600 Baseline (Veritas Practice CAT), Where to go from here to 720?

Question

Hi All,

After one week of studying about 2 hours/day strictly on quant from the OG 2018 book, I decided to take a practice exam today, and scored:
Quant (40 of 60)
Verbal (33 of 60) 
IR (5 of 8)

Based on my score, I have a few questions:
Does this mean I scored Q40 and V33? Why is my verbal percentile so much higher despite the lower score?
I only have OG, but I am planning to supplement with MGMAT. Would these be sufficient if I had about 3 months to study?
On a side note, how hard is it to receive some sort of financial package/grant (200k/2 years is hard for me - although I have a decent paying job in the SF Bay Area and living at home, I grew up as low-middle income class)?
Am I able to play out my heritage of being 1/8 URM? I'm Chinese, but I do have some South East Asian in me, but not sure if it'll help my case.

I'm planning to apply for a Fall 2020 semester start (2 year program), unless I magically can do really well in a very limited amount of time which does not seem feasible. I know I have a lot of upside given that I have not had a math class in 8 years (Senior year of high school - AP Calculus and AP Statistics), but just wanted to see if the amount of time I'm allotting to myself is enough to get to 720.

I would preferably like to get into Haas, Stern, Columbia, Fuqua, Tepper, Stanford, HBS, (Haas is probably first choice; I've mentored/currently mentoring a few undergrad students and have a few connections).

Thank you for your time in advanced!

rohan2345 · Answer

Hi wchin24, 3 months is a good enough time to prepare for GMAT. It’s a good thing you have given GMAT Mock once. You now know your weaknesses and work on them. If you are willing to study dedicatedly for 3 months, you are sure to achieve your goal. I believe you may benefit from taking an additional GMATPREP course. Your choice of using MGMAT guides for your preparation is great. MGMAT guides are phenomenal and cover the entire syllabus really well. Also if you are willing, there are some great online GMAT prep companies that can help you with your preparation. In order to make an informed decision I would highly encourage you to go to their websites and try on their free trial and decide for yourself which one do you like better. You try out free access to EmpowerGMAT, Magoosh and Optimus Prep as they have great reviews on GMATCLUB. 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. You can easily track your progress in that you can identify your strengths and analyze and improve on your weak areas. 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. Further taking multiple mocks might help. Apart from the GMATPREP, Manhattan GMAT tests and Veritas Prep Tests in my experience have 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. I would also encourage you to purchase the latest version of OG and the verbal review for some great additional practice. Here is a link that will help you with your decision. https://gmatclub.com/forum/best-gmat-ve ... 68383.html Lastly, you can check out a very interesting article by Mike McGarry from Magoosh detailing a 3 month study plan https://magoosh.com/gmat/2012/3-month-g ... -students/. You will find it very helpful as it gives out a study plan as per your needs. Hope this helps. All the best.

EMPOWERgmatRichC · Answer

Hi wchin24,

To start, a 600 is a solid initial CAT score (the average score on the Official GMAT hovers around 540-550 most years). Percentiles vary significantly between the Quant and Verbal sections - since more Test Takers are stronger performers in the Quant section, the percentiles at the higher Quant Scaled Scores will be quite different from those associated with higher Verbal Scaled Scores. You shouldn't worry too much about that though; to score 720+, you're going to have to earn high Scaled Scores in BOTH the Quant and Verbal sections. With 3 months of potential study time, you could improve a great deal.

Since you're early-on in your studies, there's no way to know the exact study resources that YOU will need to hit your Score Goal. Many Test Takers who use a 'book heavy' study approach end up getting 'stuck' at a particular score level though, so you'll likely end up needing to invest in some non-book resources. Your other questions are more about Admissions-related subjects, so you might want to ask the Admissions Experts here:

https://gmatclub.com/forum/ask-admission ... tants-124/

1) When are you planning to take the GMAT?
2) Going forward, how many hours do you think you can consistently study each week?

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

wchin24 · Answer

Thanks Rich! I'm planning to take the GMAT in the June/July timeframe, barring any exceptional practice CAT scores, since I'm aiming for a 2020 admit. I am able to put in 2 hours/day going forward, with substantially more (~5-7 hours) during weekends. My first goal is to get the OG problems done, then supplement with MGMAT along with the 2 additional OG practice problem booklets. Hopefully by then, I am able to score reasonably well on the GMAT (somewhere between ~680-720). Then, I will identify any other additional supplements to get closer to the 720 mark. I don't think 'test taking' stamina will be an issue, so I know when it's gameday, I'll be calm (since I took the CPA exam which is 4 tests, 2 at 4 hours and 3 hours, respectively).

Does this sound like a solid gameplan to you? I was also thinking of digging around for free videos/lessons.

EMPOWERgmatRichC · Answer

Hi wchin24,

Based on what you describe, your study plan is essentially to work through (random?) groups of questions in the OG before doing anything else. While that would certainly expose you to lots of different question types, it's not a particularly well-organized plan. That approach doesn't place the proper emphasis on the most valuable concepts/Tactics - and you'll just be working through 100s of questions "your way", so it might limit how quickly you improve (and how well you ultimately score on Test Day).

There's no 'harm' in beginning your studies in this fashion, so you should study as you choose for 2-3 weeks, then take a new, FULL-LENGTH CAT so that we can see how well you're improving. Once you have that score result, you should post back and we can discuss what adjustments - if any - you might make to your studies.

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

wchin24 · Answer

I would like to continue documenting my efforts here so that I can have all my data points in one place (and hopefully it allows other people on the forum to make a few judgment calls).

4/7/2018 - Economist GMAT 660 (Q49 V33, which seems REALLY weird - 75th and 70th percentile, respectively).

This definitely seems like a confidence booster, and I don't want to admit that I could improve THAT much. I also got quite a good amount of Q problems wrong 15/37 wrong), so not sure how to take this in. Will review, and use two weeks to solidify math concepts (my ratios, geometry, and exponentials are still pretty bad lol).

wchin24 · Answer

I took the Gmatprep test practice exam #1 today, and scored the following:
Q47
V34
IR 8
660

It appears to me that now I should focus on Verbal to try to get that to a V40 (sentence correction is most likely my weakness). This, in addition to a slightly higher Q, would hopefully get me to my target score of 720.

If anyone thinks this is a bad strategy, please let me know, as I would definitely appreciate anyone's thoughts!

EMPOWERgmatRichC · Answer

Hi wchin24,

GMAC has publicly stated that the Official Score that you earn on Test Day is within +/- 30 points of actual ability. Assuming a similar 'swing' in how your CATs function, your 2 recent CAT score results show that you essentially performed the same each time (about 660 +/- a few points). Since you appear to have improved over your initial CAT score, you should continue to study as you see fit.

1) Were each of these CATs in the 'old' format - or were any of them in the new, shorter format?
2) Did you take the FULL CAT each time (with the Essay and IR sections)?

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

wchin24 · Answer

Hey Rich!

The CATs were in the old format; however, I do not have a problem with timing (usually finishing with 5 minutes remaining for each section except IR), and yes, I did take the full CAT. I think my biggest upside now will be to improve on verbal and maintain my quant. It seems like I have a lot to gain from the verbal beast hahahaa.

EMPOWERgmatRichC · Answer

Hi wchin24,

Finishing any section of the GMAT 5 minutes early is usually NOT a good thing - it implies that you rushed through certain prompts that you got wrong (and that you could have gotten correct if you had slowed down, taken more notes, double-checked your work, etc.). With this extra time, you could potentially pick up some points that you otherwise missed because of little mistakes.

"Review" is an exceptionally important part of the GMAT training process; your ability to define WHY you're getting questions wrong is essential to defining the areas that you need to work on (and the specific things that you need to 'fix '). As such, I'd like to know a bit more about your last CAT. While a full Mistake Tracker would provide a lot more information, there are some basic questions that you should be able to answer (and the more EXACT you can be with your answers, the better):

After reviewing each section of this recent CAT, how many questions did you get wrong....
1) Because of a silly/little mistake?
2) Because there was some math/verbal that you just could not remember how to do?
3) Because the question was too hard?
4) Because you were low on time and had to guess?
5) How many Verbal questions did you 'narrow down to 2 choices' but still get wrong?

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

wchin24 · Answer

It's been a while since I posted:

Actual GMAT Exam will be on July 3rd (make or break my july 4th weekend lol)

Just took a MGMAT exam #1 - Q43 V45 for a 720 which is exactly what I need, but in the wrong categories!! lol. I heard that MGMAT exams are tougher on the quant side, and I significantly surprised myself with Verbal with prior practice exams (but I knew I had Verbal in me).

Next steps with be to take GMAT Prep Exam #2 next weekend with more review the upcoming weeks. My aim is a 720 because I think with my LoR, story (low income, best in class at my undergrad, leadership, volunteering with mentoring students), and WE should be really solid. But this exam really hyped me up in that it's making me feel like I can do really well. Obviously I'm going to keep studying, but hopefully the journey is a successful one because I really want to go back to playing video games and lifting hard at the gym... Ugh! hahaa

wchin24 · Answer

Unfortunately, hit a 710 (Q47 V41 IR8) on the 3rd; I have scheduled anotha one for the 24th to see if I can get it up by 10 or 20 points. Otherwise, I'll just stick to T15 and remove all M7 from my hopes. Not bad, but Sloan or Haas or scholarship would've been nice

. Somehow got 99%ile on SC which was my weakest imo, so I did have the capability of pushing V43 or higher. Likewise, I feel like I messed up a lot on the quant problems (they kept throwing DS after DS at me to demotivate me), so I'm surprised with a Q47. I'll continue to work on Quant, as well. Hopefully, this result motivates some of you because I am NOT a good studying by nature, but I am a firm believer of as long as you try your best, you'll get to where you want to be.

ScottTargetTestPrep · Answer

Hi Wchin24,

A 710 is a pretty good start, my friend! Thank you for keeping us in the loop. Since you have pretty awesome quant and verbal scores but are looking to improve, you need to study each topic "with a fine-toothed comb" to determine your exact weaknesses.

For example, if you are reviewing Number Properties, be sure that you practice 50 or more questions just from Number Properties: LCM, GCF, units digit patterns, divisibility, remainders, etc. Once complete, do a thorough analysis of each incorrect question. If you got a remainder question wrong, ask yourself why you got it wrong. 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 properly analyzing your mistakes, you will be able to more efficiently fix your weaknesses and in turn improve your GMAT quant knowledge. 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 and types that you would rather not see, and questions 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.

In the case of verbal, let’s say you are reviewing Critical Reasoning. Be sure that you practice a large number questions just from that topic: strengthen and weaken the argument, resolve the paradox, find the conclusion, must be true, etc. Once complete, do a thorough analysis of each incorrect question. If you got a weakening question wrong, ask yourself why. Did you make a careless mistake? Did you not recognize the specific CR question type? Were you doing too much analysis in your head? Did you skip over a keyword in an answer choice? Again, you must thoroughly analyze your mistakes and seek to turn weaknesses into strengths by focusing on the question types you dread seeing and the questions you take a long time to answer correctly.

When you do dozens of the same type of question one after the other, you learn just what it takes to get questions of that type correct consistently. If you aren't getting close to 90 percent of the questions of a certain type correct, go back and seek to better understand how that type of question works, and then do more questions of that type until you get to at least around 90 percent accuracy in your training. If you get 100 percent of some sets correct, even better.

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 verbal and quant 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 my article for more information regarding 
 how to score a 700+ on the GMAT .

Feel free to reach out with any further questions.

Good luck!

wchin24 · Answer

After a huge breakup with my girlfriend of 3.5 years, I took my second GMAT exam today and got the 720 I was looking for.

Q48, V41, IR8

Overall, I felt like I messed up in Quant, so I'm happy to have received this score. Best of luck to all of you who aspire to strive beyond!

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