Please suggest me ways to improve my GMAT score (640)

Question

A bit about my journey so far -

Started my GMAT prep a couple of months ago. It went decently well and I was scoring an average 680-710 over my 6 GMAT prep tests and one 610 (an outlier)

In hopes of replicating this score, I gave my official GMAT test yesterday (23rd Feb) and to my dismay, ended up scoring a measly 640 (Q47, V32)

Although I thought quant went well, I definitely could use an improvement to bump my score to Q49/ Q50.

Verbal was where I had the most trouble during the test, especially Reading Comprehension. I did not expect so many questions and such long passages. If I'm not wrong, I think I had 4 RC passages and a total of 15Qs. I was completely overwhelmed with this and ended up having only 2 minutes to answer last 3 questions and failed to answer the last question.

I am willing to invest another 2 months towards improving my score. My target is a modest 700-720.

Any help or tips on how to proceed would be highly appreciated.

Thanks!

GmatKnightTutor · Answer

This person went from a V31 to a V40 on their second attempt: https://gmatclub.com/forum/gmat-online- ... 68599.html. May be some helpful insight you can take. Using time markers for time management and, for RC, becoming familiar with how inference questions work may also boost your performance. If you want to practice reading separately, similar articles from The Economist may be worth checking out. 5 Verbal Tips

MartyTargetTestPrep · Answer

Hi Ak9sh.

To improve in Quant, you could continue to strengthen weaker areas and also work on overall accuracy.

To strengthen a weaker quant area

- first, review the concepts and strategies that topic involves
 
- then, do practice questions involving that topic UNTIMED until you're achieving high accuracy
 
- finally, work on reducing the time per question until you're correctly answering questions involving that topic at test pace

For some ideas on how to improve your overall Quant accuracy, see this post.

Improving Your Accuracy on the GMAT

Also, you can get some ideas for speeding up in Verbal from this one.

How to Get Faster at GMAT Verbal

egmat · Answer

Hey Ak9sh , I’m so sorry to see that you could not score so well on your GMAT even after scoring well in your official mocks. This problem of having a high mock score and a low GMAT score is a common one. And this happens, primarily, because of a lack of a proper approach in preparing for the GMAT. In this post, I will certainly help you understand what approach you should be adopting to reach a 700+ score in a structured and predictable manner but let me first give you a few of examples of students who faced the same issue and overcame it by adopting the right approach - Students who scored high on mocks but scored low on the official attempt: Prashant got stuck at a 660 in the first 3-attempts . His strategy was to practice a lot of questions as recommended by his classroom coaching and also followed a generic study plan using an online course. Realizing the importance of a better approach, he switched to e-GMAT - received a hyper-specific study plan based on his strengths and weaknesses which enabled him to score a massive 770 in his 4th attempt. Click here to watch his debrief. Despite scoring 700+ on official mock tests, Sumit scored a 660 (Q49, V30) in his 1st attempt. He realized the importance of a structured approach and changed his strategy with the e-GMAT course. He leveraged the Quant 2.0 modules to score a perfect Q51 in Quant which enabled him to secure a 740 on the GMAT. Click here to watch his debrief. I'm sure you would be able to easily relate your journey to the above examples. What should you do to improve your score? Now to improve your score from 610 to 700+ in 2 months , here’s a step-by-step plan that you can follow: Start your journey by establishing a baseline of your current abilities for every individual sub-section of the GMAT. You can do this either by purchasing your Enhanced Score Report if you took the GMAT from the center or by taking a mock test on the e-GMAT platform. This will help you establish your current score for every individual subsection (SC, CR, RC, AR, ALG-GEO) which will further help us in creating specific plans for each individual subsection for you. Click here to take a SIGma-X mock (free of charge). You will get an Enhanced Score Report along with this. Once you’ve identified your strengths and weaknesses , it’s critical that you build a Personalised Study Plan . This will help you cut down your prep time significantly (by around 40%). You can reach out to us on support@e-gmat.com for help with creating a Personalized study plan. For subsections where your score is below the 60th percentile, start your prep from Stage 1: Stage 1 is the Learning Stage wherein you learn the different concepts and their application from scratch. Successful completion of this stage demonstrates that you have reached between 50-60th percentile ability. For subsections where your score is between 60th to 80th percentile, spend a major proportion of your time and effort on this stage: Stage 2, as we call the Cementing Stage, is where you cement your application skills for each sub-section in Verbal and each topic in Quant by solving medium and hard level questions and getting a good score consistently in a timed manner. Here’s how you can create and attempt cementing quizzes: Each sub-sectional quiz should have a mixed bag of 10 questions solved first under relaxed timing (20 minutes) and then under standard timing (15 minutes). Start with medium difficulty. Proceed to hard once you have qualified 3 medium level cementing quizzes consistently. For each difficulty level- Medium or Hard, there is a clearly defined accuracy threshold. For a Medium Cementing Quiz, the cut-off is 70% accuracy and, For a Hard-Cementing Quiz, the cut-off is 50% accuracy. For further understanding, click here to watch a video that explains the cementing process in detail. Successful completion of this stage demonstrates that you have crossed the 70th percentile ability in each sub-section. Once you have successfully completed Stage 2 for all individual sub-sections, start with the Test Readiness Stage. Since this is the last stage, here the focus is on maximizing your score at Sectional Quizzes under proper test conditions. In this stage you will solve multiple cross-sub-sectional quizzes to build your stamina for the actual GMAT exam. You can also take a few full-length mock tests to assess your overall test readiness and identify any lingering weaknesses. Successful completion of this stage demonstrates that you have reached the 91st percentile ability. Track your progress continuously with the right data points and by using a milestone-driven approach. Before your test, make sure you spend enough time on revising your notes and error logs. Make sure you review all your quizzes and mocks in detail to make sure that you got questions correct for the right reasons. For the incorrect questions or questions where you took excessive time, try to figure the gaps and bridge those gaps. How to choose the right resources? To improve from 610 to 700+ in 2-months , you will need a course that offers you: A strong, adaptive architecture that is able to pinpoint your strengths and weaknesses at a granular level. Extensive lessons and exercises to cover concepts and methodologies to help you develop the right Core Skills. A robust and adaptive testing platform with advanced Data Analytics to help you Cement your core skills in each subsection. A reliable and integrated Mock Test Series that provides you with Enhanced Score Reports. And, finally, dedicated support of Subject Matter and Strategy Experts to monitor your progress and guide you every step of the way. How to decide? We understand that choosing the right course for your GMAT preparation can be daunting. And to help you make an informed decision and save invaluable prep time and money, here’s how you can choose the right course - Experience the free trial courses, talk to a Strategy Expert, and visualize your journey by going through the reviews of students who have used these platforms. I hope all this information helps you make an informed decision. Your Immediate Next Steps As discussed, please share your ESR with us via DM or by writing to support@e-gmat.com. If you don't have your ESR, you can take a SIGma-X mock (free of charge) (you will get an Enhanced Score Report along with this) and email us to schedule a 1:1 discussion with one of our Strategy Experts . We hope this helps you and we look forward to hearing from you. Best Regards, Mansi

EMPOWERgmatRichC · Answer

Hi Ak9sh,

I'm sorry to hear that Test Day didn't go as well as hoped - although a 640/Q47 is still a solid Score. When these types of score drops occur, the two likely "causes" involve either something that was unrealistic during practice or something that was surprising (or not accounted for) on Test Day. Before we discuss any of those potential issues though, it would help if you could provide a bit more information on how you've been studying and your goals:

1) How long have you studied in total? How many hours do you typically study each week?
2) What study materials have you used so far? What “brands” of CATs/mocks have you used?
3) On what dates (or approximate 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)?
4) When are you planning to apply to Business School and what Schools are you planning to apply to?

If you took your Official GMAT at a Test Center, then you might also choose to purchase the Enhanced Score Report. 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

Contact Rich at: [email protected]

EducationAisle · Answer

Consider ordering a ESR  Ak9sh . The report may surprise you.

LokeshReddy98 · Answer

For RC, I would suggest you to practice reading. If there is a particular topic of RC passages that you struggle with, for instance, Science or History, you can read more about these to brush up your reading skills.

While solving, don't directly jump on reading the questions. Instead, read the passage, get involved into what the author is 'actually' trying to convey, and once you get the crux of it, you are good to solve the questions. Trust me it takes a lot less time.

For Quant, it sure seems like you need work on your approach for solving questions. Stick to one approach for solving the questions, master it by practicing questions, and then work on reducing your time.

I hope this helps. GMAT 720 is achievable. I hope you work on these weaknesses. All the very best to you!

ScottTargetTestPrep · Answer

Hi Ak9sh,

In addition to the advice provided by Marty, here is a helpful article you can check out:

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