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mba757
Current Student
Joined: 15 Jun 2020
Last visit: 04 Aug 2022
Posts: 295
Own Kudos:
Given Kudos: 245
Location: United States
Schools: Darden '24 (A) Fuqua '24 (WL) Kellogg '24 (D)
GPA: 3.3
10 Aug 2020, 21:16
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Hello GMATClub experts,
I would love your thoughts on my GMAT journey thus far if you have time. I’ve been studying for the GMAT for exactly a year now (Start date: 08/2019). I started out with a diagnostic and just content (all the MGMAT books – quant + verbal) for roughly 2-3 months. After that, I dove into practice problems and PTs – took all the MGMAT ones and some of the OGs. I wasn’t doing too well on the PTs and thought I could just get lucky on test day. Yep – silly mistake.
8/2019 – GMATPrep 1: ~530 (1st diagnostic)
10/9/2019 – MGMAT 1: 530 (Q37; V26)
12/20/2019 – GMATPrep 3: 640 (Q46; V33)
12/21/2019 – GMATPrep 4: 640 (Q47; V31)
12/28/2019 – MGMAT 2: 640 (Q42; V35)
12/29/2019 – MGMAT 3: 630 (Q41; V35)
12/30/2019 – MGMAT 4: 630 (Q42; V36)
12/31/2019 – MGMAT 5: 610 (Q36; V37)
12/31/2019 – MGMAT 6: 540 (Q35; V30)
1/3/2020 – GMATPrep 5: 600 (Q44; V28)
1/4/2020 – GMATPrep 1 (reset): 540 (Q44; V21)
1/10/2020 – GMATPrep 6: 600 (Q46; V27)
(Before my GMAT journey, I studied for the GRE for roughly a year (maybe less than a year). I used Manhattan for GRE prep too, and some of the passages in MGMAT seemed familiar. I’m not sure if some of the verbal scores were truly representative of my ability, to be completely honest.)
With all that being said, I sat for my first official GMAT in 01/2020 and received a 640 (Q47/V31 with CR 32; RC 29; SC 32). I felt horrible after this, but it was expected (judging by my track record). But nonetheless, I signed up again that night for March official sit in. I studied for six days a week. I targeted the weak sections I had in quant and focused a lot more on verbal. I would do questions, write out all the answer choices, and write out the explanations to why they were right or wrong. I reread the manhattan verbal books (2x at this point) and bought, read, and took extensive notes on the PowerScore CR book. After this, I absolutely bombed the official test lol. The worst quant and verbal I ever received; I immediately canceled my score and not sure what I received (it was mid-500s). However, (for some context) a week leading up to this test, I broke up with my girlfriend at the time. Probably not the smartest move, but I guess it’s life. The mock tests I took leading up to this second official test are the following:
2/15/2020 – GMATPrep 3 (reset): 640 (Q48; V30)
2/29/2020 – GMATPrep 4 (reset): 690 (Q50; V34)
A few days later, after I stopped pitying myself, I signed up again; it was projected for late July. Moreover, I hired a private tutor; man, tutors are super pricey.. But nonetheless, we strictly worked on verbal together. We worked on a lot of CR and some SC. I also reread the MGMAT RC/SC books for a 3rd time, PowerScore CR book a 2nd time, and reread all the MGMAT quant books for a 2nd time (at this point, I felt like I was starting to forget concepts). I think 2-3 weeks before the official sitting, I also got the TTP course (my tutor recommended frequently).
6/13/2020 – Veritas 1: 620 (Q45; V31)
6/19/2020 – GMATPrep 2: 640 (Q48; V29)
6/27/2020 – Veritas 2: 630 (Q44; V33)
7/2/2020 – Veritas 3: 700 (Q49; V37)** I took this PT with double the time for quant and 1.5 for verbal
7/4/2020 – Veritas 4: 650 (Q46; V33)
7/10/2020 – GMATPrep 1 (reset 2): 630 (Q48; V28)
7/12/2020 – GMATPrep 5 (reset) 690 (Q49; V35)
7/17/2020 – GMATPrep 6 (reset) 620 (Q46; V30)
And after all this and a number of PTs (found above), I got the same score but a different split (640: Q48; V28 with CR 37; RC 6; SC 32). I have literally no idea what happened with RC on this one. I could not focus AT ALL. I’m not normally this bad at RC; I didn’t even know you could get this low of a score on this. The ESR said a 6 is “better than 0% of GMAT Exam scores recorded in the past three years.” I definitely laughed at this one lol.
But regardless, for Verbal now, I’m just practicing OG problems. I’m doing all the sub-600 problems in GMATclub for all the verbal problems here. I’ve been doing one RC every morning (with extensive reviews of problems and I may even resolve the problem at night and see how I do; thoughts on this approach??), one topic of SC every day (starting with sub-600 and working my way up to 700 level), and sprinkling in CR every other day (I will likely ramp this up a month out). And for Quant, I noticed my geometry was absolutely horrible on this last official test; I think I got 25% correct. I’m currently going through TTP, and closer to the test will focus only on OG geometry and a mix of all the other questions. All of the above will just be self-studying, btw!
My test is scheduled for late Sept (the online version). I need to finish the test by this date. I have an app deadline, and I am determined to finish by this date. Can an expert please provide some advice? Is my approach the right way? I am also going to incorporate reading every day for at least 30 minutes (likely NYtimes, the Economist, some fiction books (recommended by GMATclub)).
I would love your thoughts on my GMAT journey thus far if you have time. I’ve been studying for the GMAT for exactly a year now (Start date: 08/2019). I started out with a diagnostic and just content (all the MGMAT books – quant + verbal) for roughly 2-3 months. After that, I dove into practice problems and PTs – took all the MGMAT ones and some of the OGs. I wasn’t doing too well on the PTs and thought I could just get lucky on test day. Yep – silly mistake.
8/2019 – GMATPrep 1: ~530 (1st diagnostic)
10/9/2019 – MGMAT 1: 530 (Q37; V26)
12/20/2019 – GMATPrep 3: 640 (Q46; V33)
12/21/2019 – GMATPrep 4: 640 (Q47; V31)
12/28/2019 – MGMAT 2: 640 (Q42; V35)
12/29/2019 – MGMAT 3: 630 (Q41; V35)
12/30/2019 – MGMAT 4: 630 (Q42; V36)
12/31/2019 – MGMAT 5: 610 (Q36; V37)
12/31/2019 – MGMAT 6: 540 (Q35; V30)
1/3/2020 – GMATPrep 5: 600 (Q44; V28)
1/4/2020 – GMATPrep 1 (reset): 540 (Q44; V21)
1/10/2020 – GMATPrep 6: 600 (Q46; V27)
(Before my GMAT journey, I studied for the GRE for roughly a year (maybe less than a year). I used Manhattan for GRE prep too, and some of the passages in MGMAT seemed familiar. I’m not sure if some of the verbal scores were truly representative of my ability, to be completely honest.)
With all that being said, I sat for my first official GMAT in 01/2020 and received a 640 (Q47/V31 with CR 32; RC 29; SC 32). I felt horrible after this, but it was expected (judging by my track record). But nonetheless, I signed up again that night for March official sit in. I studied for six days a week. I targeted the weak sections I had in quant and focused a lot more on verbal. I would do questions, write out all the answer choices, and write out the explanations to why they were right or wrong. I reread the manhattan verbal books (2x at this point) and bought, read, and took extensive notes on the PowerScore CR book. After this, I absolutely bombed the official test lol. The worst quant and verbal I ever received; I immediately canceled my score and not sure what I received (it was mid-500s). However, (for some context) a week leading up to this test, I broke up with my girlfriend at the time. Probably not the smartest move, but I guess it’s life. The mock tests I took leading up to this second official test are the following:
2/15/2020 – GMATPrep 3 (reset): 640 (Q48; V30)
2/29/2020 – GMATPrep 4 (reset): 690 (Q50; V34)
A few days later, after I stopped pitying myself, I signed up again; it was projected for late July. Moreover, I hired a private tutor; man, tutors are super pricey.. But nonetheless, we strictly worked on verbal together. We worked on a lot of CR and some SC. I also reread the MGMAT RC/SC books for a 3rd time, PowerScore CR book a 2nd time, and reread all the MGMAT quant books for a 2nd time (at this point, I felt like I was starting to forget concepts). I think 2-3 weeks before the official sitting, I also got the TTP course (my tutor recommended frequently).
6/13/2020 – Veritas 1: 620 (Q45; V31)
6/19/2020 – GMATPrep 2: 640 (Q48; V29)
6/27/2020 – Veritas 2: 630 (Q44; V33)
7/2/2020 – Veritas 3: 700 (Q49; V37)** I took this PT with double the time for quant and 1.5 for verbal
7/4/2020 – Veritas 4: 650 (Q46; V33)
7/10/2020 – GMATPrep 1 (reset 2): 630 (Q48; V28)
7/12/2020 – GMATPrep 5 (reset) 690 (Q49; V35)
7/17/2020 – GMATPrep 6 (reset) 620 (Q46; V30)
And after all this and a number of PTs (found above), I got the same score but a different split (640: Q48; V28 with CR 37; RC 6; SC 32). I have literally no idea what happened with RC on this one. I could not focus AT ALL. I’m not normally this bad at RC; I didn’t even know you could get this low of a score on this. The ESR said a 6 is “better than 0% of GMAT Exam scores recorded in the past three years.” I definitely laughed at this one lol.
But regardless, for Verbal now, I’m just practicing OG problems. I’m doing all the sub-600 problems in GMATclub for all the verbal problems here. I’ve been doing one RC every morning (with extensive reviews of problems and I may even resolve the problem at night and see how I do; thoughts on this approach??), one topic of SC every day (starting with sub-600 and working my way up to 700 level), and sprinkling in CR every other day (I will likely ramp this up a month out). And for Quant, I noticed my geometry was absolutely horrible on this last official test; I think I got 25% correct. I’m currently going through TTP, and closer to the test will focus only on OG geometry and a mix of all the other questions. All of the above will just be self-studying, btw!
My test is scheduled for late Sept (the online version). I need to finish the test by this date. I have an app deadline, and I am determined to finish by this date. Can an expert please provide some advice? Is my approach the right way? I am also going to incorporate reading every day for at least 30 minutes (likely NYtimes, the Economist, some fiction books (recommended by GMATclub)).
10 Aug 2020, 22:50
Kudos
Bookmarks
It looks as if all the work you did on CR paid off. Your CR score on the last test was high enough that you can break 700 if you bring up the other two verbal types and score pretty high on quant. So, that's an encouraging sign. Right? Whatever you did there as far as how you refined your approach, analyzed errors, etc., you could apply to the other two areas of verbal to bring your scores up in those areas as well.
You didn't say what your score goal is, but I'm guessing it's in the low to mid 700's. So, now, you have to bring up the other two parts of verbal, maybe bring up CR a bit more, and get a couple more quant points to hit your score goal.
Clearly, had you just scored normally in RC rather than melting down, you would have scored higher in verbal, but still, given your verbal practice test scores, you need to develop your RC skills further to hit your score goal.
Regarding your plan, let's check the easiest to check box first. Working on weaker areas of quant, such as geometry is definitely the move for quant. There's no mystery there. I think also that you can identify other weaker areas, which will basically be identifiable through considering which types of quant questions you'd rather not see when you take the test. For each of those weaker areas, make sure you understand them from the ground up, so that, whatever curve balls the test throws you, you'll be prepared to handle them. Then practice by answering dozens of questions from each area and work on hitting streaks. If you can get 7/10 questions of a type correct you basically know what you are doing. If you can typically get 15 hard ones of a type correct in a row, you have that type down.
Regarding verbal, your plan for RC sounds reasonable as long as it leads to your developing a clear RC strategy that works consistently. Each time you do a passage you need to analyze every question you don't get to determine what you needed to see and what you needed to do differently in order to get that question correct. Merely practicing won't be enough unless you are developing ways of arriving at correct answers that work time after time. You have been prepping for some time now. You have to ask yourself what it is about what you are doing now that will result in your developing the skills you need.
Also, probably, it makes sense to explore and address what happened in RC last time you took the test. What happened to your focus? Clearly, your RC skills alone were not the issue. You should probably do some meditation and visualization and otherwise mentally prepare yourself so that next time you maintain your focus.
For SC, working on questions type by type sounds like a good idea. Also, since you are using TTP, you may want to review the TTP SC course to fill any gaps in your conceptual knowledge. One way to do so would be to go through the SC chapters and check the topics to see which you have down. Also, you could do the in-chapter exercises without reading the chapter content. Doing the in-chapter exercises will be great practice, and if you are having trouble with the exercises in a particular section, you have a sign that you need to review that section and focus on questions involving the concepts it discusses.
As with RC, in working on SC, make sure that you are developing ways of handling the questions that work consistently. Keep track of your progress. Work on hitting streaks. Make sure that your hit rates and streak lengths are increasing. If they are not, then consider how you are training and adjust it.
Also, TTP will be adding more SC Chapter Test questions to the TTP SC course over the next few weeks. So, you can use those for practice and to get a sense of where you should focus to bring up your SC score.
For verbal, most of your practice should be untimed. You can keep an eye on the time and seek to be as efficient as possible in answering the questions, but you have to give yourself time to learn to see what there is to see and execute, and if you need 5, 10, or more minutes per question to do so, then that's what you need right now.
Overall, your plan sounds solid as long as it involves a path to development. You have been prepping for a while now without seeing a score increase in SC or RC. So, you need to make sure that what you are doing will result in (1) your filling in any conceptual gaps that you have in those topics and (2) your improving the way you handle those questions.
You didn't say what your score goal is, but I'm guessing it's in the low to mid 700's. So, now, you have to bring up the other two parts of verbal, maybe bring up CR a bit more, and get a couple more quant points to hit your score goal.
Clearly, had you just scored normally in RC rather than melting down, you would have scored higher in verbal, but still, given your verbal practice test scores, you need to develop your RC skills further to hit your score goal.
Regarding your plan, let's check the easiest to check box first. Working on weaker areas of quant, such as geometry is definitely the move for quant. There's no mystery there. I think also that you can identify other weaker areas, which will basically be identifiable through considering which types of quant questions you'd rather not see when you take the test. For each of those weaker areas, make sure you understand them from the ground up, so that, whatever curve balls the test throws you, you'll be prepared to handle them. Then practice by answering dozens of questions from each area and work on hitting streaks. If you can get 7/10 questions of a type correct you basically know what you are doing. If you can typically get 15 hard ones of a type correct in a row, you have that type down.
Regarding verbal, your plan for RC sounds reasonable as long as it leads to your developing a clear RC strategy that works consistently. Each time you do a passage you need to analyze every question you don't get to determine what you needed to see and what you needed to do differently in order to get that question correct. Merely practicing won't be enough unless you are developing ways of arriving at correct answers that work time after time. You have been prepping for some time now. You have to ask yourself what it is about what you are doing now that will result in your developing the skills you need.
Also, probably, it makes sense to explore and address what happened in RC last time you took the test. What happened to your focus? Clearly, your RC skills alone were not the issue. You should probably do some meditation and visualization and otherwise mentally prepare yourself so that next time you maintain your focus.
For SC, working on questions type by type sounds like a good idea. Also, since you are using TTP, you may want to review the TTP SC course to fill any gaps in your conceptual knowledge. One way to do so would be to go through the SC chapters and check the topics to see which you have down. Also, you could do the in-chapter exercises without reading the chapter content. Doing the in-chapter exercises will be great practice, and if you are having trouble with the exercises in a particular section, you have a sign that you need to review that section and focus on questions involving the concepts it discusses.
As with RC, in working on SC, make sure that you are developing ways of handling the questions that work consistently. Keep track of your progress. Work on hitting streaks. Make sure that your hit rates and streak lengths are increasing. If they are not, then consider how you are training and adjust it.
Also, TTP will be adding more SC Chapter Test questions to the TTP SC course over the next few weeks. So, you can use those for practice and to get a sense of where you should focus to bring up your SC score.
For verbal, most of your practice should be untimed. You can keep an eye on the time and seek to be as efficient as possible in answering the questions, but you have to give yourself time to learn to see what there is to see and execute, and if you need 5, 10, or more minutes per question to do so, then that's what you need right now.
Overall, your plan sounds solid as long as it involves a path to development. You have been prepping for a while now without seeing a score increase in SC or RC. So, you need to make sure that what you are doing will result in (1) your filling in any conceptual gaps that you have in those topics and (2) your improving the way you handle those questions.
mba757
Current Student
Joined: 15 Jun 2020
Last visit: 04 Aug 2022
Posts: 295
Given Kudos: 245
Location: United States
Schools: Darden '24 (A) Fuqua '24 (WL) Kellogg '24 (D)
GPA: 3.3
11 Aug 2020, 19:06
Kudos
Bookmarks
This was very helpful and encouraging - thank you MartyTargetTestPrep!
I will incorporate these tips into my study plan. And yes, mid-700s is the goal.
I will incorporate these tips into my study plan. And yes, mid-700s is the goal.
