Horrible score in GMAT real exam of 530

Question

Hello,

I gave my GMAT exam last Thursday and got a horrible score of 530 (39Q and 23V) which is lowest score till date.
My score during the mocks ranged from 630-670 on GMAT prep, Veritas and Manhattan. I never scored below 600 but during the online exam the proctor kept insisting not to mumble the questions which acted as an distraction plus i was used to reading questions out loud when solving.
Nevertheless, I want to reappear for my exam and cross 700 since I know if i study hard enough I can do it.

For this exam I had studied for roughly 2 months from OG20 and Jamboree Blue book but now I am thinking to reappear in November and apply for round 2.

Can you suggest me a detailed study plan and guide me additional practice books which I should use to achieve my dream score.

GMATinsight · Answer

Shivani1234 You score in both quant and verbal are at a point where an aggressive rehauling of your conceptual understanding is needed. While the material that you have referred to is quite good (OG and Blue book which is a collection of manhattan and veritas questions at large). Understand that having done this material you have not done a very thorough exercise because which OG do not have hard questions in plenty and offers an easy exercise in QUant, Blue book doesn't teach you how to handle questions yourself. you might want to check out a video course which will equip you with how to think about a question when you get it. You require a more personalised help to get better at every aspect rather than just checking everything out without hitting at the right spot of your weakness. You should also consider taking private tutoring and and check the efficiency of private tutoring by taking FREE Demo classes. We offer free demo classes and would give you one if you are interested. All the best!

Shivani1234 · Answer

I haven’t scored so low in any of my mock tests. I always ranged from 44-49 in Quant and 30-37 in verbal so I don’t understand why my results were so low. Should I focus more on solving difficult questions or revisit my concepts

Posted from my mobile device

Posted from my mobile device

nik98 · Answer

Hey,

Well maybe you can try your second test in a physical test center. I have read many such horror stories of the gmat online test from others also. Regarding a study plan, I would say you need very intensive prep as you need to considerable improvement in both your quant and verbal scores, and you have 2 months left. The study plan mainly depends on the resources you use.

The blue book is good but not the best. Also, you need to mainly strengthen your fundamentals before you start practicing hard questions or complex strategies. You can take 2 approaches - book approach or online video approach. For online approach, I would say the TTP course is pretty much the best for quant. Although it is very long and extensive, and it will be difficult to finish the whole quant in 1 month but its still doable. You can also checkout Wizako, they are an Indian company and have online classes and pretty cheap tutor classes also. Also, before you sign up for any course, do take their trial version. This way you can see if the online course is good for you or not. For example, even though TTP is the best, one of my friends said he didn't like it as its was too text heavy for him.

For the book approach (my preference), you can either get the veritas guides or the manhattan guides. The difference in my opinion is the manhattan prep guides drills more in the fundamentals, whereas the veritas guides covers more on strategy, how to approach the questions and think like the testmaker. The veritas guides have more practice question per topic and are more similar to actual gmat questions. The manhattan guides has limited questions but they advise you to solve particular OG questions along with the books. You can go either way, it doesn't matter much. You can download the free veritas prep app from play store to access all their videos from their on-demand course (was gamechanger for me). Go over each the topic-wise video after finish the chapter. In the end, get the Official guide and the advanced questions book and practice those questions.

For practice test, the best one is obviously from gmac on mba.com, the second best is from manhattan prep. Veritas prep tests are good as well, but they are much harder than the actual gmat and this can affect your confidence. So I would suggest getting the official tests and the manhattan tests.

Now with regards to a study plan, if you sign up with any online video classes, they will most probably provide you with one. Even if they don't, plan it out in such a manner, wherein your studying of fundamentals (going over the books with topic-wise practice questions or finishing the online course) should be done in the first 5 weeks. The remaining 3 weeks is just practice test, practicing questions from advanced questions book, reviewing your answers and concepts, and just practice. Let me know, if you need any other help

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ScottTargetTestPrep · Answer

Regarding resoures, in addition to seeking advice in this thread, take a look at the GMAT Club reviews for  the best quant  and  verbal courses , and also read through some  GMAT success stories  to see what materials have worked well for other test-takers.

Also, would you like some general advice on how to improve your verbal and quant skills?

You also may find it helpful to read this article about  how to score a 700+ on the GMAT .

Good luck!

egmat · Answer

Hi  Shivani1234

Thanks for reaching out on the forum, it feels good to see you coming out and asking for advice.

Looking at your scores, I can say that you need significant improvement in both Verbal and Quant. Majority of students falter in their GMAT exam because they start their preparation with OG.

This is a major mistake because if you start your preparation by solving OG questions, you are skipping to practicing questions without learning the concepts. This is a trial-and-error based preparation methodology which cause a two-fold problem:

1. It increases your preparation time by up-to 5X. 
2. You tend to miss out on concepts even after solving many questions.

We have helped more than 25,000 people in last 1 year in achieving their target of a good GMAT score. Maximum people attributed their success to the structured process which we suggested them. I suggest you break your preparation into 3 stages and follow the below plan:

Stage – 1 --> Learn the concepts
Stage – 2 --> Cement the concepts by practicing a sub-section in Isolation
Stage – 3 --> Become test ready (practicing all the sub-sections together)

If you follow the above approach you can expect your preparation to get over in a timeline of 2-3 months with 18 hours of preparation time per week.

You can also analyze your ability topic-wise and skip stages if you are good in a topic, this will expedite your preparation even further.

I would be happy to explain this Strategy in detail and create personalized milestones for you on a quick call. Please select a time slot that works  here .

Hope the above strategy get you to your target score

Karan
e-GMAT strategy Expert

Horrible score in GMAT real exam of 530

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