Stuck at 680

Question

Hi Guys, After 2 months of hardwork, I landed up with a 680 again (Q49, V34). This is the same breakup that I had last time. Difficulty experience breakup: SC: I felt this section was the easiest of the Verbal section. Just 2 tricky "tense based" questions. No HiFi GmatPrep level questions. CR: Normal types. No long arguments, no tricky and convoluted arguments. "6" assumption questions. RC: tricky passages. The 3 smaller passages are somehow representative of OG passages, but had very convoluted options. Another thing, a very very long science passage came. Such passages are basically thrown at you to see whether you have the guts to handle such passages or not. These long passages have very easy questions though...

. Quant: Questions were similar to those in the GmatPrep. My timing was very messed up at the start.. After doing 20 Questions in Verbal, I was left with just 34 minutes. But, lucky me... the SC question were so damn easy that, I finished off atleast 5 SC questions, spending just around 10 seconds on each... That saved some time... but then the following RC's proved to be a killer and sucked up all my time. All in all, I can say that i didnt spend more than 2 - 2.2 minutes on each CR questions, and didnt spend on an average more than 50 seconds on each SC question. Rest all time devoted to RC. I managed to complete the Verbal paper with 1 minutes still to go..... Practice Scores- GmatPrep - 800, 780, 780, 770, 770, 760 MGMAT CATs - 780, 780, 770, 760, 750 Since I remembered many questions from my earlier attempt, the scores are very inflated. Material Used- Official guides MGMAT SC GmatClub Quant questions many passages of RC 99 few LSAT CR question exercises GmatPrep documents I am planning a retake in another 1.5 months, but I have almost exhausted the entire GmatPrep material. Please suggest me what material to do and how to study for my 3rd GMAT attempt. My target score is 740. Thanks in advance!

EducationAisle · Answer

Ordering an ESR might add some value Sahil, for introspection and post-mortem.

GmatKnightTutor · Answer

"My timing was very messed up at the start." "the following RC's proved to be a killer and sucked up all my time."

"I have almost exhausted the entire GmatPrep material. "

Looking at your solving approach may help given the time-issues. Might also be worth purchasing one of the Online only question banks.

All the best.

ScottTargetTestPrep · Answer

I’m sorry to hear how things went with your GMAT. The good news is that you scored really well on quant, right? That said, I understand that you are not satisfied with your verbal score, so the question we need to ask is why you scored so high on your practice exams but lower on the real GMAT.

Assuming that you took your official practice exams under realistic testing conditions, the results show that, on a good day, you are capable of scoring higher than V34. Thus, it’s quite possible that nerves, stress, tiredness, or a combination of all three negatively affected your test-day performance. However, it’s also possible that you have some lingering weaknesses that were exposed on test day. Although I’m unsure of how you prepared, it’s possible that, in your preparation, particularly in verbal, you did not really learn to do what you have to do in order to score high on the actual GMAT. Rather, you picked up on some patterns that were effective in getting you relatively high scores on practice tests. So, for you to hit your score goal, your preparation, particularly for verbal, probably needs to be more complete, meaning that you have to go through the various types of GMAT questions carefully to find your exact weaknesses, fill gaps in your knowledge, and strengthen your skills.

For verbal specifically, you have to become more skilled at clearly defining the differences between trap choices and correct answers. Otherwise, you will get stuck guessing between two choices or be surprised to find that you incorrectly answered questions that you thought you answered correctly. Becoming more skilled in this way takes carefully analyzing all of the answer choices to lots of verbal questions to develop an eye for the logical differences between the choices. In other words, you have to go beyond answering practice questions and reading explanations to doing deep analysis of questions to learn to see everything that is going on in them.

You also may find it helpful to read the following articles:

how to score a 700+ on the GMAT

Why Was My GMAT Score Lower Than My Practice Test Scores?

EMPOWERgmatRichC · Answer

Hi sahilaro23,

First off, a 680/Q49 is a strong Score, so it could be enough to get you into your first-choice School. As such, another retest might not be necessary. Depending on the Schools that you plan to apply to, you would likely find it beneficial to speak with an Admissions Expert about your overall profile and plans. Those Experts should be able to answer your Admissions questions and help define the specific areas of your profile that could use some improvement. There's a Forum full of those Experts here:

https://gmatclub.com/forum/ask-admissio ... tants-124/

If you've now earned the exact same Score on the Official GMAT twice, then it is likely that you have gotten 'stuck' at this particular 'score level' - and you may have developed some 'bad habits' during your earlier studies that are keeping you from scoring higher. With a 680, you're actually closer to a 740+ than you probably realize, but you will have to make some fundamental changes to how you 'see' (and respond to) BOTH the Quant and Verbal sections before you will be able to consistently score at that higher level.

Assuming that you choose to continue studying, you will need a NEW set of CATs/mocks to work with. While the most realistic CATs available are the 6 from GMAC, retaking a CAT that you've already taken is NOT a realistic way to assess your skills - since you will likely see some 'repeat' questions that you have already faced. Unfortunately, seeing even a couple of repeats can 'throw off' the Scoring Algorithm and impact your pacing, energy levels, fatigue, etc. (meaning that they would likely all appear to be better than they actually are). Thankfully, the CATs from Kaplan, MGMAT and Veritas are all 'close enough' to the real thing that they will provide you with a relatively realistic score assessment (assuming that you correctly take the CAT in a realistic fashion that matches the parameters that you will face when you take the Official GMAT) - so you can use any NEW CATs from any of those sources next.

Before I can offer you any additional advice for your studies, it would help if you could provide a bit more information on your timeline and your goals:

1) When did you take your 1st Official GMAT?
2) How long did you study before each attempt? For this 2nd attempt, how many hours did you typically study each week?
3) 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

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