How to improve on a 710? Please help!!!

Question

Hi, I'm looking for some advice to get me out of my troubling situation. Scored a 710 in my first attempt (49Q 39V). I felt I could do a lot better. I was hoping to improve my quant to 50 and verbal to 40. So ended up giving the gmat a second time however ended up with a 680 (lower score in both quant and verbal) :cry:

Being an Indian applicant (without stellar undergrad credentials) I think I need a higher score and I'm planning to give the gmat again around the 10th of December. So exactly a month to go. While introspecting into what might have gone wrong I realized that my preparation lacked something pretty basic. I gave a lot of mock tests but never stuck to the exact timing. I used to often pause my tests, go on breaks and on instances completed tests over 2-3 days. The problem now is that I've used up all of my mock tests- Kaplan (all 5), MGMAT (all 6) and official gmatprep (both) Moreover I've practiced questions from all over the place: Quant from -OG13, Quant review 2nd edition, Manhattan advance gmat, gmat 800, veritas, gmatclub math book and gmatclub.com questions. Verbal from- OG13, verbal review 2nd edition, veritas advanced, SC grail, etc. I am really unsure as to how to restart studying and from where. Would appreciate if someone could help me out by recommending a plan of action and also recommending some other sources for practice. Also would be great if someone could suggest some other mock tests available (willing to pay for tests also) Thanks Ramalo

GMATPill · Answer

Looks like you haven't used the Practice Pill Platform: www.gmatpill.com/gmat-practice-test/

Do not be concerned about running out of tests. It never hurts to really go back and review any mistakes you did make thoroughly.

If you would like to test yourself again, you can use this online CAT test: www.gmatpill.com/gmat-practice-test/practice-test

ramalo · Answer

Thanks gmatpill. Will definitely take look.

Any other tips anyone?

Still looking for some concrete suggestions. VeritasPrepKarishma? GTuquero? KyleWiddison? CriticalSquare? egmat?

KarishmaB · Answer

First of all, your situation is far better than what you are imagining. Not top of the class, but 710 isn't a bad score. Let's take 49Q and 39V as the base score. Quant - Honestly, the gap between 49 and 51 is hard to bridge. There are few, if any, concrete steps that can be suggested. You could actually get a Q50 on your own without any further prep on a fortunate day (say, if you are mentally quite alert and confident that day). There are various little things that when combined, give you the desired boost. I have a series of 4 posts on this "Going from Q48 to 51" here: https://www.gmatclub.com/forum/veritas-prep-resource-links-no-longer-available-399979.html#/2014/08 ... t-part-iv/ This is part 4 and contains links to the first 3 parts. Of course, it is not exhaustive. Verbal - There is much more scope here. A V42+ would be ideal. Out of the three question types, find the one in which you you make most errors. Give special attention to that and ensure that you get good at it (while practicing the others too). Use specific books/material if you have to. Don't depend on just practice questions. That should give you the 3-4 point boost in the raw score. Thereafter, you can use practice tests to gauge your progress and practice your time and stress management. Here is a link to the set of 7 practice tests - you can try the first one for free: https://www.gmatclub.com/forum/veritas-prep-resource-links-no-longer-available-399979.html#/free-gm ... tice-test/

ramalo · Answer

VeritasPrepKarishma thank you so much for the incredibly helpful post. I'm not too disappointed with a 710 but I know that I can do slightly better (730+) plus coming from a rather competitive pool of applicants (Indian males) I think a 730+ will definitely improve my odds at particular schools.

I've gone through all the 4 posts, they were all amazing. I think my main problem in quant prep earlier was concentrating too much on the most difficult questions I could find and obviously not managing time as well as one should. The fact that I never really took a properly timed mock test obviously hurt.

In verbal I think my basics are weakest in SC. I tried to learn all the exact grammar rules but most of it I just could not get my head around to. So instead I learnt the more basic rules (for example: tenses, like vs such as, colon vs semi colon, using which, etc) and concentrated on selecting the answer choice that made the most logical sense. Its clearly not a full proof method but I'm just not sure what to do. In CR my basics are strong, it often boils down to 2 choices and I know I can get better at it only by practicing. In RC it all boils down to the topic of the passage. I'm really bad at science, art and other technical passages and excel on anything remotely related to economics, history or business and unfortunately most of the difficult RC's fall in the first category.

I would appreciate if you could give some specific guidance for improving my verbal score in particular. I have all the MGMAT books on myself. Also any other sources for practicing quant questions would be helpful.

Thanks and much appreciated

OptimusPrep · Answer

you should identify your weaknesses and practice questions over questions in that area.

EliLTG · Answer

Hi Ramalo,

For SC, it sounds like you're heading in the right direction. Picking up a grammar text and memorizing it would be absolutely the wrong thing to do; instead, you should continue to focus on commonly tested patterns of error such as tenses, which and that, etc.

As for reading, my personal suspicion is that your own knowledge of economics and business are ironically holding you back. High-scoring test-takers read very strategically, focusing on high-level structure, transitions, and context clues. As a result, they can effectively answer questions on almost any topic--back in the day, I used to have students practice reading comp techniques on  The Jabberwocky , made-up words and all! However, if you relied on your subject knowledge to get you through the passages that you were expert on, then you would never master the adaptive mental mapping necessary for tough passages. This would leave you completely lost on reading when the subjects involved unfamiliar and challenging vocabulary and topics.

Take another look at the RC resources you're study from. Pick some of the economics and business passages that you excel on, and focus not on deeply understanding the content, but on applying the mapping strategy. Once you are comfortable applying this technique to materials you understand well, it will be a small step to applying it to passages that you understand less well.

Hope this helps!

manyatpr · Answer

Hi Ramalo,

People above have already responded to your query of finding more mock tests. And we are sure you would have started practicing on them already. But apart from practicing more mock tests, here's something that you should definitely try doing in next few days.

Spend more time in analyzing your performance in a mock test than in giving the mock test. Typically if you spend 2 hours on mock test, spend 5-6 hours in analyzing your performance in the same. Go through each and every question and look at time for as long as you want. You need to figure out a better way of doing the same question. Take a note of all the points and then make sure you apply them in the next test. Keep doing this consistently and you will see your score going up.

With just few days to go, focus on building up the momentum and keep telling yourself that you are going to get to your target score.

We wish you all the very best and are hopeful you will do extremely well.

How to improve on a 710? Please help!!!

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