RETAKE. Need to improve from 580 to 600 in 1week. PLEASE URGENT HELP !

Question

Hi ! I am writing to see if I can get some help. 1st GMAT free test 400 Q25 V20 27/07/20 Princeton Review 520 Q31 V31 17/08/20 2nd GMAT free test 480 Q28 V28 23/08/20 Veritas Free test 560 Q37 V31 03/09/20 Real GMAT Test 580 Q40 V31 14/09/20 IR4 AWA 4 I need a 600 and my deadline is coming

. My problem is that I should retake on October 1st. The test is already scheduled so I can not differ it. I have 1 week to reach 600. My final deadline is October 31st. but at that time the school must have already received the official report and it was the only available date near my location. My test experience was not the best one. I chose order 3 Quant/Verbal/IR/AWA and after seeing the first question I frightened. It was not a difficult one but my brain just stopped... I felt that the questions at the real test were easier than the ones I have practiced, I can understand that because it took me five minutes to control the situation again and keep going. I had to rush at the end of both sections, probably losing 6-7 questions (V+Q) ;( It is the first time in my whole academic life that something like that (panicking) happened to me. I am normally ok with taking tests but I think I had so much expectations about this one that I ended up extremely stressed. I am already admitted in the program of my dreams, but I need at least 600 or I would be disenrolled. Sounds like a lot of pressure and it really is. I just tried not to overthink about that but all exploded at the test center

. I wonder if selecting order Verbal/Quant may be helpful to overcome the initial shock. Of course I aim to score above 600 but at this time I should be realistic and say that I MUST score 600. I am not happy with my IR and AWA but at this moment I can't do a lot to improve there, I need the 600. My study strategy was a foundational review and then I did a lot of practice questions mostly from the precious Gmatclub question bank. I also managed to improve my abilities in Overlapping sets with the TTP 1$ trial. I noticed I have reached a plateau in Verbal (which is normal since I have doubled my efforts in quant and kind of let verbal aside, my bad) so any suggestion is more than welcomed. I have this week to fully prepare for the retake. Also any advice about time management will be appreciated. I always time myself and normally I manage to end both sections, of course skipping the ones I find difficult, not actually attempting all of them. I think I will try to improve my SC skills/number properties/word and ratio problems. I am sure that I am not so good at those. I have bought a official question bank but I would love some advice. Thank you very much !

homersimpsons · Answer

https://gmatclub.com/forum/gmat-self-pr ... tml?f=menu

yashikaaggarwal · Answer

That's a lot to intake within a week when mind is already messed up. the most you can do now, is to avoid practicing new questions If you have been practicing here, you must be having an error log like rest of us, so go through that. see where were you wrong, practice it. Solving new questions won't help more, you should work on official questions. If you have OG, solve its questions 10-15 from each section. if you don't have OG, Practice official questions from GC Practice section. I am sure you will be able to get 600 within a week. Good luck for your exam.

Ranasaymon · Answer

I think, your verbal score is pretty well. And you can get your 600 within a week. As you are realistic with your score to improve by at least 10 points and you are running out of time, I think it's better to focus on the parts you mentioned. For quant section, I can suggest to check TTP's 5 days trial for $1 if it's possible. For these 5 days, try to focus on number properties, ratio and word problems from TTP. You may see some points added to your score.

For improving SC, check the search box in GMAT club to find out the Gayatry's SC notes or Ankur's SC notes. My personal preference for SC is to check E-gmat's SC notes. You can find it in GMAT club. Then try to stick with OG for the rest of days.

And there's a video link on time management. It may help you.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bWrUiBT83PQ

Best of luck.

AndrewN · Answer

Hello,  CamilaGonzalez . I have to say that your official score is the outlier at the moment, but since you have a little over a week in which to prepare for the retake, I would suggest devoting your efforts in practice to increasing your accuracy on Easy and Medium questions, per their official categorization. If you let yourself get caught up in 700-level questions, you will likely do no more for yourself than to increase anxiety; the GMAT™ punishes mistakes more severely at these lower levels anyway. I guarantee that if you can hit 75 percent accuracy on Easy questions, 70 percent on Medium questions, get a Hard question here or there (not even 50 percent of the time), and submit answers for all questions, you will earn your target 600. You can even save time guessing by having a prearranged guess answer that you can choose each time (say, (D)). That way, you can click through and at least have an answer marked in a timely fashion. I would much rather give myself a 20 percent probability of landing upon the correct answer with little time and mental energy spent than adopt a random guessing strategy that took extra time and increased anxiety.

This week, you should review what you have worked on already. If you want to practice new questions, stick with official ones, perhaps from that question bank you mentioned, but focus on a few at a time, not large sets. You know already what the exam is like, so adding volume will not prepare you for the task at hand; studying what has caused you to go awry in the past and putting that knowledge to use on a few small sets of questions can be productive, not only in helping you increase your accuracy, but also in giving your confidence a boost, just when you will need it the most. In review, look up the questions you have missed in this forum. Take the time to read through some of the responses until it makes sense to you why the wrong answers are wrong. That is about it. Review, practice, review. Go through each category of question in this manner—PS, DS, RC, CR, SC (no need to delve too much into sub-categories)—and you can set yourself up for success in a short study window.

Finally, if you think you might draw a blank again on test day, you can practice deep breathing ahead of time. Doing so sets off a physiological response that helps you calm down, and you will be able to think more clearly. A little stress has been proven to help people perform better at mental tasks; too much stress has the opposite effect. You can even give yourself one free pass every 5 or 6 questions. Just lay eyes on the question, and if you feel that heart rate spiking, take your deep breaths, see if logic can help you in some way to eliminate  anything , and simply pick an answer. If you focus on small clusters of questions at a time, 30-36 questions start to feel not so bad.

Relax. Take your time to study. Practice some more. Your approach this week can make all the difference. And if you have questions at any point, you know how to reach out to the community.

Good luck.

- Andrew

EMPOWERgmatRichC · Answer

Hi CamilaGonzalez,

Based on your Official Score and your last CAT Score, you are remarkably close to hitting 600+ right now. To earn a 600, it's worth noting that you do NOT need to correctly answer ANY of the questions that you think are too hard or too weird during the Exam, but you have to keep the little mistakes to a minimum (especially on the 'gettable' questions). Based on everything that you have described, you probably know everything that you need to know to hit your Score Goal, so for this next week of study, your focus should be on doing precise work at all times - and not trying to 'cram' lots of practice or trying to learn anything 'new.'
 
You would probably be okay taking one more practice CAT this Saturday if you want, but you should not take any more than that.

Since you scored fairly close to your Official Score on your last CAT, we can use that performance as a reference. While a full Mistake Tracker would provide a lot more information, there are some basic questions that you should be able to answer about how you handled that CAT (and the more EXACT you can be with your answers, the better):

After reviewing each section of that CAT, how many questions did you get wrong....
1) Because of a silly/little mistake?
2) Because there was some math/verbal that you just could not remember how to do?
3) Because the question was too hard?
4) Because you were low on time and had to guess?
5) How many Verbal questions did you 'narrow down to 2 choices' but still get wrong?

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

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RETAKE. Need to improve from 580 to 600 in 1week. PLEASE URGENT HELP !

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