Stuck at 650, Need help with Strategy and Profile Evaluation

Hi! Which resources have you been using for your prep?

Hi EducationAisle,

I took Maths Revolution Quant Course last summer, but then I couldn't continue the prep for a few months after that. Verbal is mostly self-study.
I have started practicing the questions available on regularly on gmatclub lately.

Thanks for responding!

Hi shaanaa22,

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:

Studies:
1) What type of study routine have you been following? How many hours do you typically study each week?
2) What study materials have you used so far?
3) How have you scored on EACH of your CATs (including the Quant and Verbal Scaled Scores for EACH)?

Goals:
4) What is your goal score?
5) When are you planning to take the GMAT?
6) When are you planning to apply to Business School?
7) What Schools are you planning to apply to?

Since you're also asking Admissions questions, you would likely find it beneficial to speak with an Admissions Expert about your overall profile and plans. There's a Forum full of those Experts here:

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

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

Hi Rich (@EMPOWERgmatRichC),

Thank you so much for your response. Here is something about what I have been doing:

Studies:
1) What type of study routine have you been following? How many hours do you typically study each week?
Honestly, I do not have a routine as such and I have been a slacker as well. I have been spending 15 hours per week at max on an average.
2) What study materials have you used so far?
I have practiced OG'16 for Quant and Verbal. I took a Maths Revolution Quant Course last summers which really helped me with the concepts. At any point, I don't feel I don't know how to approach a question, it is usually silly mistakes happening here and there or small details that I miss. Sometimes while solving a question I figure that I have done something wrong and I re-do it and lose precious minutes. Verbal has just been mostly self-study and special thanks to GmatClub Grammer Book and GMATNinja 's Webinars.

3) How have you scored on EACH of your CATs (including the Quant and Verbal Scaled Scores for EACH)?
I took GmatClub Tests a couple of times earlier and I got Q42, Q47, Q47 Q48 in a non-timed environment. I felt it was impossible for me to finish these tests timely, so I used to extend the time by the end of the tests.

Rest of the CATs:

Official Gmatprep:
Test1: 640 Q43,V35
Test2: 670 Q49V31

Others:
650, Q44,V35 (CR50%,RC71%,SC64%)
650, Q46, V33 (PS50%, DS58.33%,CR77.78%,RC50%,SC53.33%)
640, Q41,V36(PS59%, DS36%,CR80%,RC50%,SC57%)




Goals:
4) What is your goal score?
Targetting for 700+
5) When are you planning to take the GMAT?
Latest by June'19
6) When are you planning to apply to Business School?
This year, September onwards.
7) What Schools are you planning to apply to?
ISB and European BSchools (not shortlisted but preferably German such as Manheim, WHU )

Hope this was all the information you needed. Thanks a ton, EMPOWERgmatRichC!

Best,
shaanaa22

Hi shaanaa22,

I’m glad you reached out, and I’m happy to help. The good news is that 650 is not a bad start! That said, since you are unable to improve your score, it’s likely that you have many remaining weaknesses (even more than you realize) that are holding you back, right? Thus, to improve your quant and verbal skills, you need to go through GMAT quant and verbal carefully to find your exact weaknesses, fill gaps in your knowledge, and strengthen your skills. The overall process will be to learn all about how to answer question types with which you currently aren't very comfortable and do dozens of practice questions category by category, basically driving up your score point by point. 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.

For example, if you find that you are not strong in answering Number Properties questions, then carefully review the conceptual underpinnings of how to answer Number Properties questions and practice by answering 50 or more questions just from Number Properties: LCM, GCF, units digit patterns, divisibility, remainders, etc. 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. Number Properties is just one example; follow this process for all quant topics.

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 and types that you would rather not see, and types of questions 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.

You can work on verbal in a similar manner. Let’s say you are reviewing Critical Reasoning. Be sure that you practice a large number of Critical Reasoning questions: Strengthen and Weaken the Argument, Resolve the Paradox, find the Conclusion, Must be True, etc. As you go through the questions, do a thorough analysis of each question that you don't get correct. If you missed a Weaken question, ask yourself why. Did you make a careless mistake? Did you not recognize what the question was asking? Did you skip over a key detail in an answer choice? Getting GMAT verbal questions right is a matter of what you know, what you see, and what you do. So, any time that you don't get one right, you can seek to identify what you had to know to get the right answer, what you had to see that you didn't see, and what you could have done differently to arrive at the correct answer.

So, work on accuracy and generally finding correct answers, work on specific weaker areas one by one to make them strong areas, and when you take a practice GMAT or the real thing, take all the time per question available to do your absolute best to get right answers consistently. The GMAT is essentially a game of seeing how many right answers you can get in the time allotted. Approach the test with that conception in mind, and focus intently on the question in front of you with one goal in mind: getting a CORRECT answer.

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 my article with more information regarding
how to score a 700+ on the GMAT helpful.

Feel free to reach out with any further questions.

Hi shaanaa22,

Based on your practice CAT Scores, I think that you probably know most of the content of the GMAT just fine - but "your way" of approaching questions is inefficient (and leaves you open to making little mistakes). As such, your focus at this point should be on Tactics and how to properly and consistently organize your work/notes. You'll also have to commit to a more consistent study routine. Thankfully, the GMAT is a consistent, predictable Exam, so you CAN train to score at a higher level - AND you have plenty of time before June - which is good.

1) Going forward, how many hours do you think you can consistently study each week?

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

Hi ScottTargetTestPrep,

Thanks a ton for your time and feedback.

I will definitely try to incorporate the suggestions and strategy you have mentioned and see if it helps me improve from here. I also went through your blog and related so much to it. I also did a dry run today of the above things before writing this response and I found that in most of the quant questions either I am not mapping the question carefully on my sheet or I am not re-reading the question for what has been asked before marking.

I have been focussing over the number of questions rather than being mindful about what I am actually doing in those questions. This is the first thing I'll change from now onwards.
Second, I'll try to practice a number of questions of a particular type to improve accuracy.
Third, I'll write down where I'm going wrong.
Last but definitely not least, I'll practice 'neat' writing.

Thank you once again, for all the motivation and for all the tips. Will keep you posted on how it goes.

Best,
shaanaa22

Hi Rich,

I admit inconsistency is one of the reasons I have not been able to improve much. From now onwards, I'll try to make it 22 hours a week practicing. (2.5*6+7, I work 6 days a week)

Thank you,
shaanaa22

Hi shaanaa22,

Based on everything that you’ve described, I think that you would find the EMPOWERgmat Total Score Booster to be quite helpful. Most of our clients complete that Study Plan in well under 2 months, so you should be able to properly complete it in the timeframe that you've listed. We have a variety of free resources on our site (www.empowergmat.com), so you can 'test out' the Course before setting up an Account.

If you have any additional questions, then you can feel free to contact me directly.

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

Hi EMPOWERgmatRichC,

Thank you for the suggestion. Will surely consider it.

Best,
Shaanaa22