Got 680 in my first attempt. Need advice

Question

Respected members,

I took my GMAT on August 17 and got 680 (Q49, V33). I am disappointed with my performance. I plan to go for it again after 40 days. As of now I have decided to take a break from all this for a week.

My GmatPrep scores were:
1. 750 (50, 40)
2. 670 (49,32)
3. 700 (50, 35)
4. 740 (50, 39)

Now I went in with confidence, did not panic but still did not do well in Verbal. I am even disappointed with Quant 49. My ESR says I did well in SC but did badly in RC and CR. Now in my last two preps I scored 51 in RC section twice. I have been good in CR naturally and have thought it to be my strongest section. So my GMAT ESR confuses me.

I prepared for almost 5 months, went through E-GMAT verbal, and other stuff on GMAT Club and elsewhere.

Now I will give myself 30 days to correct few of my things and cross over 700 by a good margin. But I am not sure what to do. Please help.

jkolachi · Answer

Hi buddy,
I had the same issue, sometimes just giving it another try can help. Your RC was 51? that is incredible. Sometimes it just take another try I am sure you will kill it next time. Just to be safe go over the weak areas, and focus on them solely for the next attempt.

Good luck!

jkolachi · Answer

look at your 2. 670 (49,32) (this test) its very very realistic score and notice all the mistake you made. Its a good starting point because you probably made similar mistakes in the actual test. and make sure you don't make these mistakes in your next attempt.... also focusing on your weaknesses by doing practice question will also help.

pushpitkc · Answer

Hi amitsjain1212 , I would suggest you to share your ESR on the forum if you have not already shared it. That alone should give you the reason for the drop in your performance. The experts on the forum can help you understand where you need to put your efforts in

To add to whatever jkolachi has said, I would recommend you to understand from the GMATPrep Mocks which you weak sections were and to concentrate on the specific topics you have made most mistakes in. A review of all the mistakes in the quant section might help push the 49 score to 50/51. Apologies for the delay in replying to this message! Hope that helps you!

amitsjain1212 · Answer

Thanks a lot for your advice. Please find attached my ESR in my PDF format. Following is my analysis of my performance and where did I panic and did not do well.

Analysis:

1. I was doing very well on quant till I got stuck on a question. I needed to do a lot of calculations and the marker just did not work. I kept on raising my hand for a new marker but they did not see. It affected my stress levels in a negative manner and that is where I believe I missed on quant. I did multiple questions wrong there but recovered well to get a 49.
2. In Verbal I think I need to practice more under timing conditions. I have good conceptual knowledge but I could not follow the process during exam and I just went through the motions. if I can consciously apply process and then work on speed, I think I can improve it to 39-40 which I got in couple of prep exams.

Happy to know your thoughts.

premprabhs111 · Answer

I read your debrief and even analyzed your esr. Firstly there is a huge difference between your mocks first and second 750 is like 80 points more than 670. Also you did especially bad in rc and cr since you say they are your strengths. Also you dipped a point in math like me i had q50v27 640 and now q49v40 720 so i know it hurts. My advise is your level is anything between 700-740.you are conceptually strong since you did from e-gmat their course is great. Also 1 month is the perfect time to boost your score. What i would suggest is get the og verbal review as you should practise from official sources maybe that is why you scored less?question type was not familiar? like the style. try to up your verbal score to 42-43 that is the safe from there even if you slip a bit you will land a 40 and still get something like me

amitsjain1212 · Answer

Thanks a lot. This helps. My plan is to get to Q50 as it has been my score throughout. And also reach V38-40 to get to 720-750. For that, I am going to now focus on practicing official questions under strict timing and environmental conditions. That is what I missed on to in the first time.

streetking · Answer

Hi

I also got a 680 on my first attempt and have booked again for end of this month.

After going through a million debriefs, the approach I have decided to take is:

GMATClub Tests for Quant. will do one a day and thoroughly go through each solution and explanation.

For Verbal I will go through all the OG questions as well as the 700+ questions from this site.

Plan on doing one CAT every 2 days to improve on stamina.
Also plan on living and breathing the GMAT. To give it attention everyday inorder to achieve that 760+ target.

All the best!

Posted from my mobile device

Chef · Answer

Hi Premprabhs111,

What does it take to get a verbal score of 42-43? How many questions can one go wrong approx if it's spread out?

My strength is SC.

I always wondered whether the next spot would be CR or RC but looking at recent tests, i concluded that it would be CR and then RC.

I would like to understand what must be the accuracy percentages for each of those approx. I would really like to target more than 40 so that it safely falls nothing less than 40. However, the max I have scored in verbal is 36 for now. But I do believe that I could have scored better (I definitely made reasoning/analytical mistakes. But had I paced better I could have done better on the whole). My scores have been fluctuating from 26-36.

Looking forward to your thoughts.

Thank you!

Sent from my Redmi Note 3 using  GMAT Club Forum mobile app

premprabhs111 · Answer

Chef  . people will say that you can get a high score getting a lot of wrong answers . I strongly detest that. From my gmat test and even gmat prep experience to get a v40 you can make anywhere between 6-11 mistakes which are very well spaced out. Let us analyze 2 situations . Say a guy A makes only 1 mistake in the first 10 this would increase his level a lot. after this if he makes 3 mistakes each in the next 10 questions that would be 3*3 +1 =10 mistakes. Candidate B makes a mistake in every 4 questions that would again be 10 mistakes but his level could not rise that much because every time it rose he made a mistake.So you need a good streak of right answers to rise in level and no continous mistakes. But yeah an average scenario would be about 7-8 mistakes for v40 6-7 for 41 42 ,4-5 for 43-44, and definitely below 5 for above 45. Also from my experience once a person crosses the 40 mark and starts getting 42-43 his scores don't fluctuate that much it will vary from 40-45 at most. Also i made 4 guesses towards the end i might have got a couple of rights since i got a 40 or maybe my level was already high because the first 37 were solid or maybe the last ones were experiemental

Got 680 in my first attempt. Need advice

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