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Question

I just scored a GMAT 420 recently, how to strategize for 760 score. Please guide

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Abhi077 · Answer

You need a good study plan and a good prep course for a jump that high. What materials have you used till the date? And how much time are you able to dedicate for GMAT?

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Science · Answer

What materials have you used till the date: 
Times classes I had joined,was regular to my classes .but the problem was the strategies were not covered.Or I can say I was not able to benefit from the classes both for Quant and verbal. So for SC I opted for crack verbal, this time I could understand how to approach after watching the video sessions thoroughly. Tough I used to still fear after seeing a long RC passage as within the time I am not able to answer RC questions correctly . I thought that after reading them thourgly and practising constantly could help me change . But I failed. The same implied for Cr too.
For Quant I kept saying practice will make me perfect. But I failed. 
I personally feel I shall start from building my basics but the problem is the resources ,where and how should I use them.
I have already invested a great amount of money and I honestly have no idea from where to start and how to start.
And how much time are you able to dedicate for GMAT? - 2hrs in weekdays and weekends 11- 12 hrs.
I thought of applying for the 2019 session ,but with this score I cannot stand anywhere.

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Abhi077 · Answer

Oh I totally understand your situation Cause I have been there. making this kind of jump won't be easy but believe me it's very much possible
For the fear of RC, I suggest you to solve at least 3 passages from Official Guide everyday. trust me, official materials are the golden materials for GMAT prep. And about the prep courses, I suggest you take e-gmat for verbal (best for non natives) and TargestTestprep for quant( worked best for me) Your initial focus should be in building concepts and then comes the application part. You should jump to Official guide right away after when your're comfortable with the concepts. Also, Don't forget to take all six official mocks in the actual condition. Remember, GMAT journey is a marathon not a sprint. Goodluck

EMPOWERgmatRichC · Answer

Hi Science,

To start, was this 420 on a practice CAT/mock or on the Official GMAT? What were the Quant and Verbal Scaled Scores for this Exam?

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) How long have you studied?
2) What study materials have you used so far besides the courses that you listed?
3) How have you scored on EACH of your CATs/mocks (including the Quant and Verbal Scaled Scores for EACH)?

Goals:
4) When are you planning to (re)take the GMAT?
5) When are you planning to apply to Business School?
6) What Schools are you planning to apply to?

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

ScottTargetTestPrep · Answer

Hi Science,

I’m glad you reached out, and I’m happy to help. Although I don’t have much information regarding how you have been studying, since you scored 420 (340 points from your score goal), it’s clear that you have some major work to do to improve to a 760. Thus, I recommend that you give yourself a minimum of 6 months to prepare for GMAT.

Since you have a baseline score, your next step is to create a sound and thorough study plan. Ideally, you want to follow a linear and structured study plan that allows you to individually learn each GMAT quant and verbal topic, starting with the foundations before moving to more advanced concepts. By following a structured and methodical approach, you can ensure that you master each topic individually and thoroughly as you progress through GMAT quant and verbal. For example, say you are learning about Number Properties. First, you should develop as much conceptual knowledge about Number Properties as possible. In other words, your goal will be to completely understand properties of factorials, perfect squares, quadratic patterns, LCM, GCF, units digit patterns, divisibility, and remainders, to name a few concepts. After carefully reviewing the conceptual underpinnings of how to answer Number Properties questions, practice by answering 50 or more questions just from Number Properties. 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 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. Number Properties is just one example; follow this process for all quant topics.

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.

Follow a similar routine for verbal. For example, let’s say you start by learning about Critical Reasoning. Your first goal is to fully master the individual topics: Strengthen the Argument, Weaken the Argument, Resolve the Paradox, etc. As you learn about each question type, do focused practice so that you can track your skill in answering each type. If, for example, you get a weakening question wrong, 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 instead 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 thereby 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, 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 Reading Comprehension answers to better determine why you tend to get a particular question type wrong, and then improve upon your weaknesses. Keep in mind that GMAT Reading Comprehension passages are not meant to be easy to read. So, to better prepare yourself to analyze such passages, read magazines with similar content and style, such as the Economist, 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, it is likely that you will have to work on all three of those aspects.
 
Regarding what you know, 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 under 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 those reasons are not 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 answer were always the one 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. It may take time for you to see what you have to see. Getting the right answers takes a certain work ethic. You have to be determined to see the differences 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 that resulted in your arriving at that answer and what you could do differently in order 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 have done 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 will then want to practice with questions that test you on skills from multiple Sentence Correction topics.

In order to follow the path described above, you may consider using an online self-study course, so take a look at the GMAT Club reviews for the  best quant  and  verbal courses .

You also may find it helpful to read the following articles about
 how to score a 700+ on the GMAT  and  how long to study for the GMAT .

Feel free to reach out with any further questions.

Good luck!

AjiteshArun · Answer

What were your GMATPrep scores? Were they significantly different from your actual GMAT score?

MathRevolution · Answer

Hi, Science

I’m sorry to hear that you are struggling with your low score. It is true that you have to make huge efforts in GMAT studying to hit the score over 760, since almost perfect scores in both Quant and Verbal are needed. You’d better take time to look back into your past studying style and find out which one was a big mistake or cause of your non-improvement. Then, you should make a solid strategy to improve your score. Of course, there’s an individual difference in comprehension and acquisition speed but it takes at least 3-6 months to achieve that huge jump in your score.

Considering that you already had spent a lot of money and time(over 20 hours a week), one of the possible reasons why you got a low score could be a habit of solving problems without solid establishment. Human’s application ability is unlimited, but you can’t show it when the basic concepts are not fully understood. Here is a tip: All the GMAT online courses and books firstly teach you basic concepts. After you understand those contents, then you should solve the basic questions. You’d better not jump into solving difficult questions of the same concepts until you solve the basic questions and explain the concepts at your pleasure. You should focus on fully understanding these 5 key topics (Integer, Statistics, Inequality, Probability, and Absolute Value) that account for 80% of the GMAT exam. After you get 80-90% of questions correct, then you can move on to the other topics. But you should keep in mind that you should review the topics every time you find out weaknesses in some topics. Especially, these steps are essential in quant part.

Also, there’s a tip to improve your quant score. As for math, focus on DS first. DS can be a quick win. You may save PS for later. If you master DS, it will be easier and less time consuming to tackle PS problems. There are patterns and logic to GMAT quant problems and you can save a lot of time especially in DS questions. With Math Revolution ’s ’Variable Approach’ for DS questions, you can minimize time spent on each question while improving accuracy (over 80 percent) (solving a question in + having a checking time = 2 minute) On average, our students have about 10 minutes to spare before the exam ends. To briefly explain our ’variable approach’, we apply ’variables–equations matching system’ to the DS questions. For example, you first need to count the number of variables and equations given in the question. By doing so, you can determine which answer choice will most likely be the answer. If there are only two variables in a question, you need at least 2 equations to solve the question. Since two conditions in the question usually give 2 separate equations, it is most likely that C (both conditions together are sufficient) will be the answer.

Please let us know if you have further questions.
You can reach us at [email protected]

Success is within your reach,
Good luck

Sajjad1994 · Answer

Best Books

For Concept Learning

Manhattan Quant Guides
Manhattan Verbal Guides
For CR: The Powerscore GMAT Critical Reasoning Bible
For RC: Aristotle RC Grail

You can start with Quant or Verbal which suits you. If you have started with Quant then Start with the Arithmetic but if started with verbal then start first with Sentence correction. One month for learning Quant concepts and one month for practicing question and same practice for Verbal. During you Practicing question don't forget to make an error log to track your weak areas after practice. Once you know your weak areas revise your Concepts related to those areas and do some more Practice. 6-8 CATs are enough for practice the real tests. Make your Stamina for sitting 3 hours in the test and don't study more than 2 hours in one sit and 4 hours per day

Top CATs for Practice

1. Official GMAC CATs
2. Manhattan CATs
3. Kaplan CATs
4. GMAT Club Quant CATs

rohan2345 · Answer

Hi Science, I have answered your question on another thread you may refer to it here https://gmatclub.com/forum/please-give- ... 88220.html. Hope this helps. All the best!

Science · Answer

Thank you it's really a helpful one.??

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