1st attempt- 620 ( Q49. V25)| IR-5 | Target 740+| Next strategy ?

Question

Hello ,

I just took GMAT today (1:30pm).

Overall score : 620

Q49
V25
IR5
AWA- waiting for the score

Target Score : 740+

Need some guidance for the next step .
Can any experienced person  " who has improved his/her score from sub 650 levels to 750 levels "  share his/her views as to what should be my strategy to score better and improve my verbal (40+) ??

EducationAisle · Answer

Hi Sunny,  which  specific area in Verbal, is bothering you the most?

Also, if you can share your ESR, it would help in further analysis.

EMPOWERgmatRichC · Answer

Hi SUNNYRHODE002,

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:

Studies:
1) How long have you studied?
2) What study materials have you used so far?
3) How have you scored on EACH of your CATs (including the Quant and Verbal Scaled Scores for EACH)?

Goals:
4) When are you planning to take the GMAT?
5) When are you planning to apply to Business School?
6) What Schools are you planning to apply to?

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

SUNNYRHODE002 · Answer

EMPOWERgmatRichC

Studies:
1) How long have you studied?- 1.5 months 
2) What study materials have you used so far?- Egmat  
3) How have you scored on EACH of your CATs (including the Quant and Verbal Scaled Scores for EACH)?  Took 3 mocks in total - V varying (22-30) , Q varying from (49-50)

Goals:
4) When are you planning to take the GMAT?  1.5-2 months 
5) When are you planning to apply to Business School?  Jan'19 onwards 
6) What Schools are you planning to apply to?  Haven't really boiled down my choices to university levels, though I'm planning to target US, Canada, Aus, Singapore ( Top 30 universities )

egmat · Answer

Hi  SUNNYRHODE002 ,

I am sorry to know that your scores were not in line with your expectations. I would request you to write to us from your registered ID alongwith your ESR so that we can look at your Scholaranium data and ESR together and suggest the precise way forward.

In the meanwhile, here are the stories of a few students who improved from sub-650 level to their target score:
 • Rhea improved from 620 to 760 in just 40 days.   Click here   to watch her video interview and learn how she achieved this feat. 
• Nihal improved from a 630 to 760 in 2 months. He followed a structured approach and used Scholaranium and internal forums to his advantage to achieve this feat.   Click here   to read his debrief. 
• Learn how Shekhar used GMAT Online course to improve from a 600 to 770.   Click here   to read his de-brief.
• Rohan improved from 610 (Q46 V25) to 750 (Q50 V40) with the help of our GMAT Live Prep course.   Click here   to watch his very inspiring video interview.

Looking forward to your email.

Regards,
Aditee

HanoiGMATtutor · Answer

It would be helpful if you could provide us with your ESR so we can help you identify your strengths and weaknesses. Clearly your focus should be on Verbal. What is your background in the English language?

EMPOWERgmatRichC · Answer

Hi SUNNYRHODE002,

GMAC has publicly stated that the Official Score that you earn on Test Day is within +/- 30 points of actual ability. Your Official Score is clearly 'in the range' of how you were scoring on your practice CATs - so that result is not too surprising. Considering a Score Goal of 740+, you are not performing close to that level yet - and you should be mindful about not rushing back in to retest if you're not scoring in the 700+ on your future practice CATs. Based on this Score, you will likely need at least another 2 months of consistent, guided study to hit your Score Goal, so you might need more time than you have allotted.

You might 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 (and what you should work on to score higher). If you purchase the ESR, then I'll be happy to analyze it for you.

1) Going forward, how many hours do you think you can consistently study each week?

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

dabaobao · Answer

This article really changed my perspective on how to prepare for the GMAT and helped me push my score further up. I would highly recommend everyone to bookmark this article and read every few weeks in order to remember all the great tips that Scott, one of the most well-known GMAT instructor, has listed down: https://gmatclub.com/forum/most-compreh ... 76986.html.

Hope it help! Good luck with your prep

ScottTargetTestPrep · Answer

Hi SUNNYRHODE002,

I’m glad you reached out, and I’m happy to help. The good news is that Q49 is a fantastic quant score, so congrats on that. Furthermore, although you plan to take the GMAT in two months, since you don’t plan to apply until January, you could push your test date further if necessary.

Regarding verbal, since you scored a V25, it’s clear that you lack some fundamental GMAT verbal skills necessary for a 40+ score. Thus, you need to ensure that you improve your skills from the ground up, meaning that you start with the foundations and progress to more advanced topics. For example, when studying Critical Reasoning, you need to ensure that you fully understand the essence of the various question types. Do you know the importance of an assumption within an argument? Can you easily spot a conclusion? Do you know how to resolve a paradox? Do you know how to properly evaluate cause and effect? Do you know how to properly weaken or strengthen an argument? These are just a few examples; you really need to take a deep dive into the individual Critical Reasoning topics to develop the necessary skills to properly attack any Critical Reasoning questions that you encounter.

As you learn each Critical Reasoning problem type, do focused practice so that you can track your skill in answering each type of question. If, for example, you incorrectly answered a Weaken the Argument question, ask yourself why. Did you make a careless mistake? Did you not recognize the specific question type? Were you doing too much analysis in your head? Did you skip over a keyword in an answer choice? You must thoroughly analyze your mistakes and seek to turn weaknesses into strengths by focusing on the question types you dread seeing and the questions you take a long time to answer correctly.

When practicing Reading Comprehension, you need to develop a reading strategy that is both efficient and thorough. Reading too fast and not understanding what you have read are equally as harmful as reading too slow and using up too much time. When attacking Reading Comprehension passages, you must have one clear goal in mind: to understand the context of what you are reading. However, you must do so efficiently, so you need to avoid getting bogged down in the details of each paragraph and focus on understanding the main point of each paragraph. That being said, do not fall into the trap of thinking that you can just read the intro and the conclusion and comprehend the main idea of a paragraph. As you read a paragraph, consider how the context of the paragraph relates to previous paragraphs, so you can continue developing your overall understanding of the passage. Furthermore, as you practice Reading Comprehension, focus on the exact types of questions with which you struggle: Find the Main Idea, Inference, Author’s Tone, etc. As with Critical Reasoning, analyze your incorrect answers to better determine why you tend to get a particular question type wrong, and then improve upon your weaknesses. You can perfect your reading strategy with a lot of practice, but keep in mind that GMAT Reading Comprehension passages are not meant to be stimulating. So, to better prepare yourself to tackle such bland passages, read magazines with similar content and style, such as the Economist, Scientific American, and Smithsonian.
 
Sentence Correction is a bit of a different animal compared to Reading Comprehension and Critical Reasoning. There are three aspects to getting correct answers to GMAT Sentence Correction questions: what you know, such as grammar rules, what you see, such as violations of grammar rules and the logic of sentence structure, and what you do, such as carefully considering each answer choice in the context of the non-underlined portion of the sentence. To drive up your Sentence Correction score, you likely will have to work on all three of those aspects. Furthermore, the likely reason that your Sentence Correction performance has not improved is that you have not been working on all three of those aspects. 
 
Regarding what you know, first and foremost, you MUST know your grammar rules. Let's be clear, though: GMAT Sentence Correction is not just a test of knowledge of grammar rules. The reason for learning grammar rules is so that you can determine what sentences convey and whether sentences are well-constructed. In fact, in many cases, incorrect answers to Sentence Correction questions are grammatically flawless. Thus, often your task is to use your knowledge of grammar rules to determine which answer choice creates the most logical sentence meaning and structure.
 
This determination of whether sentences are well-constructed and logical is the second aspect of finding correct answers to Sentence Correction questions, what you see. To develop this skill, you probably have to slow way down. You won't develop this skill by spending under two minutes per question. For a while, anyway, you have to spend time with each question, maybe even ten or fifteen minutes on one question sometimes, analyzing every answer choice until you see the details that you have to see in order to choose the correct answer. As you go through the answer choices, consider the meaning conveyed by each version of the sentence. Does the meaning make sense? Even if you can tell what the version is SUPPOSED to convey, does the version really convey that meaning? Is there a verb to go with the subject? Do all pronouns clearly refer to nouns? By slowing way down and looking for these details, you learn to see what you have to see in order to clearly understand which answer to a Sentence Correction question is correct.
 
There is only one correct answer to any Sentence Correction question, there are clear reasons why that choice is correct and the others are not, and those reasons are not that the correct version simply "sounds right." In fact, the correct version often sounds a little off at first. That correct answers may sound a little off is not surprising. If the correct answer were always the one that sounded right, then most people most of the time would get Sentence Correction questions correct, without really knowing why the wrong answers were wrong and the correct answers were correct. So, you have to go beyond choosing what "sounds right" and learn to clearly see the logical reasons why one choice is better than all of the others.
 
As for the third aspect of getting Sentence Correction questions correct, what you do, the main thing you have to do is be very careful. You have to make sure that you are truly considering the structures of sentences and the meanings conveyed rather than allowing yourself to be tricked into choosing trap answers that sound right but don't convey meanings that make sense. You also have to make sure that you put some real energy into finding the correct answers. Finding the correct answer to a Sentence Correction question may take bouncing from choice to choice repeatedly until you start to see the differences between the choices that make all choices wrong except for one. Often, when you first look at the choices, only one or two seem obviously incorrect. It may take time for you to see what you have to see. Getting the right answers takes a certain work ethic. You have to be determined to see the differences and to figure out the precise reasons that one choice is correct.
 
To improve what you do when you answer Sentence Correction questions, seek to become aware of how you are going about answering them. Are you being careful and looking for logic and details, or are you quickly eliminating choices that sound a little off and then choosing the best of the rest? If you choose an incorrect answer, consider what you did that resulted in your arriving at that answer and what you could do differently in order to arrive at correct answers more consistently. Furthermore, see how many questions you can get correct in a row as you practice. If you break your streak by missing one, consider what you could have done differently to extend your streak.

As with your Critical Reasoning and Reading Comprehension regimens, after learning a particular Sentence Correction topic, engage in focused practice with 30 questions or more that involve that topic. As your Sentence Correction skills improve, you’ll then want to practice with questions that test you on skills from multiple SC topics.

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 questions.

Good luck!

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1st attempt- 620 ( Q49. V25)| IR-5 | Target 740+| Next strategy ?

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