610 First attempt, target 640

Question

Hello everyone,

I wanted to reach out to you guys for some advice.

Quick Background :

I have been studying for the GMAT for around 3 months now and today I decided to give my first attempt.

I have studied from the manhattan books and purchased the course of Rich from  EMPOWERgmatRichC  . My very first attempt on the GmatPrep was around 450-ish , mind you I have not studied anything when doing such exam. I also got tired and almost skipped the last quarter in the verbal..

GmatPrep CATS : 
• May 01 : Q34,V21 -- 470
• Jun 13 : Q45,V26 -- 590
• Jul 03 : Q44,V25 – 570 
• Jul 07 : Q42,V28 -- 590
• Aug 10 : Q49,V28 -- 640 ( the jump in quant was caused by practicing and finishing ONLY the OG book, it definitely helped , before I was practicing from 
 GMATClub only , so sometimes I would be solving non-official questions)

Manhattan Cats : 
CAT EXAM #6
Completed 08/08/2021
 Score: 590( Q42,V30) 
CAT EXAM #5
Completed 06/24/2021
 Score: 640( Q44,V34) 
CAT EXAM #4
Completed 06/12/2021
 Score: 550( Q28,V38) 
CAT EXAM #3
Completed 05/29/2021
 Score: 590( Q42,V30) 
CAT EXAM #2
Completed 05/15/2021
 Score: 580( Q43,V28) 
CAT EXAM #1
Completed 04/20/2021
 Score: 570( Q42,V27)

I have added a breakdown for the last 4 mgmat cats

I am well aware that I lack skills in the Verbal section.. I used the Manhattan books as my foundation and focused on the CR bible for CR. I noticed that my accuracy for RC in GMATPrep is either 75% or 55% something like that , depending if I do manage to understand the passage or not.
My weakness is the Critical reasoning section.. My problem is that I solved  all  the OG questions including the verbal review. I usually solve them by trying to get to the correct answer then read the reply of experts in general and try to learn.

Today I got on my official Exam :  610 Q46 V2 8 ( I am well aware of really silly mistakes I did on the quant, I had some pacing issues thus guessing really REALLY easy questions.. they are still fresh in my head and it is so sad that I had to guess them but anyway, I know I can do better in quant , at least a Q48 is doable)

The main question :

My goal is only a  640 , I obviously need that small small push in the verbal , a 2 point in the verbal for a V30-V31 would do it but I am running out of motivation.. I even used all my OG questions specially on the CR .. Can you kindly help ? Do you think a tutor is needed here ? Any advice from the experts would be highly appreciated !

I will update the post later on with an ESR.. it still does not show, but I am guessing I should wait 72 hours for it . Correct?

EMPOWERgmatRichC · Answer

Hi Jad,

To start, raising a 450 to a 610 is a fantastic achievement - and with this 610, you are closer to a 640+ than you probably realize (and you could potentially retest relatively soon and hit that Score). 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). Since you purchased the ESR, then I'll be happy to analyze it for you. I've sent you an email with some additional information. 
 
GMAT assassins aren't born, they're made,
Rich

JadAsmar · Answer

Updated ESR. Please share with me your advice to reach a score of 640-650

JadAsmar · Answer

AndrewN   VeritasKarishma   GMATNinja   GMATNinja Two  ScottTargetTestPrep

Any comments from the experts is highly appreciated!

JadAsmar · Answer

Well received . I have replied to you.

I want to thank you for helping me improving my score alone from 450 to 610. I could not have done this without the EMPOWERGmat course. Especially on the quant side.

AndrewN · Answer

Hello,  JadAsmar . Thank you for posting your ESR. It makes writing my analysis a little easier. Regarding Verbal, one major issue I see is that you were taking too long on the first half of the test. I know, you want to do your best, so you may feel compelled to check everything over before submitting your answer. But this strategy often backfires, as it most likely did here, since you then feel rushed to complete the remaining questions. You start dropping points on Easy questions, and you do so more often, just as the purple dot in the third quarter indicates, and the algorithm adjusts question difficulty down accordingly. By the fourth quarter, the upper limit had likely been set. At least you reverted to missing harder questions. The takeaway: trust your process of combing through answer choices and arriving at a conclusion. You may not get behind the right answer every time, but I promise you will do better if you make it through the whole test in this manner rather than playing it safe in the beginning and feeling rushed at the end.

Quant shows a somewhat similar picture. Look at that timing in the first quarter. You were losing about 40 seconds  per question  at that point, and a 5-minute deficit can place undue pressure on you thereafter. It is also apparent that you were dealt some pretty tough questions. It is not common to see the difficulty progress straight to the top of the chart through the first three quarters of the test, even for someone who answers each question correctly. You ran out of time at the end, of course, but that would be expected at that point. Once again, my advice is to loosen up a little in the beginning. If something looks beyond your ken  in that moment  (maybe you could solve it under less pressure), then take an educated guess within a minute or so and do not look back. You are clearly doing a lot right in the Quant section to earn a score more in line with an upper-40's score.

In short, sure, there are certainly some conceptual/methodological gaps you could shore up, but in large part, I suspect that changing nothing more than your approach to that first quarter of questions could make all the difference.

I hope my advice helps. Thank you for thinking to ask, and good luck with your studies.

- Andrew

JadAsmar · Answer

AndrewN

Sir, thank you for your advice.

Indeed you are correct, I remember very well how I hesitated submitting most of my answers in the first half of the both sections. For example, in the verbal section I had to skim over the last paragraph of the last passage that I got , just because I had little to no time to answer. 
Would you recommend a relative close retake for the GMAT ? Meanwhile I can take some cats ( probably the Veritas CATs) while applying the same approach that I am taking right now but with the main focus of time management ?

Thank you

AndrewN · Answer

Like   bb  , I recommend a retake typically within a month. Otherwise, you may have too much time to ponder matters and allow doubts to creep in, and you may start to lose some of your test-readiness. Yes, I think you would benefit from seeing how changing your approach to earlier questions and allowing yourself to make mistakes may lead to improvement. It all sounds made up until you see the hard data: finishing the test on your own terms can make all the difference, even without overhauling anything about your current approach. One final piece of advice: spend more time reviewing (official questions) than searching for new questions to practice. Solid review leads to greater conceptual understanding than mere repetition, especially in Verbal.

Once again, good luck.

- Andrew

JadAsmar · Answer

I will take your advice into note , thank you.

Adding BB to the thread :  bb

ScottTargetTestPrep · Answer

Hi JadAsmar,

The good news is that you are pretty darn close to your score goal. To increase your score to a higher level, you need to go through GMAT quant and verbal carefully to find your exact weaknesses, fill gaps in your knowledge, and strengthen your skills. The overall process will be to learn all about how to answer question types with which you currently aren't very comfortable, and do dozens of practice questions category by category, basically driving up your score point by point. For example, if you find that you are not strong in answering Number Properties questions, then carefully review the conceptual underpinnings of how to answer Number Properties questions and practice by answering 50 or more questions just from Number Properties: LCM, GCF, units digit patterns, divisibility, remainders, etc. When you are working on learning to answer questions of a particular type, start off taking your time, and then seek to speed up as you get more comfortable answering questions of that type. As you do such practice, do a thorough analysis of each question that you don't get right. If you got a remainder question wrong, ask yourself why. Did you make a careless mistake? Did you not properly apply the remainder formula? Was there a concept you did not understand in the question? By carefully analyzing your mistakes, you will be able to efficiently fix your weaknesses and in turn improve your GMAT quant skills. Number Properties is just one example; follow this process for all quant topics.

Each time you strengthen your understanding of a topic and your skill in answering questions of a particular type, you increase your odds of hitting your score goal. You know that there are types of questions that you are happy to see, types that you would rather not see, and types that you take a long time to answer correctly. Learn to more effectively answer the types of questions that you would rather not see, and make them into your favorite types. Learn to correctly answer in two minutes or less questions that you currently take five minutes to answer. By finding, say, a dozen weaker quant areas and turning them into strong areas, you will make great progress toward hitting your quant score goal. If a dozen areas turn out not to be enough, strengthen some more areas.

You can work on verbal in a similar manner. Let’s say you are reviewing Critical Reasoning. Be sure that you practice a large number of Critical Reasoning questions: Strengthen and Weaken the Argument, Resolve the Paradox, find the Conclusion, Must be True, etc. As you go through the questions, do a thorough analysis of each question that you don't get correct. If you missed a Weaken question, ask yourself why. Did you make a careless mistake? Did you not recognize what the question was asking? Did you skip over a key detail in an answer choice? Getting GMAT verbal questions right is a matter of what you know, what you see, and what you do. So, any time that you don't get one right, you can seek to identify what you had to know to get the right answer, what you had to see that you didn't see, and what you could have done differently to arrive at the correct answer.

So, work on accuracy and generally finding correct answers, work on specific weaker areas one by one to make them strong areas, and when you take a practice GMAT or the real thing, take all the time per question available to do your absolute best to get right answers consistently. The GMAT is essentially a game of seeing how many right answers you can get in the time allotted. Approach the test with that conception in mind, and focus intently on the question in front of you with one goal in mind: getting a CORRECT answer.

Feel free to reach out with any further questions. Good luck!

KalyanChamarthi · Answer

While  AndrewN  and  ScottTargetTestPrep  mentioned amazing points that should help you - two cents from my side - use them if you find them helpful.

1. Focus on Test-Taking Strategy, I see you are spending too much time on Sentence Correction - can you try to reduce the time in SC a little bit - and focus on RC & CR

2. Manage time a little bit better to hit a 640: what do I mean: if you do not spend time on the questions, which look difficult and time-consuming, and let them go - quickly, I m pretty confident that you can hit your target score with ease - you are at hand stretch of your target score

3. Finally, Can you please take the GMAT Preps as your practice exams? Particularly, the ones you got a low score in the beginning. and analyze the test in detail.

All the Best! 
if you find time, please read the debrief of one of ScoreLeap's recent students on GMAT club:  Vibhav GMAT 740 ( V44, Q49) 
also read  Divya Reddy, GMAT 710, MBA Colombia GSB

KarishmaB · Answer

I see two issues:

- You need to manage your time in a better manner. You are wasting too much at first and hurrying later. Practice time management by taking a few full length tests, say 2 a week for a couple of weeks. Try to go faster in some SC questions by focusing on the decision points (whenever the structure of the sentence does not change much).

- Do you understand exactly how to solve strengthen/weaken etc questions? What to strengthen/weaken? How to keep a narrow focus? etc. If not, it will be a good idea to review those basics.

You do realise that you made some silly mistakes in Quant. You are already at 640 level - you just need to convert it now. Retest within 4 weeks and do not take any practice test in the last week.

JadAsmar · Answer

Thank you everyone for commenting and giving your professional advices.

VeritasKarishma  So I took your advice and gave another mock on August 17 ( 3 days after I took my official GMAT). I took my very  first , free CAT from Veritas , for some reason I got a score of 650 (V33 , Q46). I am not sure about the general consensus about the veritas CATs ,but from what I have heard that the verbal tends to be on the harder side ..

Also, knowing that I used all Manhattans CATs and the GMAT Prep , would you advise me to buy the full mocks from Vertias? Knowing that my exam is soon and the recommendation is to stick to OG materials. Is it better just to retake a GMAT prep ? Please let me know your opinion.

Please also note that I did not feel any " spike " in anxiety during the exam.. just the normal test anxiety.

JadAsmar · Answer

I feel like I should take the GMAT again soon as I am already hovering on my target score.. I am not sure. What do you think ?  VeritasKarishma

JadAsmar · Answer

GMATNinja your input is highly appreciated if you have the time !

KarishmaB · Answer

Our tests are at par with the actual GMAT - neither easier nor harder. Of course, no test prep company has the same resources as those available to GMAC, hence some variations are to be expected.

You are right in your target range - all you have to do is ensure that you mange your time well. For that some more practice tests may help. Retaking a test has limited value (it is useful if you want exposure to more official questions) but I wouldn't suggest it if time management is your concern. Familiarity with a few questions is enough to make the test unrealistic.

I noticed that in a couple of questions (600 - 650 level) you invested 4 mins and still got them wrong. Check out what happened there. Ignore the 650+ level questions but review 550-650 level ones.

Here is my recommendation: Take a test appointment of 2-3 weeks later. In this time, take some fresh practice tests and continue to review OG. Definitely no practice test in the last 4 days. Best wishes!

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610 First attempt, target 640

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