Did my first practice test, whats next to improve a bit?

Question

So, I read all of the 9 manhattan prep books, then today I did my first practice test on mba.com (practice exam 1), and got a score of 690 (Q46, V39) and IR 7.

I am planning to do the real GMAT exam in about a month (early september), and while a 690 would be good enough, obviously the higher the better so I would like to try to get 720-740 if possible.

So a few info and questions: I have all the OG practice guide books, I did not do any question from these yet, and the manhattan advanced quant book. Would practicing from these be sufficient to achieve the 700+, or is anything else recommended?

For quant: I expected a higher score, I did quite a few stupid mistakes, and blanked out a bit during the test, I think I think I should have the knowledge, but with a bit more practice and mental prep this should be fine, but any advice is welcome.

For Verbal: I only made 1-2 minor mistakes on IR and RC questions, I am not a native english speaker, but I attended an english school and english enviroment for quite a few years, so my reading and speaking are close to a native level, however my grammar is terrible. I had no clue how to do the SC questions, I guessed most of them -incorrectly at that-, so there is a lot of room to improve in SC. Any good youtube video guides, or practice material for SC that could help me out in this? Again, this verbal score is not bad, and if I get my quant up to Q50-Q51 then with the same verbal as now I would get 730-740, but I have a month to improve on it, so why not try it?

Time: I had 2-3 min left on quant, I could have balanced it out a bit better, but for a first try it wasn't too bad, I did waste some time on some questions, which I ended up guessing, I will try to improve on this on my 2. try. For verbal I had around 10-15mins left, because as I mentioned earlier, I guessed most of the SC questions, since I was clueless. This time could be spent on the SC questions properly once I know how to do them.

Now I have one concern: How well does this mba.com practice exam reflect the difficulty of the real GMAT? I mean, does a 690 score on the practice mean I can achieve 690 on the real test, or the practice exam is much easier? I see people mention test anxiety, but oddly enough I was anxious and nervous even during the practice test, -the reason for my weaker than expected quant performance- so I think that part won't be worse on the real exam, I'm just worried that the practice exam is much easier and doesn't reflect a realistic score. Any experience on this?

GmatKnightTutor · Answer

"if I get my quant up to Q50-Q51"

A Q51 is a VERY high quant score. It's possible to get but it may be worth trying to reach a V40+ on the Verbal to take some of the edge off reaching a 730-740 scoring level. To that end, working on solving approach for Verbal can be helpful. One of my most popular tutoring packages last month was, in fact, the 6-hour Verbal solving approach course I offer. Of course, working on solving approach is also helpful on the Quant side.

Here's a small Quant video describing what I mean:

https://www.gmatknight.com/post/gmat-problem-solving-why-adding-with-an-algebra-mindset-can-be-helpful

All the best.

BobJosh · Answer

I know, and I would be fine with a Q48-49 as well, I'm sure some improvements could done in a month. But of course I will work on my verbal as well.

How well do you think the practice test difficulty represents the real score? If I would do the real GMAT tomorrow can I expect a 690 there as well?

GmatKnightTutor · Answer

The following links may provide some insight (just a bit of googling showed these):

https://gmatclub.com/forum/mock-tests-v ... 33811.html
https://gmatclub.com/forum/how-accurate ... 01914.html
https://gmatclub.com/forum/how-accurate ... 13879.html

BobJosh · Answer

630? Is the practice that much easier?

GMATWhizTeam · Answer

Hi BobJosh,

690 is a solid score to secure in first practise test. Many congratulations to you! Moreover, it’s good to see that you are keen on working on your setbacks and improve while you still have some time. You can surely hit the 720+ mark with the right guidance and strategies. Just a little brush up/guidance will help you understand what is holding you back. Let me share my insights with you.

First of all, in my experience, GMAT official mocks are the most reliable ones for analysing where you stand. So, you should go for the official ones as they are the closest to the GMAT official exam.

Secondly, for scoring 700 and above, you need to make sure you don’t get the easy & medium questions wrong as GMAT test is adaptive in nature. For that, being conceptually clear on all topics is really vital. Not only this, you have to be good with application of concepts also, because  GMAT is a test of application of concepts .

Your Verbal score suggests that you are good enough with two of the three modules (SC, CR and RC) and need to work on the other one i.e. SC most probably as you guessed most of the SC questions having no clue how to go about it. You should consider analysing your setbacks and turn them into your strengths. Using the right methodologies and strategies to approach the Verbal questions should ideally help you to avoid the traps set by the test makers.

GMAT verbal is mostly about  eliminating four incorrect answer choices rather than choosing the right one . Before you start learning, it's important to understand what is actually tested using the questions. Each module in Verbal (SC, CR and RC) has to be approached in a different way. For example, before you start learning the concepts of SC, you need to understand that SC questions on GMAT test your ability to convey the right meaning without any ambiguity. So, it's important to approach them from a meaning stand-point. You might have often come across answer choices which are both grammatically correct and convey a logical meaning but are indeed incorrect because they do not convey the intended meaning. So, the process to approach SC questions is to:
  Comprehend the original meaning of the sentence 
 Identify errors if any (both grammatical and meaning wise) 
 Eliminate answer choices which either are grammatically incorrect or do not convey the intended meaning

You can go through the link below to understand the process in a better way:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9SGA8bwFNJM

Coming to your Quant score, it appears that you are good with concepts but you have to work a little more on the application of concepts while solving the Quant Questions. You should consider spending more time on analysing the solutions of the questions from the topics in which you are weak. By analysing I mean, go through each step of the solution, identify the exact step at which you made the mistake, compare your approach with the right one and then learn the right approach.

This should help.

A better idea would be to connect with some advanced strategy expert/ tutor at the earliest and discuss your exact pain points and come out with an ideal strategy/ solution to hit your target.

Having said that, I would be more than happy to help you if you want to connect with me on a call. You can take me through the approach you have followed till now and I’m sure we can figure out an improvement strategy that works for you. Considering the effort, you have put, I would really like to know the concerns and help you improve your score.

You can schedule a free consultation call using the below link.

Click here to schedule a call

BobJosh · Answer

GMATWhizTeam 
Thank you for your response!
I will for sure do a revision on the concepts and start practicing questions from the OG book to get more familiar with them.

So the GMAT Prep is not as good with adaptive questioning as the real GMAT, or it follows a similar algorithm?

I agree with you on quant, I need to perfect the applications, but since I did no practice on questions so far I believe that could help. I will do the 2. mock test on mba.com in 2 weeks after some practice.

Thank you, I will check your tutoring out!

GMATWhizTeam · Answer

Hi BobJosh,

The exact actual algorithm followed by the Official GMAT is not defined. But, the mocks on mba.com are, supposedly, the closest to the real GMAT exam as it is believed to follow more or less the same algorithm. By taking the official mocks, you can analyse where you actually stand.

However, the standard practise is to assume a variation of +30/-30 points in the score secured on Official mocks although it may differ depending on other factors.

You can get in touch with me over a call using the below link in case you have any further query. 
    Click here to schedule a call

Gmatisking · Answer

You can try Gmatwhiz.
They have a good course for SC.

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