thelastskybender
Dear all,
I took my first GMAT on July 26,2023 and ended up with a disappointing score of 640(V28/Q49).
My performance in various mock tests(in chronological order):
GMAT official mock 1 : 650 (Q43, V30) [20/05/23]
GMAT official mock 2: 680 (Q50, V31) [03/06/23]
GMAT official mock 3: 670 (Q49, V32) [12/07/23]
GMAT official mock 1 Reattempt: 710(Q50, V31) [15/07/23]
GMAT official mock 2 Reattempt: 760(Q50, V31) [17/07/23]
MGMT Mock 1 : 640 (Q43, V34) [20/07/2023]
GMAT official mock 4: 640 (Q50,V27) [22/07/23]
GMAT Exam: 640 (Q49, V28) [26/07/23]
I ordered ESR. I found that I have scored at 30th percentile in Critical Reasoning, way below the mean score(I used to get 70 percentile in mocks). I am sure I can do bad in CR but this was my worst!
I have been preparing for GMAT for last 4 months from April till July. I prepared for 1-2 hours daily on weekdays and 4-5 hours on saturday and sunday.
Materials used:
OG,
OG Verbal Review and gmatclub.
My target is 730. I have attached my ESR. Experts please kindly help me with your inputs on how I should improve my score and what materials I should use. I am planning to retake GMAT in two and half months.
Bunuelnightblade354GMATNinjaKarishmaBScottTargetTestPrepbbEMPOWERgmatRichCMartyTargetTestPrepGmatTutorKnightAndrewNOne thing that stands out - you spent too much time on one very hard question in the second quarter and got it wrong. What that does is throw you off your game in the entire rest of the section. You had no time left in the fourth quarter and likely guessed on most questions. You perhaps spent your time on the easy ones and that was a good call.
If you are struggling with a question that seems hard to you, guess and move on within your budgeted time, especially in verbal. Spending too much time on it will not work in either case - whether you get it right or wrong.
If you get it right, the algo throws an even harder question at you and you struggle even more and spend even more time on it. This means you are not left with any time for the later part of the section and you will miss easy questions which will give you heavy penalties and your score will drop below your achievable score.
If you get it wrong, you wasted time and still got the same penalty that you would have had you moved on quickly.
Work on your verbal from a test prep course to understand the nuances of various question types.
You did have a similar time management problem in Quant too.
Focus a bit on sets, stats and sequences. Incorrect questions were mostly of highest difficulty (which is great and hence the good score) but you did spend too much time on them. Hence, you dropped some easy questions in fourth quarter and that likely impacted your score a bit. Perhaps you would have seen a Q50-51 had that not been the case.
You can review sets, stats and sequences.