Need help with study plan

Hi nvcnt,

I’m glad you reached out, and I’m happy to help. First off, 630 is not a bad start! That said, improving your score by 120 points, to 750, is a pretty tall order, so you may need more than 2 months of prep. In any case, I’m happy to provide some general advice on how to improve both your Sentence Correction and general quant skills. Let’s start with SC.

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, you likely 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 really a test of knowledge of grammar rules. The reason for learning the 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 less than 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 none of those reasons are 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 answers were always the ones 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 logical meanings. 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 until you start to see the differences that make all choices wrong except for one. Often, when you first look at the choices, only one or two seem obviously incorrect. Getting the right answers takes a certain work ethic. You have to take the time to see the differences between answers 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 to arrive at that answer and what you could do differently 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 do differently to extend your streak.

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 w(ill want to practice with questions that test you on skills from multiple Sentence Correction topics.

Regarding how to improve your quant skills, first off, ensure that you are following a study plan that allows you to individually learn each GMAT quant topic and then practice each topic until you’ve gained mastery.

For example, if you are learning about Number Properties, 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.
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.

In order to follow the path described above, you may need some new quant and verbal materials, 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 article about The Phases of Preparing for the GMAT.

Feel free to reach out with any further questions. Good luck!

Hi nvcnt,

From what you describe, you've been studying for just 2 weeks - and you took this 1st CAT with very little prep - so a 630 is a strong initial performance (the average Score on the Official GMAT hovers around 550 most years). That having been said, raising a 630 to the point that you can consistently score 750+ will likely require at least another 3 months of consistent, guided study - and you'll have to make significant improvements to how you handle BOTH the Quant and Verbal sections. 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:

Studies:
1) What study materials do you currently have access to besides the books that you listed?
2) What is your exact Test Date?
3) When are you planning to apply to Business School?
4) What Schools are you planning to apply to?

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

1) I have access to the three OG 2018 books, MGMAT prep books (9 of them), and MGMAT practice CATS. I hear that the GMATClub's 25 quant sets are super useful, so I intend on buying those once I finish reviewing all of MGMAT's quant books.
2) Exact test date is TBD at this point. I just graduated from undergrad and am starting my consulting job near the end of July. I want to finish the GMAT before I start my job; however, I am prepared to study past my start-date to achieve a 750.
3) I intend on applying to business school within three to four years (after sufficient work experience).
4) I want to apply to a top 5 program, which is why I want to work towards a score of 750.

I understand that going from a 630 to a 750 is a tall order, but I believe have the work ethic and motivation to do this.

Thank you all for responding to my thread, you have all been incredibly helpful.

Hi nvcnt,

Studying for the GMAT now - years before you'll actually 'need' your Score - is a smart choice. Since you're not facing any immediate application deadlines, you have the flexibility to extend your studies as needed without having to change your application schedule. That having been said, studying for the GMAT is different from how you studied for exams in College, so to hit your Goal Score you'll have to commit to learning specific content, Tactics and patterns that the GMAT is built around - and all of that work takes time.

From what you describe, your immediate study plan is 'book heavy'; unfortunately, many Test Takers who study in that way end up getting 'stuck' at a particular score level. There's no harm in starting off your studies in that fashion, but you'll likely end up needing to invest in some additional, non-book resources at some point. If you'd prefer to work with the study materials that you current have, then I suggest that you study as you like for the next 1-2 weeks, then take a new, FULL-LENGTH CAT - and make sure to take it in a realistic fashion (take the FULL CAT - with the Essay and IR sections, take it away from your home, at the same time of day as when you'll take the Official GMAT, etc.). Once you have that score, you should report back here and we can discuss the results and how you might adjust your studies going forward. If you'd rather take more of a guided, structured approach immediately, then we can discuss some Course-related options.

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

I'll report back with my score in two weeks. Thank you for the follow up Rich.

First Practice GMAT for reference:

Hi EMPOWERgmatRichC. Here is my progress after two weeks:
-Overall 670
-Quantitative 42 (PS: 13/17, DS: 8/14)
-Verbal 40 (CR: 6/9, RC: 13/13, SC: 9/14)
-Integrated Reasoning: 7

Observations:
-I got 4 more Quant questions right than last time yet still obtained the same score.
-I made a few careless mistakes in DS
-SC improved tremendously
-Should not have missed 2 of the CR, will get a better score the next time

Takeaway:
-There is still room for improvement in SC, need to practice here more
-Need to heavily improve my Quant score, potentially through buying access of the GMAT Club's Quant exams.

Hi nvcnt,

To start, what "brand" of practice CAT was this - and was it a new CAT or did you retake your first CAT?

From the information that you provided, you clearly performed better on your SCs, so I assume that you put some extra effort into that area over the last couple of weeks. How often were you able to spot/correct the grammar errors involved (vs. choosing your answer based on how it "sounded")?

"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

Hi EMPOWERgmatRichC,

It was a CAT off the GMAT official prep site. This was a new CAT, I did not retake my first one. For SC, I was able to correctly spot the grammar errors and did not focus on whether answer choices "sound" correct. Also, do you happen to know why my Quant score was the same even though I got four more questions correct than my last CAT?

I'll answer your five questions individually for both sections. Additionally, I'll post a brief synopsis of the question along with why I missed it. Also, I will color the brief synopsis in red. This way, the synopsis is more identifiable and therefore easier to skip past if you only wanted to see why I got a question wrong.

Quant:
1) Little Mistakes: 6 (PS 4 , DS 2)

• PS1: Was given a very large expression with exponents and asked what the value of it was. I correctly simplified the expression, but for some reason forgot to multiply the final exponent by two. I went too quickly, if I had slowed down for even five seconds I would have gotten this right.
• PS2: A square and rectangle have same perimeter, meanwhile the perimeter of the rectangle has sides with ratio 2:3. I was asked to find what the ratio of the area was for the square to the rectangle. I could have easily answered this question by using smart numbers, but I thought I remembered a short-cut from one of the MGMAT books which states, "If two similar polygons have corresponding side lengths in ratio a:b, then their area will be in ratio a^2 : b^2". So naturally I put 4:9 as my answer to the question, thinking I found a shortcut and did not need to take a mere thirty seconds to solve the problem. I recognize that I misused this shortcut.
• PS3: Two cars sold for 20,000. One was sold at a 25% profit, another at a 20% loss, what was total profit or loss? I reached the value of $1,000 correctly, but I had incorrectly identified it as the profit when it was actually the loss.
• PS4: The total price of a computer and printer is 2500. If you buy the same printer with an enhanced computer (whose price is $500 more than the basic computer), then the price of the printer would have been 1/5 of that total. What is the price of the basic computer? For some reason, I thought "of that total" was in reference to 2500, when it was actually in reference to 3000. I later got this question correct on my first attempt during a "blind" review.
• DS1: A sequence equation followed by two statements, which show what the equation equals at specific values of "N". Rushed through the problem, not recognizing that I had already answered the question with each statement individually.
• DS2: Given a long ratio of how a company divides its budget into four different divisions and asked how much money they spend in one of the particular divisions. The following statements relate separate divisions to eachother. I correctly set up the ratio and found the expression I needed to solve for. For some reason I glanced at the first statement and did not think it was relevant. I later got this question correct on my first attempt during a "blind" review.

2) Couldn't remember how: 3 (All DS)

• DS1: Given multiple proportions about grades in a class, then asked what % of the class were female. I thought I had set up my matrix set correctly with 3 variables in the columns and 2 variables in the rows, however, I forgot that since I was not given the number in each subset I could not correctly find the % of females in the class.
• DS2: Given an absolute value inequality followed by two statements which contain inequalities. Forgot a basic principle about square roots being plus or minus.
• DS3: Was asked how many pears someone could have bought with the same amount of money they used to buy apples. Given two statements that relate apples and pears. One of the statements was an additive relationship meanwhile the other one was a multiplicative relationship. I thought both statements could be used by themselves, but I forgot that the additive relationship is not completely relative when considering extreme differences in price. I understand this concept now, however.

3) Too hard: 1 (DS)

• DS1: Asked to find the tens digit of r. One statement tells me what the tens digit of "r" is when divided by 10, the other statement tells me what the hundreds digit of "r" is when multiplied by 10. Found an amazing explanation for this question by Bunuel that really blew my mind by how cool this question is. I don't think I'll get similar questions wrong in the future.

Verbal:
1) Little Mistake: 3 (2 SC, 1 CR)

• SC1: I was 50/50 here. I should have noticed that the correct answer had the correct subject-verb agreement.
• SC2: I was 50/50 here. The correct answer maintained the meaning of the sentence, meanwhile the answer I chose distorted the meaning. I should have recognized this.
• CR1: I was 50/50 here. The question asks which of the following statements weakens an argument about how a particular country is likely to become an importer of grain. The answer I chose was incorrect because the question stem itself indirectly disclaims this answer choice. I should have recognized this was incorrect and gone with the correct answer.

2) Couldn't remember how: 2 (SC)

• SC1: I need to refresh myself with the "like" v "as" rules.
• SC2: I need to review the "such...as" idiom. Also need to see how to properly use the dash "--" in SC.

3) Too hard: 3 (1 SC, 2 CR)

• SC1: This was a very hard question that even after reviewing the GMATClub forum i'm unsure about. A very wordy question about Jupiter's moon, Europa.
• CR1: This was a bold-faced CR which asked which of the following answer choices would serve the same function as the bold-faced argument. I was trying to find an answer choice that was similar to what was being said in the specific sentence, when all I had to do was find the answer that served the same function of the argument.
• CR2: I was 50/50 here. This question was asking me to find the answer choice that most strengthens the argument of a study shown in the question stem. The answer I chose said that the participants in the study do not know each other. I chose this with the rationale that since the participants in the study don't know each other, their behavior cannot influence each other and therefore the outcome of the study would be free from any potential bias. Meanwhile the correct answer shows how reverse-causality is not possible in the study, this is something I did not recognize.

4) Guess: 0

5) Narrowed down but got wrong: 4 (2 SC, 2 CR)

• The instances in which this happened are located above when I preface with, "I was 50/50 here".

I really appreciate you taking the time to read all of this. Thank you so much for your help in my GMAT journey.

Best,
Nvcnt

Hi nvcnt,

First off, your assessment is really well-detailed (and your analysis of your own performance on specific questions is useful) - all of that effort is great! Based on this CAT, your immediate issue is that you're missing out on too many 'gettable' points because of 'rushing' (and making little mistakes - likely due to not taking enough notes on your pad). Thus, for the next couple of weeks, your focus should be on the 'precision' in your work (working through every 'step' on your pad - and NEVER "in your head", labeling your work and putting 'accuracy' before 'speed.'). Given the improvement that you made in SC over the last couple of weeks, I think that you should stick with your current study routine and plan to take a new, FULL-LENGTH CAT in 1-2 weeks. That next Score will help to define whether you've properly adjusted your approaches to eliminate the little mistakes or not and any additional areas that you might need to put some extra time into.

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

Hello, nvcnt,

First of all, we would like to appreciate that you scored 630 (V 34, Q 42) in your first practice test. This score shows that your basic concepts are clear, and now you seriously need to learn unique and alternative approaches. As the target score is 750 and GMAT needs a balance of both the sections , we recommend scoring Q 50 is must to achieve the target score.

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Good luck!