Retaking the Gmat- Study Advice

hani1024 - Welcome to GMAT!

No one but you should decide whether you want to take the test again. Please do not blindly rely on the opinions of others. We have a well-structured in-house guide that can help you make a decision. Therefore, please take a few moments to review the GMAT Club Retake plan: Retaking GMAT Strategies!

Hi hani1024,

Are you certain that you cannot get into your desired schools with 590? Have you reached out to them to discuss your GMAT score?

Hi hani1024,

I'm sorry to hear that Test Day did not turn out better. With a 590, you're incredibly close to a 600+ right now - so you shouldn't necessarily need to wait too long to retest (assuming that this 590 is an accurate reflection on your current 'ability level' - meaning that you did not get really 'lucky' on Test Day). 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:

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)?
4) Will scoring 600 automatically gain you admission into the School that you're interested in? By extension, are you certain that a 590 would not (and how do you know either of those facts for sure?)?

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

I emailed them, but no response yet. I believe it's a hard border but I'm of course not gonna sign up for my second try before I know for sure.

Thanks for your nice words. Regarding my real abilities, in my two prep tests my highest score has been 570, 4 days before the real test. It felt like it's going better during the real test, but I think it was mostly due to my lack of concentration at home, that I was never able to score as high as in the real exam. I felt highly concentrated while taking the GMAT and from my error log of the prep tests I know, that I tend to do silly mistakes simply by not being concentrated enough. So I guess 590 shows my "real" ability on a test day.

To answer your questions:

1) I started studying in October and from there on maybe an average of 10-15 hours per week. In December probably more and the last week before the test I studied fulltime (8-10h/day)

2) I used the OG but didn't finish all the quant questions and in November I discovered the Manhattan Prep books but I had to go through them quite fast and couldn't do all the exercises.

3) 1. Official Prep Test: 15.12. : Quant 34, Verbal 30
2. Manhattan Prep Test: 24.12.: Quant 35, Verbal 33 (I think my verbal score went up because I read the Manhattan Sentence Correction book)

4) No, 600 points will not automatically gain me admission in my desired program, it's not an admission criterion but if they offer you a spot based on your profile then you'll need to prove at least 600 points on the GMAT. I already emailed them to ask if 590 really wouldn't be enough but I did not get a response yet, but they wrote me an email earlier to let me know that the review of my application will take another 4-6 weeks until they can let me know. I definitely won't need more than 600 points but if I retake it I want to do it right and do my best, who knows when I might need a GMAT Score again.

Thank you for your help!

Hi hani1024,

To be clear, if your Score Goal is 600 or higher, then you likely have the skills RIGHT NOW to hit that Goal. However, if you actually want to score a lot higher than 600, then we need to properly define what that Score is (since you'll have to develop new skills to earn a much higher Score).

GMAC has publicly stated that the Official Score that you earn on Test Day is within +/- 30 points of actual ability. Assuming a similar 'swing' in how your CATs function, your 2 CAT score results - along with your Official Score - show that you essentially performed the same each time (about 560+/- a few points). You handle certain aspects of the GMAT consistently well, but you also make certain consistent mistakes.

Your last practice CAT Score is fairly close to your Official Score, so we can use that CAT as a reference. "Review" is an exceptionally important part of the GMAT training process; your ability to define WHY you're getting questions wrong is essential to defining the areas that you need to work on (and the specific things that you need to 'fix'). As such, I'd like to know a bit more about your last CAT. While a full Mistake Tracker would provide a lot more information, there are some basic questions that you should be able to answer (and the more EXACT you can be with your answers, the better):

After reviewing each section of this recent 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

Got it. Let me know when you hear back.