How to jump from 610 to 700?

Hi mykrasovski,

I’m sorry to hear about how things have been going with your GMAT. Since you have been studying for some time, and are still are 90 points from your 700 score goal, you really need to look at HOW you have been preparing and make some changes right? Furthermore, since you scored Q43/V31, it’s clear that you are lacking some of the quant and verbal skills necessary for a high score. To improve those skills, moving forward, you need to ensure that you follow a linear and structured study plan. A plan that allows you to individually learn each GMAT quant and verbal topic and then practice each topic until you’ve gained mastery. Let me expand on this idea further.

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 carefully reviewing the conceptual underpinnings of how to answer Number Properties questions, practice by answering 50 or more questions just from Number Properties. 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 around at least 90 percent accuracy in your training. If you get 100 percent of some sets correct, even better. Number Properties is just one example; follow this process for all quant topics.

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.
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.

Follow a similar routine for verbal. For example, let’s say you start by learning about Critical Reasoning. Your first goal is to fully master the individual topics: Strengthen the Argument, Weaken The Argument, Resolve the Paradox, etc. As you learn about each question type, do focused practice, so that you can track your skill in answering each type. If, for example, you get a weakening question wrong, ask yourself why. Did you make a careless mistake? Did you not recognize the specific question type? Were you doing too much analysis in your head? Did you skip over a keyword in an answer choice? You must thoroughly analyze your mistakes and seek to turn weaknesses into strengths by focusing on the question types you dread seeing and the questions you take a long time to answer correctly.

When practicing Reading Comprehension, you need to develop a reading strategy that is both efficient and thorough. Reading too fast and not understanding what you have read are equally as harmful as reading too slow and using up too much time. When attacking Reading Comprehension passages, you must have one clear goal in mind: to understand the context of what you are reading. However, you must do so efficiently, so you need to avoid getting bogged down in the details of each paragraph and instead focus on understanding the main point of each paragraph. That being said, do not fall into the trap of thinking that you can just read the intro and the conclusion and thereby comprehend the main idea of a paragraph. As you read a paragraph, consider how the context of the paragraph relates to previous paragraphs, so you can continue developing your overall understanding of the passage. Furthermore, as you practice Reading Comprehension, focus on the exact types of questions with which you struggle: Find the Main Idea, Inference, Author’s Tone, etc. As with Critical Reasoning, analyze your incorrect Reading Comprehension answers to better determine why you tend to get a particular question type wrong, and then improve upon your weaknesses. Keep in mind that GMAT Reading Comprehension passages are not meant to be easy to read. So, to better prepare yourself to analyze such passages, read magazines with similar content and style, such as The Economist, Scientific American, and Smithsonian.

Sentence Correction is a bit of a different animal compared to Reading Comprehension and Critical Reasoning. There are three aspects to getting correct answers to GMAT Sentence Correction questions: what you know, such as grammar rules, what you see, such as violations of grammar rules and the logic of sentence structure, and what you do, such as carefully considering each answer choice in the context of the non-underlined portion of the sentence. To drive up your Sentence Correction score, you likely will have to work on all three of those aspects.
Regarding what you know, first and foremost, you MUST know your grammar rules. Let's be clear, though: GMAT Sentence Correction is not really a test of knowledge of grammar rules. The reason for learning the grammar rules is so that you can determine what sentences convey and whether sentences are well-constructed. In fact, in many cases, incorrect answers to Sentence Correction questions are grammatically flawless. Thus, often your task is to use your knowledge of grammar rules to determine which answer choice creates the most logical sentence meaning and structure.

This determination of whether sentences are well-constructed and logical is the second aspect of finding correct answers to Sentence Correction questions, what you see. To develop this skill, you probably have to slow way down. You won't develop this skill by spending less than two minutes per question. For a while, anyway, you have to spend time with each question, maybe even ten or fifteen minutes on one question sometimes, analyzing every answer choice until you see the details that you have to see in order to choose the correct answer. As you go through the answer choices, consider the meaning conveyed by each version of the sentence. Does the meaning make sense? Even if you can tell what the version is SUPPOSED to convey, does the version really convey that meaning? Is there a verb to go with the subject? Do all pronouns clearly refer to nouns? By slowing way down and looking for these details, you learn to see what you have to see in order to clearly understand which answer to a Sentence Correction question is correct.

There is only one correct answer to any Sentence Correction question, there are clear reasons why that choice is correct and the others are not, and none of those reasons are that the correct version simply "sounds right." In fact, the correct version often sounds a little off at first. That correct answers may sound a little off is not surprising. If the correct answers were always the ones that sounded right, then most people most of the time would get Sentence Correction questions correct, without really knowing why the wrong answers were wrong and the correct answers were correct. So, you have to go beyond choosing what "sounds right" and learn to clearly see the logical reasons why one choice is better than all of the others.

As for the third aspect of getting Sentence Correction questions correct, what you do, the main thing you have to do is be very careful. You have to make sure that you are truly considering the structures of sentences and the meanings conveyed rather than allowing yourself to be tricked into choosing trap answers that sound right but don't convey logical meanings. You also have to make sure that you put some real energy into finding the correct answers. Finding the correct answer to a Sentence Correction question may take bouncing from choice to choice until you start to see the differences that make all choices wrong except for one. Often, when you first look at the choices, only one or two seem obviously incorrect. Getting the right answers takes a certain work ethic. You have to take the time to see the differences between answers and to figure out the precise reasons that one choice is correct.

To improve what you do when you answer Sentence Correction questions, seek to become aware of how you are going about answering them. Are you being careful and looking for logic and details, or are you quickly eliminating choices that sound a little off, and then choosing the best of the rest? If you choose an incorrect answer, consider what you did to arrive at that answer and what you could do differently to arrive at correct answers more consistently. Furthermore, see how many questions you can get correct in a row as you practice. If you break your streak by missing one, consider what you could do differently to extend your streak.

As with your Critical Reasoning and Reading Comprehension regimens, after learning a particular Sentence Correction topic, engage in focused practice with 30 questions or more that involve that topic. As your skills improve, you will want to practice with questions that test you on skills from multiple Sentence Correction topics.

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!

ScottTargetTestPrep thanks for your reply. I appreciate the advice, but frankly it feels too high-level. In other words, while reading your suggestions I have not discovered anything new... I have been studying exactly in the way that you described.

For instance, I would pick the topic in Quant (e.g. Number Properties) or in SC (Modifiers) and go in a lot of detail in that topic. First, I would read the theory / grammar until I am comfortable with concepts. Then I would solve easy questions from OG and on gmatclub.com. Once I solve at least 10-20, I analyze all questions which I did not solve correctly or which took too much time. I usually have no problem solving 500 lvl questions (my success rate is >90%). Then I would gradually increase the difficulty level of the questions and make sure I solve at least another 10-20 questions. I would then repeat the analysis and solve more questions if my success is not high enough, or move to the higher level of difficulty.

The problem is that I am quite often unable to de-cipher the question if I have not seen similar one before, and, hence, I cannot quickly understand how to attack it. For instance, the word problem might be about divisibility and factors in disguise, and I am unable to figure that out in 15 seconds. This is one of the biggest problems. And I don't know how to get better at the decoding... I did solve quite many problems, maybe over 5000, but my Quant score did not move at all.

Also, I observed that I start forgetting quite a lot of content and strategy after about two weeks. For example, if I studied Weighted Averages in early May, in mid June I would very likely not remember at least 50% of the strategies and tricky question types. I guess I have to re-do questions frequently, but then I am not sure how to build my study plan... With time, the number of topics that I cover increases and it takes more and more time to review each of them, making it harder to review new topics...

I read the The Phases of Preparing for the GMAT article. It is very good and I am thinking that maybe I need to be much more patient and keep solving questions... But, clearly, the way I was studying is not really helping me to improve. And I tried few methods. So, I don't know what the answer to my situation is, hence I wrote to this forum.

I think you over-studied. You do not need more materials - if anything, you need to get rid of most of your materials and focus your time and attention on the most helpful ones. For someone who has studied as much as you have, you do not need more general advice. If I were you I would really try to get a qualified tutor who can lay out a study plan for you and hold you to it. I used to live in Denver too; I do tutoring via Skype these days. If you want to have a quick chat to see if we can work together, let me know. As you can see in my signature, my specialty is getting students from the 600's to the 700's.

Hi

For quant practise as many as possible.
Try TTP and club tests both are really good
For verbal Manhattan and egmat ate good

Posted from my mobile device

baru Manhattanprep and PowerScore CR Bible are by far the best sources I have seen, and e-Gmat has some good articles here on gmatclub.com (I have not tried their course, though). Also, I found that videos by GMATNinja and Ron Purewal are quite good, too.

Hi, the facebook link has expired... I will shoot you an email.

Finally, GMAC published my ESR report.

Verbal

Your Verbal score of 31 is higher than 61% of GMAT Exam scores recorded in the past three years. The mean score for this section is 27.04.
Your performance on Critical Reasoning questions was equivalent to a score of 33, which is better than 63% of GMAT Exam scores recorded in the past three years. The mean score for this sub-section is 27.59.
Your performance of 50% on Analysis/Critique questions is considered Weak.
Your performance of 50% on Construction/Plan questions is considered Weak.
Your performance on Reading Comprehension questions was equivalent to a score of 20, which is better than 26% of GMAT Exam scores recorded in the past three years. The mean score for this sub-section is 27.29.
Your performance of 60% on Identify Inferred Idea questions is considered Average.
Your performance of 20% on Identify Stated Idea questions is considered Very Weak.
Your performance on Sentence Correction questions was equivalent to a score of 38, which is better than 81% of GMAT Exam scores recorded in the past three years. The mean score for this sub-section is 27.19.
Your performance of 83% on Grammar questions is considered Strong.
Your performance of 50% on Communication questions is considered Weak.
You completed 36 questions in the Verbal section.
You responded correctly to 88% of the first set of questions, 57% of the second set of questions, 43% of the third set of questions and 25% of the final set of questions.
The average difficulty of questions presented to you in the first set of questions was Medium, the average for the second set of questions was Medium High , the average for the third set of questions was Medium and was Medium for the final set of questions.
The average time it took you to respond to the first set of questions presented was 2:20, the average time for the second set of questions was 2:41, the average time for the third set of questions was 1:50 and 0:32 for the final set of questions.
Please Note: If you sat for the GMAT exam prior to April 16, 2018 this section contained 41 questions, on or after April 16, 2018 the section consists of 36 questions.

Quant

Your Quantitative score of 43 is higher than 47% of GMAT Exam scores recorded in the past three years. The mean score for this section is 39.93.
Your performance on Problem Solving questions was equivalent to a score of 40. Your score is better than 39% of all sub-section scores recorded in the past three years. The mean for all test takers is 39.91.
Your performance on Data Sufficiency questions was equivalent to a score of 47. Your score is better than 57% of all sub-section scores recorded in the past three years. The mean for all test takers is 39.94.
Your performance on Arithmetic questions was equivalent to a score of 39. Your score is better than 34% of all sub-section scores recorded in the past three years. The mean for all test takers is 40.02.
Your performance on Algebra/Geometry questions was equivalent to a score of 45. Your score is better than 54% of all sub-section scores recorded in the past three years. The mean for all test takers is 39.88.
Your performance of 50% on Geometry questions is considered Weak.
Your performance of 75% on Rates/Ratio/Percent questions is considered Above Average.
Your performance of 54% on Value/Order/Factors questions is considered Average.
Your performance of 33% on Equal./Inequal./Alg. questions is considered Weak.
Your performance of 60% on Counting/Sets/Series questions is considered Average.
You completed 31 questions in the Quantitative section.
You responded correctly to 71% of the first set of questions, 57% of the second set of questions, 71% of the third set of questions and 14% of the final set of questions..
The average difficulty of questions presented to you in the first set of questions was Medium High, the average for the second set of questions was Medium High, the average for the third set of questions was Medium High and was Medium High for the final set of questions.
The average time it took you to respond to the first set of questions presented was 2:09, the average time for the second set of questions was 2:27, the average time for the third set of questions was 2:12 and 0:54 for the final set of questions.
Please Note: If you sat for the GMAT exam prior to April 16, 2018 this section contained 37 questions, on or after April 16, 2018 the section consists of 31 questions.


My initial analysis is below.

Quant
1. The difficulty level of questions in all sections was Medium High, which I assume is close to Q45-48. I did reasonably well in the first 3/4 of the exam and run out of time in the last quarter that destroyed my overall score.
2. It is hard to rely on percentile statistics because I ended up guessing at least 6 questions in the end, hence, some of the categories are not representative. For instance, I reckon that my Algebra skills are better than 33%. However, I got few really tough inequalities questions and maybe this is why the score is very low.

Main observation: I can probably add another 2-3 points to my score by fixing the timing, so, realistically I should be able to get Q45-46. The question is, though, how to improve timing without sacrificing the accuracy? Would I perform equally better in the first 3 quarters if I spent less time on the problems? This is a question to which I have no answer...

Verbal
1. I totally screwed RC. It is surprising because I answered at least 50% of the RC questions correctly in both of the mocks that I took the week before the exam. It is worth to mention that I totally guessed on the last 4th passage because I was running out of time, and my 1st passage was also very long and I had hard time scrolling down to finish reading the text. The problem with the mouse probably made me distracted and, hence, I missed the passage in its entirety... I am speculating, but it is what it is.
2. I did OK in CR. I think I have to keep practicing it and my score will probably go up a bit.
3. In did well in SC, and I consider SC my strongest area.

Main observation: I should heavily focus on RC and make sure I consistently get at least 50% of the questions right, and also keep practicing CR because it should help with RC. In addition, I should spend no more than 20% of the time on SC to maintain my skills. Last, I believe that better time management and RC could have added at least 3-4 points to my Verbal score. The question, though, is how do I maintain accuracy and improve timing?


P.S. The problem with timing might be buried much deeper than it looks. For instance, I probably use bad techniques and it might take a significant amount of time to fix how I approach problems...

Hi mykrasovki,

Thank you for reaching back out. Honestly, if you have been studying in the way that I described but have not improved, there are likely a few flaws in your approach.

Number 1: It’s quite possible that you did not do enough “learning” on the front end. Using Number Properties as an example, did you really learn all you need for divisibility, or units digit patterns, or remainders (to name a few topics) before diving into practice equations? Remember, if you don’t learn the necessary skills and concepts needed to successfully answer actual questions, then your practice won’t be too beneficial.

Number 2: It’s quite possible that you did not practice enough questions from each topic or moved on before fully mastering each topic. For example, when practicing a topic such as Number Properties, you need to ensure that you are doing at least 15+ questions per subtopic. For example, 15+ divisibility questions, 15+ remainder questions, 15+ units digit pattern questions, etc. By practicing such a large number of questions, you’ll be able to not only easily determine where you are still struggling but also pick up patterns in each question type. I see that you ultimately practiced more than 5,000 problems; however, it’s quite possible that you moved on from a topic before completely mastering it. After completing your focused practice, you MUST spend time reviewing your mistakes and improving your weaknesses. That means going beyond just reading through solutions; you must return to section readings or videos to refresh your knowledge from a particular topic. By doing so, you WILL improve, and furthermore, your issues of not being able to “decipher the question” or know “how to attack the question” will begin to dissipate.

Number 3: You may get much better results by doing practice questions untimed. Here’s why: When you do practice questions timed, you don’t really practice what you have to practice, i.e., seeing things like what you described that you don’t see. When you get a question incorrect, sure, you analyze what you had to see to get it correct, but doing such analysis is not the same as actually fighting your way to a correct answer in the first place. Fighting, hacking, and figuring your way to correct answers is what you have to practice. So, going forward, you should do practice questions untimed, and keep working on a question until you come up with the answer. Yes, doing so may result in your taking fifteen minutes or more to answer a single question at times, but as you become accustomed to coming up with ways to arrive at answers, you’ll speed up. Many people have seen huge jumps in their scores after they have switched from practicing timed to practicing untimed, so if you have been doing most of your practice timed, making this change could be huge for you. You have learned a lot about GMAT quant. Now you have to learn to apply your new knowledge.

Regarding your issue with forgetting previously learned content, you need to ensure that you spend time doing review as you progress through your studies. One great way to review is to, each day, review notes/flash cards from previously learned topics. Furthermore, do mixed sets of past topics. So, if you have not seen weighted averages, rates, and work, in some time (for example), do a mixed problem set from those topics to ensure that no knowledge has slipped through the cracks. I agree that as time goes on, you’ll have more topics to cover as you review; just spend the time you need to do so. Certainly, that is not easy, but if you can remain organized, this process will allow you to improve your GMAT quant skills.

With all that said, if you can say that you’ve studied in the exact way I’ve described above, then you probably need to consider some new materials, so, as previously mentioned, take a look at the GMAT Club reviews of the best verbal and quant materials to see what has worked well for other test-takers.

If you need further advice or would like to jump on a call, feel free to reach out to me directly.

Honestly its easy to get paralysis by analysis when looking at the overwhelming amount of GMAT resources.

People will ALWAYS recommend what worked for them.

And..i'm going to be guilty of that but only because this is one of the only trialed and proven methods of improving Quant.
The method: Target Test Prep.

It literally spoon feeds you structure and forces you to know the content and knowledge.

Give the trial a go. Heck you could even use it to focus on weaker topics

dcummins, did it help you to elevate Quant from Q41-43 to Q47? What resources have you tried and what was so different about TTP versus other methods / resources? Honestly, I am a bit skeptical about courses now. I know they are helpful and work for some, but I did try Manhattan and Magoosh and neither of these two really helped to raise my score.

So far, I feel that the most useful approach was to drill down into every topic as ScottTargetTestPrep suggested. For example, I would read theory about Fractions and Percents, do at least 15 easy questions, and check my performance. If I answered >90% correctly, I would analyze the incorrect problems or those on which I spent way too much time, and move to the higher difficulty level and do another 15-20 problems, analyze my performance, and move to the next difficulty level. If I find that I cannot solve about 50% of easy questions, I read more theory from other resources (but this is rarely the case). This approach definitely helped me to become a confident solver. However, I am yet to elevate the score.

So, I am hiring a reputable tutor who will hopefully be able to help me spot weakness areas because I frankly don't know what they are & I have failed to effectively spot them. For sure one of the problems is time management, but it comes from inability to make quick & effective decisions throughout the section.

Hello,

Just to reecho what dcummins said, TTP is the best quant material in my opinion. I am current using TTP for a retake and can feel my quant mojo gradually coming back. I have used Magoosh, Empowergmat, and MGMAT's quant book and they don't come close when it comes to structuring. What sets TTP apart is the way the course is structured. You get to test yourself on easy, medium, and hard quizzes after learning each concept. The analytics that comes with the course also helps you spot your weak areas, so you can review the concepts and do targeted practice quizzes before moving on to another chapter. I must warn that TTP's course requires a lot of patience though because the course is very comprehensive. I have heard that a total of 180+ hours is required to complete the course, and not wvwertyone can afford to spend that much time on one section of GMAT.

I think you should use the free 5-day trial to check it out.

Best wishes!

bebs thanks much for sharing your experience. If you don't mind me asking, what was your highest Quant score before you started doing TTP? Have you taken the test recently? Just trying to see what your scores are.

I frankly feel that my Quant level is about 46-47, and this is probably true if you look at my ESR analysis - I was performing quite well on Medium-High questions in the 3/4 of the Quant section and totally blew the last quarter because I run out of time. I wonder whether my score will go up from Q43 to Q46 if I utilize better time management (I failed to do this in the test).

My highest quant score in the official mocks was 48 and highest in the real test was 44. I haven't taken any mock since I started using TTP. I plan to start taking mocks once I complete the course. This is the first time I am following a structured approach to prepare for GMAT, so I think taking mocks when I haven't completed the courses I am following is a waste of time. I should be done with the courses by the end of July, so I guess I will have an answer sometime in August.

See, I was so confident of getting an at least a 48 on my first GMAT attempt, but I came out with a 40. I revised some concepts for another 3 weeks and rush another attempt 4 weeks after the 1st one and came out with a 44. I barely practiced up to 200 questions before this attempt, so I saw a lot of questions on the real test that looked 'strange.' I think GMAC has increased the difficulty of the quant section and the mocks are no longer a good indicator of how one will perform on the real test. That is why I have decided to not leave any stone unturned while preparing for my next attempt. If you think your quant is at the level you desire, then I'd say go for another GMAT attempt.

Best wishes!

bebs you have a very nice progress, so keep going! I am not confident that my quant is at Q47 level, I am guessing. I decided to hire a credible tutor who will hopefully help me ID the weakness areas and improve. Not sure whether I will take the test in July, but I will unlikely be able to take it in August due to my work schedule & travel. So, will probably take a chance in late July.

Interesting, I have heard from few people (including myself) that real GMAT is harder than mocks at mba.com. Perhaps, GMAC did increase the question difficulty a bit...

Good luck! Keep me posted about your progress with TTP.

I scored a Q48 on official practice tests. TTP got me from approx Q41 to consistent high Quant scores and I'm yet to fully finish training with the course.

Ok here's what I'm going to say about tutors - they are extremely hit an miss. I had a local tutor for quant before and he wasn't helpful at all, he even struggled to solve the questions himself - not reassuring as a student. BUT I now have an excellent US based verbal tutor who has helped me significantly.

Mate I wish I could talk in person about this as its easier to convey tonality.

Here's the thing. I've actually tried almost EVERY GMAT resource on the face of the earth. TTP is literally the only thing that I can guarantee will help you jack up your score. It's no silver bullet. You don't just sign up and expect miracles straight away. You work for those miracles.
Yes, you work your ass off. It really makes you grind away.

Just imagine an MMORPG game such as world of warcraft. These games typically make you grind your way up to level. For example "Go Kill 20 Wild Boars", "Go kill 30 Stranglethorn Tigers" hahah.. well TTP is the world of warcraft of GMAT Quant. You grind your way through the course and progressively your score increases. And you can't level up through to the next chapter until you've achieved the target accuracy for a given chapter. For example, in the Number Properties you must achieve 90% accuracy across the 4 Easy Tests, >70% accuracy across the 6 Medium Tests, and >60% accuracy across the 10 Hard Tests.

Each test has between 10 and 20 questions in it.

You do the math. Yep, that's up to 200 hard questions just on number properties.

Its okay to be skeptical.

But here's the thing that makes TTP a cut above the rest...
TTP is designed around two extremely important concepts in study:
(1) Active Recall
There is no passive study here. You learn a bit of content and you are prompted to solve some questions as you progress through the content, and then at the end of each chapter you are slapped in the face with an array of Easy, Medium, and Hard tests.
Solving Questions/ Active review - "When the brain doesn't have to work hard during learning, relatively little knowledge is gained and even less knowledge is retained". This is the premise behind active review.

Here's a detailed breakdown about active review and the most effective forms of study: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ukLnPbIffxE&t=1s

Verdict: Other courses don't abide by this principle. They leave it to the student to do. TTP forces students into this effective method of study. We're all short on time, so why go through the process of figuring out how to design your study around this principle when a course such as TTP is already engineered to do it for you.

(2) Spaced repetition
This is essentially the conversion of information into stored memory. In that same video above you'll discover that it's essential to retention and mastery. It's achieved by spacing out when you complete activities. For example say you complete theory on a topic, go and complete a bunch of questions. Then maybe later in the same day or the next day, go and complete more questions. This also applies to other active recall methods such as flashcards/ Spider diagrams or engaging on and explaining questions here in the forums. Your brain is forced to recall information and solidify the synapses that convert the information channels into longer term memory.

TTP actually gets you to go back (By design) in the form of consistent and frequent review tests.


Finally

As I said, everyone will recommend what worked for them. I went from a 430 to a 650 and the most concrete palatable improvements I made were with Target Test Prep. I owe a huge debt to Scott and Jeff, so I'm really just trying to help others who were once in my position with respect to Quant.
You have nothing to lose but your time as you can use the trial for a month. But I encourage you to keep going.

Hi mykrasovksi,

I see that you are interested in TTP. If you give the trial a shot, you’ll see that the course will be a game changer for you. We’ve had plenty of folks improve from quant scores similar to yours to Q50+ on test day. In fact, check out this debrief from a previous TTP student who scored Q50 on the GMAT. If you’d like to discuss TTP in further detail, feel free to reach out to me directly, and we can jump on a call.

Good luck!

ScottTargetTestPrep it took me a while to reply, my apologies. Thanks much for reaching out and for sharing your thoughts. I did some research and talked to few people who used or currently use the TTP course - I received very positive reviews. However, I decided to go another route, so I started working with a tutor. The experience has been very positive and promising so far. I will keep you posted about the progress.

As far as Verbal, I decided to dedicate more time to RC & CR and do a bit of SC practice regularly to maintain my skill. Specifically, I cluster when I study CR, i.e. I do about 5-10 questions at least every other day and analyze every question thoroughly even if I get it right. My RC practice usually includes 2 passages in one shot. After I finish them, I thoroughly go through all questions and try to answer them without timing myself and without looking at the answer choice. I make sure that I extract as much as possible from every question. I am very selective with the quality of practice questions, that is, I only do OG and LSAT questions.

The issue so far is that I still spend about 2.5 minutes on majority of medium-hard level CR questions. Two or three times a week, I do mixed sets of Verbal questions. Each set is 9 or 18 questions and I set timer to either 16 or 34 minutes, depending on the set size. I noticed that I am ~2-3 minutes short on time when I do a set of 18 questions. The real test is 36 questions, and it is likely that I will be about 4-6 minutes behind. One of the advice that I received from a Manhattanprep instructor is to bail on 2-3 CR questions during the test to catch-up with time. Bailing should not be completely random, rather, I should read every question and within 30 seconds decide whether I want to solve or guess. For instance, the recommendation was to bail if I do not understand the prompt very well or question itself is very confusing (this happens infrequently, though).

Do you think that the "bail" approach is a good strategy? I am trying to speed up as I practice CR, but it does not seem to result in improvement yet. So, I am looking for a good advice.