Scored a 460 :( - Help a damsel in distress!

Question

Hello, GMAT gems! I would really appreciate it if you could read my disappointing little tale and put me out of my misery. I took my GMAT online on 6th November and scored a mere 460 (Q35, V20)

As you will see from my mock scores attached below, this was one of my lowest scores. Although I was constantly told to replicate test conditions while taking my mocks, I paid little heed to that advice. I took breaks in between my Quant and Verbal section thinking that I could handle the heat on D - day. But, boy was I wrong! I didn't do too well in my Quant section and before I could come to terms with that, my Verbal section began!

I completely blanked out during my Verbal section. You know how sometimes you start reading a book, and you keep re-reading the same line over and over again, but nothing makes sense to you? Well, to put it simply, my entire verbal section felt like that and I was just waiting for the dreadful 65 mins to pass. To add to that, the proctor had warned me twice about reading to myself and the interruption completely threw me off. BACKGROUND While I consider English my strong subject, Math, on the other hand, is a nightmare. I have been afraid of the subject and consequently, it is one of my weak areas. During the initial stages of prep, I paid extra attention to Verbal with the idea that it would make up for my low Quant skills. PREP I started my prep in July. On July 1st, I took the Official Practice Test 1 as a diagnostic and scored a 410 (Q25, V21). I purchased the OG 2020 and the complete set of Manhattan Strategy Guides. I studied all the concepts from the guides for about a month and then started solving questions from the OG. I took Practice Test 2 and scored a 530 (Q30, V32). Content with my score increase, I continued solving questions from the OG thinking my strategy was right. I then purchased the tests 3-6 as well. Over the next 2 months, I took my mocks on the regular. PFA the scores: Practice Test 3: Aug 23rd - 600 (Q44, V29) Veritas Free Test: Sept 21st - 560 (Q41, V27) Practice Test 4: Sept 27th - 510 (Q29, V31) Practice Test 5: Oct 31st - 540 (Q33, V30) In all honesty, I feel that I got lucky with the quant scores (Q44 & Q41) as I guessed most of the answers. Between tests 4 and 5, I revisited the Manhattan Quant guides to study the concepts again and re-did the OG questions. This month was stressful as I had to cover 5 books and over 400 questions in a short period of time. I spent over 8 hours a day with my books and frankly burnt my brain out. As the test day started approaching, I started stressing as I had somewhat ignored Verbal and invested all my time in Quant...where I wasn't doing very well. Also, in between these days, I took a few sectional tests (verbal) that were available on GMAT Club for free and my scores ranged between 30 - 35. Despite multiple tries to bring my Verbal score up in the initial stages, I was unable to do so. (I didn't reschedule my test as I had initially planned to take it in September, then I pushed it to October and then again to November when I finally took it) From my experience, I have learned that I stress too easily, am not the best performer under stress, should take mock tests seriously, and above all my strategy was all wrong! I want to take my second attempt in the second week of Jan to meet application deadlines. Considering, I have 2 months of time and an adequate idea of the test, I am targetting a score of 690 and above. Please let me know how I can get there and how I can increase my Verbal score to 40+. I am not in a position to purchase a heavy prep course but I do plan on purchasing the GMAT Club Tests! Thanks in advance!

Thelionking1234 · Answer

Hii vibha31 , • Surely your test day performance was not the best you can perform. I will advise you to go deeper on the reasons - what made you to perform your lowest in real test? • Considering that you have very good amount of time, try to mitigate the effect of exam pressure on your test performance by practicing. Remember try to mitigate not completely avoid - everybody feels pressure and you are not different. Preparedness is the key to do so. • I see you need to improve in V & Q both. So divide your preparation time equally as of now. Also according to your performance, you need to improve your basics first. Start with OG easy questions - then Medium and at last Hard. • To get at least 690 ○ If Q49 & V35 - you need to master Easy and Medium questions in Verbal & Easy, Medium & Hard in Quant. ○ If Qless & V40+ - you need to master Easy, Medium and Hard questions in Verbal, and Easy & Medium in Quant. • As a part of practice advised to take GMATClub tests (for quant especially) & Manhattan mocks (For timing practice), but only after you are clear with your basics and have done a plenty of practice on OG Questions. Do not just practice one by one, practice in lot and then analyze where you do the mistakes? practice the right approach not the wrong. (So Clear basics first - Watch out for GMATNinja articles & videos below) • Don't worry if you do not have enough money to buy prep courses, You can learn even more on GMATClub. Just spend some time to find related articles. I am posting a few links which might help you. ○ Verbal GMATClub articles SC Guide for beginners from GMATNinja : https://gmatclub.com/forum/ultimate-sc- ... l#p1887645 RC Guide for beginners from GMATNinja : https://gmatclub.com/forum/experts-topi ... 41004.html CR Guide for begineers from GMATNinja : https://gmatclub.com/forum/experts-topi ... 43170.html ○ Take out some time and watch following videos in different stages of your preparation GMATNinja topicwise videos youtube: https://gmatclub.com/forum/all-gmat-nin ... l#p2396353 ○ Quant Megathred by Bunuel : https://gmatclub.com/forum/ultimate-gma ... l#p1886497 I hope this helps.

GmatKnightTutor · Answer

Consider checking out the in-house gmatclub mathguide (It's free and downloadable as a pdf by the way)

AnirudhaS · Answer

Concentrate on math. It will drastically increase your overall score.

Posted from my mobile device

JANAN19 · Answer

How have you been practicing for verbal? Have you timed your practice? Accuracy% at different difficulty levels? To keep track of all this, I would suggest you to attempt OG questions in GmatClub itself. Take a topic like S-V agrement, go through the topic in Gmatclub Verbal book, go through GMATNinja's videos on that topic, select the topic in GC Practise question banks, concentrate on 500 and 600 problems first and then if your accuracy improves to ~90% in these questions move to 700 questions. It doesn't matter if you've solved the entire OG. What should matter is you are able to identify the errors in the wrong answers and you're able to choose the correct answer after a week for the questions you got wrong on the first try.

Most important topics in SC are S-V agreement, parallelism, comparison, tenses. In most cases you can narrow down the answer without identifying the idiom issue. concentrating on these topics would definitely improve you SC accuracy many folds. Concentrate on reading the explanation for each of the option, why it is wrong and why it is correct. For me, more than OG explanation, explanation by the experts on GC forums helped a lot.

CR and RC: No other shortcut other than practice and review your error log. for RC make it a habit daily to do 3 questions, either OG /LSAT problems

Review your error log atleast 3 times a week. 90% of the time, for questions more than a week old, you'll find that you are repeating your mistakes again. Reviewing important questions again and again makes sure that you dont forget it on the test day. Spend an hour each time for this(3 hrs atleast per week).

Quant : I've given a detailed debrief on how I prepared without any investment, other than registering for GMAT, in this post. Please refer to my post from my profile and check if it helps. 
If you don't want to invest in MGMAT guide you can replace the same with GmatClub's free Math book. As you've mentioned that you are planning to buy GC Tests, it greatly helps. Again for quant review your error log religiously. That alone will make will increase your accuracy. You'll be surprised how much our mind forgets between practicing a problem and test. Make sure to save your GMAT Prep test and use them judiciously. If your score is low in one GMAT Prep test, make sure that you prepare well, take a free CAT from some of the famous prep companies and once you are within +-30 range of your expected score, take the next GMAT prep test. Reset the GMAT Prep test multiple times and adjust your timing strategy. All the best !!

ScottTargetTestPrep · Answer

Hi vibha31,

I’m sorry to hear how things went with your GMAT. Since you scored 460 (230+ points off your score goal), moving forward, you should follow a linear and structured study plan that allows you to learn GMAT quant and verbal from the ground up. In other words, follow a study plan that allows you to learn each GMAT quant and verbal topic individually and practice each topic until you’ve gained mastery. Let me expand on this idea further.

If you are learning about Number Properties, you should develop as much conceptual knowledge about Number Properties as possible. In other words, your goal will be to completely understand properties of factorials, perfect squares, quadratic patterns, LCM, GCF, units digit patterns, divisibility, and remainders, to name a few concepts. After carefully reviewing the conceptual underpinnings of how to answer Number Properties questions, practice by answering 50 or more questions just from Number Properties. When you do dozens of questions of the same type one after the other, you learn just what it takes to get questions of that type correct consistently. If you aren't getting close to 90 percent of questions of a certain type correct, go back and seek to better understand how that type of question works, and then do more questions of that type until you get to around at least 90 percent accuracy in your training. If you get 100 percent of some sets correct, even better. Number Properties is just one example; follow this process for all quant topics.

When you are working on learning to answer questions of a particular type, start off taking your time, and then seek to speed up as you get more comfortable answering questions of that type. As you do such practice, do a thorough analysis of each question that you don't get right. If you got a remainder question wrong, ask yourself why. Did you make a careless mistake? Did you not properly apply the remainder formula? Was there a concept you did not understand in the question? By carefully analyzing your mistakes, you will be able to efficiently fix your weaknesses and in turn improve your GMAT quant skills. 
Each time you strengthen your understanding of a topic and your skill in answering questions of a particular type, you increase your odds of hitting your score goal. You know that there are types of questions that you are happy to see, types that you would rather not see, and types that you take a long time to answer correctly. Learn to more effectively answer the types of questions that you would rather not see, and make them into your favorite types. Learn to correctly answer in two minutes or less questions that you currently take five minutes to answer. By finding, say, a dozen weaker quant areas and turning them into strong areas, you will make great progress toward hitting your quant score goal. If a dozen areas turn out not to be enough, strengthen some more areas.

Follow a similar routine for verbal. For example, let’s say you start by learning about Critical Reasoning. Your first goal is to fully master the individual topics: Strengthen the Argument, Weaken The Argument, Resolve the Paradox, etc. As you learn about each question type, do focused practice, so that 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.

When practicing Reading Comprehension, you need to develop a reading strategy that is both efficient and thorough. Reading too fast and not understanding what you have read are equally as harmful as reading too slow and using up too much time. When attacking Reading Comprehension passages, you must have one clear goal in mind: to understand the context of what you are reading. However, you must do so efficiently, so you need to avoid getting bogged down in the details of each paragraph and instead focus on understanding the main point of each paragraph. That being said, do not fall into the trap of thinking that you can just read the intro and the conclusion and thereby comprehend the main idea of a paragraph. As you read a paragraph, consider how the context of the paragraph relates to previous paragraphs, so you can continue developing your overall understanding of the passage. Furthermore, as you practice Reading Comprehension, focus on the exact types of questions with which you struggle: Find the Main Idea, Inference, Author’s Tone, etc. As with Critical Reasoning, analyze your incorrect Reading Comprehension answers to better determine why you tend to get a particular question type wrong, and then improve upon your weaknesses. Keep in mind that GMAT Reading Comprehension passages are not meant to be easy to read. So, to better prepare yourself to analyze such passages, read magazines with similar content and style, such as the New York Times, Scientific American, and Smithsonian. 
 
Sentence Correction is a bit of a different animal compared to Reading Comprehension and Critical Reasoning. There are three aspects to getting correct answers to GMAT Sentence Correction questions: what you know, such as grammar rules, what you see, such as violations of grammar rules and the logic of sentence structure, and what you do, such as carefully considering each answer choice in the context of the non-underlined portion of the sentence. To drive up your Sentence Correction score, you likely will have to work on all three of those aspects.

Regarding what you know, first and foremost, you MUST know your grammar rules. Let's be clear, though: GMAT Sentence Correction is not really a test of knowledge of grammar rules. The reason for learning the grammar rules is so that you can determine what sentences convey and whether sentences are well-constructed. In fact, in many cases, incorrect answers to Sentence Correction questions are grammatically flawless. Thus, often your task is to use your knowledge of grammar rules to determine which answer choice creates the most logical sentence meaning and structure.
 
This determination of whether sentences are well-constructed and logical is the second aspect of finding correct answers to Sentence Correction questions, what you see. To develop this skill, you probably have to slow way down. You won't develop this skill by spending less than two minutes per question. For a while, anyway, you have to spend time with each question, maybe even ten or fifteen minutes on one question sometimes, analyzing every answer choice until you see the details that you have to see in order to choose the correct answer. As you go through the answer choices, consider the meaning conveyed by each version of the sentence. Does the meaning make sense? Even if you can tell what the version is SUPPOSED to convey, does the version really convey that meaning? Is there a verb to go with the subject? Do all pronouns clearly refer to nouns? By slowing way down and looking for these details, you learn to see what you have to see in order to clearly understand which answer to a Sentence Correction question is correct.
 
There is only one correct answer to any Sentence Correction question, there are clear reasons why that choice is correct and the others are not, and none of those reasons are that the correct version simply "sounds right." In fact, the correct version often sounds a little off at first. That correct answers may sound a little off is not surprising. If the correct answers were always the ones that sounded right, then most people most of the time would get Sentence Correction questions correct, without really knowing why the wrong answers were wrong and the correct answers were correct. So, you have to go beyond choosing what "sounds right" and learn to clearly see the logical reasons why one choice is better than all of the others.
 
As for the third aspect of getting Sentence Correction questions correct, what you do, the main thing you have to do is be very careful. You have to make sure that you are truly considering the structures of sentences and the meanings conveyed rather than allowing yourself to be tricked into choosing trap answers that sound right but don't convey logical meanings. You also have to make sure that you put some real energy into finding the correct answers. Finding the correct answer to a Sentence Correction question may take bouncing from choice to choice until you start to see the differences that make all choices wrong except for one. Often, when you first look at the choices, only one or two seem obviously incorrect. Getting the right answers takes a certain work ethic. You have to take the time to see the differences between answers and to figure out the precise reasons that one choice is correct.
 
To improve what you do when you answer Sentence Correction questions, seek to become aware of how you are going about answering them. Are you being careful and looking for logic and details, or are you quickly eliminating choices that sound a little off, and then choosing the best of the rest? If you choose an incorrect answer, consider what you did to arrive at that answer and what you could do differently to arrive at correct answers more consistently. Furthermore, see how many questions you can get correct in a row as you practice. If you break your streak by missing one, consider what you could do differently to extend your streak.

As with your Critical Reasoning and Reading Comprehension regimens, after learning a particular Sentence Correction topic, engage in focused practice with 30 questions or more that involve that topic. As your skills improve, you will want to practice with questions that test you on skills from multiple Sentence Correction topics.

In order to follow the path described above, you may need some new quant and verbal materials, so take a look at the GMAT Club reviews for the  best quant  and  verbal courses . You also may find it helpful to read the following article about  The Phases of Preparing for the GMAT .

Feel free to reach out with any further questions. Good luck!

EMPOWERgmatRichC · Answer

Hi vibha31,

I'm sorry to hear that your experience with the At-home GMAT was difficult. From what you describe, you seem to understand that you were not taking your CATs/mocks in a realistic fashion (so you were not properly prepared for the specific 'testing parameters' that you faced when you took the Official GMAT). That having been said, there were likely additional issues that impacted your performance on Test Day - and it will likely take time to define and fix those issues.

Statistically-speaking, raising a 460 to the point that you can consistently score 690+ will likely require at least another 3 months of consistent, guided study - and you'll have to make significant improvements to how you handle BOTH the Quant and Verbal sections. Thankfully, the GMAT is a consistent, predictable Exam, so you CAN train to score at a higher level. While I understand that you really want to apply for the upcoming January deadlines, if you ultimately "need" a 690+ to get into your first-choice School, then THAT Score Goal has to come first - and you need to give yourself enough time to achieve it. If you're limited to just 1-2 months of study time, then there will be a limit to how much you can improve.

1) What Schools are you planning to apply to?
2) What are the application deadlines after the January deadlines?
3) Going forward, how many hours do you think you can consistently study each week?

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

vibz08 · Answer

Hey! 1) What Schools are you planning to apply to? - I'm applying to ISB R2 this year through their early entry option. 2) What are the application deadlines after the January deadlines? - The January deadline is the R2 deadline. They don't have further rounds

3) Going forward, how many hours do you think you can consistently study each week? I can study for about 5-6 hours a week, so roughly between 35-40 hrs. Posted from my mobile device

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Scored a 460 :( - Help a damsel in distress!

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