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Updated on: 07 Feb 2025, 23:23
Originally posted by FediseK700+ on 07 Feb 2025, 08:38.
Last edited by FediseK700+ on 07 Feb 2025, 23:23, edited 1 time in total.
Last edited by FediseK700+ on 07 Feb 2025, 23:23, edited 1 time in total.
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Hello,
I have been preparing for the GMAT on and off for a year now, but I can't seem to push my score beyond the high 500s. My goal is 705+, and I need at least a 655. I am a European student with two bachelor’s degrees, both completed with honors, and I want to apply to top European master’s programs in Finance.
My first mock score was 535 (Q75/V81/D74). For the first four months, I followed the TTP course, which provided structured and comprehensive preparation. After completing the course, I felt I had learned a lot and was confident I had made significant progress. I was consistently achieving the target accuracy on easy, medium, and hard quant and verbal tests. However, I struggled with timing. In TTP’s diagnostic test, I reached around 90% in all three sections, which further reassured me.
After finishing TTP, I moved on to mock exams. To my shock, after over 500 hours of studying, my score remained the same as at the start of my preparation—535 (Q76/V76/D78). The questions felt quite different from those in TTP, particularly in their wording and the way they required applying multiple concepts simultaneously. I also struggled with time and often had to guess on the last few questions.
To address this, I did additional timed quant tests on TTP. After a few weeks, I was reaching target scores across all difficulty levels, often finishing with extra time. However, when I returned to mock exams, my scores barely improved:
This was extremely frustrating. I knew I had made a lot of progress, yet it wasn’t reflected in an exam-like setting. I had planned to take the actual GMAT around that time due to application deadlines, but my mock results discouraged me. I was terrified of wasting a limited lifetime attempt, especially with no hope of reaching my target score.
I then had to pause my preparation for about three months due to my bachelor's graduation. When I resumed studying, I focused on drilling official GMAT questions, as many people had advised. I went through all the Official Guide and Official Review questions three times, dedicating most of my time to my weakest area—quant. This definitely helped. I became more familiar with the GMAT format and overcame my timing issues by practicing in timed sets of 10 or 20 questions.
I still sometimes struggle with statistics and combinatorics, but only on medium and hard questions. In verbal, I felt very confident, and only the hardest questions posed a real challenge. On average, I get 80-90% of medium and 70-80% of hard verbal questions correct. My only issue in RC was timing, which I resolved with smart note-taking. I would even say that RC is now one of my strengths. In Data Insights, I focused primarily on Data Sufficiency, where I still tend to run short on time, particularly on medium and hard questions. I practiced other DI question types but not as extensively.
After two months, I felt confident in my improvement but was terrified of taking another mock. Since I get very anxious and didn’t want another poor mock score to discourage me from taking the actual test, I decided to skip mocks altogether and sit for the real exam, especially now that the lifetime attempt limit has been removed.
Test Day Experience
I chose to do Quant first, Verbal second, and Data Insights last. My performance felt far from ideal, but better than in my mocks. Unfortunately, the first quant question was long and wordy, which threw me off immediately. After a few minutes, I decided to flag it and guess. Despite this rough start, I stayed focused and finished quant with about 90 seconds left but didn’t have time to redo and correct the first question.
In verbal, I felt relatively confident, though a few questions left me uncertain. Like quant, I finished on time, though I had to rush the last two questions. Unlike in my mocks, I at least managed to read them fully and didn’t have to guess blindly.
For Data Insights, the section started with 4 or 5 Data Sufficiency questions, some of which were quite long and challenging. When I checked the time at question 10, I realized I didn’t have much time left. I had to speed up, making quick estimations or educated guesses. The last three or four questions were complete blind guesses just to make sure I don’t get penalized for not completing the section fully.
Test Result & Frustration
I scored 575 (Q77/V82/D77), which left me devastated and helpless. I wasn’t expecting to hit my target score, but I truly believed I had improved compared to my previous mocks. For the first time, I managed my time well in quant and verbal without having to guess on the last few questions.
Time management in Data Insights has always been a challenge. I find it hard to estimate how long a question will take and whether it’s worth the time investment. Based on GMAT Ninja’s advice, I always try to “push” Data Sufficiency questions (working on the question itself as much as possible, before assessing the two statements), which has improved my accuracy—but sometimes, the heavy time investment pays off, and sometimes it’s wasted. The same applies to Multi-Source Reasoning.
At this point, I don’t know what to do to see any improvement. I know I’ve learned so much, but my actual score barely reflects it. I expected at least some increase.
Obviously, I need to take more mocks, which was a clear mistake in my preparation. But aside from that, I don’t feel like I have major conceptual gaps. Some hard quant and especially data sufficiency questions are still challenging under a two-minute constraint, but with enough time, I can solve most of them. I’m unsure how to prepare for other Data Insights question types, as they’re so diverse and difficult to solve within the test’s time limits.
For verbal, I’m glad my time management has improved, but I have no idea what mistakes I made. Verbal is my strongest section—I make occasional errors, but I’ve consistently performed well, even hitting the 99th percentile in one mock. Yet, my actual exam performance wasn’t as strong as I’d hoped. I was unsure about some answers, but I didn’t blindly guess on any questions. So, I don’t know what went wrong.
Please, can you give me some guidance on how to proceed? I’m feeling desperate, as nothing I do seems to increase my score, even though I know I’ve significantly improved at solving every question type outside of the test. This is especially frustrating in quant, where I dedicated most of my time and effort yet can’t seem to improve at all under the test conditions—something that feels almost impossible given the progress I’ve made.
I have also attached my test report for reference.
I have been preparing for the GMAT on and off for a year now, but I can't seem to push my score beyond the high 500s. My goal is 705+, and I need at least a 655. I am a European student with two bachelor’s degrees, both completed with honors, and I want to apply to top European master’s programs in Finance.
My first mock score was 535 (Q75/V81/D74). For the first four months, I followed the TTP course, which provided structured and comprehensive preparation. After completing the course, I felt I had learned a lot and was confident I had made significant progress. I was consistently achieving the target accuracy on easy, medium, and hard quant and verbal tests. However, I struggled with timing. In TTP’s diagnostic test, I reached around 90% in all three sections, which further reassured me.
After finishing TTP, I moved on to mock exams. To my shock, after over 500 hours of studying, my score remained the same as at the start of my preparation—535 (Q76/V76/D78). The questions felt quite different from those in TTP, particularly in their wording and the way they required applying multiple concepts simultaneously. I also struggled with time and often had to guess on the last few questions.
To address this, I did additional timed quant tests on TTP. After a few weeks, I was reaching target scores across all difficulty levels, often finishing with extra time. However, when I returned to mock exams, my scores barely improved:
- 575 (Q76/V78/D81)
- 595 (Q79/V88/D72)
- 555 (Q76/V82/D74)
This was extremely frustrating. I knew I had made a lot of progress, yet it wasn’t reflected in an exam-like setting. I had planned to take the actual GMAT around that time due to application deadlines, but my mock results discouraged me. I was terrified of wasting a limited lifetime attempt, especially with no hope of reaching my target score.
I then had to pause my preparation for about three months due to my bachelor's graduation. When I resumed studying, I focused on drilling official GMAT questions, as many people had advised. I went through all the Official Guide and Official Review questions three times, dedicating most of my time to my weakest area—quant. This definitely helped. I became more familiar with the GMAT format and overcame my timing issues by practicing in timed sets of 10 or 20 questions.
I still sometimes struggle with statistics and combinatorics, but only on medium and hard questions. In verbal, I felt very confident, and only the hardest questions posed a real challenge. On average, I get 80-90% of medium and 70-80% of hard verbal questions correct. My only issue in RC was timing, which I resolved with smart note-taking. I would even say that RC is now one of my strengths. In Data Insights, I focused primarily on Data Sufficiency, where I still tend to run short on time, particularly on medium and hard questions. I practiced other DI question types but not as extensively.
After two months, I felt confident in my improvement but was terrified of taking another mock. Since I get very anxious and didn’t want another poor mock score to discourage me from taking the actual test, I decided to skip mocks altogether and sit for the real exam, especially now that the lifetime attempt limit has been removed.
Test Day Experience
I chose to do Quant first, Verbal second, and Data Insights last. My performance felt far from ideal, but better than in my mocks. Unfortunately, the first quant question was long and wordy, which threw me off immediately. After a few minutes, I decided to flag it and guess. Despite this rough start, I stayed focused and finished quant with about 90 seconds left but didn’t have time to redo and correct the first question.
In verbal, I felt relatively confident, though a few questions left me uncertain. Like quant, I finished on time, though I had to rush the last two questions. Unlike in my mocks, I at least managed to read them fully and didn’t have to guess blindly.
For Data Insights, the section started with 4 or 5 Data Sufficiency questions, some of which were quite long and challenging. When I checked the time at question 10, I realized I didn’t have much time left. I had to speed up, making quick estimations or educated guesses. The last three or four questions were complete blind guesses just to make sure I don’t get penalized for not completing the section fully.
Test Result & Frustration
I scored 575 (Q77/V82/D77), which left me devastated and helpless. I wasn’t expecting to hit my target score, but I truly believed I had improved compared to my previous mocks. For the first time, I managed my time well in quant and verbal without having to guess on the last few questions.
Time management in Data Insights has always been a challenge. I find it hard to estimate how long a question will take and whether it’s worth the time investment. Based on GMAT Ninja’s advice, I always try to “push” Data Sufficiency questions (working on the question itself as much as possible, before assessing the two statements), which has improved my accuracy—but sometimes, the heavy time investment pays off, and sometimes it’s wasted. The same applies to Multi-Source Reasoning.
At this point, I don’t know what to do to see any improvement. I know I’ve learned so much, but my actual score barely reflects it. I expected at least some increase.
Obviously, I need to take more mocks, which was a clear mistake in my preparation. But aside from that, I don’t feel like I have major conceptual gaps. Some hard quant and especially data sufficiency questions are still challenging under a two-minute constraint, but with enough time, I can solve most of them. I’m unsure how to prepare for other Data Insights question types, as they’re so diverse and difficult to solve within the test’s time limits.
For verbal, I’m glad my time management has improved, but I have no idea what mistakes I made. Verbal is my strongest section—I make occasional errors, but I’ve consistently performed well, even hitting the 99th percentile in one mock. Yet, my actual exam performance wasn’t as strong as I’d hoped. I was unsure about some answers, but I didn’t blindly guess on any questions. So, I don’t know what went wrong.
Please, can you give me some guidance on how to proceed? I’m feeling desperate, as nothing I do seems to increase my score, even though I know I’ve significantly improved at solving every question type outside of the test. This is especially frustrating in quant, where I dedicated most of my time and effort yet can’t seem to improve at all under the test conditions—something that feels almost impossible given the progress I’ve made.
I have also attached my test report for reference.
Attachments
File comment: Test Result
A.png [ 45.31 KiB | Viewed 1233 times ]
File comment: Quant I
B.png [ 69.16 KiB | Viewed 1228 times ]
File comment: Quant II
C.png [ 99.66 KiB | Viewed 1226 times ]
File comment: Verbal I
D.png [ 106.21 KiB | Viewed 1228 times ]
File comment: Verbal II
E.png [ 83.92 KiB | Viewed 1223 times ]
File comment: Data Insights I
F.png [ 94.39 KiB | Viewed 1224 times ]
File comment: Data Insights II
G.png [ 79.39 KiB | Viewed 1221 times ]
07 Feb 2025, 22:29
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FediseK700+
Hi FediseK700+,
Do you want to try a different section order? It may be easier to tackle a long and wordy quant question if it isn't the very first question you see on your GMAT exam. You could also look at setting hard stops (time management), as 5.4 minutes for one question is probably not something you want to do early in your test.
Again, the ESR doesn't give us too much information, but it's clear that you basically ran out of time towards the end in DI. Also, when you say "I always try to push through Data Sufficiency questions, which has improved my accuracy—but sometimes, the heavy time investment pays off, and sometimes it’s wasted", do you mean that you try to maximise your accuracy in DS by spending more time on each DS question, and if so, how much more time? I'd be careful about this if I were you.
07 Feb 2025, 23:25
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Thank you for your comment. I have edited in the post what I meant by “pushing” the question. It was not written clearly before.
AjiteshArun
