GMAT Prep 760 to 640 - Less than 1 month until exam. Need advice

Question

Hi Everyone,

I am a non-native English speaker from South America with a decent quantitative background (Econ major) and 5 years of experience in finance.

I started my GMAT preparation about 2 months ago. At first, I went through the concepts and the Manhattan strategy books. Then, I started practicing using the Official Guide online question bank on Wiley, which allows me to choose the difficulty of the questions.

Last saturday I took my first official GMATPrep CAT and today I sat for the second one. The results are below. I took both of them under the EXACT same circunstances, same time of the day, same order of sections (Quant then Verbal) and same strategy. I felt the 2nd attempt gave me slightly harder quant questions (although not a significant difference) and I spent too much time on some of the questions.

04/17/2021 - 1st official CAT - 760 (Q49 / V45)

04/21/2021 - 2nd official CAT - 640 (Q37 / V41)

My performance, by difficulty, in about 400 OG questions is attached.

As my GMAT is scheduled for 05/20, a month from today, I am trying to answer the two questions below:

1.  How and why did my score drop so much from the 1st CAT to the 2nd?

2.  What should be the next steps in my preparation from now until test date?

PS: I am aiming for  at least  700.

Thank you very much!!

GmatKnightTutor · Answer

There may be some knowledge gaps in your Quant. Are there any types of questions you don't like (i.e. Sets, combinations)?

EMPOWERgmatRichC · Answer

Hi bl12345,

The process of taking (and reviewing) a CAT requires a significant amount of energy and effort - and takes time to 'recover' from. This is one of the reasons why you typically shouldn't take more than 1 CAT per week - and you should take your last CAT about 1 week before your Official GMAT. From what you describe, you took that 2nd CAT just 4 days after you took that 1st CAT - so you might have been a bit too tired to perform at your best. There are a variety of other factors that could have impacted your performance though, so I have a few questions about how you've been studying and your goals:

1) What type of study routine have you been following over the last 2 months? How many hours do you typically study each week?
2) Have you used any other study materials besides what you listed in your first post?
3) Since you were studying back in 2016, did you take either of these 2 Official CATs/mocks before?
4) When are you planning to apply to Business School and what Schools are you planning to apply to?

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

ScottTargetTestPrep · Answer

Hi bl12345,

Since your quant dropped so much on your latest practice exam, it's likely that you have a number of weak areas that were exposed on that exam. Thus, to improve your quant skill moving forward, you have to go through GMAT quant 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 and types that you would rather not see, and types of 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.

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 materials, so take a look at the GMAT Club reviews for the  best quant courses .

You also may find it helpful to read this article about  how to score a 700+ on the GMAT .

Please reach out with any further questions.

GMATWhizTeam · Answer

Hi bl12345,

Before answering your question, I want to know whether 760 (Q49) in your first mock was an aberration or not. If you really used the right methods to solve questions, then there's nothing to worry. But, if you got lucky with a few questions and somehow got the right answers, then there's a problem.

And you spending a lot of time on certain questions can be the reason for scoring low on Quant. Having said that, it's important to know whether it's the just the time constraint or the conceptual gaps that led to the drop in the score.

Did you analyze the mock? 
 If yes, were you able to solve the questions which you got incorrect?

Answers to these questions will help me guide you in a better way. You can write back to me here or a better way would be to get in touch over a call and discuss the same. You can use the link below to get in touch with our Strategy Consultant.

Click here to schedule a call

MathRevolution · Answer

Hello bl12345,

A score of 640 or 640+ in the GMAT mock tells the entire story about how well prepared you are for the GMAT official test and how to change the gear now to meet the target score in reality.

With my GMAT tutoring, guidance, and counseling experience, we have to accept a fact with a pinch of the salt that diagnostic/ mock test scores are above then what one should expect in a real test. There is often dropping in the score. Some students have even experienced a drop of 100 pointers. It is one of the realities, and your preparation should not sideline this fact.

You can schedule a Comprehensive counseling session for 30 mins with one of our experts: https://calendly.com/mathrevolution/1-on-1-session for detailed advice on your current study plans.

A couple of things that can be a noticeable barrier to your scores would be some or all of the below.

• Inefficiency by using time-consuming Conventional method to tackle DS and PS questions still
• No expert support (maybe) who can tutor, analyze, and guide you during your learning especially on hard level questions while stably hitting middle-level questions.
• Lack of many updated questions and practice in the recent exam trend
• Not well aligned with time to solve questions.

Since we are a math expert, we will recommend you go through our post on the GMAT club: Breakdown of GMAT math questions and types: https://gmatclub.com/forum/overview-of- ... l#p1641411

We recommend that you must learn the Variable Approach for solving DS questions and the IVY approach for solving PS questions in order to improve your accuracy and save time while solving the question types.

Register with MathRevolution https://www.mathrevolution.com/member/signup to get access to our 7-day full on-demand course (27 topics, 490 subtopics, and 1,500 questions) for free trial lessons.

700+ level questions https://www.mathrevolution.com/gmat/questionbank are separately available, too. Start with the learning of the concepts. Make a habit of taking notes during the initial learning of the concepts.

The day regular mock tests show the consistent score of Q48+ with V37+, then it will reflect the positive change in the score, and hence, your confidence will boost up. Gradually, with the help of mock tests, you will be able to compete with time and therefore, will be able to learn time management.

We appreciate your time and patience in reading this reply.

Should you need any further information, please do not hesitate to contact us at [email protected]

Success is within your reach.
Good luck!

Math Revolution Team

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GMAT Prep 760 to 640 - Less than 1 month until exam. Need advice

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