Stuck at 660 despite doing well on the mocks

Question

Hi experts,

I started studying for the gmat in mid June, took a gmatprep mock test and got a 690 Q49 and V35 without prep. Feeling confident I decided to spend a month and a half studying and booked my gmat for aug 3rd. On the second mock, my timing was all over and got a 620. I realized I needed work and spend the next month spending majority of the time on Verbal. Used manhattan books and egmat.
Did decently well on the last two mocks of gmatprep before my test. Scoring 680 and 690 V38 and V37 but my quant score dropped to Q46 and Q48.

In the first attempt ended up scoring 660 Q47 V35. I was dissapointed, took a couple of weeks break and started studying again. After analyzing the ESR I realized I needed more work on CR and timing on Verbal as well as more practice for quant, With verbal I start of slow and then try to attempt all the questions, rushing towards the end. Also realized I need more practice in quant and started doing mock tests on gmatclub.
After a month of preperation and practice I was feeling fairly confident.
My last 3 mock tests scores were:
Mgmat - 690 Q45 V38 ( I was told Manhattan quant is tougher than the real gmat question)
Kaplan free test- 690 Q49 V36
Gmatprep - 710 Q49 V37

However on my second Gmat attempt I completely bombed the test. My brain kinda went numb, wasnt able to think clearly and timing was all over the place.
Ended up with a 640 Q46 V32. I thought the quant was much harder or at least it seemed much harder.

I feel stuck and dont know what to do differently for my 3rd attempt which I want to take soon since I am running out of time for the round 2 apps.

Please help

EMPOWERgmatRichC · Answer

Hi vishaldd01,

First off, both 660 and 640 are strong scores (the 660 is right around the 80th percentile overall), so that 660 could be enough to get you into your first-choice School. As such, another retest might not be necessary. There's no harm in retesting though - and you have the potential to pick up points in both the Quant and Verbal sections.

GMAC has publicly stated that the Official Score that you earn on Test Day is within +/- 30 points of actual ability. Your two Official Scores show that you essentially performed the same both times you took the GMAT (650 +/- a few points). Thus, regardless of how you perform during your studies, you appear to 'respond' to Test Day in the same general ways. To score significantly higher, you will have to make some significant changes to how you 'see' (and respond to) BOTH the Quant and Verbal sections.

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 your timeline and your goals:

1) What is your goal score?
2) What Schools are you planning to apply to?
3) What are the exact application deadlines for each of those Programs?
4) Going forward, how many hours do you think you can consistently study each week?

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

egmat · Answer

Hi vishaldd01 , I am sorry to know that your scores were not in line with your expectations. In order to give you precise inputs, I would like to check the data of your preparation on Scholaranium and course dashboard along with all the information you have shared here and your ESR. Please send over your ESR through the registered email id to support@e-gmat.com. Looking forward to your email. Regards, Aditee

vishaldd01 · Answer

Sent from my iPhone using GMAT Club Forum

EducationAisle · Answer

What does the ESR show this time around Vishal?

vishaldd01 · Answer

I was frustrated and so just cancelled my score since it was lower than the first

Sent from my iPhone using GMAT Club Forum

vishaldd01 · Answer

Basically, what I observed was I started off slow in quant, saw a couple of really tough quant questions, spend too much time on them, panicked, guessed and the rest of the test was all downhill.

Same with verbal took 20 mins to solve first 9 questions and was playing catch up throughout. 
Could not answer questions in an organized manner applying frameworks and techniques..

EMPOWERgmatRichC · Answer

Hi vishaldd01,

Raising a 650 to a 720+ will likely require at least another 1-2 months of consistent, guided study - and you'll have to make significant improvements to how you handle BOTH the Quant and Verbal sections. Since your two Official Scores are so similar, it's possible that you have gotten 'stuck' at this particular score level. By extension, if you have developed any 'bad habits' during your prior studies, then it will take time to fix those bad habits (and replace them with new 'good habits') - meaning that it might take longer to hit your Goal Score. Thankfully, the GMAT is a consistent, predictable Exam, so you CAN train to score at a higher level.

You mentioned having the ESR for your first Official attempt. Did you purchase the ESR for your second 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 (and what you should work on to score higher). If you send me your ESR(s), then I'll be happy to analyze the data for you.

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

ScottTargetTestPrep · Answer

Hi vishaldd01,

I’m glad you reached out, and I’m happy to help. The good news is that you’ve shown that you are capable of scoring as high as Q49/V38 on official GMAC practice tests, right? I understand that you have not been able to put your best quant and verbal scores together on test day; however, with some more dedicated prep, you can improve your GMAT score.

You mentioned that your brain “went numb” during your last exam. Certainly, your lack of focus could have been the result of putting undue pressure on yourself; however, it’s also quite possible that some lingering weaknesses were exposed on test day, thereby shattering your confidence and causing you to freefall. In order to avoid repeating past mistakes on your third GMAT attempt, your preparation moving forward needs to be more complete, meaning that you have 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](https://gmatclub.com/reviews/highest-ra ... or-quant-4) and [verbal courses](https://gmatclub.com/reviews/highest-ra ... -verbal-34].

You also may find it helpful to read my article about [how to score a 700+ on the GMAT](https://blog.targettestprep.com/how-to-s ... -the-gmat/).

Please reach out with any further questions.

Stuck at 660 despite doing well on the mocks

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