Second practice exam worst than the first and 2 weeks to go.

Question

Hey folks! Just wanted to get some guidance regarding the steps I need to take in order to make sure I do whatever I can to get the score I want for my upcoming GMAT. To preface this, my goal is only a 600, its tough seeing lots of high scorers on the forum but the admission requirement for most of the schools here in eastern Canada is a 550, so I figured a 600 would be great. I have been off an on studying all summer while trying to juggle a full time job, but recently went down to 3 shifts a week to focus on Study.

My first practice I got a 590 and was very pleased, I put in more work and today got a 530... I went over what I got wrong and realized I made some easy errors that shouldn't have happened which made me feel better. These were mainly in the verbal section which was originally my stronger of the two. I tallied the areas I got questions wrong and know I need to focus on Sentence Correction and some reading comprehension. My game plan is to work on some SC fundamentals and continue to do practice problems in my weaker areas before my next practice exam in a weeks time.

My question is if this is the right path to go on and what you folks would recommend. I know I'm better than a 530 and that 600 is obtainable. I am planning on putting in 6 hours a day for the days I am not working and getting whatever I can get done on the days I am.

Any advice would be very appreciated!

ScottTargetTestPrep · Answer

Hi oleary709,

In general, yes, I do think it's a good call to work on your weak areas. I'm also happy to provide some further advice but would like to know more about what you've been doing to study for the GMAT. More sepficiallly what resources you've been using and what exactly you've been doing to study. Once I have that information I can provide some more detailed advice.

EMPOWERgmatRichC · Answer

Hi oleary709,

At higher-and-higher score levels, the GMAT becomes really 'sensitive' to little mistakes (especially on 'gettable' questions). If you noted that you got several questions wrong because of little mistakes, then those missed opportunities could be enough to explain this drop in your Score. It's worth noting that to hit a 600, you do NOT need to correctly answer any questions that you think are too hard or too weird, but you have to keep the little mistakes to a minimum on everything else.

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 many hours do you typically study each week?
2) What study materials have you used so far?
3) What were the Quant and Verbal Scaled Scores for each of your CATs?
4) When are you planning to take the GMAT?
5) What application deadlines are you facing?

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

GMATWhizTeam · Answer

Hi oleary709,

I'm assuming that two mocks you took were the official ones. A drop from a 590 to 530 suggests that the approach you used to solve questions is not likely consistent. So, I recommend you to learn the right approach to solve questions and stick to that. Let me elaborate it to you.

If you faltered in SC questions in the second test, then I would recommend you to understand the right methodology to solve questions. There is a common misconception that knowing grammatical rules will help you solve SC questions. But SC questions on GMAT test your ability to convey the intended meaning without any ambiguity. So, it is important to  approach SC questions from a meaning stand-point . Because you will often come across answer choices which are grammatically correct and convey a logical meaning but are indeed incorrect. So, it is important to understand the intended meaning the original sentence is trying to convey and then eliminate choices which do not convey the intended meaning or which are grammatically incorrect.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9SGA8bwFNJM

How to approach RC questions: 
It is important to have the right reading strategies to solve RC questions. GMAT gives you ample amount of information in the passage. It does not test your knowledge on topics such as physics, political science. You need to read the passage in an inferential manner so that you can draw the right inferences and understand the intention behind writing the passage. There is a process called “Involved and Evolved Reading” which helps you read a passage effectively. You can refer to the following video to understand the strategy of “Involved and Evolved Reading”.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A0VhuzaV6P0

How to work on a weaker area: 
While working on your weaker area, make sure you follow the below step-by-step process.
  If you have any conceptual gaps in understanding, go back to the concepts and get a thorough understanding. 
 Learn the right methodology to solve questions 
 Take sectional quizzes of the questions related to that topic 
 Make sure you get at least 80% accuracy before you move to the next topic

Hope it helped! If you wish to know more about the study strategy, you can schedule a free consultation call using the below link.

Click here to schedule a call

MartyTargetTestPrep · Answer

Just be sure that what you learn for SC results in your score increasing rather than decreasing.

In other words:

- Don't learn gimmicky methods. Learn to see what's going on in the sentences.

- Don't let the fact that you learn some rules or concepts distract you from reading the entire sentence. Often, when people learn SC concepts, they start to focus on rules too much and miss things that they would have seen otherwise.

Also, by the way, by working on one weaker area of quant at a time, you should be able to drive your quant score up some over the next couple weeks.

You could get some detail on how to increase your quant score from this post.  How To Increase Your GMAT Quant Score

CAMANISHPARMAR · Answer

Hi!

Nice to know that you are making a note of your weaknesses and the errors that you are making. Working on your weak areas is the right way to go forward. Also, making a note of the errors that you made earlier and keeping these in mind will help you not to commit these errors again. Maintain an error log if you are not maintaining one; this would help in quick revision before the exam.

Lay a strong foundation of basics and you should be good to get a 600+ score.

All the best!

GmatKnightTutor · Answer

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Second practice exam worst than the first and 2 weeks to go.

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