I took the GMAT today and scored a 660. Tips and tricks

Hey sejalmali,

If you are confident enough that you can score well on quant and that Q44 was only because of the test day pressure, then I don't think there's much to worry. It's ok to feel anxious during the test but you have to make sure that you don't mess the test up. Never ever spend too much time on a single question. As soon as you read the question stem, you should be able to judge whether you can solve the question under two minutes or not.

If your mock scores are consistent, then I think you are capable of scoring 48/49 on quant. Just take a couple of mocks to gain the confidence. This time make sure you follow the right strategies. You can go through the below recording to understand a few test taking strategies.



Hope it helped. I wish you all the best for you next attempt.

Hello sejalmali,

A score of 660 is decent and you are very close to your target score.

Also, I fully understand your frustration because, with my GMAT tutoring, guidance, and counseling experience, we have to accept a fact with a pinch of salt that diagnostic/ mock test scores are above then what one should expect in a real test. There is often dropping in the score. Some students have even experienced a drop of 100 pointers. It is one of the realities, and your preparation should not sideline this fact.

A couple of things that can be a noticeable barrier to your scores would be some or all of the below.

• Inefficiency by using time-consuming Conventional method to tackle DS and PS questions still
• No expert support (maybe) who can tutor, analyze, and guide you during your learning especially on hard level questions while stably hitting middle-level questions.
• Lack of many updated questions and practice in the recent exam trend
• Not well aligned with time to solve questions.

We would recommend you make a note of various possible combinations of your target score. The possible scores will help you track your performance after taking the mock or practice test. It will also help you maintain balance in both the sections, and you will always be in a great position to allot the study hours to a specific area accordingly.

You can try our free diagnostic test and receive a comprehensive study guide by topic. receive. This test will clearly help you understand your weak areas.

You can schedule a Free counseling session for 20 mins with one of our experts:https://calendly.com/mathrevolution/1-on-1-session for detailed advice on your current study plans.

You must schedule your day smartly to revise the topics and also practice more questions. We would suggest you register with MathRevolution https://www.mathrevolution.com/member/signup to get access to our 7-day full on-demand course (27 topics, 490 subtopics, and 1,500 questions) for free trial lessons. 700+ level questions https://www.mathrevolution.com/gmat/questionbank are separately available, too.

Since we are a math expert, we will recommend you go through our post on the GMAT club: Breakdown of GMAT math questions and types: https://gmatclub.com/forum/overview-of- ... l#p1641411

Regular tests will reflect the positive change in the score, and hence, your confidence will boost up. Gradually, with the help of mock tests, you will be able to compete with time and hence will be able to learn time-management.

We appreciate your time and patience in reading this reply.

Should you need any further information, please do not hesitate to contact us at info@mathrevolution.com

Success is within your reach.
Good luck!

Punit Joshi
Math Revolution Team

Perhaps learning some time management techniques may help

Hi sejalmalil,

First off, a 660/Q44 is a solid Score - and it could be enough to get you into your first-choice School. When these types of score drops occur, the two likely "causes" involve either something that was unrealistic during practice or something that was surprising (or not accounted for) on Test Day. While you noted one particular Quant question that may have thrown-off your overall performance in that section, we have to be careful about assuming that that was the only reason why you scored lower on the Official GMAT. Before we discuss any of those other potential issues, it would help if you could provide a bit more information on how you've been studying and your goals:

Studies:
1) How long have you studied in total? How many hours do you typically study each week?
2) What study materials have you used so far?
3) On what dates did you take EACH of your CATs/mocks?

Goals:
4) What is your overall goal score?
5) When are you planning to apply to Business School and what Schools are you planning to apply to?

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

Hi sejalmali,

I think you are pretty close to where you need to be, so it’s possible that nerves affected you or you could have just had a bad day. Regarding how to move forward, with your quant prep, to continue improving your skills, you need to go through GMAT quant carefully to find your exact weaknesses, fill gaps in your knowledge, and strengthen your skills. The overall process will be to learn all about how to answer question types with which you currently aren't very comfortable and do dozens of practice questions category by category, basically driving up your score point by point.

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 the 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.

For example, if you find that you are not strong in answering Number Properties questions, carefully review the conceptual underpinnings of how to answer Number Properties questions and practice by answering 50 or more questions just from Number Properties: LCM, GCF, units digit patterns, divisibility, remainders, etc. As you 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. Number Properties is just one example; follow this process for all quant topics.

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 and types that you would rather not see, and types of questions 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.

So, work on accuracy and generally finding correct answers, work on specific weaker areas one by one to make them strong areas, and when you take a practice GMAT or the real thing, take all the time per question available to do your absolute best to get right answers consistently. The GMAT is essentially a game of seeing how many right answers you can get in the time allotted. Approach the test with that conception in mind, and focus intently on the question in front of you with one goal in mind: getting a CORRECT answer.

In order to follow the path described above, you may need some new quant materials, so take a look at the GMAT Club reviews for the best quant courses.

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

Please reach out with any further questions.