Seeking help and guidance for retest

Hi Shef08,

I’m glad you reached out, and I’m happy to help. The first thing I noticed is that you were taking practice exams before you were truely ready to do so, which is why your scores fluctuated from test to test. Ideally you want to get through the entire “learning phase of your prep” prior to taking practice exams. Regarding how to move forward, since you scored 500 on your GMAT, you need to follow a study plan that allows you to learn GMAT quant and verbal from the ground up. In other words, follow a linear and structured study plan so you can learn each GMAT quant and verbal topic individually and then 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!

Hey Scott,

Thank you for giving me such a comprehensive way to start over. It gives me a path I ignored previously. I do have a question for you, how do I work on my pacing? And how do I not psyche about problems? Say for example: If I know how to approach a problem, I am on cloud 9 and end up really messing up the approach. Likewise, for questions I cannot figure out the solution, I am constantly thinking about it and not thinking smart.

Thanks again.

Looking forward to hear from you!

Posted from my mobile device

Hi Shefali,

Based on the 'swings' in the Quant and Verbal Scaled Scores during your practice CATs/mocks - and on Test Day - it appears that you are "winging it" during your Exams. In simple terms, you do not have a fixed set of Tactics that you consistently use - and you are handling most questions on a case-by-case basis (without taking advantage of the built-in patterns that GMAT writers place in prompts for you to find).

Given all of the data that you have provided, your current 'ability level' is probably in the low-500s to mid-500s. Raising that type of Score to the point that you can consistently score 700+ 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.

1) What are the exact application deadlines for the Schools that you plan to apply to?

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

Hi Rich,

While I understand that I have a Hercules task ahead of me, I am willing to put every energy to crack the GMAT in a smaller time frame. My application deadlines for Canadian Schools are in April End, but I was looking to get the gmat done by March to focus more on my application.

Hi Shefali,

A certain percentage of Applicants work on their applications WHILE they're still studying for the GMAT - so if that is something that you end up having to do, then that's not necessarily a 'bad' thing. I bring this up because it sounds as though you're thinking about 'cramming' for the GMAT for about a month or so - but that type of study approach rarely leads to great results (especially with Exams such as the GMAT). With late April application deadlines, you could potentially study for another 2-3 months - and doing so would likely give you your best chance at hitting your Score Goal.

1) Going forward, how many hours do you think you can consistently study each week?
2) What is the minimum GMAT Score that you would apply with?

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

Hi Rich,

I can devote 3 hours daily and twice a week up to 5 hours. Also, the minimum gmat required for me to apply is 650 but that wouldn’t make my application strong.

Also, I want to more about the predictability of the test, how can I sync with the test?

Posted from my mobile device

Hi Shefali,

To start, 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 (including the type of GMAT Score that you might need to be considered a competitive Applicant.

There's a Forum full of those Experts here:

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

Assuming that you do 'need' a 700+ Score, then THAT goal has to come first - and you have to give yourself enough time to reasonably achieve it (and by extension, application deadlines do not matter since there's no benefit to rushing in an application if it won't be strong enough to earn you an invitation to that School). If you're interested, then there is a 3-month Study Plan that I can offer to you - but you can't expect to 'rush' through it.

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

I understand Rich and I am willing to invest on myself, instead of running with the applications. I am happy to learn about the 3 month study plan.

Thank you!!!!

Posted from my mobile device

Hi
You have already got suggestions from the well-known experts above. The first attempt didn't reflect your true performance because you could not keep your spirit high and put enough time and effort that other successful candidates do. Studying the same material through and through, some can manage an aspired score. Did you finish the lessons from e-GMAT perfectly? What about manhattan prep strategy guides? You can try LSAT Powerscore book for reading passage. You can knock me if you need it. You can see the OG solution from https://gmatquantum.com/official-guides/og13/.

Thank You

Hi Shefali,

I've sent you a PM with some additional notes and questions.

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