How to restart the prep for GMAT

Question

Hello everyone, 
Hope you all are keeping well!

I will be restarting my GMAT prep again this month - after leaving it around mid April because of a bunch of reasons. I am planning to give GMAT in late October. Please suggest ways to restart the prep.

My aim is to score 750+. In April, I gave a few mocks and was getting scores between 650-700 (my starting score was 530, thanks to e-gmat that I was able to improve my score this much). I am good in quants, but I still need to improve a lot in verbal. I am planning to focus more on verbal and want suggestions on how to begin my prep.

Regards

EMPOWERgmatRichC · Answer

Hi azeempanjwani14,

To start, improving from a 530 to the high-600s is a significant achievement - and it shows that you have the capacity to learn and improve. As an aside, the 750+ score is approximately the 98th percentile - meaning that most GMATers never score that high on the Official Exam - and consistently scoring at that level requires an incredibly high level of 'precision.' Thankfully, NO Business School actually requires that you score that high - so it's important to realize that the score that you "want" and the score that you "need" to get into your first-choice School are not the same thing. There's no harm in making that your Score Goal, but you will have to focus on learning and practicing some really specific Tactics in BOTH the Quant and Verbal sections to achieve that Goal.

If it's really been at least 2.5 months since you studied for the GMAT, then the next logical step would be for you to take a NEW CAT/mock (one that you have NOT taken before) - so that we can get a sense of your current skills, strengths and weaknesses. Make sure to take it in a realistic fashion that matches-up with what you will face when you take the Official GMAT (take the FULL CAT - with the Essay and IR sections, at the same time of day as when you'll take the Official GMAT, if you will be at a Test Facility, then wear a face mask, etc.). Once you have that Score, you should post back here (or you can feel free to PM me directly) and we can discuss the results and how you might best proceed with your studies.

In addition, it would help if you could provide a bit more information on how you've been studying and your goals:

1) How long have you studied in total? 
2) What study materials have you used so far? What “brands” of CATs/mocks have you used?
3) On what dates (or approximate dates) did you take EACH of your CATs/mocks and how did you score on EACH (including the Quant and Verbal Scaled Scores for EACH)?
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

Thelegend2631 · Answer

You will get elaborated answers from professionals , but one thing i can suggest is : reading articles from NYT,Forbes,FT etc. For most Indians Verbal happens to be the decision point.
SC and RC you can develop but RC takes time and I know few friends of mine who said they messed up this one RC and their score plunged.

https://gmatclub.com/forum/one-bad-rc-c ... l#p2784126

AliTariqPrepVista · Answer

First let's be laser focus on the problem. Verbal is your major concern.

1) Understand the fact that on the test day, the question type that gives anyone the most anxiety is Reading Comprehension.
2) The fear factor that RC creates on test day is not the same as when an SC or CR shows up.
3) Getting four answers wrong in a row has a more penalty than getting four answers wrong  in a distributed manner .

You must focus on these three points at this stage, and keep these three points in your mind throughout this journey.

For this reason, I highly recommend that you begin with RC.
RC can be aced relatively easily, and it strengthens your CR as well. Vice Versa is also true-- CR strengthens RC as well.

Look at it this way:
Mastering CR inferences helps mastering RC inferences.

For RC,  inferences  are really important. In fact, GMAT RC is majorly about 
i) identifying MainPoint/ Primary Purpose ***
ii) reading the passage for structure
iii) identifying areas which generate questions
iv) the clear cut understanding of how the inferences work.

Further, mastering  boldface CR question s helps acing function/purpose questions on RC and understanding how the Passge is organized/ understanding the structure of an RC passege at an abstract level.

Also, Parallel Reasoning, Strengthen, Weaken questions on CR helps with same type of questions on RC. On RC they are rare. Main Point and inferences/ according to the passage are more prevalent. But you get an idea-- CR strengthens RC and Vice versa.

Therefore, as you are restarting, focus on RC. 
RC can be mastered in 20-25 days. 
This gives a huge confidence in the initial phase of your preparation.

***
Checkout my posts on how to tackle MainPoint/ Primary Purpose questions here:https://gmatclub.com/forum/rc-primary-concern-question-362979.html?fl=email#p2815473

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