Score Plateau(630--660--660--660) How to score well on CR/get 700+?

Question

I started my GMAT journey 3 years ago. I wasn't too serious about it then and didn't study for the same either. I managed to score a 630 in my first attempt.
After 3 months, I decided to give the GMAT once again (I didn't know about the fixed number of attempts then) and managed to score a 660, again, with no preparation.

A year later (or 2 years ago), I decided to start applying for colleges abroad and decided to attempt the GMAT once again. I bought the EGMAT course for verbal as my Quant was pretty strong whereas I was struggling with all 3 sections of the Verbal section. EGMAT helped me improve my SC, but the study materials weren't as effective for me when it came to the CR and RC questions. CR was one section where I struggled the most. However, with college deadlines flying by, I didn't want to wait longer and attempted my GMAT for the third time, scoring 660 yet again (Q50, V28). Nevertheless, I applied to a few of my target colleges in their last few deadlines, hoping to make it somehow. But it didn't work.

Last year, dejected after my performance the previous year, I bought the Magoosh Verbal course to boost my Verbal score. After 3 months of practice, I gave the GMAT once again and scored a 660 for the third straight time (Q49, V31)! Though I did see that my Verbal score had partially improved.

This year, I bought the EGMAT course once again around mid-May and started studying diligently. I put in around 2 hours of studies each day after work and pushed that to 4+ hours over the weekend. After completing around 200 questions from Verbal Scholaranium, I decided to attempt a few Sigma-X mocks. These were my scores:
Sigma-X Mock 1 (on 26/08/20): 600 (Q46, V26)! My Quant scores dropped for the very first time. Verbal...
Sigma-X Mock 2 (on 12/09/20): 590 (Q46, V25)! Another low score on the quant this time. Verbal...
Sigma-X Mock 3 (on 13/09/20): 700 (Q45, V40)! I don't believe I scored a 700! But Quant dropped again... 40 on the Verbal!!!
Sigma-X Mock 4 (on 15/09/20): 620 (Q46, V29). Ughh...

I attempted a few CR-specific Quizzes (all-level) yesterday and day-before yesterday on GMATClub and scored 67% and 56% in them respectively.

I have exhausted a lot of material yet somehow a good performance on the CR eludes me. What is even more disappointing is that my Quant scores have dropped too.

Need some suggestions on how to improve my CR performance. I know I'll manage Quant...
Please help.

catinabox · Answer

Have you maintained an error log? If yes, what kind of questions in CR do you thing are causing you the most trouble? And since you're scoring between V25-V30 in most of your mocks, I believe that there might be a lot of scope for improvement even on RC & SC.

Since your score has definitely plateaued at around 660, it is a clear indication that you need to work exclusively on your errors and that is where your error log should come in handy. Focus on the mistakes and your score should improve in no time.

rossy369 · Answer

Yes, I have been maintaining an error log.
For SC, my accuracy is around around 85% on an average. I tend to make a few silly mistakes under the exam pressure.
For RC, most of my errors happened either because I rushed through the passage and hence, I was not able to understand it effectively, or because I didn't read the question properly. Also, RC passages that come towards the end of the exam are also those where I am sapped of energy and hence, tend to make more mistakes.
For CR, there isn't a particular trend that I could observe. At times, I have committed mistakes even for 500-level questions whereas there have been situations where I got 700-level questions correct too. And these apply to all kinds of CR questions, be it assumption, weaken, strengthen, bold-face, or any other. My accuracy for CR is usually around 30%.

catinabox · Answer

Have you tried using any book for CR strategies (eg. Powerscore/ Manhattan)?

What do you think is going wrong when you attempt CR questions? When you do get questions wrong and check the correct answer, do you find the explanation plausible/ something you could up with if you thought about it longer or thought about it in a different direction?

rossy369 · Answer

I haven't tried using any book for CR strategies yet. Just focussed on EGMAT until now. I feel uncomfortable using EGMAT's pre-thinking method though as it takes too long and often I come up with assumption statements that are not effective enough and sometimes, completely misaligned. I wonder how some people are able to breeze past the CR section as if it's child's play. Some times I wonder if I'm worse than a fifth grader.

Having said that, I surely want to improve my CR score because I know it is one section that is pulling my overall score down drastically.

EMPOWERgmatRichC · Answer

Hi rossy369,

To start, a 660/Q50 is a strong overall performance - and it could be enough to get you into your first choice School. As such, you have to be careful about assuming that the only reason you did not get accepted to the Schools that you previously applied to was your GMAT Score. By extension, you would likely find it beneficial to speak with an Admissions Expert about your overall profile and plans. Those Experts should be able to answer your Admissions questions and help define the specific areas of your profile that could use some improvement. There's a Forum full of those Experts here:

https://gmatclub.com/forum/ask-admissio ... tants-124/

Beyond that, since you've scored 660 multiple times now, it's likely that you have developed some 'bad habits' that are keeping you from scoring higher. I have no doubt that you have worked through lots of Verbal questions during the various phases of your studies - but if you continue to study in the same ways that you did before, then you will almost certainly earn a similar score on your next attempt. This is meant to say that you have to train to 'see' (and respond to) the Verbal section in new ways - and that training might take time (depending on how 'stubborn' you might be about making those changes).

You might also choose to purchase the Enhanced Score Report for your most recent attempt. 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.

Before I can offer you any additional advice for your studies, it would help if you could provide a bit more information on how you've been studying and your goals:

1) Over the last 2 months, what type of study routine have you been following? How many hours did you typically study each week?
2) What other study materials have you used besides the two courses that you mentioned?
3) What "brands" of practice CATs/mocks have you used over the course of ALL of your studies?
4) When are you planning to apply to Business School and what Schools are you planning to apply to?

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

ScottTargetTestPrep · Answer

Hi rossy369,

I’m sorry to hear about your GMAT. Here is some general advice you can follow to improve your CR skills. To improve in Critical Reasoning, you first need to master the individual Critical Reasoning topics: Strengthen the Argument, Weaken the Argument, Resolve the Paradox, etc. As you learn about each question type, do focused practice so you can track your skill in answering each type. If, for example, you get a weakening question wrong, ask yourself why. Did you make a careless mistake? Did you not recognize the specific question type? Were you doing too much analysis in your head? Did you skip over a keyword in an answer choice? You must thoroughly analyze your mistakes and seek to turn weaknesses into strengths by focusing on the question types you dread seeing and the questions you take a long time to answer correctly.

Another major mistake that people make when training for CR is that they do practice questions too fast. To get Critical Reasoning questions correct, you have to see exactly what's going on in the passages and answer choices, and you likely won't learn to do so by spending a few minutes on each question. At this stage of your training, you may need to spend even fifteen minutes on each question, learning to see what there is to see. Here is a way to look at this process. If you get a new job in a field in which you are not experienced, you may not be as fast as the other people working with you, but you know you have a job to do and you make sure you learn all the angles, so that you do the job well, if not as quickly as those around you, Rushing through the job and doing it incorrectly would not make sense. Then, as you gain more experience, you learn to do the same job more quickly. Think of Critical Reasoning questions similarly. Your job is to do what? To get through questions quickly? Not really. Your job is to get correct answers.

So, first you have to learn to get correct answers, generally at least 10 to 15 in a row consistently, and more in a row would be better. That is your job, and if it takes you fifteen minutes per question to get correct answers consistently, then so be it. Only after you have learned to get correct answers consistently can you work on speeding up. Working quickly but not doing your job is useless. Better to work slowly and learn to do your job well. You can be sure that with experience, you will learn to speed up, and then you will still be doing your job well, i.e., getting correct answers consistently.

Finally, a key aspect of getting correct answers to Critical Reasoning questions is noticing the key differences between trap choices and correct answers. Trap choices can sound temptingly correct but don't get the job done. The logic of what a trap choice says simply doesn't fit what the question is asking you to find. So, to get better at your job, learn to see the key differences between trap choices and correct answers.

Feel free to reach out with further questions.

rossy369 · Answer

Thank you!
I guess that makes sense. I feel I also need to approach CR questions henceforth with a positive mindset because I guess it's kind of embedded in my head now that I'll not be able to perform well in CR questions. So yeah, I want to snap out of that mindset as well and take it slow and then build on from there.

Thank you once again!

ScottTargetTestPrep · Answer

My pleasure! I'm happy to help.

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Score Plateau(630-->660-->660-->660) How to score well on CR/get 700+?

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