Need Some Advice PLEASE

Question

Hi Guys,

This is my first post, but I have been actively logging on to the site and reading all the great information.

My post is concerning my relatively slow growth on my GMAT practice test scores. I have been studying on and off for 3 months with daily hours in the most recent month.

Here are some of my scores
GMATPREP- 630 v47 q33
Veritas- 600
MGMAT 1 - 650
MGMAT 2 - 670 q48 v33 (yesterday)

My eventual goal is to consistently score in the 750 range before I take the real exam. I was planning on taking the exam before Christmas, but I don't feel like I can make it with yesterdays results.

I feel pretty confident with the Quant, I score 47/48/49 pretty consistently. Questions I miss are almost always the more difficult DS questions inequality/number property/abs value questions. I plan on mastering these with the MGMAT guides?

I have also gotten considerably better at SC, but I cant seem to see that gain in my score. This is probably because I cant seem to get ANY HANDLE ON CR or RC. I tried reading the CR bible, and MGMAT guides on both. Nothing seems to help.

Where should I focus my time to bump up this score? Does anyone have any pointers for me on this? Any chance I can boost my V score by 10 points in 3 weeks?

Thanks for the time guys

GMATLA · Answer

Well 670 is nothing to be ashamed about! that is an excellent score, but I do see that you're shooting for a stellar score. Your math score is pretty solid, but you're going to have to get better in verbal to increase your overall score. Because of the highly competative Quant section and slightly less competative verbal section, your verbal score can seriously drive your total score. So if you could keep your Q the same or slightly higher and bring the verbal up around/over 40, your shot of hitting your goal score is right on track. You are going to have to devote significant study time to your verbal, which can be hard if you excel at math or non native. If you are hoping for a 750, I don't know if I'd dive into a test in the next couple weeks unless your confident in a study plan.

My advice is to make sure to study every question you get wrong in verbal along with ALL the problems you get right. Memorize and learn why the right answer was right, and why all the wrong answers were wrong. You need to start seeing these patterns in problems (just like you already are doing in math). Learn to recognize question types (CR - strenthen, weaken, inference, etc SC - parallelism, modifiers, pronouns, subjust/verb, etc CR - global questions, inference, etc) and common wrong answers (out of scope, 180, etc..) and they go on and on. Just as you do in math, you need to recognize what type of verbal question you are facing, and that will help you attack each question differently and effectively.
 
In quant, you can do all the work and get the right answer and know you have it right. On the other hand, in verbal it can be just as important seeing which answers are wrong to narrow it down to the right answer. It won't be as clear as in quant. You are close to getting there, you just need to go back to the basics in some of the verbal, and not just go through the motions. Know that you are missing key points, and make sure if you don't know them to continue to study those topics until you have them down.

As far as the high level DS problems are concerned, they can be extremely challenging. Especially since some can be huge time consumers. I would encourage you to not get too caught up over some of the toughest DS problems because on test day those can potentially be a time drain and take you away from questions you could have gotten right at the end of the section. Especially if you get down to tegether or neither on a tough problem, sometimes a guess is best (50/50 isn't bad on a tough problem). It sounds like you know where you are weak in DS problems, so I would work on those types. I've found that with number properties, abs value, and inequality picking numbers can be a great strategy. Practice, and see if it helps. Not only learning how to pick numbers, but picking the right numbers to give you the answers you need will really help.

I made a 140 point increase with about 200 hours of studying, so that's over an hour per point increase. Keep your nose in the books and keep working hard. You are very close, so now you just need to refine you knowledge and strategies. Good luck on G-DAY!

sandeeepsharma · Answer

Hi 
Practice and practice is the solution
for CR i was in the same situation . I read power score bible2 times.
First it dint work much for me while second time when i read bible my accuracy went to 90% in CR.
So i suggest do it again.

For RC ... make a reading habit. This is only solution.

vgharibj · Answer

Thanks so much for the response. I really appreciate your comments.

What exactly do you mean by the basics of CR and RC. Should I review and maybe memorize the strategies, wrong/right questions types in the CR Bible and MGMAT CR/RC guides? Or should I start pumping out OG problems and understanding right/wrong answers.

As an engineering major, I'm finding my reading methods to be short of what I need to nail some of the tougher questions. I've always been a reader that breezes through to get the gist of what is being said. I have tried slowing down and focusing on the nuances of every word but then I find myself short of time, or forgetting previous points.

I am thinking of hiring a personal tutor, but I feel like these skills(needed for CR and RC) are not as teachable as the rest of the exam.

Thoughts?

Thanks again!

SR85 · Answer

I can give you a few pointers that helped me increase my overall GMAT score from 640 to 700, and a verbal score from 34 to 38. Believe me; GMAT English can also be handled by logic. I'll show you how:

1) Identify your weakness: RC, CR or SC?

2) RC as a weakness: I had a very bad reading habit. Never read a single novel (other than the coursework in school) in my entire life! So I addressed this problem by reading online newspapers and articles. And I read a book called "Module V". This really helped me understand the "logic" behind passages. It's all in the structure. Key points:
 > Read "online" material (news, magazines, and articles). GMAT is an online exam
 > Read abstract articles. Make sure you read something that you don't enjoy. For example: Read science blogs if you are not a science student for instance! The trick is to get used to reading abstract articles and trying to understand the structure/big picture.

3) CR as a weakness: This is a miniature form of RC. You need to identify three main things here: Premise, Argument and Conclusion. If you have this, you have the answer. Read these questions with the mindset of cracking the code, and not thinking about the content. Same goes for RC. Please read the CR bible a 100 times if not less. Everything written in that book will help you break the code for the CR challenge!

4) SC as a weakness: Having sentence correction as a weakness is a SIN! This is supposed to be our savior. One just CANNOT afford to answer these questions incorrectly. And trust me, it’s not difficult. All you need to do is: read Manhattan SC Guide. Again! It is very important how you read and what you learn from what you have read? Make sure to use elimination tricks given in that book, it always works! Practice, practice and just practice till you get close to 100% accuracy in the practice questions and tests. IT IS POSSIBLE AND MANY PEOPLE DO IT.

5) Your aim should not be to solve tens and thousands of problems. You should try and put all the concepts in your head first! But you should always solve many practice tests before you go for the main exam. I would say, at least 20 practice tests. Don’t get too excited if you score very well on a couple of tests. You must consistently perform well on at least 5 - 6 tests to be sure.

PM me if you need additional help! Best of luck!

Lolcat33 · Answer

SR85, could you please tell me the name of the author? Is that Model V (letter) or Model 5?

Thanks

SR85 · Answer

Hi! It's the roman number 5. It is actually Module Five, not "model"

lol! I have the pdf. Send me your email ID via a private message and I will share it with you. Cheers!

GMATLA · Answer

On my SAT my RC was by far the weakest part of verbal. This was because I really never read nor did i "read correctly". Read correctly you say????? YES, this is the key part to RC. Reading a book and reading for RC are totally different. You have to ATTACK passages and skip over confusing details. Your goal is to get the gist of the entire passage with the purpose of WHY the author wrote this passage. Did the author take a stance, compare and contrast, just discuss some ideas? Take a one sentence note on each paragraph saying what the paragraph was for, and what you can find there later. Don't get caught up in hard to read, or confusing details. THAT IS WHY THEY ARE THERE! They don't expect you to be an expert in astrophysics, so those two sentences about how black holes were created are not important! Every time you blow past those details, you are passing the 1000s of other people that are caught, confused, and freaking out over NOTHING. They don't care if you know about astrophysics! Don't get caught up on them, they are only important if/when you come accross a question specifically asking you about that detail. At that point, you can go back, read, and digest if necessary. Getting caught on details can kill your time b/c you might not even get asked a question about them. Every time you pick up a strategy like this, think about the 1000s of people stuck on that detail, or paragraph, and imagine yourself blowing past them. It will continue to give you confidence.

By the time I took my test, RC and CR were by far my strongest areas. What I started doing was spending 20 min every morning at work finding some articles on CNN or google.com/news. I would READ THEM CORRECTLY. I would not read for pleasure, I would read with these questions in mind "what is the purpose of this article" "does the author take a side?" "why is he/she writing this?" etc etc... and would actually think of possible questions and answers that I might be asked and take some VERY short notes b/c I knew i needed to do this under a timed setting. Seriously, after a few weeks of this my RC scores went through the roof on practice tests. LItterally from getting 2-3 out of 10-12 qustions right, to only missing one or two. It was amazing.

SO remember, read correctly! Attack the passage! Get the gist of the passage, and figure out why the author is writing it. Look for keywords to find key clues to figure out this information. With some practice, you can really make big strides on RC. Plus, this is the one area you can practice at work, on articles you enjoy (as long as somewhat business/science/tech related). Good luck on test day!

GMATPill · Answer

Congrats to GMATLA on his RC transformation. That transformation on RC is not an easy one to realize because it forces you to change your reading strategy, if you never really had one to begin with.

What goes on during that transformation is a lot of tweaks in your brain processing - what to read, what not to read, where key things to focus on. It's difficult to explain which is why video is a good way to communicate that process. We've seen many students go through this RC transformation and it's because schools never really taught you to read this way. It's a different way of reading that is "critical reading" and when reading any article from the Economist or Wall Street Journal or Popular Science - these are the basic questions every article answers. Every article is written by a person - what is that person's perspective?

vgharibj - I'd recommend taking a look at some of the free rc videos and see if they work well for you. https://www.gmatpill.com/practice-questi ... -guide-rc/

SR85 · Answer

Hope you got the book. Let me know otherwise.

vgharibj · Answer

Hi Guys,

Just an update here after taking in everyone's advice.

My scores since the initial post:

12/13- MGMAT Q47 V35- 680
12/16- MGMAT Q47 V35- 680 (interesting how i got the exact score)
12/22- MGMAT Q44 V36- 640 (i spent way too much time on a few of the quant problems)
12/30- MGMAT Q46 V38- 690 
1/4- GMATPREP2 Q49 V37 - 700

QUANT
I am doing pretty well other than two issues. I seem to get stuck on higher level data sufficiency problems that seem to require iterations of plugging in and testing certain scenarios of divisibility, < or > and other things alike. These kind of problems seem tough to obscure to solve with algebra and I'm left plugging and chugging which is tough to organize and takes much too long.  Thoughts?

My second issue with quant is timing. I tend to take more time on the earlier problems thinking that these problems are more sensitive to determining my score than those later on. This is leaving me in situations with 10minutes to the last 7 questions. Alot of people on the forums have said to guess and move on after a minute if the problem seems unsolvable in decent time. However, I find it very hard to determine that moment when its right to guess and move on: almost every problems seems doable atleast from the start.  Any advice here?

sidenote: Through poor time management I have noticed that guessing on data sufficiency is much easier than PS

VERBAL
So it seems like I have been feeling alot better about verbal.

The CR has gotten substantially easier for me

SC has turned in to a pretty fluent mechanical process except for the higher level ones which still seem to give me problems-  any advice on these??

RC-still my worst section- I really haven't done much studying on. I still haven't done any article reading as suggested.

I do still feel pretty far away from the V43 or 44 range

Thanks for everyones help and advice! Any input is appreciated!

vgharibj · Answer

Hi guys,

Scheduled the exam for February the 8th!

Anybody have any advice to my previous post??

vgharibj · Answer

Hi guys,

Below is my updated list of practice CAT results:

12/13- MGMAT Q47 V35- 680
12/16- MGMAT Q47 V35- 680 (interesting how i got the exact score)
12/22- MGMAT Q44 V36- 640 (i spent way too much time on a few of the quant problems)
12/30- MGMAT Q46 V38- 690 
1/4- GMATPREP2 Q49 V37 - 700 
1/5- MGMAT Q51 V45-780 -i took this one with unlimted time
1/7- MGMAT Q50 V45-770
1/10 MGMAT Q48 V45-750
1/13 MGMAT Q48 V45-750
1/15 GMATPREP Q49 V42-740 
1/25 GMATPREP Q51 V45-770

My study plan has been to exhaust all the OG problems from beginning to end. I did this all of last week and essentially did a 100 problems a day. I just started to do the same with the OG 11 as well. Every day I review the ones that I missed.

After a set I take time to review ones I got wrong and any others that I didn't feel 100% confident with.

My test is scheduled for the 8th. I figure I will take 3 more GMAT prep practice tests again.

Again at this point point a considerable amount of problems are starting to reappear in practice tests. I am afraid my scores are inflated because of it.

Questions:

1. Any pointers on the study plan?
2. Is it worth retaking these tests at this point?
3. Am i in the range of my goal of 750?

mohan514 · Answer

hello you look like working hard for getting the score you are looking for..

all the best for your exam!!

wallstreetbarbie · Answer

I personally found great help by consistently following the RC strategy outlined in the MGMAT book. I too breeze through passages, and quite honestly, I have a bad habit of not finishing an article when it doesnt interest me. Enter GMAT... those passages are SO boring... the MGMAT book has a strategy for long and short passages... I make myself follow it each time I do an RC question. What it made me to is become disciplined about it. Ultimately, I hope, will increase my score as well.

Key is being consistent with RC... and pretending you are interested about whatever the passage is about.

vgharibj · Answer

I'm starting to go through RC99...some of the hardest passages ive ever come across. I figure if I can finish 30-99 by Monday, test day wont be nearly as bad.

vgharibj · Answer

Took another MGMAT test, this time with a majority of forgotten or new questions. Still got a 740, but I was disappointed because I got four errors in a row on verbal, and I knew this was my reaction to a lack of time.

I spent a considerable amount of time on the first half of the section, which is ok I guess. But I started to rush through a good number of problems instead of employing an educated guessing technique like i have developed in Quant.

Unfortunately I feel like this timing technique is much harder to employ in verbal because its hard to know what kind(rc,sc,cr) of verbal question to employ it on. For example, when I am doing quant, I would much rather employ a strategic guess on a Data Sufficienc problem because its much easier to quickly eliminate AC's when compared to PS.

Any thoughts on this?

vgharibj · Answer

I just took the exam and scored WELL BELOW expectations.

I got a 670 Q49 V31

I MESSED UP BIG on my verbal timing. The exact question I had in this quote is the same idea that really screwed me over.

I did not guess when I needed to. Consequently I spent all my time on hard passages(my weakness if anything) in the beginning and started rushing through SC and CR which are my strengths. Again, I really did not no where to start guessing to save time.

I guess I should have been guessing on the passages, but I could not justify doing this. I kept thinking, how could I guess on this question when I just spent 4/5 minutes reading the passage???

When the passage was over, Id get a CR or SC that I would hate to guess on cause I am much stronger with these kinds of questions. After rushing through the middle portion of the test, I was left with 10 minutes for 10 questions. Totally screwed myself.

Again I don't think my reading is sub par for a 740. Pure lack of time management got the best of me today. I know I am on the slower side, but like QUANT I guess strategically. I just for some reason couldn't justify guessing on CR and SC today.

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