580 (Q 39, V 31) Thoughts for pumping a 70-90 points.

Question

Hi,

I took the GMAT last week and pulled a rough 580( Q 39, V 31) Very disappointing Q score - all my weak areas were exploited. Nonetheless, I do plan on retaliating within the next month. I was wondering if you could throw me some tips to improve 70-90 points if possible. I am not the brightest at taking standardized tests but I am willing to put the work. Do you have any ideas/thoughts regarding the matter? Can you suggest a way forward?

I am thankful for your advice.

All the best, 
Jas

bakfed · Answer

Hi JasLamba, it'll be helpful to know what you prepared yourself with. Have you tried the OG (official guide)? The OG problems have been said to cover up to about a score of 650. If you haven't tried the OG problems, I'd recommend you purchase and try the latest version of the Official Guide. Also, have you taken any practice test, such as GmatPrep? Let us know what you've done to prepare yourself for the test and people will have a better gauge at what you should be doing.

JasLamba · Answer

Hi Bakfed,

Thanks for the reply.

My test scores were the following:

GMAT Prep 1 - 610 
Knewton CAT 1 - 530 
GMAT Prep 1A - 630 
Knewton CAT 2 - 540 
GMAT Prep 1B - 650 
Knewton CAT 3 - 600 
GMAT Prep 1C - 690 
Powerprep 1 - 550 
Princeton Review 1 - 620 
Princeton Review 2 - 550 
GMAT Prep 2 - 570 (had to go to the toilet in between - urgency 7-9 minutes)

Real attempt - 580 (Q -39 V- 31)

I prepped with:
- Knewton course
- OG Q Review
- OG 11th and 12th (All of the Verbal only)
- GMAT Prep

So far I have done this.

All the best,
Jas

bakfed · Answer

Thanks for the additional information. It looks like you've done a lot to prepare yourself for the test already; however, seeing how the test scores are and the books you've been prepping with, my guess is that you don't truly understand why you've missed something (forgive me for being blunt). You should go back to your tests and see which ones you got wrong, then understand truly why you got it wrong in the first place. GMATPrep doesn't have explanations for answers, but most of the questions have already been posted on some sort of a forum somewhere online - you can easily type in the question (or part of the question) on Google and read others' take on that specific question. This is extremely tiring and tedious, but it's really a good way to learn. If you truly understand the questions you're missing, you really should see an increase in your test scores.

For some folks, an error log is a good way to learn. You can find good error logs right here at GMATClub. It provides you with a way to nicely organize your errors. I'm not a big fan of it, but I know it's worked for some folks. You should go back to the questions you've done in the OGs and review them all. Why did you miss something? Are you not understanding reading comp? Were you not able to figure out some math problems? The nice thing about OG is that an explanation is given to you for every question, so you can really check yourself on the work. Just be reading/glancing at the OE doesn't help! I find a lot of my students tend to look at the explanation and move on; that's not the right way to do thing. At the end of the explanation, you should ask yourself if you really understand what the explanation is saying. If you do, come a month after you do the OG, you should be able to go back to the question and answer it correctly, whether it is verbal or math. You should also look at your practice tests and see where your weak points are. Are you particularly unstable with sentence correction? Do you have a hard time dealing with critical reasoning? There are specific books that can help you with these sort of errors. Most people will recommend (including me) ManhattanGMAT's sentence correction and number property books.

The beautiful thing with your score right now is you can improve dramatically if you're willing to put in the time and effort to do so. Q39 can be easily improved to a Q44 with some solid practice. If you're able to improve your verbal to a V35 or above, you can easily obtain a 650. But remember, practice is the key! When you have a 5-min break, go look at the verbal forum and do a few questions here and there. Ask any questions you may have regarding to any GMAT question on here and I'm sure you'll hear participants chime in soon enough.

JasLamba · Answer

Thanks for the insights!

To recap:

- Review more in depth; understand why I am missing things. 
- Use the error to organize errors and learn from mistakes.
- Practice more.

Any particular insight on the materials to use to attain this?

Thanks for your help! Really appreciate it.

Jas

bakfed · Answer

Book-wise, I do recommend (as I mentioned) MGMAT's books, such as number properties and sentence correction. Other than that, GMAT Verbal Bible from PowerScore is a good source. OG 12th is, of course, a good source, though the questions do only go up to a certain level of GMAT. I know somewhere on this forum there is the "1000-series" questions (I don't know where) and perhaps, you can find those and start practicing with those. Remember, the more practice you get, the more information will stick to you!

Good luck! Hopefully someone else can chime in as to what books may be helpful for you.

Good luck! Hopefully someone else can chime in as to what books may be helpful for you.

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580 (Q 39, V 31) Thoughts for pumping a 70-90 points.

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