Need help to improve 680 to 730 in 4 weeks

Question

Hi Experts,

I have been preparing for GMAT (self study) since the past 6 months and took GMAT online on 3-July. The exam got annulled due to some technical error. I then appeared for GMAT exam in test center and got a low score of 680 (V35 Q47). I believe that I could have easily got Q49, since I was consistently scoring 49 in all the mocks. However, I am not really confident in Verbal, since my verbal score was ranging from 35 to 41 in last mocks. Now, GMAC has offered me another chance to appear for GMAT online in 4 weeks. Kindly suggest how can I improve in this short time duration to get a score of 730-740. Also, I would like to mention that I'll be working on my application side by side along with ~6hours of office work.

Please note that I have exhausted all my GMAT prep mocks.

Waiting for your expert opinion. It will help me a lot.

Thanks in advance.

GMATinsight · Answer

You may have the potential to take Q to 49 levels (positively) and V to 40 level but without assessing your weakness, a right suggestion can NOT be made.

Can you share more detail???

perseverant3107 · Answer

Hi GMATinsight,

Thanks for quick reply. My weakness in quants is Percent and Ratios. However, like my scores, my weakness area in verbal also changes with every mock. If I could rank on the basis of recent tests, sentence correction would be the weakest area, then critical reasoning and then reading comprehension. I feel that in GMAT online, questions are way longer as compared to GMAT offline, so I get intimidated by lengthy sentence correction questions. Also, I believe that timing plays a significant role in my performance in Verbal, since due to lack of time, I tend to miss (guess) last few questions. Timing was the reason that I got a low score on quant in test center GMAT; I got anxious during the exam.

TiffanyMprep760 · Answer

Hello  palak3107 !

I'm a GMAT Teacher/Tutor with Manhattan Prep; I scored a 760 on the official GMAT.

As GMATInsight pointed out, it would be great to have more information about your prep. However, based on what you've stated, I'm seeing a couple of great places for you to focus your study time.

First , thoroughly analyze the verbal sections of your past 2-3 mock exams. Right now, it seems that you have some ideas about what feels difficult to you (e.g., long SC questions). However, have you run analyses to understand which questions and content you tend to miss the most? Analyze for the following: 
 Question types that you miss the most frequently: SC, RC, or CR 
 Content areas that you are missing most frequently. Examples: RC inference, SC modifiers, CR strengthen 
 Note what difficulty level that you're missing questions for each of the items above.

Second , you'll use your answers to the questions above to make a study plan. Make a list of the topics that you know you need to improve to increase your verbal score. Focus first on the question types that you miss the most, particularly at lower difficulty levels. Missing higher difficulty questions impacts your score less than missing lower difficulty questions! Next, focus on problems you miss a little less often or miss at higher difficulty levels.

Keep in mind that you may be struggling with process rather than content. For example, do you follow a clear process for every SC problem that you see? If not, then this is something that you should list for yourself and use! Manhattan Prep uses a 4-step process, which starts with a First Glance of the answer choices rather than jumping into the reading the full sentence.

Spend about 1 week addressing each issue.

Third , try to take another practice / mock exam every 7-10 days. Review each new mock exam FULLY to make sure that you are improving on the areas you've already studied. Check the list of topics you need to improve and make adjustments if needed.

It can be very helpful to work with a tutor if you're feeling uncertain about your plan. At Manhattan Prep, tutors would help you to diagnose your weak areas and assign homework that will help you to target those needs.

Finally, 730 is a very specific goal score. I'm guessing that the schools you want to attend have an average of 730 for admitted students' GMAT scores. If that's the case, keep in mind that not everyone who gets in achieved a 730; some of them will have gotten lower scores and will still gain admission. I say this not to discourage you, but to help you set realistic goals for your success. 730 is about 96th percentile, so only 4% of test takers reach that level. 710 is about 91st percentile. That is still a highly competitive score, but twice as attainable, with about 9% of test takers reaching it.

Happy Studying!
Tiffany

ScottTargetTestPrep · Answer

Hi palak3107,

680 is a good start! To improve your GMAT score to a higher level, you need to go through GMAT quant and verbal 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, types that you would rather not see, and types 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.

You can work on verbal in a similar manner. Let’s say you are reviewing Critical Reasoning. Be sure that you practice a large number of Critical Reasoning questions: Strengthen and Weaken the Argument, Resolve the Paradox, find the Conclusion, Must be True, etc. As you go through the questions, do a thorough analysis of each question that you don't get correct. If you missed a Weaken question, ask yourself why. Did you make a careless mistake? Did you not recognize what the question was asking? Did you skip over a key detail in an answer choice? Getting GMAT verbal questions right is a matter of what you know, what you see, and what you do. So, any time that you don't get one right, you can seek to identify what you had to know to get the right answer, what you had to see that you didn't see, and what you could have done differently to arrive at the correct answer.

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

You also may find my article with more information regarding
 how to score a 700+ on the GMAT  helpful.

Feel free to reach out with any further questions.

Good luck!

perseverant3107 · Answer

Hello  TiffanyMprep760  and  ScottTargetTestPrep ,

Thanks for your reply and suggestions. As suggested, I will try to find out my weaknesses and work specifically on them. I am now planning to appear for GMAT online in the next 15 days. Therefore, I don't have much time left to avail any specific courses. So, in the remaining time, I will strengthen my basics and will practice more questions to avoid any silly mistakes on the test day.

Thanks again for your responses. I will keep you posted.

ScottTargetTestPrep · Answer

I'm happy to help!

EMPOWERgmatRichC · Answer

Hi palak3107,

To start, a 680/Q47 is a fantastic overall performance - and it could be enough to get you into your first-choice School (by extension, referring to it as a 'low' Score makes you sound silly). There's certainly no harm in taking your next Official GMAT in approximately 2 weeks, but if you are inconsistent in certain Quant and Verbal subjects and potentially have other issues with Test Day itself, then you might not want to 'rush in' so quickly to retest until we've defined (and fixed) all of these issues.

Before I can offer you any additional advice for your studies, it would help if you could provide a bit more information on how you've been studying and your goals:

1) How many hours do you typically study each week?
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

perseverant3107 · Answer

Hello  EMPOWERgmatRichC ,

Thanks for building up my motivation level. Your words matter a lot.

I am planning to appear for the second attempt for GMAT online by the end of July, since I want to start on my B-school application from August.

1) I try to study more than 2-3 hours a day, depending on the amount of work load I have. I typically don't get weekends free, so I try to take one practice test a week (mostly on weekend).
2)I have used official guide and GMAT club for studying. I have given all the free mocks available. I also purchased GMAT Prep 3-6 and exhausted them before my first GMAT attempt.
3)I gave more than 10 mocks, in which verbal scores were continuously improving, however, my quants score started ranging from 49 to 47 in the last few tests. Earlier, I was consistent on Q49, so I am a little worried for Quants for my next GMAT attempt. Today I took one more mock from Kaplan and scored 710 (V39 Q48). In verbal, I found one reading comprehension passage really hard today, whereas in Quants I almost always struggle with word problems. In the remaining 10 days for my next GMAT attempt, I will try to increase my Quant score to at least 49 and verbal to 41. 
4)As already mentioned, I am planning to start working on my application in August and will target Round1. I have good extracurricular, sports, non-profit and academic background, so I was planning to apply in the top 10 colleges with scholarship. Being an Indian put me in a common pool of applicants, but my work industry (oil and gas) represent only a small portion of Global workforce (and females contribute a further smaller portion of the total oil and gas workforce), which is advantageous. However, I am not really confident in applying to top schools now after seeing my GMAT score. Kindly suggest.

Thanks,
Palak

EMPOWERgmatRichC · Answer

Hi palak3107,

I've sent you a PM with some additional notes and suggestions.

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

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