390 to 440 --want to improve to mid 600

Question

I have been studying since January and my scores have not seen much improvement. I took my first official in may and received a 390 (Q17/V25 , IR 1, AWA 3.0) , i took a two months off during the summer and started again studying about 3-4 hours per day. I have been using Magoosh (which I LOVE), Foundations of Math and the Manhattan Prep books. In October I took another practice test and scored a 450. At that time I decided to get a tutor which did help a little bit. I took another pre-test on Thanksgiving and received a 440. At that time i had already scheduled another official test for the following week and couldn't reschedule. My second official test ended up at 440 (Q24/V26 , IR 4, AWA 3.5) so there was some improvement but definitely not enough to be competitive let alone get into my top school choices (currently looking at Indiana, Michigan, Dartmouth , Maryland and Manchester). I was hoping to apply during the January round of the Consortium but have now decided to wait until next year to apply. I need advice on how to study/attack the process of this GMAT. My overall profile i believe is very strong, 7 years of experience, 3.81 GPA work in marketing and sales for a event management company. i do work with math in my company but based on my GMAT scores it definitely doesn't prove. it. Any advice or recommendations would be greatly appreciated.

saswata4s · Answer

As you already decided to apply in next year, you have plenty of time to prepare. Magoosh's quant section is good. I suggest you follow the Magoosh 3-months/6-months study plan. Go through each section thoroughly. After completing each section, practice problems related to that particular section. Initially practice low difficulty questions. Once your accuracy level increases more than 90%, try harder questions. Take at least one-day(preferably two) break in a week. Do not study more than 3-4 hours in a day. I suggest, split it in 2 hours in morning and 2 hours in evening. Best of luck!

bichthuy · Answer

Hi there,
I’m using Magoosh too. The quant session and SC session are good enough for you to achieve your target score. I need to study another sources for RC (free session of e-gmat and qvocabulary) and CR (powerscore cr bible)
Your score 440(Q24, v26) means that your background knowledge is not solid enough. You should start to gain solid background in Quant first. You should watch all videos of one module in Magoosh a time. After that, you solve all the questions in that module. You can filter in practice session to have these questions. Time every question you solve. This helps you to manage time later on but don’t worry if it takes too much time to solve an easy to medium question at this stage. At this stage, you need to take note carefully such as content during video watching (to boost your memory and understanding), what makes you confuse or why you can’t solve that question when first see it, why you solve that question wrong: careless: what made you careless, pressure, lack of knowledge: review this knowledge immediately. I suggest you solve only one question at a time and go to next question only after you thoroughly handle this question. After you go through all questions of a module, you should review all the notes and start to re-solve all the questions that you confused or made wrong in first round. The key is that after you read through the solution, if you yourself don’t do it again, you can’t solve it when you see it second time because it doesn’t become your knowledge and skill until you yourself think of and solve it. 
After you do all the modules of Magoosh, you can start to do OG and OG Review. Also time, take note and create log file (maybe just a scratch paper or excel file but need to have to review later on) 
In my opinion, review makes improvements so review as much as possible. 
Hope this helps.

EMPOWERgmatRichC · Answer

HI Lnstnbass4,

Your studies so far have clearly led to an improvement in your Quant Scaled Scores - but raising a 440 to a 650+ will likely take 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. Pushing back your application plans so that you can put more time into your GMAT training is a smart choice.

Have you taken any practice CATs since you took your last Official GMAT (about 4 weeks ago)? If you have, then how did you score (including the Quant and Verbal Scaled Scores)? If you haven't, then it would be a good idea to take a NEW CAT soon - so that we can get a sense of how much you may have improved over the last month. Once you have that Score, you should report back here and we can discuss how best to proceed.

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

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

rohan2345 · Answer

Hi

Please do not be disheartened as GMAT is all about high commitment. It’s a good thing you have taken your exams. You can now know your weaknesses and work on them. If you are willing to study dedicatedly for that period, you are sure to achieve your goal.

Kindly go through the concepts first and solidify your base in quant. Your choice of the Foundation of GMAT Math by MGMAT and MGMAT Strategy guides is great as they are phenomenal and cover the entire syllabus really well. After going through these guides one more time, I must add that if you are particularly looking to discover and improve on your weak areas in Quant; a subscription to GMATCLUB tests is the best way to do that. They are indeed phenomenal and will not only pinpoint your weak areas but also help you improve on them.

Also for verbal, I would highly encourage you to consider e-gmat verbal online or the e-gmat verbal live course. They are both amazing courses especially designed for non-natives. They offer almost 25% of their courses for free so you can try out their free trial to decide which one you want to go for. Plus the e-gmat Scholaranium which is included in both the courses is one of the best verbal practice tools in the market.

Further taking multiple mocks might help. Apart from the GMATPREP, Manhattan GMAT tests and Veritas Prep Tests in my experience have a good verbal and Quant section and will certainly help you point out and improve your weak areas.

Further another advantage of taking many mocks is to build up your stamina. Apart from the GMATPREP tests, taking practise tests of any major GMATPREP company ought to do that.

Lastly I would also encourage you to purchase the latest version of OG and the Verbal and Quant review for some great additional practice.

Hope this helps. All the best.

390 to 440 --want to improve to mid 600

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