I scored 380, but plan to secure a target of 740 in 3months ?

Question

Hello 
I am an engineering graduate with a humble 65% when completed my graduation in 2015. Now for last 5 years I have been working very hard to build a profile suitable for B-school :- I have worked as a Business Analyst(BA)->Sr. BA ->Lead BA, in companies like EY, Unilever ETES, Incedo and collected a lot of appreciation for my work .

Now, I plan to pursue my next goal that is get a GMAT score of 740. So that I can attend one of the best B-schools (Not yet decided).

To accomplish the same, I have decided to quit my job (done) and focus completely on GMAT score. I initially planned to take 3 months preparation and give my test (in Dec 2020, not finalised yet) and hopefully get admitted in 2021.

I gave my first practice test today and scored a 380 (V18 & Q25), even though the score is not motivating but I have realised a few things :
- I need help to prepare 
- I need to re-learn the basic formulas and study the course (Quant)
- I need to focus become faster on reading with understanding (verbal)
- I need some strategy to overcome my challenge to solve/answer a question faster (quant & verbal)
- I need to work really really hard in IR

Well I am feeling a little excited for the distance I have to cover to reach my goal and realize my long dream. 
Steps I have taken so far
- I have interviewed all the major institutes : Crack verbal, Jamboree, Career Launcher, Top one percent, Princeton review, Haydon & Renotts, Floating GMAT, e-gmat and a few personal trainers as well. 
- I have shortlisted & hired a quant trainer (personal tutor).
- I am in process to hire a verbal tutor (Batch/personal tutor), max 2-3 days.

Now,For you amazing people who have found yourself in my situation or could relate to it. Can you help me with some actionable advise or your comment, on how should I better approach towards my GOAL of 740 ?

PS
All advise is most welcome/even criticism (ASSUMPTION: I will give my all to the GMAT prep for next 5-6 months, i.e March 2020).

About me : linkedin -> Anshul Parkash (Process Excellence Enthusiast | Worked with EY, Unilever ETES, VMware, North West Bank)

MartyTargetTestPrep · Answer

Hi Anshul.

One thing that can you can do to maximize the effectiveness of your preparation effective is focus on one topic and its associated practice questions at a time. In doing so, you'll be able to learn all concepts, angles, and GMAT tricks associated with that topic.

A second thing you can do, something that not everyone is aware is the way to go, is do most of your practice untimed until you are starting to get close to your test day. By doing so, you'll give yourself time to learn to succeed in arriving at correct answers. You won't learn to do so by missing questions in two minutes or less and then reading explanations, and you'll speed up naturally as you develop skill. I talked about untimed practice in greater detail in a follow-up post to this topic: https://gmatclub.com/forum/success- formula-for-achieving-an-800-gmat-score-334869.html

One thing that you can do that will slow down your progress is attempt to game the GMAT by using gimmicky approaches that aren't sure to get you to correct answers. Such approaches include eliminating extreme CR answer choices and reading only the first sentence or two of each paragraph in a RC passage. If you wanted to score 570, such approaches might have some utility. For 740, they are basically useless.

For some more ideas and insights, you could read the following posts:

How to Score a 700+ on the GMAT — A Mini Guide for Success

How To Increase Your GMAT Quant Score

Russ19 · Answer

Hi

It is a better idea to complete manhattan prep strategy guides at first and then start attempting OG questions. You can read the answer explanations of experts on this platform. You can see the YouTube videos of GMATNinja and read his articles, attempt questions from the link below, and read the explanations of AndrewN, GMATNinja, MartyTargetTestPrep, EMPOWERgmatRichC, IanStewart, and follow them.

https://gmatclub.com/forum/search.php?view=search_tags

See the video explanations to all Official GMAT Guides from the link: https://gmatquantum.com/official-guides/

If you go through the youtube videos of manhattan prep, it must give a better insight:

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCzDPcZ ... CTg/videos

gmatgames · Answer

E-gmat is a great course for verbal.
But if you want to make your preparation as efficient as possible you should go for a private tutor. Especially for verbal.

EMPOWERgmatRichC · Answer

Hi theanshul,

Many GMATers are unhappy with their initial practice scores, but you really shouldn't be. That 380 is just a measure of your skills right now - and you'll improve on that result over time as you learn more about the content, Tactics and little 'secrets' of the Exam. That having been said, raising a 380 to the point that you can consistently score 740+ will require that you commit to 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. Thankfully, the GMAT is a consistent, predictable Exam, so you CAN train to score at a higher level. Whether you actually "need" a 740+ or not will depend a great deal on your OVERALL profile and the Schools that you plan to apply to. As such, you might want to set aside a little time to put together a list of Schools/Programs that offer Degrees that fit with your career goals. Once you have that list, an Admissions Expert should help you to determine what if your profile would be considered competitive and the type of GMAT Score that you might need to apply.

Since you quit your job, I assume that you plan to put in a LOT of study time each week going forward. You have to be careful about confusing "quantity" of study with "quality" of study. I've never asked anyone to study 30+ hours a week - and while it's great that you might now have the available time to study that much, with that number of study hours, you would run the risk of 'burning out' before Test Day (and that is something that we want to avoid). If you are going to try to study that much, then I suggest that you take one hour "off" for every two hours of study. For example, you could study for 2 hours, then stop for an hour, then study for another 2 hours, then take an hour off, etc.

Before I can offer you any additional advice for your studies, it would help if you could provide a bit more information on how you've been studying and your goals:

1) What study materials do you currently have access to?
2) What "brand" of practice CAT/mock was this first Test?
3) You mentioned wanting to take the GMAT in December (re: less than 3 months from now), but you also mentioned committing 5-6 months to your studies. Are you planning to take the GMAT more than once?

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

theanshul · Answer

Hello 
Firstly, Thanks for responding back to me and helping me . To best answer your question, please see below:

1) What study materials do you currently have access to?
 Currently, I am dependent on study material provided or suggested by my quant trainer, they use Veritas prep course. For verbal, as I have not yet selected the tutor, I do not have any study material. 
But as soon as I get myself a trainer, I will buy the books/study material as per his/her suggestion. 
 
2) What "brand" of practice CAT/mock was this first Test?
 I have access to 7 veritas Mock/CAT and 2 mba dot com CATs. But as it was requested by my trainer, I took the test on princeton review.
Another selfish reason is that I do not want to exhaust the official test and plan to retake the same at the end of 1st week of november.
  
3) You mentioned wanting to take the GMAT in December (re: less than 3 months from now), but you also mentioned committing 5-6 months to your studies. Are you planning to take the GMAT more than once? 
 Yes, That was the initial plan, to take the test in mid December. But again completely dependent on mutual agreement with my trainers and level of my preparation, I will take that decision. 
Also, I dont want to re-take my GMAT test but if I cannot score 740 now, I will exhaust all the available chances I have to take the test till I get the score, there is no next time once I plan to quit on GMAT tests.

EMPOWERgmatRichC · Answer

Hi theanshul,

Until you have put in some significant study time (and integrated the advice from your Tutors), it's unclear what additional advice you would need at this point. I will offer one particular piece of advice though - as it will impact how you schedule your practice CATs/mocks going forward.

While the most realistic CATs available are the 6 from GMAC, retaking a CAT that you've already taken is NOT a realistic way to assess your skills - since you will likely see some 'repeat' questions that you have already faced. Unfortunately, seeing even a couple of repeats can 'throw off' the Scoring Algorithm and impact your pacing, energy levels, fatigue, etc. (meaning that they would likely all appear to be better than they actually are). Thankfully, the CATs from Kaplan, MGMAT and Veritas are all 'close enough' to the real thing that they will provide you with a relatively realistic score assessment (assuming that you correctly take the CAT in a realistic fashion that matches the parameters that you will face when you take the Official GMAT) - so you would be fine using any NEW CATs from any of those sources.

In addition, each CAT is really a 'measuring device' - when used correctly, it will give you a realistic score and help define your strengths and weaknesses, but it will NOT help you to fix any of those weaknesses. To raise your scores, you have to learn the necessary Tactics and put in the proper practice and repetitions. The CAT will show you whether your studies are helping you to improve or not. As such, you really shouldn't take more than 1 FULL CAT per week.

You should plan to post back here after taking each of your future CATs, so that we can assess your progress over time.

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

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I scored 380, but plan to secure a target of 740 in 3months ?

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