the test prep companies. I think it is important to not get lost in the heat of the score of 660, which anyways is not bad and does not speak anything low on your skill set. Having said that, I would still reconsider giving the test another shot or may be 2 more at least to get to the 700+ club. I think you are the best judge on what should be your ideal timeframe to retake the test. If you are a kind of person who can just move on quickly over disasters, then may be even 2 weeks is a good timeframe because you already have what it takes to score 700.If you think you take more time to return to normalcy then just don't rush. Take your time to get your positive mindset back and then think about when you can be ready to take the test again.However, i would still suggest you to not fret too much over the prep. Just go practice official material and revisit what you already did.

Cheers and wishing you the best.

Hi sanchitmahajan,

Since you want to apply to Business School soon, you would likely find it beneficial to speak with an Admissions Expert about your overall profile and plans. There's a Forum full of those Experts here:

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

Raising a 660 to the point that you can consistently score 720+ will likely require at least another 1-2 months of consistent, guided study - and you'll have to make significant improvements to how you handle BOTH the Quant and Verbal sections. Thankfully, the GMAT is a consistent, predictable Exam, so you CAN train to score at a higher level. There are some additional adjustments that you will likely have to make to your studies, but we can discuss those after we've had a chance to analyze your ESR.

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

Hi Sanchitmahajan,

The good news is that 660 is not a bad starting point. That said, we need to figure out why your GMAT score was lower than your practice test scores. When analyzing the discrepancy between your practice test scores and your GMAT score, it’s possible that nerves got the best of you on test day; however, it’s also possible that some of your weaknesses were exposed when you took the GMAT. In other words, it could be that in your preparation, you did not really learn to do what you have to do in order to score high, but rather you picked up on some patterns that were effective in getting you relatively high scores on practice tests.

To hit your GMAT score goal, you probably have 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. When you do dozens of questions of the same type 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.

For example, if you find that you are not strong in answering Number Properties questions, 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. As you 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.

You can work on verbal in a similar manner. For example, assume you begin studying Critical Reasoning. Your first goal is to master the individual Critical Reasoning topics: Strengthen the Argument, Weaken the Argument, Resolve the Paradox, 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, if anything, you would have needed to know in order 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.

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.

In order to follow the path described 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.

You also may find it helpful to read my article for more information regarding
how to score a 700+ on the GMAT.

Can you please help me analyse my ESR?

ESR attached

Hi sanchitmahajan,

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

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

Thanks a lot Rich for the detailed analysis. Much appreciated.

Hi Sanchitmahajan,

Based on your ESR, it’s clear that to raise your overall GMAT score, you need to improve in verbal, and specifically in Critical Reasoning and Sentence Correction. Would you like some advice on how to improve in those areas?