How to improve my score from 650 to 690+

Question

Hi, I took gmat yesterday and got a score of 650(Q44,V36). I got this score after preparing for about 3 months. I am planning to retake the exam in December (so I I have 2 months). Would it be enough time to improve my score and how can I work on improving it? I need a minimum of 690.

Please help!

Posted from my mobile device

Please help!

Posted from my mobile device

EducationAisle · Answer

How have you been preparing (which resources) and how much were you scoring in mocks (along with score splits)?

Soumyaaaa · Answer

I took coaching from Jamboree and used the material they provided me with. I took two official practice tests along with jamboree full length tests. Scored between 560-630. Quant ranging from 29 to 45 
Verbal ranging from 29 to 39. 
(I took these tests over a period of 1.5 months so my scores improved with time. I got a 480 on the test that I took at the beginning of my prep)

Posted from my mobile device

AndrewN · Answer

Congratulations,  Soumyaaaa , on earning that 650. Based on your mock results, it appears as though you hit the upper end of your range on both the Quant and Verbal measures. To earn the next 40+ points, you will want to pin down some  consistency  in your practice sets and mocks. Otherwise, your score could just as likely swing the other way, and you could land on a 610. (Volatility is not your friend.) You improve in each section by focusing on one area at a time, by which I mean working through sets of, say, absolute value questions one day, then coordinate geometry questions another day, and so on, going back to review now and then to solidify your understanding. (I build in review days twice a week, days in which I do not look at new questions but study the ones I have seen recently and get everything I can out of them.) Sure, you can get better by practicing questions at large, but such an unfocused approach will lead to less consistency. You might understand something one day and miss the same type of question two or three days later and not understand why.

The key to earning a score around 700 is getting your accuracy up on Easy and Medium questions, believe it or not. I have urged several people in the forum to adopt a more bottom-up strategy, particularly when they felt their performance was plateauing, and a few of them have taken that advice and waxed poetic in their debriefs about the power of  not  missing lower-level questions on the exam. At least two of them have earned 730s. Just keep in mind that the GMAT™ is designed to punish mistakes on easier questions more than to reward accuracy on harder ones. Too many people place too much emphasis on questions that, in all honesty, do not matter as much, even for someone targeting a 700-750 score.

I would recommend practicing official Verbal questions from here on out. It is okay to dabble in side questions from time to time, but you should center your Verbal preparation on official questions to get a feel for exactly how they are put together. Quant questions are easier to mimic, but even there, I suggest primarily official questions for practice. The forum has just about every official question under the sun, so just run a search and get going—again, topic by topic. Two solid months of preparation could definitely result in the type of improvement you are seeking. And if you felt stuck at some point, you could always lean on the community. That is the point of GMAT Club, I think.

Good luck.

- Andrew

ScottTargetTestPrep · Answer

Hi Soumyaaaa,

650 is a nice 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.

Lastly, you may find it helpful to read the following article:

The Phases of Preparing for the GMAT

EducationAisle · Answer

Improvement from 480 to 650 is exceptional Soumya. Not many people exhibit such phenomenal score improvements thru their GMAT journey. Hearty Congratulations!

From your score splits, perhaps it would make sense if you focus bit more on Quant, for the next attempt.

MathRevolution · Answer

Hello Soumyaaaa,

Welcome to the GMAT Club.

Your current GMAT score is decent. You have significantly improved your score from 480 to 650. You can surely improve your score from 650 to 690 in 2 months' time.

You can schedule a Free counseling session for 20 mins with one of our experts:https://calendly.com/mathrevolution/1-on-1-session for detailed advice on your current study plans.

Your score tells that the basics are intact, and the ground is prepared. You need to practice demanding and most challenging level questions and take as many mock tests as possible. Create the error log and try access to the specific areas and topics that require improvement.

Also, make a note of various possible combinations to achieve your target score. The possible scores will help you track your performance after taking the mock or practice test. It will also help you maintain balance in both the sections, and you will always be in a great position to allot the study hours to a specific area accordingly.

You can try our free diagnostic test: https://www.mathrevolution.com/diagnost ... Memberfree] and receive a comprehensive study guide by topic. This test will help you understand your weak areas.

Also, make sure that you revise your basic concepts every week on any one day.

Below are two useful links, you may go through on the GMAT Club:

Ultimate Q51 guide: https://gmatclub.com/forum/the-ultimate ... l#p1613600

Breakdown of GMAT math questions and types: https://gmatclub.com/forum/overview-of-gmat-math-question-types-and-patterns-on-the-gmat-211809.html#p1641411

You can visit Math Revolution and get access to our 7-day on-demand course for free trial lessons and free videos. 700+ level questions https://www.mathrevolution.com/gmat/questionbank) are separately available, too.

Regular tests will reflect the positive change in the score and you will achieve your target score.

We appreciate your time and patience in reading this reply.
If we can be of assistance, please do not hesitate to contact us.

You can reach us at [email protected].

Success is within your reach.
Good luck!

EMPOWERgmatRichC · Answer

Hi Soumyaaaa,

To start, raising a 480 to a 650 is a significant achievement - and it shows that you have the capacity to learn and improvement. In addition, with this 650, you're closer to a 690+ than you probably realize. You will have to focus on honing some specific skills to consistently perform at that higher level though.

Before I can offer you the specific advice that you’re looking for, 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) Did you use any other study materials besides the course that you mentioned? 
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?

If you took your Official GMAT at a Test Center, then you might also choose to purchase the Enhanced Score Report. While the ESR doesn’t provide a lot of information, there are usually a few data points that we can use to define what went wrong on Test Day (and what you should work on to score higher). If you purchase the ESR, then I'll be happy to analyze it for you.

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

GMATWhizTeam · Answer

Hi Soumyaaaa,

Sorry about how things went with your GMAT. The key to scoring well on GMAT is to focusing on the right aspects. If your score doesn't improve even after months of prep, then that means that there's something wrong with the preparation strategy. First let us understand the right way to prepare for GMAT.

How to prepare for GMAT in the right way?  
Before you start preparing for any test, it's important to understand the structure of the test, what is tested on it and then prepare accordingly. In this case, GMAT is a test which focuses on your application skills along with the conceptual knowledge. So, just learning the concepts and practicing questions without focusing on the right methodology will not do any good. So, I suggest you to first focus on the methodology to solve questions of a particular topic and only then move to practicing questions of that topic.

So, the right way to prepare would be to first

learn the concepts of a topic,  
 learn the right methodology to solve questions of that topic 
 practice a few questions of that topic to solidify your learning and then move to the nest topic 
 Repeat the process for all the topics

And working on weak areas is equally important. You move to the next topic only if you get a decent accuracy in the previous topic. If not, you revisit the concepts, fill the conceptual gaps and then move to the next topic only when you are 100% confident. There are a couple of articles which you might find helpful.

How to effectively plan your studies for GMAT

How to score 700+ on GMAT

And you can go through the recording below to understand how to strategize your GMAT prep in an effective way.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=65n8_LIbPIM

What might have gone wrong?  
As we have understood the right way to prepare, now let's analyze what could have gone wrong with your previous attempt. You must have learnt the concepts of the topics and you must have practiced questions as well.  But did you focus on the methodology part? Did you focus on working your weak areas?

These two could be the major reasons for you not scoring well on GMAT. So, this time make sure you do your prep in the right way by focusing on all the above parameters. And regarding the resource, choose a resource which can help you with not only the concepts, but the methodology as well. And the questions to practice and their detailed solutions are equally important as the solutions help you understand where exactly you are making the mistake. And a study plan would be an added advantage as you will have clear deadlines.

You can check out the free trial of GMATWhiz online course if you are looking for one.

And 2 months is a good time to improve 40-50 points if you prepare in a structured manner.

You can also go through the recording below to understand a few test taking strategies:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f9dZN-MHK0I

And regarding how to proceed further and the study strategy, I think it would be better if we can get in touch over a call and discuss the same as I would like to ask a few questions about your current preparation strategy and your weak areas. You can use the below link to get in touch with me.

Click here to schedule a call

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