Need motivation/guidance from GMATCLUB for my THIRD Attempt :(

Question

Hello all,

Before I begin, Just want to mention that I have been a silent lurker on this forum. Over the past 1-2 years, this forum has improved my GMAT ability more than tuition. I do not wish to name anyone specific but there are brilliant minds here and I feel the need to connect more with this community to improve and achieve my goal.

December 2014, GMAT Exam #1 500, Quant 44 Verbal 19 AWA 4.5 (just discovered GMAT CLUB)
I took tuition for a two months, whilst working at e-commerce business (this meant late hours, unexpected stays at office). Focused on completing/practicing a lot of questions (un-timed). My foundations in verbal was proven to be very weak, although the only language I speak/write/learn in is English itself!! Another problem which I had was my ego and self esteem. Also I did not maintain error logs

I have done very well in academics (straight A's in A lvls, passed well in my Bsc at a top International Business School). But, I feel against the world in standardized exams. Starting with the SAT, once i obtained this score and the next (560) I feel like its not going to improve at all. Secondly, I have an issue with letting go of questions and I always feel that I have the ability to solve them correctly.

April 2016, GMAT Exam #2 560, Quant 47, Verbal 20 , AWA 5.5 (Thx ChineseBurned)

I started studying properly in January after I quit my work to focus on my further education + business plans. I did a lot of questions again, several practice tests where I was hitting the 610-660 region. I would say my average score would be Q 45, V 25-30. I had ample of time and felt I should have performed much better compared to my first official exam. I suppose the high expectations and anxiety (slept for 4 hours) brought upon a weak performance. Furthermore, I had to use the bathroom BIG TIME in the last 20 mins, but i did not as i felt i would lose vital time, so it really messed up my concentration in the verbal section. The material i used this time were:

Kaplan premier 2015
Manhattan Critical Reasoning 12th Edition
Manhattan Reading comprehension 4th Edition
Gmatprep Questions
OG latest edition
OG 2 free tests
Manhattan 6 Test Package
Error Log

Generally, during revision, I felt my verbal improve (actually) because I was able to recognize patterns in questions. How to answer them quicker and effectively. Identify question types. However I did not feel an improvement with Reading comprehension.

Guys, I am reaching out to all of you to help me get back on track and motivate me to start improving & preparing for my next attempt. I feel i should start of with Ron Purewals "Thursdays with ron" on vimeo. I do not wish to take such a long gap as i did between my first 2 attempts. I need to improve my current score by 100 points and the biggest barrier right now is verbal. Please help

Thank you all for hearing me out

EMPOWERgmatRichC · Answer

Hi alidakat,

Before I can offer you the specific advice that you're looking for, I'd like to know more about your studies so far and your specific timeline/goals:

1) How long did you study before this recent GMAT attempt?
2) What is your exact goal score?

3) When are you planning to take the GMAT?
4) When are you planning to apply to Business School?

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

kdus · Answer

Hi,

I highly recommend that you start watching "Thursdays with Ron" religiously! You need to understand how to approach/attack verbal questions, and Ron does a great job of walking through "how" to think/approach/attack each verbal question type. Once you learn a certain approach for a certain question type, do  targeted practice  using the official questions from the Official Guide (or any other official source).

Try the above approach for a few weeks! Don't give up UNTIL you get the "AHA" moment - you will know/realize how to approach each verbal question. And as Ron said, "there's no grey area for right or wrong answers, the answers are CLEARLY black and white - right or wrong"! Essentially, you will be able to understand/see clearly that answers are CLEARLY right or CLEARLY wrong...there are really  NO  MAYBE answers (if you think that there are, you may not be clearly understanding either what a specific question IS or what concept is being TESTED).

If the above approach does not work (I'm confident that it will), you should then consider spending some money on a private tutor.

alidakat · Answer

EMPOWERgmatRichC

1) I studied for approximately 3 and a half months - However for about a month I was not able to concentrate properly due to personal reasons - still was managing 2-3 hours a day.

2) My exact goal score would be between 650-680.

3) I plan to take it before September

4) I would like to apply to Business School this year (preferably for MBA), My plan B would involve studying MSc in Business Analytics for which I also do require a competitive GMAT score.

kdus

Thank you for the words of encouragement - I shall try my best to go through most of the videos. I wish there was a way i could speed them up since they are quite long. Haven't been able to find a download link - which is a sign that i should probably proceed slow and steady

Would you recommend any other material to build up my foundations?

I am very thankful for you taking out the time to guide me

Would you recommend any other material to build up my foundations? I am very thankful for you taking out the time to guide me

redfield · Answer

You'll get much more specific answers than this but I thought I'd just chime in being that I too am about to have yet another retake (first time quant was low, this last time I was happy with score but did so badly on IR I've decided to do one last retake).

At Q47 V20 clearly the place you can make the biggest strides is verbal as you're clearly aware of.

0 cost tips:
 - Read loads of articles on Economist and even BBC news or any academic setting.
 - I don't know what kinds of shows you watch but I actually found that shows with well spoken people like any Sherlock Holmes show (elementary, Sherlock, the movies) was a good way to spend free time enjoying myself but still have to pay attention and listen to very proper speech from several characters (the british Sherlock in particular is about as much focus for a tv show as you can do)
 - Obviously gmatclub verbal forums, aim to do many of these questions as frequently as possible.
 - Veritas Prep's free sentence correction videos on youtube are also a nice resource.
 - Thursday With Ron is definitely a good resource. That said you may want to watch the videos at 1.25 speed given the way Ron speaks.

Now if you're willing to spend a little money for this I would definitely recommend the GMAT Pill (just the verbal don't get the quant if you do go this route) as it does a very good job of putting you in the right frame of mind for questions and breaking down the meaning in a similar fashion as you prime factor some problems in quant to make questions more easily digestible. Manhattan book series is also highly recommended by most, and at about $20 per subject not that expensive.

I'm a native speaker and struggled with parts of E-Gmat but that is an online course/resource many people on this forum absolutely love for their verbal, in particular non native speakers.

As far as motivation goes, just go through this subsection "Share GMAT Experience" and you can read plenty of stories of people having a much lower score than you have had and still getting over 700. You improved both Q and V from first test to second, and most importantly the GMAT is a very learnable test. As long as you're generally intelligent (as your grades would indicate you are) then all you need is the right strategy and practice, practice, practice.

Best of luck in your retake, and don't forget to have fun with it!

alidakat · Answer

Thank you redfield . I know i have to be regular when it comes to reading as i struggle to keep focus. Probably why towards the end of the exam Im pretty much frazzled! I think i will invest in the GMAT Pill as you suggested, any way i can increase the speed on Ron's videos through vimeo as I am yet to find a good link for downloading all the material....there was a topic + link about it but it would take forever to download all the videos and get interrupted in between!

EMPOWERgmatRichC · Answer

Hi alidakat,

To raise your overall score 100+ points, you're likely going to have to make some serious adjustments to how you handle BOTH the Quant and Verbal sections. While you have a bigger opportunity to pick up points in the Verbal, there are still some 'gettable' points in the Quant that you're currently not picking up. Since you've been studying a certain way for some time now, you've also likely developed some 'bad habits' that will take time to fix (and replace with new 'good habits'). This is all meant to say that you're going to have to do more than just additional practice questions - you're going to have to learn/practice new Tactics and change the way you respond to GMAT prompts. Thankfully, you have plenty of time to continue studying before your planned retest.

1) How many hours do you think you can study during a typical week?

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

alidakat · Answer

EMPOWERgmatRichC 
For the time being - I can put in about 20 hours per week minimum.
June onward, I would be able to put 15 hours maximum.

ScottTargetTestPrep · Answer

Hi alidakat,

Based on your GMAT score, you could increase both your quant and verbal scores (although a larger increase in verbal).

When you initially studied for the GMAT, did you feel like you fully learned each topic thoroughly before practicing questions from those topics? If not, perhaps you should seek out a new a new GMAT prep resource that allows for detailed learning and then focused practice.

Ideally, your study resource should allow you to learn a topic and then practice that topic until it completely sticks. For example, if you were learning about percents, you would want to make sure you learn everything possible about percents, e.g., percent less than, percent greater than, variable percents, percent profit, percent change. After that, be sure that you practice a lot of questions (50 or more) just on percents. The results of that practice will help you to determine how well you have mastered that topic. Although percents are just one example, you would want to follow such a process for all of the major topics tested on the GMAT.

If you are unsure of which resource to use, read over other success stories on GMAT Club to see what has worked for other students.

Also - if you'd like some personalized help reaching your GMAT goal, please reach out to me. I hate seeing people beat down by the GMAT. We can "sit down" and see what you've been doing and perhaps come up with a different plan of attack. Together, we can figure out how to get you on the right road.

Warmest Regards,

Scott

EMPOWERgmatRichC · Answer

Hi alidakat,

From your prior posts, it looks like you used a 'book heavy' study approach in your prior attempts. Many Test Takers get 'stuck' at a particular score level when studying in that way, so it's likely that that is what happened to you too. As such, you'll likely need to invest in some new, non-book resources for this next attempt. Based on everything that you’ve described, I think that you would find the EMPOWERgmat Total Score Booster to be quite helpful. Most of our clients complete that Study Plan in well under 2 months, so the time commitment wouldn't be that bad. We have a variety of free resources on our site (www.empowergmat.com), so you can 'test out' the Course before setting up an Account.

If you have any additional questions, then you can feel free to contact me directly.

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

prabhakar09 · Answer

Hi,

So you wish to take attempt number 3. And wish to improve by 100-120 points. this is a big jump there are many examples on this forum which suggests its possible. I think Rich mentioned, you will have to change your approach. Clearly your previous methods and strategy are not working.

Take some video courses. There are many trial based courses. there are some free courses. if you target to take in September. then use May for experimentation and Find your key.

I am also trying to improve 120-130 points. have crossed half of it. but next half is not so easy. I was also going book heavy approach. I am following video courses. and online materials.

So:
1. find the method that works for you.
2. get the basics right.
3. practice 
4. practice 
5. practice.
6 Take a mock test.
7 revise basics.
8. Practice.....

HiLine · Answer

Let's me see how I can help. I have 3 questions for you first:

1. Have you purchased enhanced score reports for your previous attempts?
2. Have you ever had a GMAT tutor?
3. If given no time restriction, how well do you think you would have done?

nigelneildsouza · Answer

Hi Alidakat,

As of what I can gather from your post, I understand that you have attempted the GMAT using the standard material and with a self study effort.

From my experience in the GMAT, I realized the importance of a structured study schedule. It is very important to have a schedule and a clear plan of the topics you want to study. An advice for verbal, do not jump into solving too many questions, without completely understanding all the concepts.

Please let me know if you require any guidance . I am happy to help.

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Need motivation/guidance from GMATCLUB for my THIRD Attempt :(

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