Helped needed from 560 to 700

have you joined a regular coaching for Gmat or are preparing yourself only? sometimes a teachers guidance can be a bliss.

Thank you for your suggestion! I think it's a bit unrealistic for me given I have a very demanding full-time job and a lot of the in-person coaching here in the US are kind of unaffordable for me...but I might try another online course if I don't hit my target score this time.

Hi Rich,

Thanks so much for your detailed response, I really appreciate it! I agree with you that if I continue to study my way, there is no way I could bring my score up to 700, that's why I came here for help, I think I have reached a dead end as to how I can improve, feeling pretty desperate for the past few days.

Especially because after more than 100 hours of study and five GMAT preps, seeing no improvement at all is also kind of making me seriously doubt my ability. Sorry for all the complaints, just kind of need to let them out. Now for your questions: (1) I started using empower gmat since July 7th, I think I panicked after my second or third mock exam and wanted to search for another way to train. I admit it's just been two weeks and too short of a time for the program to take effect, although I have been using 'TEST IT' on some quant questions and find it helpful (2) I have to apply in round one or round two, which gives me the October 1 deadline and January 1 deadline. There are always a lot of things going on at work and with families in December so I'd rather not drag it to December (3) My target school is Michigan Ross, so I think 700 is a must-have.

After my most recent CAT, I realized that (1) I would always make two or three silly mistakes in quant sometimes because I did one step of the calculation wrong in the arithmetic process or because I got confused about the answer and the choices of DS. (2) there are definitely some math questions where upon first reading the stem, I would think to myself 'there's no way I could do this,' but then after reading the explanations on the forum or in the OG, I would be able to understand them immediately. (3) questions that I would consider are too hard for me are definitely on the quant section, I think especially probability and some parts of geometry are very hard for me to think through, it's very hard for me to visualize some of geometry-focused stems (4) the 'low on time' situation always happens to me when I'm doing verbal, I would always miss at least 3 to 5 questions in the end, I definitely have trouble pacing on the verbal section. (5) for verbal, my mistakes on 'RC' and 'SC' often derive from picking the wrong answer between the last two choices that I have narrowed down to; for CR, I would sometimes be surprised by the right answer, which reflects my weakness in logic.

I think the biggest obstacle is I'm weak in both quant and verbal...so I'm also at a loss as to how to allocate time to study most effectively every day.

Thanks again! Looking forward to getting your feedback, I think I would still go ahead and take this exam as an expensive mock exam. I'm prepared to take another two to three months to consistently review for the exam and take it again in late September or October, but I know I need another approach.

Hi VGH84,

Looking at your current mock scores it looks like it would be stretch to reach your target score in 2 weeks. Had it been a one off mock with low scores, it would have been another thing but a continuous streak of similar scores indicates bigger issues. There are clearly gaps in conceptual clarity and application process. Of the two sections – Quant is the relatively weaker section as you have rightly identified for yourself. It would make sense for you to make your strategy Verbal driven. Read our article on Personalized Study Plans for 100+ score improvements to know how to make one in detail.

LEVERAGE YOUR STRENGTH IN VERBAL TO REACH 700 – Q46 V40Since the amount of time that you have for the upcoming test is too short for a drastic improvement, I would suggest you make the most of it by identifying the weakest areas and prevent them from lowering your score too much. You may follow the below mentioned steps:

1. Evaluate topic level weaknesses by taking Ability Quizzes
2. Isolate weak topics (Go to Skill data sections)
3. Improve upon them

In case you would still be interested in retaking the test after this attempt it is important that you follow a structured process so that the learning is cemented, and you can reach your target score. Here are a few students who were in the same position as you but improved significantly to reach their target score.

• Bruno improved from a 540 to 730 in 1 month. See how he focused on "logical approach" and building "core skills". Click here to watch his amazing video debrief.

• Bhavya improved from a 570 to 730 (V43) . Learn how she leveraged “meaning in SC” “Pre-thinking in CR” and “RC reading strategies” to achieve this feat. Click here to watch her inspiring video debrief.

• Askul improved from 520 (Q44 V17) to 710 (Q48 V40). He leveraged the live session and mastered our "3-step" process in SC and "Pre-thinking" process in CR to improve. Click here to read his inspiring GMAT journey.

GET ACCESS TO THE STUDY MATERIAL USED BY BRUNO, BHAVYA, AND AKSUL

Register for e-GMAT Free Trial to get access to the course that teaches core skills and logical approach to acing GMAT. In the Free Trial you will get access to 25+ video lessons and 350+ practice questions to evaluate for yourself if it suits your learning style.

Regards,
Aditee

Hi VGH84,

Many Test Takers spend 3 months (or more) of consistent study time before they hit their 'peak' scores, so you shouldn't expect to have mastered any of the concepts in the EMPOWERgmat Course in just 2 weeks. To properly hit your Goal Score, you do NOT need to be a 'genius', but you really have to be detail-oriented with your work. In my prior post, I asked some specific questions - and you answered all of them with 'general' answers. To properly diagnose - and 'fix' - all the areas that you need to work on, we need exact data. The GMAT is a consistent, predictable Exam, so you CAN train to score at a higher level. The key word there is 'train' though - and it sounds like you've been approaching this whole process without the necessary structure to keep you organized and focused. You have opportunities to pick up some serious points in BOTH the Quant and Verbal sections, but you have to commit to doing the necessary work to earn those higher scores.

If you have any additional questions, then you can feel free to contact me directly.

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

Hi VGH84,

I’m sorry to hear about what has been happening with your GMAT prep, but I’m happy to help get you on the right track. Unfortunately, you won’t be able to score 700 in the next two weeks, so, to start, you may consider pushing your exam to a later date.

Given that your GMAT score appears to have plateaued between 570 and 610, it appears that you have started taking practice exams before truly mastering GMAT quant and verbal. I understand that you want the put the GMAT behind you as soon as possible; however, you are going to have to dig in and follow a patient yet structured approach to truly improve your GMAT score.

Moving forward, you are going to need a study plan that allows you to learn linearly, such that you can slowly build GMAT mastery of one topic at a time. Within each topic, begin with the foundations and progress toward more advanced topics. For example, if you are learning about number properties, you should develop as much conceptual knowledge about number properties as possible. In other words, your goal will be to completely understand properties of factorials, perfect squares, quadratic patterns, LCM, GCF, units digit patterns, divisibility, and remainders, to name a few concepts. After developing your conceptual knowledge, you will want to practice by answering 50 or more questions just from number properties. As you practice, do a thorough analysis of each question that you don't get right. If you get a remainder question wrong, ask yourself why you got it wrong. 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.

Follow a similar routine for verbal. Let’s say you are learning about Critical Reasoning. Be sure that you first learn the necessary concepts of CR questions and then practice a large number of CR 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 you didn't get it right. 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.

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.

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.

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

Please feel free to reach out with any further questions.