Huge Score drop from 670 (Q49, V32) to 620 (Q48, V27) - (ESR Attached)

Question

Hi all, I appeared for my second attempt yesterday and scored a 620 (Q48, V27) :cry:

. I ordered the ESR for second attempt and for Verbal it shows CR - 15, RC - 51, SC - 31 . I can't believe my CR dropped to 15, which means I probably got only 1 or 2 CR questions right. My SC score dropped by 3 points. For my First attempt 670 - V32 - ESR showed CR-29, RC - 34, SC- 34. So I focused on all 3 sections but especially CR. The problem with my first attempt was that I ran out of time for last 10 questions in verbal, so I ended up guessing a lot. Attempt 1: GMAT Prep Scores before Attempt 1: GMAT Prep 1 -Nov 2015 - 590 (Q44, V27) GMAT Prep 2 - Jan 2016 - 630 (Q48, V28) I realized the material I was using wasn't helping me. So, I got the E-GMAT Verbal Online Course and started solving GMAT Club Tests for Quant after this score. GMAT Prep EP1 Exam 1- April, 2016 - 680 (Q49, V33) GMAT Prep EP1 Exam 2 - May, 2016 - 650 (Q47, V34) GMAT Prep EP2 Exam 1 - May, 2016 - 680 (Q46, V38) GMAT Attempt 1 - May, 27 2016 - 670 (Q49, V32) ESR - CR-29, RC - 34, SC- 34 Attempt 2: Time Spent - 2 months Materials Used - I already used e-gmat Verbal Online for my first attempt. For second attempt, I joined e-gmat Verbal Live Prep. GMAT Prep Mock Scores leading to Attempt 2: July 16 - GMAT Prep 2 - 730(Q50, V40) July 17 - GMAT Prep EP1 Exam 1- 710(Q50, V35) July 22 - GMAT Prep 1 - 740(Q50, V39) July 24 - GMAT Prep EP2 Exam 1 - 770 (Q50, V44) July 26 - GMAT Prep EP2 Exam 2- 690 (Q48, V35) - (tired after work) The above scores are inflated because I had attempted these tests 2 months back before my first attempt, but the GMAT Prep 5 and GMAT Prep 6 only had 4-5 questions in Verbal that i had seen before. GMAT Attempt 2 -July 28 - 620 (Q48, V27) ESR - CR - 15, RC - 51, SC - 31 Here is my analysis on the 3 sections after second attempt: CR: - I did the entire OG 16 for CR again with 85% accuracy. I had trouble following the e-gmat process for CR questions in my first attempt, but this time around I was able to pre-think for most of the questions in OG and GMAT Prep. I think I followed the same pre-thinking strategy for my second attempt and I thought it worked pretty well, but I am shocked to see a score of CR-15. I applied the process on all questions on GMAT Prep mocks and actual GMAT. SC: - In my second attempt, I realized that the first 2 questions in SC were purely meaning based. There was no grammatical errors in at least 2 or 3 options. For some reason I had a hard time understanding the meaning and I couldn't focus. Also, I think I should have practice more of GMAT Prep questions. Quant - I didn't revise Quant concepts/error log for my second attempt. Just did the questions from GMAT Prep mocks. But the main reason I got a 48 is because I ended up spending 25 minutes on first 10 questions and I was running out of time for last 10, and guessed on many questions. 620 is a huge drop from my GMAT Prep scores and my first GMAT Attempt. I need to give GMAT again as 670 will get me nothing. I am aiming for top 10 and I have a really good profile but I belong to the most represented pool - Indian | IT | Male. Anything less than 730-740 will certainly not work. Please help me with the following: 1) Strategy for third attempt - I think I don't even know how to begin my preparation again. Should I focus on Quant or Verbal first? I've run out of ideas and seriously need some help. 2) Practice Questions for CR and SC : Based on above and my ESR report, it's obvious that I need to work on CR. I have exhausted e-gmat scholaranium questions and OG16. I have seen GMAT Prep questions files for CR and SC on the forums, should I just use those files and start practicing? 3) Quant: For Quant, i think I will start doing GMAT Club Tests again. I did about 10-12 GMAT Club Tests for my first attempt, so I will do the remaining and make sure I get 50-51 consistently on those. Is this a good strategy for a Q50-51? 4) Practice Tests - I have used all 6 GMAT Prep tests. MGMAT CATS are really tough (given a couple but never scored more than 660), but would it make sense to do MGMAT or Veritas Prep for my third attempt. Or should I just focus on doing GMAT Prep questions and keep giving GMAT Prep Mocks? 5) How soon should i give the third attempt? I believe I am already very late for R1 deadline. I think even if I give the third attempt by August end, I'd still be very late for R1 applications. And, I've read that getting into top Bschools in R2 is tough unless you are exceptional. I've been preparing for a long time (almost a year now) and I was shocked after seeing a 620 yesterday BUT I am not going to give up!! Please advise on what I should I do for my third attempt! Thanks much! YT

bb · Answer

Quick question - this is your second GMAT attempt, for the first one, you did not take the GMAT Prep Tests (you did not end up using them) as I see you are posting GMAT Prep Scores in Attempt #2.

Thank you.

sdlife · Answer

Hi  bb ,

Thanks a lot for your response. Sorry I didn't post my GMAT Prep scores for first attempt. I've edited the post now with all the details. Please let me know if there is anything else I should add.

YT

popov · Answer

Hi,

Sorry for late response. As per our chats in PMs this was due for over a week.

First Attempt :CR-29, RC - 34, SC- 34
Second Attempt :CR - 15, RC - 51, SC - 31

Observations/Suggestions:  
1) In second attempt, you have exceptional RC score. I think you might have invested more time in solving RC questions than you should have!! Just cross check this assumption. If it is valid, then practice RC to speed up your RC solving skills. Key to RC is to practice one passage a day, irrespective of your study plan or mastery in RC
2) To get like 740+ SC is critical. SC is a key to save time as well as score higher. Make sure that you practice SC with target to solve SC questions in ~60 sec or so. Tougher questions take around ~75 secs.
3) Low score is seems to be primarily driven by high time and effort investment in RC (refer assumption in point 1)
For me, CR was a challenge and I had to spend like 120 sec on CR on an average to get the accuracy. RC took around the same time per question. 
4) Overall, you might want to check followings when it comes to concept clarity (based on my interpretation of your exam experience and details):
a) Your SC concepts are crystal clear- Dont look for mere accuracy in OG13. Dig deeper to find out whether the rationale that you chose to reject 4 incorrect option and accept 1 correct option is in alignment with OG 13 solution. You can even cross check it with GMAT Club discussions. Do this even for correct questions.
b) For CR, I followed the approach that  VeritasPrepKarishma  suggested. It worked for me, when coupled with sufficient practice. I again used the approach stated in point a above for CR as well.
c) RC: keep practising one passage a day to maintain the rhythm.
d) Quant: I didnt study much, but best option (assuming concept clarity) is to practice GMATClub tests. For me Q51 in GMATClub was like Q49/50 in actual GMAT. But GMATClub quant tests are really good in terms of correcting common trap questions in GMAT.

Misc: 
1) Tests: Go ahead with Manhattan tests. I know it is not aligned with actual GMAT, with Q being tougher and V being easier than actual GMAT (general observation). But these tests are meant to practice and not to replicate actual GMAT!! I used this approach: practice, then take a test, find reason for incorrect questions, practice and take another test from same test series.
2) I think OG test questions would be a good option to practice and validate concept clarity
3) Time for next test: Cant help with this. It is entirely upto you based on how soon you are able to see improvement in your practice.

For test simulation, ensure that you are taking full test. AWA, IR, Quant and Verbal. I liked this idea that  EMPOWERgmatRichC  had suggested. It may seem boring/time consuming, but it is a very critical element in preparation.

Again this is the approach I have followed or I would have followed. Also the time per question etc are as per my experience, they may differ in your case. Re-align those absolute numbers as per your strengths and weakness.

sdlife · Answer

Thanks a lot for your response  popov ! This is really helpful.

Quick question - For SC, the one thing that really bothered me, after going through @e-GMAT course and scholaranium questions, was the exceptions in GMAT Prep questions. My SC ability was close to 85% in scholaranium but I couldn't perform at the same level in GMAT Prep mocks. Often times there were exceptions such as usage of with modifier, consisted and resembled are always verbs, although must be followed by a clause, including doesn't follow the verb-ing modifier rules, idioms, etc that greatly affected my SC score in mocks. I kept noting down these exceptions in my error log but I always used to find new things in Ron's explanation/gmatclub verbal experts/e-gmat forums responses that just didn't come through naturally to me while solving GMAT Prep SC questions. Did you face this issue? Any thoughts?

Thanks again!!

popov · Answer

I didnt quite get this question. Are you saying that some concepts in e-GMAT differ from other sources? If this is your question, then it does not differ. e-GMAT is really great when it comes to SC, followed by CR. 
My ability score in SC was around 80% or so. I dont remember exact number!!

In fact the exception list that you have mentioned are like the core of SC. I mean mastering SC is more like finding all missing concepts/exceptions. Mostly they are there somewhere in concept videos that e-GMAT gives, but sometimes we tend to discard some of these concepts citing them too easy and obvious. I literally went through ing-modifiers concepts from e-gmat like 10 times to understand them thoroughly.

sdlife · Answer

I meant that I couldn't find these exceptions in e-GMAT SC course and that's why I made those mistakes in GMAT Prep mocks. Maybe some of these concepts/exceptions are in e-GMAT videos and somehow I missed them. Some other examples are - use of past perfect tense with present perfect, difference between in order to vs to verb, usage of pronoun 'that' after a verb (GMAT prep example -  A new engine is being tested that...   - I still remember this because I rejected the correct choice because of this usage), Having + COMMA indicates an action that took place before the main actions, etc. I read explanations on e-gmat forums for some of these GMAT Prep questions and found that these are some of the exceptions, exceptions because the e-gmat concepts don't work in these particular situations. For example - on usage of including (not part of e-gmat videos), one e-gmat instructor has replied that including is an exception and it doesn't modify a clause like other -ING modifiers. But when I saw the usage of COMMA + Including, I straight away rejected the correct answer choice because it didn't make sense.

As you said, then maybe some of these are covered in e-GMAT course and I should watch the videos again. In addition, I should just go through all GMAT Prep SC questions to get a more understanding of these exceptions/concepts?

mrigoel · Answer

E-gmat explanations are good but they are not foolproof by any means.Some of the rules they teach are actually not as per the gmat.I have gone through their sc course of verbal live prep and i am pretty decent at SC myself.The one thing they'll help you imbibe is the meaning based approach which is absolutely essential for high level sc problems.Also in the scholaranium some of the questions are based purely on meaning which is wrong.On some of the official problems you have to change the meaning if it is not clear as per the original sentence and you need to select the most logical possible sentence.So go through their course but don't beleive everything they say.I would recommend going through Ron's explanations on MGMAT forums for official questions.They are an absolute gold mine. And probably go through mgmat sc book if you have time.All the best.

GMATPill · Answer

It looks like you've spent quite a bit of time with the e-gmat prep materials. If you're hitting a plateau, it might be time to consider some of the other help out there. Mgmat was mentioned out there, try some of that. Try some of the free video explanations on GMATPill.com and see if they fit what you're looking for. More importantly, identify what you're missing. And find something that will solve that missing gap. Think for a second, what exactly is missing in your reasoning skills? You've taken enough diagnostic tests by now to have a hunch to the answer.

Huge Score drop from 670 (Q49, V32) to 620 (Q48, V27) - (ESR Attached)

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