Wrote GMAT and got 670. Retake strategies please

Question

Hello guys,
I wrote the GMAT today and got a 670. Q49 and V31.
Absolutely gutted.
I have till November to submit the scores to the colleges I apply to and I'm targeting the MiM courses.

Could you please suggest a retake strategy in which I can get a 700+ score?

I actually found the quant harder than the verbal today and I expected a much higher score as I felt I was breezing through the verbal section.

EMPOWERgmatRichC · Answer

Hi rjunak,

First off, a 670/Q49 is a strong score (it's right around the 85th percentile overall), so it could be enough to get you into your first-choice School. As such, a retest might not be necessary. Depending on the Schools that you plan to apply to, you might find it beneficial to speak with an Admissions Expert about your overall profile. There's a Forum full of them here:

ask-admission-consultants-124/

If you do decide to retest, it would help if you could provide some information about your prior studies:

1) How long have you studied?
2) What materials have you used?
3) How have you scored on each of your CATs (including the Quant and Verbal Scaled Scores)?

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

rjunak · Answer

Thank you for your reply,I have spoken to an admission consultant and she told me my profile is good enough.
I basically did some self-prep on my own for a month where I used a few PDFs that a friend gave me.
My quant has been strong but I needed some help for my RC and CR and attended a few classes from an institute in my city.

My CAT scores ranged from 710-740 and my Q ranged from 49-51 and verbal from 35-39.

I believe I'm capable of crossing the 700 barrier and going much higher.
In the actual test,I found the Quant tougher after the 30th question and my verbal went off pretty smoothly.

I am willing to work even harder to get to the 700+ score and any help here would be grateful. I have placed the order for the enchanced score report to check out where I've gone wrong.

Thanks.

ScottTargetTestPrep · Answer

Based on what you described, I think you can improve your score to a 700+. For your retake, I recommend seeking out some more robust prep materials that provide sufficient practice for you to discover and fix your weak areas. It’s possible that in your previous round of studying you were not fully exposed to all GMAT topics and thus encountered many unfamiliar issues, which in turn, may have led to the disparity between your practice GMAT scores and your actual test day score.

Whatever prep resource you select, ensure that it allows you to do focused practice of one topic at a time: e.g, sentence structure or good reasoning practices for verbal; number properties or rate problems for quant. After doing each problem set, analyze exactly why you got each question wrong and fix any weak points.

However, improving your quant score may have less impact than improving your verbal score. The higher your present score, the more incremental possible gains will be. You are clearly deficient in some important verbal issues: parallelism, perhaps, or how to determine the assumptions behind an argument, to mention two possible examples. There is more here for substantial improvement, and the verbal also tends to be more greatly weighted.

Once you have mastered all the major and lesser topics, begin taking practice exams to uncover what else you may need to study. Unless you have already exhausted them, only take practice exams from MBA.com; those exams provide the most accurate exam experience and use the most accurate scoring algorithm. You can start with the  two free exams . After that you can purchase  exam pack 1  and  exam pack 2

When taking your practice exams try to replicate the test day experience as much as possible. Take your exam in a quiet location, preferably at the same time and day that you will take the scheduled exam. For example, if your GMAT is scheduled for 11am on a Saturday morning, take your practice exams at 11am on Saturdays so that by the time your test rolls around, you will be mentally prepared for an exam given then.

Also, I wrote  an article  that provides some actionable steps that you can follow to help achieve a 700+ on your GMAT.

EMPOWERgmatRichC · Answer

Hi rjunak,

With a 670, you could have very easily scored 700+ on Test Day, but you made a few too many little mistakes and lost those extra points. You didn't quite answer my prior question from earlier (I didn't ask for a 'range' of your scores, I asked for each individual score), so I'm hoping that you can answer a few more questions about the CATs that you took:

1) Did you take the ENTIRE CAT each time (including the Essay and IR sections)?
2) Did you take them at home?
3) Did you take them at the same time of day as your Official GMAT?
4) Did you ever do ANYTHING during your CATs that you couldn't do on Test Day (pause the CAT, skip sections, take longer breaks, etc.)? 
5) Did you ever take a CAT more than once? Had you seen any of the questions BEFORE you took the CATs?

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

rjunak · Answer

Thank you Scott shall look that up.
And Rich these are my CAT scores.
GMATprep Free exam 2: Q50,V40-740
GMATprep Pack 1,exam 2: Q51,V38-740
GMATprep Pack 2,exam 1:Q50,V36-710
GMATprep Pack 2,exam 2:Q50,V38-720

Answers to your questions:
1)I unfortunately never took the GMAT and IR at all during the tests.
2)Yes all tests were taken at home.
3)I did not take these at the same time of the day as the real test.
4)Things I couldn't do at the test but did at home were pause the exam whenever someone rang the doorbell,skipped the IR and AWA sections and I did take more than 8 minutes during the break. In fact it definitely was more than 15-20 minutes.
5)I did not take these CATs more than once but I did see a few repeated questions from the material I practised in the exams that were not in exam pack 2.

EMPOWERgmatRichC · Answer

Hi rjunak,

Test Day is a rather specific 'event' - the details are specific and they matter, so you have to train as best as you can for all of them. The more realistic you can make your CATs, the more likely the score results are to be accurate. The more you deviate, the more "inflated" your scores can become - and that's what happened here. By skipping sections, taking the CATs at home, taking them at a different time of day, etc., you weren't properly training for the FULL GMAT 'experience.'

Thankfully, this is a relatively easy set of problems to fix. The big question now is "how long will it take you to properly get 'used to' taking the full GMAT under realistic conditions?" You'll certainly need a new set of practice CATs to work with and you have to put in the necessary time to train your brain (and body) for the FULL GMAT. You might also need to invest in some new GMAT training materials.

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

rjunak · Answer

Thank you Rich. Should I also get noise cancelling headphones and laminated sheets with the markers to use while practising?

ScottTargetTestPrep · Answer

When you solve practice questions or take practice tests, you'll want to emulate the test day experience as closely as possible. The laminated sheets with markers are important to have. It's important to control as many variables as you can in the study process. Writing with a pen and paper almost seems luxurious compared to writing with those markers on the laminated sheets. Since you'll have to use the laminated sheets and markers on test day, you may as well get used to using them in your practice.

EMPOWERgmatRichC · Answer

Hi rjunak,

There are a variety of 'factors' that exist on Test Day that could impact your performance. Thankfully, most of them are definable, so you CAN train to properly deal with them. You might find that investing in a set of headphones and the laminated pad/marker is a good idea. Some Test Takers aren't impacted by those types of variables, but by training with them now, you can better make sure that you're not distracted by them on Test Day.

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

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Wrote GMAT and got 670. Retake strategies please

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