How to improve my GMAT score?

Hi singhalyash,

I’m sorry to hear how things went with your GMAT. The good news is that you scored really well on quant, right? That said, I understand that you are not satisfied with your verbal score, so the question we need to ask is why you scored so high on your practice exams but lower on the real GMAT.

Assuming that you took your official practice exams under realistic testing conditions, the results show that, on a good day, you are capable of scoring higher than V37. Thus, it’s quite possible that nerves, stress, tiredness, or a combination of all three negatively affected your test-day performance. However, it’s also possible that you have some lingering weaknesses that were exposed on test day.

Although I’m unsure of how you prepared, it’s possible that, in your preparation, particularly in verbal, you did not really learn to do what you have to do in order to score high on the actual GMAT. Rather, you picked up on some patterns that were effective in getting you relatively high scores on practice tests. So, for you to hit your score goal, your preparation, particularly for verbal, probably needs to be more complete, meaning that you have to go through the various types of GMAT questions carefully to find your exact weaknesses, fill gaps in your knowledge, and strengthen your skills.

For verbal specifically, you must become more skilled at clearly defining the differences between trap choices and correct answers. Otherwise, you will get stuck guessing between two choices or be surprised to find that you incorrectly answered questions you thought you answered correctly. Becoming more skilled in this way takes carefully analyzing all of the answer choices to lots of verbal questions to develop an eye for the logical differences between the choices. In other words, you have to go beyond answering practice questions and reading explanations to doing deep analysis of questions to learn to see everything that is going on in them.

Feel free to reach out with any questions.

Good luck!
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Dear singhalyash,

Congratulations on scoring a 710 on the GMAT! We know that this is an accomplishment that you've been working hard for, and it certainly is disheartening to not score as high as you were expecting to. I have created a short video to help you understand why this might have happened and what you should be doing to make sure you get a 750+ score in your next attempt.

singhalyash_GCResponse - Watch Video



Here’s a brief summary of what’s covered in the video:

1. If your mock scores are truly representative of your current abilities, then this performance could be attributed to test day anxiety or just to having a bad day.
   
   
2. However, it is also possible that your mocks scores are inflated, owing to factors such as unrealistic mocks, improper testing conditions, or familiarity with the questions in the mock.
   
   
3. You need to focus on maintaining a Q50 and if possible, try targeting a Q51. For Verbal, the focus will be on improving the overall score by fixing existing conceptual and application skill gaps.
   
   
4. DO NOT take mocks in the hope of improving your scores. Mocks are taken only to check your readiness for the test. Merely taking mocks and practicing a lot of questions will NOT help you improve your score. Make sure that you first learn all the concepts and cement all core skills in both sections before attempting mocks.
   
   
5. Revise the concepts once you have identified your weaknesses. At this stage, it is very necessary for you to bridge all the underlying conceptual gaps. Go through Stage 1 using a fine-tooth comb, figuring out what you have not learnt and then take the remedial measures.
   
   
6. You need to CEMENT your core skills for each subsection properly. This will help you identify all the underlying conceptual gaps, application difficulties, and time management related issues that you have. Once you have mastered the skills for one subsection, you can then move on to the next.

Your Next Steps

As discussed, please share your ESR with us via DM or by writing to support@e-gmat.com. If you don't have your ESR, you can take a SIGma-X mock (free of charge) (you will get an Enhanced Score Report along with this) and email us to schedule a 1:1 discussion with one of our Strategy Experts.
Post that, you will need a course that offers you:

• A strong, adaptive architecture that is able to pinpoint your strengths and weaknesses at a granular level.
  
  
• Extensive lessons and exercises to cover concepts and methodologies to help you develop the right Core Skills.
  
  
• A robust and adaptive testing platform with advanced Data Analytics to help you Cement your core skills in each subsection.
  
  
• A reliable and integrated Mock Test Series that provides you with Enhanced Score Reports, especially since you’ve exhausted most, if not all, of your official mocks and questions.
  
  
• And, finally, dedicated support of Subject Matter and Strategy Experts to monitor your progress and guide you every step of the way.

Feel free to explore the e-GMAT free trial.

I’m also sharing a few success stories of students who’ve had a similar journey as you:

• Prashant got stuck at a 660 in the first 3-attempts. His strategy was to practice a lot of questions as recommended by his classroom coaching and also followed a generic study plan using an online course. Realizing the importance of a better approach, he switched to e-GMAT, where he received a hyper-specific study plan based on his strengths and weaknesses. This enabled him to score a massive 770 in his 4th attempt. Click here to watch his debrief.
  
• Sushant improved from 700 to 760 in just about 3 weeks. He took the help of his e-GMAT mentor to leverage the data analytics in the course to achieve this feat. He improved his Verbal score from a V33 to a massive V46. Click here to watch his success story.
  
• Pratique improved from a V34 to a mammoth V47 in Verbal (scoring an overall 760). He credits his success to the e-GMAT's data driven architecture, Pre-Thinking approach in CR and the meaning based step by step process in SC. Click here to watch his debrief.

I hope you find this insightful and motivating!

Looking forward to hearing back from you.

Best Regards,
Mansi
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Would suggest to use Forum Quiz extensively. Challenging questions, along with explanations posted by the ERxperts will indeed assist a lot.
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For Verbal, at a certain point, you may want to work on your solving approach if you feel your fundamentals are solid. Perhaps work with a study buddy with ace Verbal skills. May boost your score a bit. You couch teach them Quant in exchange.

How to get a V40 or higher on the GMAT? What about a V51?
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Hi singhalyash,

First off, a 710/Q50 is an outstanding Score, so you can comfortably apply to any Business Schools that interest you. As such, a retest might not be necessary. Depending on the Programs that you are interested in, you would likely find it beneficial to speak with an Admissions Expert about your overall profile and plans. Those Experts should be able to answer your Admissions questions and help define the specific areas of your profile that could use some improvement (and the more time that you have to act on that advice, the better). There's a Forum full of those Experts here:

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

There's certainly no harm in retesting, but before I can offer you the specific advice that you’re looking for, it would help if you could provide a bit more information on how you've been studying and your goals:

1) On what dates did you take your 2 Official GMATs?
2) How long did you study before each attempt? For this 2nd attempt, how many hours did you typically study each week?
3) What study materials have you used over the course of ALL of your studies? What “brands” of CATs/mocks have you used?
4) On what dates (or approximate dates) did you take EACH of your CATs/mocks and how did you score on EACH (including the Quant and Verbal Scaled Scores for EACH)?
5) When are you planning to apply to Business School and what Schools are you planning to apply to?

If you took either of your Official GMATs at a Test Center, then you might also choose to purchase the Enhanced Score Report. While the ESR doesn’t provide a lot of information, there are usually a few data points that we can use to define what went wrong on Test Day (and what you should work on to score higher). If you purchase the ESR, then I'll be happy to analyze it for you.

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

Contact Rich at: Rich.C@empowergmat.com

Hi singhalyash

Sorry about how things went with your GMAT.

There could be a couple of reasons for the drop in the score. However, it would be too early to conclude anything without knowing the actual reason. To understand what could have led to the drop in the score and to suggest you the plan of action, I need a little more information about your GMAT preparation. I would like to know more about

• the way you prepared till now (your study strategy)
• your weak areas
• your approach of solving questions
• the resources you have used

Answers to these questions will help me guide you in a better way. And I personally suggest to go for the retake only after you prepared well and are 100% confident.

Having said that, I would like to have a one-on-one conversation with you. The discussion would be mostly around the answers to the above questions, the approximate time you have for the next attempt and the plan of action. If you have an ESR with you, that will be even more helpful to get the insights about your performance. You use use the link below to schedule a call with me.


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Hi singhalyash.

Did you get the ESR for your second test. If you took the test in person and can get the ESR, you may get from the ESR some insights regarding why you didn't achieve a verbal score similar to the ones you've achieved on your practice tests.

Also, when you're doing verbal practice questions, what are your easy, medium, and hard accuracies?
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