Overwhelmed! Moving forward in a burned out state?

Question

Hello wise ones, We're officially halfway through the year! I am stuck in a rut and would love some advice. Here's the situation: I've been studying on and off for almost a year now and have gone through all the MGMAT strategy guides. I've really been pushing it off because I just never "felt ready"....and fear of failure, really.

I finally had the courage to take a CAT yesterday (670,Q42, V40, IR 5) with a goal of 740/50. After analysing my mistakes, I know I need to work on timing/careless errors/getting bored with dense RC passages/700-level problems... I wanted to take it in September, but now I have a long vacation set up in August and am worried that if I schedule for something in September, I'll forget everything with that 2-week gap in between. I don't know if I should be: a) Taking a break (maybe I'm burned out...?) or b) Register for September/October ASAP Any pointers about a study plan from here on out? Or the best way to retain information? I've honestly been SO OVERWHELMED by the amount of flashcards and prep packets that exist on this forum that I don't even know what to do with myself. It's demotivating that there's so much info to go through.

Thank you all in advance, burned-out kid desperate for advice

EMPOWERgmatRichC · Answer

Hi anothermillenial,

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:

Studies:
1) What study materials have you used so far besides the books that you mentioned?
2) Have you taken any other practice CATs/mocks over the last year or was this your first one? If there were others, then how did you score on EACH of those other CATs (including the Quant and Verbal Scaled Scores for EACH)?

Goals:
3) What are the dates when you'll be on vacation?
4) When are you planning to apply to Business School?
5) What Schools are you planning to apply to?

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

anothermillenial · Answer

Hi  EMPOWERgmatRichC  - thanks for your reply.

Studies:
1) What study materials have you used so far besides the books that you mentioned?
 Just the MGMAT strategy guides and PowerScore CR Strategy 
2) Have you taken any other practice CATs/mocks over the last year or was this your first one? If there were others, then how did you score on EACH of those other CATs (including the Quant and Verbal Scaled Scores for EACH)?
 I took one diagnostic one last November. MGMAT CAT 1: 590 (Q39, V33, IR 2)

Goals:
3) What are the dates when you'll be on vacation? 
 Basically 8/1 to 8/15 
4) When are you planning to apply to Business School?
 Hopefully for 2021 or 2022 
5) What Schools are you planning to apply to?
 Ideally Yale SOM, HBS, Wharton, Haas, UMich, Columbia

ScottTargetTestPrep · Answer

Hi anothermillenial,

First off, great work achieving 670! While it’s still going to take plenty of work to improve to 740, I think you need to buckle down and keep moving forward with your prep. That said, improving another 70 points to 740 is a pretty tall order, so it’s possible that you'll need even more than two months to improve your GMAT score to such a level.

With all this said, I’m sensing that lack of organization or of a clear study plan may be your biggest hurdle to successfully moving forward with your prep. Would you like some advice on how to prepare for GMAT quant and verbal?

You also may find it helpful to read the following articles about  How to Score a 700+ on the GMAT — A Mini Guide for Success  and  Developing the Proper Mindset For GMAT Success .

Good luck!

EMPOWERgmatRichC · Answer

Hi anothermillenial,

If this is the only practice CAT that you've taken over the last 6 months, we don't have much of a basis for comparison right now - and your actual 'ability level' might be higher or lower than this Score implies. Raising a 670 to a 740+ will likely require at least another 1.5 - 2 months of consistent, guided study - and you'll have to make significant improvements to how you handle the Quant section. Thankfully, the GMAT is a consistent, predictable Exam, so you CAN train to score at a higher level.

All things considered, it's unlikely that you would "forget" anything that you've learned during your studies when you take that 2-week vacation in August (and from what you describe, you likely need some time away from your studies). It would probably be a good idea to plan for a little 'review time' once you return from that vacation though.

Based on your analysis of this CAT, you seem to understand that you made some silly mistakes, but it's not clear whether there are any other significant issues with your performance or not. "Review" is an exceptionally important part of the GMAT training process; your ability to define WHY you're getting questions wrong is essential to defining the areas that you need to work on (and the specific things that you need to 'fix'). As such, I'd like to know a bit more about this CAT. While a full Mistake Tracker would provide a lot more information, there are some basic questions that you should be able to answer (and the more EXACT you can be with your answers, the better):

After reviewing each section of this recent CAT, how many questions did you get wrong....
1) Because of a silly/little mistake?
2) Because there was some math/verbal that you just could not remember how to do?
3) Because the question was too hard?
4) Because you were low on time and had to guess?
5) How many Verbal questions did you 'narrow down to 2 choices' but still get wrong?

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

anothermillenial · Answer

After reviewing each section of this recent CAT, how many questions did you get wrong.... 1) Because of a silly/little mistake? V (SC: 1 - meaning/comparisons), Q: 1 (calculation error with rates, misread coordinates) 2) Because there was some math/verbal that you just could not remember how to do? Q: 3 (ah, the n-th root estimations, combined rates, the basis combinatorics couldn't remember "formula" for nCr) 3) Because the question was too hard? Q: 2 (combinatorics, estimations) 4) Because you were low on time and had to guess? V (RC: 2 - didn't get to read the last passage

, CR: 1 - assumption) 5) How many Verbal questions did you 'narrow down to 2 choices' but still get wrong? CR: 2 - the OOS weakens, SC: 2 - meaning/redundancy missed, Q: 2 - data sufficiency Pretty equivalent between DS & PS. So it really seems like I need to brush up on the basics that I clearly have forgotten... Thank you so much for your guidance.

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