To take or not to take

Hi,
You need to read the below post in link and follow the RC experts :
https://gmatclub.com/forum/new-rc-forum ... l#p2153058
https://gmatclub.com/forum/project-rc-b ... l#p2110839
https://gmatclub.com/forum/how-to-impro ... l#p1143009
https://gmatclub.com/forum/the-most-com ... 40373.html

Q50 is a fabulous score and you can get Q51 on a lucky day As your Quant is strong, you need to focus on verbal. I added some more links that will be super helpful to you.


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Hi nurba92,

680 with 50 quant is certainly a great start. I guess when you decide to take the GMAT depends on your score goal. If you are shooting for say 730+, then you likely will need more than just one month to improve your verbal skills. That said, I see you’d like advice on how to improve in RC; however, since you scored V31 on your practice exam, you may consider improving in all aspects of verbal to maximize your score increase. In any case, here is some advice you can follow regarding how to improve your RC skills.

To improve in Reading Comprehension, you need to focus on understanding what you are reading. When you incorrectly answer Reading Comprehension questions, it’s partly because you didn’t truly understand what you read, right? Thus, you likely have to slow down in order to (eventually) speed up. At this point, your best bet is to focus on getting the correct answers to questions, taking as much time as you need to see key details and understand the logic of what you are reading. You have to learn to comprehend what you read, keep it all straight, and use what you are reading to arrive at correct answers. If you don't understand something, go back and read it one sentence at a time, even one word at a time, not moving on until you understand what you have just read. There is no way around this work. Your goal should be to take all the time you need to understand exactly what is being said and arrive at the correct answer. If you can learn to get answers taking your time, you can learn to speed up. Answering questions is like any task: The more times you do it carefully and successfully, the faster you become at doing it carefully and successfully.

Another component of understanding what you are reading is being “present” when reading. Don’t worry about how things are going at work, or what you will eat for dinner, or even how long you are taking to read through the passage. Just focus on what is in front of you, word by word, line by line. Furthermore, try to make reading fun. For example, even if you are reading about a topic that bores you, pretend that you are the person making the argument. By doing so, you will make the passage more relatable to YOU, and ultimately you should be able to read with greater focus.

One final component of Reading Comprehension that may be tripping you up is that RC questions contain one or more trap answers that seem to answer the question but don't really. So, a key part of training to correctly answer RC questions is learning to notice the differences between trap answers and correct answers. You have to learn to see how trap answers seem to follow from what the passages say, but don't really, while correct answers fit what the passages say exactly.

Lastly, you may find it helpful to read this article about how to score a 700+ on the GMAT.

If you have any further questions, feel free to reach out.
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Hi nurba92,

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? How many hours do you typically study each week?
2) What study materials have you used so far?
3) On what 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?
6) What Schools are you planning to apply to?

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

nurba92 - Can you take the exam in a month - absolutely!! assuming that you are truly at 680. You probably need to put in 80 hours to improve your Verbal score to a V40.

Jim was able to improve from 700 to 770 in 3 weeks. Read his story below:

https://gmatclub.com/forum/trust-the-pr ... 07942.html

Jim provides excellent advice on how to improve using the right methods. Since you have already seen the RC webinar, you will relate to how Jim improved his RC ability to 85th percentile



Step 1 - Make a study plan
The most important thing is that you spend time on areas where you had the headroom to improve. To do that you need your ability scores. Use GMAT planner if you already know those ability scores. Otherwise, take a SIGma-X mock test to get those.

https://e-gmat.com/blogs/sigma-x-mocks- ... in-1-week/
https://gmatplanner.e-gmat.com/?route=gmatplanner

Then make sure you learn to excel

Watch these videos below to understand the stages of learning. Make sure you start at the appropriate stage:




Track this improvement. If you hit your target abilities, you should be able to hit your target GMAT scores.

-Rajat
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ScottTargetTestPrep
Mr.Woodbury, thanks to TTP my quant is so, without those courses I would be far from q49-51)
Thanx for your advices

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egmat
Hey guys, thanks for verbal, my SC is way better now, and your free webinars are of so much help
I will surely look through these RC material you have attached

Posted from my mobile device

EMPOWERgmatRichC
Thanx for a reply

1)I have started studying using free materials both from gmatclub and other places in september 2018. I studied 3-4 hours every weekday evening and some more hours on weekends. I don't think my studies were very consistent, but at least I became more familiar with the exam itself and with some concepts.

2)but then (in july 2019) I started taking the prep seriously and subscribed to egmat verbal. They helped me with SC, they taught me quality concepts within CR and RC, but my problem was these concepts didn't fully apply to me because I struggled with understanding of the problems themself, that is I could see some words that I have no clue what they mean, and these words could ruin me everything. A friend of mine shared with me CR Powerscore, and that,added to my knowledge from egmat preps and my dealing with lsat crs, boosted my CR.
For quant I chose TTP.

3) I took the gmatprep's 2-nd pack last saturday. I actually felt some real pressure taking the exam because questions in it are kind of more difficult than OGs, or maybe this was because of time pressure.

1) my goal is 730, median in M7, definitely unreal without at least q50 I think
2) I want to apply to class of 2022, so current R2 and R3 are my focus.

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"I read on many sources that to get that score I will need to answer correctly first 15-20 q's"

This seems to be folklore. Generalizations such as these do more harm than good.

"everytime I start any topic at which I am not good enough, I start seeing some brilliant q's, which ruin my confidence in understanding the relevant topic"

This is actually normal. There will always be more difficult questions that stump testtakers regardless of their ability levels.

"RC was a disaster. I didn't manage to understand a single passage, what to say about unknown words, which completely put me off track.... How to improve RC?"

Again, this is normal. The actual test or taking a test under strictly timed confitions will make a testtaker feel hurried. There will be some difficult passages no matter your ability level.

Do read widely long passages without break. Reading regularly helps.

"How to prepare to AWA?"

Use standard templates to write your essay. These templates can be easily adjusted to suit most topics. You should still think carefully about the topic before making your points.

As long as you are careful and confident, you will do well. Avoid overconfidence but don't give in to your doubts.

nurba92 - Can you elaborate on the statement below



more specifically.. what do you mean by "these concepts did not fully apply to me because I struggled with understanding the problems themselves". Can you give an example?

Let's just take CR. The e-GMAT CR course gives you feedback 81 times. What is your average score in concept and application files? In addition, what is your accuracy across Easy/Medium/Hard questions in Scholaranium?
Lastly, did you complete Stage 1, and Stage 2 of learning in CR, and RC?

-Rajat
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Hi nurba92,

From your posts, it's still not clear how this recent 680 defines your progress/improvement over time. That's why I asked about your prior CATs/mocks (when you took them and how you scored on each) because we need to define whether you need to be making any big changes to your overall study routine or not. For example, if you have been steadily improving, then you might continue to improve by working in the same ways that you have been working. However, if you've gotten "stuck" at this general score level (re: you have scored in the high-600s on your last few CATs), then you might have to make some significant changes to how you handle certain aspects of the Exam (meaning that you would need some new study materials and you would need to learn and practice new Tactics).

So, on what 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)?

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

egmat

Sorry, if it seemed as I was offending e-gmat, my point was I studied CR concepts and they were good. These concepts were analyzed so well that it would be easy to deal with cr problems technically, but my problem was I couldn't apply them, simply because I was lacking practise and full understanding of cr question mechanism, moreover I struggled on every question because there were always some words, meaning of which I couldn't deduce from the context, and these situations just put me off the track. I started to look for advices for CR, given that I learned the theory part thanks to your courses, and a lot of people talked about lsat crs. They said lsat crs would challenge you and og problems would be much simpler afterwards. So I worked with powerscore cr to better understand lsat problems, and went through lots of lsat crs. Now I know that practise is not less important than concepts themself. And you see that I have written some questions on e-gmat chats and the feedback was always on time. I wasn't fully ready for CR after getting familiar with e-gmat concepts, but I didn't mean they were bad. You know it is the case for some students that the concepts of one online course are not enough for these students. I tried some stuff from other preps and still couldn't gain any better hints to deal with CRs. Happily, now with all this combination (prep concepts and lsat's challenging problems) I feel much better dealing with CR.

What about RC, I don't know what is wrong. I have worked with e-gmat RCs, done practices, felt more or less ok with problems, and every problem was linked well with the corresponding concept so as to know exactly what type of problem you are dealing with. Then I moved to OGs and VRs and thought I feel more or less comfortable, just need to practice well. I took the gmatprep 2 pack to estimate my level and I was ready to score badly on RC. However, 10 incorrect out of 13 waaaay didn't match my expectations, I understood no single passage. I tried to infer the meaning of parts of the passage from the context as you had taught on online lessons but still struggled. One thing I can tell is when I understood the full passage the questions appeared extremely straighforward (I understood which types of answers are traps; I saw in practice which answers are correct on each type of RC questions) so I think that my problem is not the concepts or types of questions but understanding of the passage.

My pleasure!!
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So I took the exam today...
Devastated...
Thanks to TTP and gmatclub tests I don't worry about quant, and the score of 49 is rather my fault.
But verbal... scored 33
Again was mostly (not fully, but who's perfect non-native?) confident dealing with SC and CR.
Again had severe problems with RC, I just get fallen apart answering the questions, which are made up of the meaning of the passage's parts I don't quite understand. When I understand every word in the passage I deal with RC more easily. However, there always are words, meaning of which to comprehend for me is mission impossible. Neither can I infer the meaning from the context.
So I am planning on postponing studies till January, will have some time to relax and recharge and get my mind clean. I have ordered Mgmat's all the verbal to have some different view on the sections. We'll see.
ESR's on the way. I'll attach it asap.

Hi nurba92,

This Official Score is remarkably similar to the practice CAT Score that you described in your first post in this thread. As such, it's possible that you've gotten 'stuck' at this 'Score level.' Since it's been about 1.5 months since that first post, we should start by defining how you've been studying during this time.

1) How many hours do you typically study each week?
2) What study materials have you used?
3) On what 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)?

While the ESR doesn’t provide a lot of information, there are usually a few data points that we can use to define what went wrong on Test Day (and what you should work on to score higher). If you purchase the ESR, then I'll be happy to analyze it for you.

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

Q49 is an awesome quant score, so you should be proud of that. Would you like some advice on how to improve in verbal?
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740!!!
Q49 V41 IR3
Thank you gmatclub, thank you to all experts (VeritasKarishma, Bunuel, nightblade354 to name a few) thank you to @e-gmat, to @targettestprep, thank you all.
It feels strange to make this post. One of the reasons is, despite 740, I feel that I could outscore my quant, that IR3 makes my score so vulnerable. Surprisingly, I was not so worried upon my IR part, and ended with 5 minutes remaining.
I don't know whether I should retake the exam to get a better IR, but at this moment I am exhausted. I don't want to retake merely to outscore my IR. I don't feel that I can score 40+ again without preparing further, as my RC is 50/50. I am still losing focus as soon as I don't get some part of the passage. However, maybe school requirements will force me to retake. I don't know. Do you, experts? Do you think I should retake the exam for a better IR?
And if anyone knows, should I take academic IELTS or general?
What are the next steps toward the M7?

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Do you think I should retake the exam for a better IR? --- An expert's opinion might be better, but it might be a good idea to simply email or call your intended universities and ask whether they care about your IR score. (You could also ask them about IELTS and so on)
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Congratulations on the fantastic score! I'd recommend speaking to a consultant about your IR if you are truly worried about it. A 60 point jump in 6 months in fantastic! When you are completely done, I want a full debrief posted!
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Hey nurba92,

First of all, congratulations on the great score. Yes, IR2-IR3 is a bit of a concern though the school may not give a whole lot of weightage to IR. Then again, since you are looking at M7, it may be a good idea to retake in a month. You have enough time for R1.
Work on IR and practice Quant and Verbal (you have a good balanced score in the two so kudos on that)
Worst case - you don't improve your score. You can then cancel your score and it won't be reflected in your score report. So you lose some money and effort but I wouldn't like to leave any red flag in an app to M7. Alternatively, if you have 2-3 dream schools in mind, you can check with them.
Mind you, the admission process is a whole lot subjective so different people will have different opinions on best way forward.
Also, was your under-Graduate program non-English? You need to take TOEFL/IELTS only if that is the case.