Plateauing at Q80/Q81. Need Advice.

Question

I am stuck at a quant score of Q80/81. I am doing 2 mocks daily for the quant section and a thorough analysis of what I did wrong. Can someone give me a strategy to actually break through this ceiling.

Gmat Club mocks give me only medium and hard questions.
I sometimes do finish reading all the questions but around 80% of the times I am invariably guessing the last 2 questions.

A snap shot of the last few mocks.

Attempt	Early Mistakes (Q1–7)	Mid Mistakes (Q8–14)	Late Mistakes (Q15–21)	Total Wrong
Attempt 1	1	3	2	6
Attempt 2	2	2	2	6
Attempt 3	3	1	3	7

I am looking for tips and directions to plan my study ahead. I am aiming for a 700+ but my current situation is discouraging

MartyMurray · Answer

One of the things I've found helps people score higher on Quant is going beyond learning formulas, strategies, etc. for each topic to learning the underlying logic of each of the Quant topics.

For example, in Combinatorics, that would mean going beyond learning the combinations and permutations formulas and strategies to learning why those formulas and strategies work.

Similarly, for Overlapping Sets, you'd learn not only the formulas and methods but also how and why they work along with the logic of the relationships between overlaps and how the different components of a system of overlapping sets change as you change the overlaps.

There are multiple advantages to learning Quant this way, and one of them is that it allows you to apply the Quant concepts flexibly to answer out-of-the-box GMAT questions that involve them in new ways.

For example, someone recently told me that he saw on the GMAT an Overlapping Sets question involving five sets. Of course, none of the standard formulas or methods for two- or three-set questions will work for a question involving five sets, but if you get the underlying logic of Overlapping Sets, then you'll still be able to answer such a question.

Another thing that works is using the streaks method to practice. Doing so, you'll learn to see all the key aspects of each Quant question and thus become both more accurate and faster.

How to Ace the GMAT Using the Streaks Method

dignissimosminima · Answer

Thanks for this. I am curious about the streak method. Would you advise that I use the streak method for a mixed bag of questions as well instead of just a specific topic?

KarishmaB · Answer

Make one simple change next time. You know that you fall short on time. If you get a question that looks hard to you (say a topic you don't know very well or a hard question of combinatorics (where chances of error are high), you guess it and mark for review immediately. Bank time to ensure that you get to every question meaningfully. You can come back to that question later if you have time at the end. This will ensure that you are not scoring below your current potential at least.

Also you may want to fix your weak areas with a thorough conceptual review.

ScottTargetTestPrep · Answer

I can see why this feels discouraging. You're putting in real volume and the score isn't moving. But the volume itself is part of what's holding you back. Two Quant sections a day isn't a study plan; it's a measurement plan, and you can't measure your way out of a plateau.

Mocks are diagnostic tools. They tell you what you currently know and they reveal gaps, but they don't build new skills or close the gaps they uncover. When you take a mock, miss a question, read the explanation, and move on to the next mock, you've confirmed a gap, not closed it. You can do that 60 times in a month and your score won't move, because the underlying content hasn't actually changed.

Look at your error distribution. Across three attempts you've missed 1, 2, and 3 questions in the first third of the section, 3, 2, and 1 in the middle, and 2, 2, and 3 at the end. Mistakes aren't concentrated in any one position. That spread tells you the issue isn't fatigue, isn't a rough start, and isn't pacing collapse late. It's that there are multiple Quant topics where your understanding isn't yet deep enough to produce a consistent correct answer, and those gaps surface wherever the relevant question happens to appear.

That same content gap explains the late-section guessing. When the approach isn't automatic, every question costs you an extra 30 to 60 seconds while you work out which method applies and double-check your setup. Multiply that across 15 questions and you've burned through your buffer by Q19. Once the content becomes automatic, those extra seconds disappear and the time pressure resolves on its own. Speed is a byproduct of mastery, not a separate skill to train.

Here's what I would do instead. Pause the daily mock routine. Pick one Quant topic where your accuracy is clearly below where you want it (rates, number properties, inequalities, probability, whatever the data points to). Relearn the concepts, formulas, and techniques in that topic thoroughly. Then practice only that topic, untimed at first, until your accuracy is consistently high and your approach feels routine. For every miss, diagnose exactly what went wrong: a concept gap, a misread, a careless setup error, or a trap answer. Write it down. Then redo the missed questions later from scratch, without looking at the solution, and confirm you can solve them on your own. Once one topic feels solid, move to the next. Build the same depth there. As you accumulate mastered topics, your section accuracy will climb, your per-question time will drop without you working on speed, and the late-section guessing will largely take care of itself.

If your current studying is scattered across question banks and explanations without a structured progression through topics, that's worth changing. A clear, comprehensive, structured GMAT prep course can be especially helpful at this stage, because it sequences topics in the right order, isolates one concept at a time, tracks your accuracy by topic and difficulty, and forces the kind of depth that a mock-and-review cycle doesn't produce on its own. The mocks become useful again later, as confirmation that the work is landing, not as the work itself.

When you're ready to measure progress, take a free official mock from mba.com to get the most accurate read.

The path from Q80/81 to a 700+ runs through topic-by-topic mastery, not through more mocks. Stop measuring and start building. The score will follow.

This article walks through how to approach Quant prep at the depth this requires:  GMAT Focus Quant Preparation: Top 10 Tips

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