Using old mock tests

Question

Hi I am preparing for my 3rd attempt at gmat which would be mostly in November this year. I had used experts global mocks (10 of them) and gmat prep mocks for practice 1.5 years back during my 2nd attempt.

Kindly advise if using these mocks tests again would be fine to avoid inflated scores since these are the only trusted sources for mocks.

Also if I don't use experts global mocks and use the gmat prep mocks (6 of them) will that suffice??

Advice will be appreciated.

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bb · Answer

Resetting and repeating practice tests can lead and often does lead to inflated scores. You can usually get a good value out of the free GMAT prep tests because they have a large database of questions and you can often avoid duplicates if your scoring has meaningfully improved. At the same time I would recommend that you find some additional practice tests to hone in your strategies and test out your timing. There quite a few good practice test so they’re from Manhattan Prep, Veritas prep, Kaplan, etc. Here’s a list of great practice tests I recommend:

https://gmatclub.com/forum/all-gmat-pra ... 28289.html

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ScottTargetTestPrep · Answer

Hi kreel11,

Regarding whether to reset mocks, since it has been 1.5 years, I think that you should be able to retake the official mocks without any issues. However, if you find that you have questions/answers memorized, then I suggest that you do not take them, as your score will be inflated.

Since you are taking the GMAT for a third time, do you need any advice regarding your study plan?

kreel11 · Answer

Scott,

Thanks for the suggestion, I think I will go by the current official tests that I have right now with me. 
Regarding the study plan i have almost finish my verbal prep and did not focus on quant much this time since verbal is my weak area.
Kindly advise if simultaneously i keep working on my weak areas in quant, revising notes and giving gmatclub tests is fine or shall i first finish my verbal portion (which will take another week) first and then solely focus on quant. In addition, since only about a month and half time is left, I have to start giving mocks as well. So kindly advise how to go about the prep in the final leg.

ScottTargetTestPrep · Answer

Hi kreel11,

I think the next thing you should do is take an official practice exam to get a baseline score. Once you complete that exam, feel free to report back with your score breakdown, and I can provide some further advice.

kreel11 · Answer

Hey Scott,

Just wrote a gmat prep official mock yesterday as per your suggestion. Got a score of 690 with Q47, V37.
Gave the mock post almost completing my verbal portion from my course material (e-gmat) and little bit of quant practice from weak areas (Probability and P&C for now) and revision of previously made notes. My verbal accuracy was 79%, 78% and 67 % in SC, CR and RC. In quant had 50% and 33% accuracy in numbers and probability/P&C (due to less time left for questions post 20th, i believe), 0 in algebra (got all 7 incorrect, despite it being a relatively strong topic in previous attempts) and rest all 100%. Got 9 incorrect in verbal (4 in 1st 20 spread out) and 13 in quant (6 in 1st 20 spread out). Saw 5 questions in verbal which i remembered from previous attempts out of which got 1 wrong but the ones i got right had spent fair amount of time on them and not marked instantly. Treated them as fresh questions. Could not attempt the last question in both sections.

Overall felt that i was struggling for time post question 20 on both verbal and quant and had to make 5 guesses in verbal and 7 in quant.

Kindly advise accordingly regarding the plan ahead.

ScottTargetTestPrep · Answer

Wow, 690 is a great start! To improve your GMAT 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 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 quant and verbal materials, so take a look at the GMAT Club reviews for the  best quant  and  verbal courses . You also may find it helpful to read the following article about  The Phases of Preparing for the GMAT .

Feel free to reach out with any further questions. Good luck!

kittle · Answer

Hi  ScottTargetTestPrep  - do you recommend the strategy of saving 1-2 official mocks for a second attempt in case you want to re-prepare and take the exam? Just thinking of not exhausting all the resources. What do you say?

ScottTargetTestPrep · Answer

That depends. How confident are you that you will hit your score goal on your first attempt?

kittle · Answer

Thanks for the suggestion, I think I will go by the current official tests that I have right now with me. 
Regarding the study plan i have almost finish my verbal prep and did not focus on quant much this time since verbal is my weak area.
Kindly advise if simultaneously i keep working on my weak areas in quant, revising notes and giving gmatclub tests is fine or shall i first finish my verbal portion (which will take another week) first and then solely focus on quant. In addition, since only about a month and half time is left, I have to start giving mocks as well. So kindly advise how to go about the prep in the final leg.

Hi kreel11,

I think the next thing you should do is take an official practice exam to get a baseline score. Once you complete that exam, feel free to report back with your score breakdown, and I can provide some further advice.

Hi  ScottTargetTestPrep  - do you recommend the strategy of saving 1-2 official mocks for a second attempt in case you want to re-prepare and take the exam? Just thinking of not exhausting all the resources. What do you say?

That depends. How confident are you that you will hit your score goal on your first attempt?

I have 10 days to my GMAT at the moment, I also don't think I can take all 4 in this time. Those many mocks would be an overkill plus I am not too sure about hitting my target score on first attempt and don't think any one can be too sure of hitting target score in any attempt. There is always a margin of error etc, and that is why I was thinking hedging a bit/ playing safe might be a good idea.

What would you have done?

RetaketheGMAT · Answer

kittle

Great stuff above already from Scott especially.

I'd add that as you near your test date, to ensure you are setup for a higher score well into the 700s, you should focus on your Test Taking Skills as much as concept based practice problems.

To get an elite score, you need to be fully aligned with what the GMAT is testing: Executive Reasoning Skills.

700 level quant questions require critical steps like Pre Processing and Visualization
700 level verbal questions require similar critical steps like vertical scanning, elimination strategies and lawyer like reading

The timing problems only magnify at the 700 level and you need be approach each question with the absolute best Test Taking approach. Otherwise you won't have time to show your advanced skills.

We assess your Test Taking Skills in a live Testing Simulation session which we setup after a brief intro call. Let me know. Could be very useful in your last mile to your test.

Arvind

kittle · Answer

Hi, I got a 660 with a Q49 V31 
Do you want to have a look at my ESR and share insights?

RetaketheGMAT · Answer

So here's the reality about your ESR:

The Good News is that your ESR:

1. Is based on the real GMAT and your performance in true testing conditions
2. Helps to answer the "WHAT went wrong?" question. ie. quant vs verbal, question types (SC, CR, RC in Verbal and PS and DS in Quant), timing issues etc.
3. Helps to align your understand of when things went wrong (or right) during the test

The Bad News is that your ESR:
4. Doesn't answer the "WHY did things go wrong?" This question is all about Test Taking Skills and your strategy for answer each question. 
5. Isn't very actionable and does little to narrow the focus of your retake prep

So in the end, your ESR is a bunch of very real but incomplete data from your attempt at the GMAT.

The key to breaking through your score ceiling and hitting your target is understanding is answering the "WHY?" question. That will let you greatly narrow your prep focus and solve the biggest problem in GMAT prep : effective study time. Most students average 20-30% effective study time, in which every minute adds to your ability to hit your target score. That means 80% of the time is wasted practicing what you're already good at. And it's all because of a lack of an answer to the WHY question.

The only way to do that is assess your Test Taking Skills in test taking conditions. You can try to do (very difficult) or you can have an expert coach do it (Testing Simulation).

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