Hi aghosh54,
I’m glad you reached out, and I’m happy to help. So, the first issue is that you have taken 14 quant practice tests and your score is not improving, right? That is telling us that you are taking quant practice tests before you are ready. Remember, GMAT practice tests serve two main purposes: to provide diagnostic information and to get you accustomed to the test-taking experience. In other words, by taking a practice test, you can get a sense of what types of GMAT questions you are comfortable answering, arrive at a reasonable estimation of how you would score on the GMAT at that point in time, and practice taking the GMAT and handling its various challenges, such as time pressure and the varying difficulty of the questions presented.
Can practice tests be valuable tools for learning and continued score improvement? Yes, of course, if they are used properly and at optimal times in your preparation. However, you should not use practice tests as primary learning vehicles because they don’t really provide the kind of practice that you need to increase your score. To improve your score, you need to learn the basics of answering various types of GMAT questions, and then practice applying what you have learned by carefully answering practice questions in order to learn to answer them correctly. When you first learn how to answer a particular type of question, answering that type of question correctly can easily take way longer than the two minutes or so per question that you are allotted when you take the GMAT. So, to effectively prepare, you have to practice answering questions of each type without the constraints of the exam, and work up to the point at which you can answer questions of each type in around two minutes.
When taking a practice test, you don’t give yourself the kind of time you need to learn to answer questions. Two minutes per question flies by, and if you want to finish each section of the test on time, in many cases, regardless of whether you have figured out how to answer a question, you may have to pick an answer and move on. So, while taking a practice test can be a great way to work on your overall approach to taking the GMAT, taking a practice test is not a great way to learn how to get right answers to various types of questions. To hit your score goal, you likely need to focus on the latter type of prep. You certainly can benefit from taking one diagnostic practice test early in your preparation to gauge your current skill level, but why spend three hours taking another practice test (and another, and another) to learn the same thing over and over again: You have to learn more content and develop more skills to hit your score goal. Using practice tests in such a way wastes a valuable tool.
Once you have done substantial preparation and mastered much of the content tested on the GMAT, when you sit for practice tests, they will actually show, to some degree, lingering weak areas. I say “to some degree” because although practice tests provide a pretty good approximation of how you will score on the GMAT at a particular point in time, the sample size of the number of questions found on any practice test is rather small (31 quant questions and 36 verbal questions), so practice tests don’t do a very good job of showing specific areas of weakness. For example, let’s say that on a practice test, you encounter one Rate-Time-Distance question among the 31 quant questions, and you get the question wrong. Should you conclude that you need extensive work on Rate-Time-Distance questions? Of course not. Similarly, what if you correctly answered the Rate-Time-Distance question? Does that mean you’re good to go on such questions? Maybe. But maybe not. In fact, let’s say that out of six practice tests, you saw a total of six Rate-Time-Distance questions and correctly answered them all. Can you conclude that you’re solid on Rate-Time-Distance questions? Probably not. One thing that makes the GMAT challenging is the vast potential for variation in the questions. There are hundreds -- maybe thousands -- of variations of Rate-Time-Distance questions that can appear on any test. So, correctly answering five or six (or ten) Rate-Time-Distance questions doesn’t really tell you much. You must take care not to over-infer based on a handful of practice tests.
To truly improve your GMAT quant skills, and before taking any further tests, follow a linear and focused study plan that allows you to slowly build mastery of one GMAT topic prior to moving on to the next. Within each topic, begin with the foundations and progress toward more advanced concepts. By following such a plan, you will be able FIRST to learn the concepts and strategies related to GMAT quant and SECOND to practice with a large number of realistic questions.
If you’d like more specific advice regarding this plan, feel free to reach back out, and I can provide further advice. Also, you may find it helpful to read this article about
how to increase your GMAT quant score.
close
20 Nov 2018, 13:06
