Is it possible to get from 600 to 710 in 3 months?

I think 3 months are sufficient to prepare, but you need to make a proper study plan. While studying focus on quality of study not quantity, what I mean is that focus on the approach and pattern. Most important focus point is your weakness, if you understand your weaknesses then try to note it down and make sure you improve it. Do not book your exam before achieving good score in the mock test.

Thanks,
Prateek

Hi gabbylawrence1,

To start, raising a 480 to 600 is a noteworthy achievement - and it shows that you have the capacity to learn, adapt and improve. With 3 months of additional, consistent, guided study, you could potentially improve a great deal above this 600 - but you have to be careful about assuming that earning a 710 is just about completing a 'checklist' of activities. That type of Score is approximately the 90th percentile, so clearly most GMATers never score that high. Thankfully, the GMAT is a consistent, predictable Exam, so you CAN train to score at a higher level.

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) What type of study routine have you been following? How many hours do you typically study each week?
2) What are the exact application deadlines that you are facing?
3) Would you still apply at that time if you scored in the high-600s?

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

Thank you for your reply.

my study routine is very simple: read Manhattan books, check the veritas books lessons, and solve questions of the official guide. really nothing more. but I sure understand that this strategy has to change, which is why I bought the quant & verbal official questions. I will probably also subscribe to ttp quant course because my quant abilities are still limited.

I used to study about 3-4 hrs a day, but now I'm willing to go beyond 8 hours a day, I'm really encouraged by the increase I achieved.

the first deadline I'm hoping for is 14th of January, which might not seem realistic so I'm already not focusing on it too much. the second deadline is 25th of January. I'm picking a 700-710 because that's the average for an MSF, not like the case with MBA of course.

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Hi gabbylawrence1,

First of all, congratulations for the significant improvement. And an improvement from 600 to 710 is definitely possible. You just have to identify what are your weaker areas and then work on them. Let me elaborate it to you.

There could be two reasons for scoring low on GMAT.

• One reason could be your conceptual gaps. If that is the case, I would suggest you to fill those conceptual gaps by going through the concepts again.
• The second reason could be your lack of application skills. This is the real culprit in most of the cases because students are not really aware that there exists something called a methodology. They directly jump into solving questions after learning the concepts.

What do I mean by the methodology and why is it so important?

GMAT is a test of application of concepts. So, if you just rely on the concepts, you will probably score in the low 600's. If you wish to take your score to a further level, then you have to understand how to solve the questions types that are tested on GMAT. GMAT primarily focuses on testing your application skills. So, the more application skills you have , the better your score will be.

I'll give you an example of using the methodology by using DS questions as the reference. DS questions can be very tricky. The right methodology to solve any DS question is to

• understand what the question is really asking,
• perform certain pre-analysis on the question stem and then
• Solving individual statements to get that data

Is practicing 700 level questions the ideal way to improve your score?

This is the most common mistake students do in their prep. If you think that just solving 700 level questions will improve your score, then you have to change your approach. When you solve 700 level questions without understanding the methodology to solve, you will most likely get the questions wrong. And no matter, how many questions you practice, the result will be the same without much learning.

The right way to prepare is to solidify your methodology by practicing it on a few questions. During this stage, you don't have to time yourself. The focus has to be to learn the right method and get the answers right. Once you are confident about the process, you can start taking timed quizzes. The gist is once you know how to solve a particular question, you can solve any question of that type no matter how difficult it is.

Hope it helped! Feel free to get in touch if you have any more queries. All the best

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Hi gabbylawrence1,

From what you've described, your studies so far have been "book heavy"; unfortunately, many GMATers who study in that way end up getting 'stuck' at a particular score level. Even the best books are limited in what they can teach you; they also can't force you to approach questions in a certain way and their explanations are often one-sided. Since you have just 2 CAT Scores as a reference - and there's a 2.5 month time period between those Exams, it's not clear whether your current 'ability level' is actually a 600 or not (it might be lower or higher depending on the number of lucky guesses or unlucky mistakes that you made). As such, I suggest that you study as you choose for the next week or so, then take a NEW CAT - and make sure to take it in a realistic fashion that matches-up with what you will face when you take the Official GMAT (take the FULL CAT - with the Essay and IR sections, at the same time of day as when you'll take the Official GMAT, if you will be at a Test Facility, then wear a face mask, etc.). Once you have that Score, you should post back here and we can discuss the results and how you might best proceed with your studies.

Going forward, you have to be careful about confusing "quantity" of study with "quality" of study. I've never asked anyone to study 30+ hours a week - and while it's great that you might have the available time to study that much, with that number of study hours, you would run the risk of 'burning out' before Test Day (and that is something that we want to avoid). If you are going to try to study that much, then I suggest that you take one hour "off" for every two hours of study. For example, you could study for 2 hours, then stop for an hour, then study for another 2 hours, then take an hour off, etc.

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

gabbylawrence1,

If you can work your butt off, and complete the entire TTP course in the next three months, then yes, your score goal is attainable. Have you had a chance to check out the trial to TTP?