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Intern
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Joined: 17 Mar 2019
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GMAT 1: 720 Q49 V40
GMAT 2: 750 Q50 V42
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Intern
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Joined: 17 Mar 2019
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GMAT 1: 720 Q49 V40
GMAT 2: 750 Q50 V42
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Suggestions for study plan to boost score 20-30 points. [#permalink]
ScottTargetTestPrep wrote:
720 is a great start! That said, to improve your score to a higher level, 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 find weaker areas, learn all about how to answer questions of types that you aren't that comfortable with now, and do dozens of practice questions category by category, basically driving your score up point by point.

...

Feel free to reach out with any further questions.


Thank you for the very thorough response Scott (on all of my posts :) )! That's a great point regarding drilling super specific types of questions over and over, I'll be sure to keep that in mind.

Asad wrote:
Congrats for your nice score.
From your prior mock score, it seems that increasing 20-30 points is a bit challenge for you.


Thank you for the congratulations Asad!

I think there were a couple of key factors that accounted for the difference in scores between my second mock exam and the actual exam. First, the MGMAT seems to be more difficult than the real thing as many people have pointed out in other posts. Additionally, I took the second mock exam under less than ideal conditions: I hadn't done a single practice exam in multiple months, I had definitely gotten a bit rusty on some of the concepts I learned at the very beginning of my studies, and I barely finished learning the underlying content and concepts a day or two prior.

I believe that refreshing my memory on most of the core concepts + reviewing every single problem from my 2 mock exams + just having a recent practice exam under my belt definitely helped me perform better on the actual test.

I am very optimistic that with enough effort, I might be able to bump up my Quant by a point, and bump my Verbal by a couple of points. A couple of reasons for this:

    1. I haven't touched the MGMAT Advanced Quant book at all yet.
    2. I didn't keep any error log previously (big mistake, I know).
    3. Prior to my real exam, I ran out of time and didn't get to work on test taking strategy or timing due to my work schedule. Also, I didn't go through nearly as many practice questions as I had hoped.
    4. There will be less pressure this time around, since I am more familiar with the exam and have a decent score to fall back on.

At this point, I am looking for any critiques to my proposed study plan, or any tips/suggestions for things that have worked particularly well for others :).

I also see that your first score/breakdown are identical to mine, and that you managed to boost your score by 40 points. Is there any advice you have based on your preparation?
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Re: Suggestions for study plan to boost score 20-30 points. [#permalink]
mdow88 wrote:
Hi All,

I took the GMAT for the first time this week, and scored a 720 (49Q, 40V). I've already scheduled another exam approximately 4.5 weeks from now, and am looking for tips/suggestions to put together the right study plan in order to boost my score 20-30 points, in the hopes of being a bit more competitive at some of my target MBA programs.

Preparation Prior to Official First Attempt
I spent approximately 2.5 months working through the MGMAT online self-study course, reading through the various MGMAT books, and practicing the OG 2018 problems that the course told me to do. It looks likes like I did a total of approximately 290 Quant questions, and 230 Verbal questions from the OG guide. I also took 2 MGMAT practice tests along the way; I know these are considered to be a bit harder than the real thing. I scored a 640 (44Q, 34V) on my first attempt, this was during my first week of studying. I scored a 680 (45Q, 37V) on my second attempt, this was towards the end of my studying. During the second practice test, I felt like I had already gotten rusty in some of the areas I studied at the very beginning, so I definitely left some points up for grab.

I was hoping to get through all of the content quicker, so that I could get through more practice questions and practice tests before my first attempt. Unfortunately work got extremely busy during the last month, and as a result, I wasn't able to get that far.

First Official Attempt
To be honest, I was not very confident going into my first attempt. I didn't sleep well the night before. I had just finished doing my first pass of all of the MGAT books/content a few days prior. I did not have any extra time to work on test taking strategies or take any of the "Official" practice exams.

During the exam, I was definitely nervous . I completely blanked on a couple of questions. I went down to the time limit on the final questions in both verbal and quant.

When I finished, I was surprised/happy/relieved to see a 720 flash on the screen. While I am hoping to boost my score a bit for my second attempt, I think this is a great starting point.

Study Plans for Next Attempt
I've got 4.5 weeks to prepare for my next attempt. I have ~2 hours per weekday and ~4-5 hours each on Saturday/Sunday to dedicate to studying for a total of ~15-20 hours per week.

Here is what I am planning to do so far:
    1. Order the ESR report for the GMAT I just took, to identify my weak areas.
    2. Read through the MGAT Advanced Quant book, and do all of the practice sets.
    3. Start an error log. (I know, I really should've done this sooner).
    4. Re-read the MGAT Sentence Correction book, or do all of the Magoosh Sentence Correction modules.
    5. Order the OG Quant and OG Verbal supplemental guides, and do all of the questions in each of these books.
    6. Take 1 practice exam per week.
    7. Read at least 1 article per day (Economist, Scientific American, Smithsonian, etc...), to keep my reading skills sharp.

I'm open to any suggestions or critiques you may have. If there is anything that worked particularly well for you, or if there are any resources you highly recommend, please let me know.

Many thanks in advance!!

TLDR
  • Scored 720 on first attempt this week.
  • Hoping to score 20-30 points higher a month from now, looking for study suggestions.


Congratulations, 720 is a great score.
This might help you.
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Re: Suggestions for study plan to boost score 20-30 points. [#permalink]
Congrats on your great score. I think you have a good plan. I wish you all the best.

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Re: Suggestions for study plan to boost score 20-30 points. [#permalink]
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