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JL2020
Joined: 13 Sep 2019
Last visit: 03 Aug 2020
Posts: 64
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Given Kudos: 19
Location: Canada
Schools: Stanford '22 (WD) Sloan '22 (WL) Wharton '22 (D) LBS '22 (D) Booth '22 (S) INSEAD Jan'21 Intake (A)
GPA: 3.48
Schools: Stanford '22 (WD) Sloan '22 (WL) Wharton '22 (D) LBS '22 (D) Booth '22 (S) INSEAD Jan'21 Intake (A)
Posts: 64
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03 Mar 2020, 16:35
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Hi milad90,
First off, your 640/Q48 (from January) is a solid Score, so it could be enough to get you into your first-choice School. As such, a retest might not be necessary. Since you're interested in some highly-competitive Schools, retesting again makes sense. In addition, you would likely find it beneficial to speak with an Admissions Expert about your overall profile. Those Experts should be able to answer your Admissions questions and help define the specific areas of your profile that could use some improvement.
There's a Forum full of those Experts here:
https://gmatclub.com/forum/ask-admissio ... tants-124/
When these types of score drops occur, the two likely "causes" involve either something that was unrealistic during practice or something that was surprising (or not accounted for) on Test Day. Before we discuss any of those potential issues though, it would help if you could provide a bit more information on how you've been studying and your goals:
1) Since you've been studying 40 hours a week, but not using any new study materials, what is your study routine for a typical week?
2) What is your exact goal score?
3) When are you planning to apply to Business School?
You might also choose to purchase the Enhanced Score Report. 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 on Test Day (and what you should work on to score higher). If you purchase the ESR, then I'll be happy to analyze it for you.
GMAT assassins aren't born, they're made,
Rich
First off, your 640/Q48 (from January) is a solid Score, so it could be enough to get you into your first-choice School. As such, a retest might not be necessary. Since you're interested in some highly-competitive Schools, retesting again makes sense. In addition, you would likely find it beneficial to speak with an Admissions Expert about your overall profile. Those Experts should be able to answer your Admissions questions and help define the specific areas of your profile that could use some improvement.
There's a Forum full of those Experts here:
https://gmatclub.com/forum/ask-admissio ... tants-124/
When these types of score drops occur, the two likely "causes" involve either something that was unrealistic during practice or something that was surprising (or not accounted for) on Test Day. Before we discuss any of those potential issues though, it would help if you could provide a bit more information on how you've been studying and your goals:
1) Since you've been studying 40 hours a week, but not using any new study materials, what is your study routine for a typical week?
2) What is your exact goal score?
3) When are you planning to apply to Business School?
You might also choose to purchase the Enhanced Score Report. 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 on Test Day (and what you should work on to score higher). If you purchase the ESR, then I'll be happy to analyze it for you.
GMAT assassins aren't born, they're made,
Rich
Updated on: 05 Mar 2020, 18:35
Originally posted by ScottTargetTestPrep on 03 Mar 2020, 19:26.
Last edited by ScottTargetTestPrep on 05 Mar 2020, 18:35, edited 3 times in total.
Last edited by ScottTargetTestPrep on 05 Mar 2020, 18:35, edited 3 times in total.
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Hi milad90,
I’m sorry to hear how things have been going with your GMAT. Since you have taken the GMAT three times and have yet to break 640, it’s a sign that you still have some lingering quant and verbal weaknesses that are holding you back from achieving your goal score. To improve your GMAT quant and verbal skills (and thus your score), 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. 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, 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.
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 verbal and quant 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.
Good luck!
I’m sorry to hear how things have been going with your GMAT. Since you have taken the GMAT three times and have yet to break 640, it’s a sign that you still have some lingering quant and verbal weaknesses that are holding you back from achieving your goal score. To improve your GMAT quant and verbal skills (and thus your score), 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. 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, 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.
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 verbal and quant 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.
Good luck!
