Events & Promotions
|
|
GMAT Club Daily Prep
Thank you for using the timer - this advanced tool can estimate your performance and suggest more practice questions. We have subscribed you to Daily Prep Questions via email.
Customized
for You
Track
Your Progress
Practice
Pays
Not interested in getting valuable practice questions and articles delivered to your email? No problem, unsubscribe here.
May 1408:30 AM PDT
-09:30 AM PDT
Most GMAT test-takers are intimidated by the hardest GMAT Verbal questions. In this session, Target Test Prep GMAT instructor Erika Tyler-John, a 100th percentile GMAT scorer, will show you how top scorers break down challenging Verbal questions..
May 1212:00 PM EDT
-11:59 PM EDT
Make the most of your break with the most realistic GMAT™ prep. Take up to $700 off select products.- May 13
08:30 AM PDT
-09:30 AM PDT
In Episode 4 of our GMAT Ninja CR series, we tackle the most intimidating CR question type: Boldface & "Legalese" questions. If you've ever stared at an answer choice that reads, "The first is a consideration introduced to counter a position that... - Jun 10
06:00 AM PDT
-06:15 PM PDT
Register for the GMAT Club Virtual MBA Spotlight Fair – the world’s premier event for serious MBA candidates. This is your chance to hear directly from Admissions Directors at nearly every Top 30 MBA program..
16 Dec 2021, 07:57
Kudos
Bookmarks
Hi,
I need some advice on where to head from here. I am an undergraduate from a quantitative course and I took the GMAT in September, scoring 580 (something like a Q35/V34). I decided to cancel my scores and reattempted the GMAT today after 3 months of studying the Economist's prep programme alongside my university work.
I improved my verbal quite drastically, scoring V39, but my quant score fell to a shocking Q31, yielding 580.
I still don't understand how - I have done most of the OG problems, and all of the Economist's problems, and felt pretty confident that I could get a least a Q40+ score. There was a lot of word problems and weird problems on the test that I had no clue how to solve within 2 minutes, so I just ended up guessing. I don't know whether it was simply my conceptual understanding that lacks or whether it was me being nervous. There was just a range of problems where I had to give up and move on.
I did a a couple of official GMAT mock exams this time around, scoring 690-710 in most of them, mostly with a quant score of 47-48 and my verbal being very very high, V40+. However, I have this fundamental problem when I do mock exams that I get frustrated if I know how to crack a problem but spend too much time on it, and so I pause the exam; it's like an urge that comes from very deep inside me, and I can't really help it.
I hope someone can guide me what to do from here - I want to retake the test sometime in January or early February, leaving me with 4-6 weeks to prepare. What should I do? I feel like I'm studying unproductively and that I fail to test myself under real exam circumstances, but I just feel helpless about how to change it. I have the intuition that tells me I'm approaching problems fundamentally wrong, since when I give myself more time, I usually work very hard questions out; but under time pressure, it's like my brain shuts down and I can't even do 600+ level questions.
Thank you in advance
I need some advice on where to head from here. I am an undergraduate from a quantitative course and I took the GMAT in September, scoring 580 (something like a Q35/V34). I decided to cancel my scores and reattempted the GMAT today after 3 months of studying the Economist's prep programme alongside my university work.
I improved my verbal quite drastically, scoring V39, but my quant score fell to a shocking Q31, yielding 580.
I still don't understand how - I have done most of the OG problems, and all of the Economist's problems, and felt pretty confident that I could get a least a Q40+ score. There was a lot of word problems and weird problems on the test that I had no clue how to solve within 2 minutes, so I just ended up guessing. I don't know whether it was simply my conceptual understanding that lacks or whether it was me being nervous. There was just a range of problems where I had to give up and move on.
I did a a couple of official GMAT mock exams this time around, scoring 690-710 in most of them, mostly with a quant score of 47-48 and my verbal being very very high, V40+. However, I have this fundamental problem when I do mock exams that I get frustrated if I know how to crack a problem but spend too much time on it, and so I pause the exam; it's like an urge that comes from very deep inside me, and I can't really help it.
I hope someone can guide me what to do from here - I want to retake the test sometime in January or early February, leaving me with 4-6 weeks to prepare. What should I do? I feel like I'm studying unproductively and that I fail to test myself under real exam circumstances, but I just feel helpless about how to change it. I have the intuition that tells me I'm approaching problems fundamentally wrong, since when I give myself more time, I usually work very hard questions out; but under time pressure, it's like my brain shuts down and I can't even do 600+ level questions.
Thank you in advance
16 Dec 2021, 14:49
Kudos
Bookmarks
Hi teothetroll,
Based on how you have been scoring on practice exams, you actually seem to be in a pretty decent place. That said, to continue to improve your GMAT quant and verbal skills, you need to go through GMAT quant and verbal 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. For example, if you find that you are not strong in answering Number Properties questions, then 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. When you are working on learning to answer questions of a particular type, start off taking your time, and then seek to speed up as you get more comfortable answering questions of that type. As you do such 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, types that you would rather not see, and types 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.
You can work on verbal in a similar manner. Let’s say you are reviewing Critical Reasoning. Be sure that you practice a large number of Critical Reasoning questions: Strengthen and Weaken the Argument, Resolve the Paradox, find the Conclusion, Must be True, etc. As you go through the questions, do a thorough analysis of each question that you don't get correct. If you missed a Weaken question, ask yourself why. Did you make a careless mistake? Did you not recognize what the question was asking? Did you skip over a key detail in an answer choice? Getting GMAT verbal questions right is a matter of what you know, what you see, and what you do. So, any time that you don't get one right, you can seek to identify what you had to know to get the right answer, what you had to see that you didn't see, and what you could have done differently to arrive at the correct answer.
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 verbal and quant materials, so take a look at the GMAT Club reviews for the best quant and verbal courses.
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 further questions.
Good luck!
Based on how you have been scoring on practice exams, you actually seem to be in a pretty decent place. That said, to continue to improve your GMAT quant and verbal skills, you need to go through GMAT quant and verbal 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. For example, if you find that you are not strong in answering Number Properties questions, then 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. When you are working on learning to answer questions of a particular type, start off taking your time, and then seek to speed up as you get more comfortable answering questions of that type. As you do such 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, types that you would rather not see, and types 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.
You can work on verbal in a similar manner. Let’s say you are reviewing Critical Reasoning. Be sure that you practice a large number of Critical Reasoning questions: Strengthen and Weaken the Argument, Resolve the Paradox, find the Conclusion, Must be True, etc. As you go through the questions, do a thorough analysis of each question that you don't get correct. If you missed a Weaken question, ask yourself why. Did you make a careless mistake? Did you not recognize what the question was asking? Did you skip over a key detail in an answer choice? Getting GMAT verbal questions right is a matter of what you know, what you see, and what you do. So, any time that you don't get one right, you can seek to identify what you had to know to get the right answer, what you had to see that you didn't see, and what you could have done differently to arrive at the correct answer.
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 verbal and quant materials, so take a look at the GMAT Club reviews for the best quant and verbal courses.
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 further questions.
Good luck!
17 Dec 2021, 00:40
Kudos
Bookmarks
Hi teothetroll,
I'm sorry to hear that your 2nd attempt did not turn out better. 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. You've actually defined 2 of the immediate issues that you're facing right now - and having the ability to work through that type of analysis is a great skill to have. First, Test Day is a rather specific 'event' and if you were practicing in ways that didn't match-up with that event (such as pausing your practice CATs at multiple points). Second, when it comes to certain types of prompts, you are working in an inefficient fashion (which costs you time, likely increases your stress levels and costs you points). Most GMAT questions are written so that they can be approached in more than one way - so the 'fix' to both of these issues is essentially the same: you will have to train to 'see' (and respond to) the GMAT in new ways.
Before we discuss any additional issues can impacted your performance, 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? Over the last 3 months, how many hours did you typically study each week?
2) Have you used any other study materials besides the course that you listed? What “brands” of CATs/mocks have you used over the course of ALL of your studies?
3) On what dates (or approximate dates) did you take EACH of your CATs/mocks and how did you score on EACH (including the Quant and Verbal Scaled Scores for EACH)?
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? If you're planning to apply sometime soon, then what specific application deadlines are you facing?
760+: What GMAT Assassins Do To Score at the Highest Levels
GMAT assassins aren't born, they're made,
Rich
Contact Rich at: [email protected]
I'm sorry to hear that your 2nd attempt did not turn out better. 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. You've actually defined 2 of the immediate issues that you're facing right now - and having the ability to work through that type of analysis is a great skill to have. First, Test Day is a rather specific 'event' and if you were practicing in ways that didn't match-up with that event (such as pausing your practice CATs at multiple points). Second, when it comes to certain types of prompts, you are working in an inefficient fashion (which costs you time, likely increases your stress levels and costs you points). Most GMAT questions are written so that they can be approached in more than one way - so the 'fix' to both of these issues is essentially the same: you will have to train to 'see' (and respond to) the GMAT in new ways.
Before we discuss any additional issues can impacted your performance, 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? Over the last 3 months, how many hours did you typically study each week?
2) Have you used any other study materials besides the course that you listed? What “brands” of CATs/mocks have you used over the course of ALL of your studies?
3) On what dates (or approximate dates) did you take EACH of your CATs/mocks and how did you score on EACH (including the Quant and Verbal Scaled Scores for EACH)?
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? If you're planning to apply sometime soon, then what specific application deadlines are you facing?
760+: What GMAT Assassins Do To Score at the Highest Levels
GMAT assassins aren't born, they're made,
Rich
Contact Rich at: [email protected]
