Pieman3897 wrote:
Hi All,
I recently took the GMAT and scored a 730 (Q47 and V42). I was happy with my verbal score, but quite disappointed in my Quant score as I was used to scoring 48+ on GMAT prep tests. I thought I could do better, so i took the exam again in 3 weeks... and ended up doing worse (Q47 and V41).
In between I got OG questions and just did hard / medium problems. I was doing fine and honestly thought my first test was a fluke, so I was not really worried, but now I am definitely down in the dumps.
I noticed that each time I was actually struggling to finish questions in both sections within the time allotted.
I have NEVER had this problem in my practice, which is why it continues to shock me. Both times I knew in the middle of the test that things were not going well as it seemed that the RC and CR questions were way harder than the
OG questions, and I was taking way too long to solve them. Same thing for math. I have done the
TTP quant course and Manhatten SC and PowerScore verbal guide. I did not really find the verbal guides that helpful, as they were just basic facts with easy questions at the end.
I only have one more shot to take the test in another 2.5 weeks, but really need to get 750+. Any guidance on what I should / how I should tackle studying? Should I get questions from other programs and just attempt hard ones and try to go even faster when solving?
Hello,
Pieman3897. I like the advice that Marty gave above. I have highlighted a few talking points from your earlier post that I will chime in on. Too many people—especially those shooting for a score that reaches into the mid-700s or higher—place too much emphasis on Hard questions when Easy and Medium questions are the real key to performing your best. You get the fundamentals in place with these lower-level questions, and then you apply the same chain of reasoning to upper-level material—you have to appreciate that the task is
no different just because the answer may be better disguised. You might also find
this old debrief from a perfect scorer to be of interest. The line that stood out to me the most the first time I read it, the same line that the author himself highlighted in
boldface, is the following:
Quote:
One unforeseen consequence of reviewing only super-hard questions is that I lost my confidence.
Keep in mind that the GMAT™ is a psychological game as well as a test of critical reasoning. The better you feel about your
process of arriving at an accurate conclusion, the better you will become at executing that process. I would advise you not to focus on the clock so much, especially in this first week of preparation. Just make sure you are working at getting to the bottom of each problem you miss or struggle with. (Maybe you got it right on a guess or did, in fact, need a lot of extra time to figure it out.)
Finally, if you place undue stress on yourself to achieve an ultra-high score within a shortened timeframe, you will be less likely to achieve that goal. Remember that psychological component I mentioned before. It affects everyone, but the highest scorers simply seem to have a way to push past worrying about how hard the test is. I enjoyed reading
this article from
GMATNinjaTwo in which the author discusses how his score had more or less flatlined in his quest to achieve an 800 because he was, in his own words, "terrified of failure." It was not until he went in with a different
mindset—not so much a skillset—that he broke through and came within a hair of achieving his goal. In his words,
Quote:
Then a funny thing happened. I had given up on trying to control everything, and the pressure -- and my drive for perfection -- seemed to diminish. I no longer expected a great GMAT score, so I wasn’t nearly as paranoid about making mistakes. Instead of second guessing my every move and timidly tip-toeing through the GMAT trying to avoid a misstep, I “let ‘er rip” -- when I wasn’t 100% sure about an answer, I shrugged it off and moved on to the next question.
The result? My best GMAT score to date: a 790 (50Q, 51V).
I hope all of this information helps you over the course of the next few weeks. Practice questions, yes, but do not discriminate by difficulty or focus only on the most challenging ones. And do not forget to
review. This key aspect of preparation is one that most students, even 95th-percentile students, overlook in their quest to reach greater heights.
I hope you find the above information useful. Good luck with your preparation. Credit to
kntombat for calling my attention to the matter.
- Andrew
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10 Jun 2021, 16:43
