Improve GMAT score from 620 to 760 in 7weeks?

gmatnoob760

Your target score of 760 requires that you gain excellence in all the sub-sections of the GMAT. And that is possible if you follow the 3-stages of learning properly as explained here. Remember - to do well on the GMAT, one needs not only the 200% clarity in the concepts but also the ability to apply those concepts to consistently solve difficult questions correctly.

As such 7 weeks is a good enough time to attain this target if you prepare in the right manner. But I will say one thing - the key to success for you (as with everyone) is doing things right the first time. In fact, since you have a fairly tight timeline, you do not have the time for hit and trial. Accordingly, I will your attention to this article that I have just published - https://gmatclub.com/forum/what-causes- ... l#p2381613. This article will give you the insights that you need and will enable you to ask more specific questions regarding your GMAT preparation. Read that article and send me your questions. I will be happy to answer them.

Hi gmatnoob760,

To start, the 760+ score is the 99th percentile - meaning that 99% of Test Takers never score that high (regardless of how long they study or the number of times that they take the GMAT). Thankfully, NO Business School requires a score that high - so it's important to realize that the score that you "want" and the score that you "need" are not the same thing. There's nothing 'wrong' with making that your Goal, but to consistently score at that higher level, you'll need to make some significant improvements to how you handle BOTH the Quant and Verbal sections - and that training takes time (likely more than 7 weeks).

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) How long have you studied? How many hours do you typically study each week?
2) What study materials have you used so far?
3) What are the exact application deadlines for each of the Programs that you plan to apply to?

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

Guys, I have been using material from a tutor who has tailored the questions using the best questions from OG and the Official mocks. Apart from this material I intend to finish the OG + Review set thoroughly twice.

Study plan -
15th - 30th Oct - Redo all material provided by the tutor (both quant and verbal). Focusing mainly on SC concepts.
31st Oct - Take another mock and analyze the results
1st Nov - 10th Nov - Complete questions from OG + Review (mainly use the online OG questions bank to get used the solving it on the computer)
11th Nov - Take another mock
12th Nov - 25th Nov - Revise the entire material (tutor + OG + Review)
26th Nov - Another mock
From here on for the next 15 days. Continue giving mocks on every 5th day and keep revisiting the concepts that need more work.

Please let me know if this plan is doable, if not what else can I do to reach 760.
I can put in 25-30 hours per week.

Your post is a general post and many people face similar problems. You need to share data on sectional performance in DS, PS, SC, CR, and RC. What are your problem areas? How long have you been studying? etc

All the best!

If I understand your plan correctly, here is what you are doing:
1. You are relying on solving questions from OG and Official Mocks to learn the concepts and the method.
2. You are learning all the sub-sections together.
3. You are taking mock tests to determine if you have improved and to identify your weak areas.

If I may be frank - this is a rather unoptimized and ineffective way of preparing. While there are many holes in this plan - one thing that I want you to think about is - how reliable will the mock test scores from your official mocks be if you will use good questions from the official mocks to prepare for that sub-section. And then think that you are making decisions about what to do next based on these mock results.


As I said earlier, read this article to gain insights into what successful students do and what keeps the other students from reaching their target score. And then take the discussion further into more specific topics.

Assuming that you have a good hold on quant relatively, 7 weeks would required extremely quality focused approach. I do have verbal issues which I am working on but it must be noted that solving all the OG is not much of help without getting basics right.

You may work on quant on alternate days but verbal concepts have to be practiced every day. Take every section and check where loophole are, which type of questions bother you most in crunch situation. Do take a note that in time bound situation even sub-600 level Q's look hard. If that's so then only error log will help as meaning might be overpowering concept.

Lastly, first thing you should do is make a timeline on a paper suitable to you and follow it religiously.

All the best..!!

Hi gmatnoob760,

To improve your verbal skills, you can follow a linear and structured study plan that allows you to learn each verbal topic individually and then practice each topic until you’ve gained mastery, Let me expand on this idea further.

For example, when studying Critical Reasoning, you need to ensure that you fully understand the essence of the various question types. Do you know the importance of an assumption within an argument? Can you easily spot a conclusion? Do you know how to resolve a paradox? Do you know how to properly evaluate cause and effect? Do you know how to properly weaken or strengthen an argument? These are just a few examples; you really need to take a deep dive into the individual Critical Reasoning topics to develop the necessary skills to properly attack any Critical Reasoning questions that you encounter.

As you learn each Critical Reasoning problem type, do focused practice so that you can track your skill in answering each type. If, for example, you incorrectly answered a Weaken the Argument question, 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 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 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 answers to better determine why you tend to get a particular question type wrong, and then improve upon your weaknesses. You can perfect your reading strategy with a lot of practice, but keep in mind that GMAT Reading Comprehension passages are not meant to be stimulating. So, to better prepare yourself to tackle such bland passages, read magazines with similar content and style, such as the New York Times, 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. Furthermore, the likely reason that your Sentence Correction performance has not improved is that you have not been working on all three of those aspects.

Regarding what you know, to be successful in Sentence Correction, first and foremost, you MUST know your grammar rules. Let's be clear, though: GMAT Sentence Correction is not just a test of knowledge of grammar rules. The reason for learning 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 meanings that make sense. 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 repeatedly until you start to see the differences between the choices 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 put in the necessary 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’ll then want to practice with questions that test you on skills from multiple SC topics.

You also may find my article with more information regarding
how to score a 700+ on the GMAT helpful.

Feel free to reach out with any questions.