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Getting Past a GMAT Score Plateau

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gmat score plateau

Is your GMAT score stuck? Are you starting to wonder whether to stop studying for the GMAT? If you’re in this situation, but you don’t have the score you want, try following this plan first. 

Improving Your GMAT Score

If your score isn’t going up, and you’ve taken more than a couple of practice tests (or official tests), that means you’re making the same mistakes more than once. There are only so many different types of problems on the GMAT, and there are only so many different mistakes you can make. If you’re at a score plateau, you’re revisiting old mistakes. 

It also means that what you’re doing now isn’t effective. I left that statement somewhat vague on purpose, because “what you’re doing” could refer to a couple of different things. It’s possible that what you’re doing while you take the GMAT isn’t effective. It’s also possible that what you’re doing while you study isn’t effective. Or, it could be both. 

You might also need to shake things up a bit. Maybe you’re mentally fatigued and suffering from GMAT burnout. If your attitude towards the GMAT is one of stress, boredom, pessimism, anxiety, dread, fear, etc., you can’t just study your way out of it. Something has to change. 

What follows is my plan for getting past a score plateau. It’s going to take at least two weeks of hard work on your part. And I can’t guarantee that it will work! But it’s based on everything I’ve learned so far about how to study for the GMAT. 

Build your personalized GMAT Study Guide

To try to blast through the GMAT plateau, you’re going to choose five things to focus on each week. Since everyone has different needs and goals, I’ll give you a list to pick each of these five things from. However, everybody’s plan will include the same basic elements: 

  • One new GMAT mindset-related skill;
  • One new general test-taking skill; 
  • One new study method;
  • Mastery of one type of GMAT Quant content;
  • Mastery of one type of GMAT Verbal content. 

Let’s see your options!

GMAT Score Improvement Tip #1: Learn one new mindset-related skill

From this list, choose one thing to do for the next week. You can make your choice based on what you think you need the most, or you can choose randomly! All of these suggestions will help you with the GMAT, so there isn’t just one right choice. Just don’t try to do more than one of them. One thing that makes this plan work is that it lets you focus on just a few things for a little while, and takes some of the pressure off to do everything all at once!

  • Read this article about positive self-talk. Then, each time you catch yourself engaging in negative self-talk, change the channel! Say something positive about yourself instead. 
  • Do this 15-minute mindfulness session (or any short mindfulness recording that works for you) each day. 
  • For the next week, create some affirmations that resonate with you, and repeat them each morning and each evening. 
  • Commit to getting at least 7.5 hours of sleep every night for the next week. 

GMAT Score Improvement Tip #2: Lean one new general GMAT test-taking skill

You’ve picked one way to master your mindset. Now, choose one test-taking skill to perfect over the next week, by picking one of the following exercises. 

  • Work on stamina and attention span by doing two 1-hour problem sets this week: one in Quant, and one in Verbal. For the Quant set, do 18 Problem Solving problems and 12 Data Sufficiency problems from the GMATPrep software. For the Verbal set, do three Reading Comp passages with a total of 11 questions; ten Sentence Correction problems; and eight Critical Reasoning questions. 
  • Work on problem recognition by doing the following exercise: Open the Official Guide to the beginning of a Quant section. For each problem, without using pen and paper, decide what material the problem is testing, what your plan is for solving it, and what traps or mistakes you need to be careful about. Try to do this for ten Quant problems within ten minutes (remember that you don’t have to solve them!). Then, go back and solve those ten problems, and evaluate how you did. Repeat 4-5 times over the course of the week. 
  • Work on guessing by giving yourself a much shorter time limit than usual to do a set of random problems: 15 minutes for either 10 Quant problems, 15 Sentence Correction problems, or 8 Critical Reasoning problems. Your goal is to choose the right problems to guess on, as quickly as possible. If you’re doing a Quant set, you should quickly guess four times; guess six times for Sentence Correction, or three times for Critical Reasoning. See if you can spot the hardest problems in the set, make quick and reasonable guesses, and get all of the easier ones right. Repeat this exercise 4-5 times over the course of the week. 

GMAT Score Improvement Tip #3: Learn one new GMAT study method

From the following list, choose one new thing to do for the next two weeks. Again, only pick one of these things! We’re trying to shake up your study habits, not completely burn you out. 

GMAT Score Improvement Tip #4: Master a type of GMAT Quant content

Here’s a (non-exhaustive) list of high-value GMAT Quant content. Choose one of these areas, and really master it this week. Even if you already understand the topic fairly well, you have a week to become an expert. Start by reading a good chapter or article, or watching a video, about the topic: if you have the Manhattan Prep strategy guides or access to GMAT Interact, that’s a great place to start. Then, use the Official Guide to do practice problems on that topic. Finally, review all of those problems thoroughly and write about them in your problem log. For bonus points (not redeemable on the GMAT!), you can also create a cheat sheet for the topic. 

  • Percent word problems
  • Triangles
  • Averages
  • Overlapping sets
  • Divisibility
  • Positives/Negatives/Odds/Evens
  • Exponents
  • Square roots
  • Linear equations
  • Quadratic equations

GMAT Score Improvement Tip #5: Master a type of GMAT Verbal content

Here’s another list, this time for Verbal! A lot of people focus way too much on Quant, to the detriment of their overall GMAT score. If you have a certain overall score goal in mind, and you’ve plateaued while mostly studying Quant, this is your excuse to focus on Verbal for a little while. Pick one of these topics, and approach it this week in the same way described in the previous section. 

  • Sentence Correction: modifiers
  • Sentence Correction: parallelism
  • Sentence Correction: subject/verb agreement and sentence structure
  • Critical Reasoning: assumptions
  • Critical Reasoning: strengthen/weaken the argument
  • Reading Comp: main idea
  • Reading Comp: specific detail
  • Reading Comp: inference

What you should have now

If you’ve followed along until this point, you should have a list of five things to do this week. For now, ditch everything else you’re doing to study for the GMAT. After all, you’re trying to shake things up, try something new, and stop making the same old mistakes. Create a study calendar for the next week, making sure to include whichever mindset technique you’re going to try out. Then, for the next week, focus just on those five things and trust the process. 

The following week… do it again! You can repeat any or all of your five choices, or try something totally new. 

At the end of the two weeks, it’s time to take another practice test. You might be surprised to find that your score has gone up. If so, you now have some new things to incorporate into your process as you get back into your regular study routine. If not: you’ve still gotten some good data. You now know a couple of things that don’t work out very well for you, and you should, at the very least, be feeling refreshed and intellectually curious. 

If you try this, let us know about it in the comments! I’d love to hear how you make this plan your own, and whether it helps you bust through a tough GMAT score plateau. 

RELATED: Top 3 GMAT Study Mistakes (And How to Fix Them)

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Chelsey Cooley Manhattan Prep GRE InstructorChelsey Cooley is a Manhattan Prep instructor based in Seattle, Washington. Chelsey always followed her heart when it came to her education. Luckily, her heart led her straight to the perfect background for GMAT and GRE teaching: she has undergraduate degrees in mathematics and history, a master’s degree in linguistics, a 790 on the GMAT, and a perfect 170Q/170V on the GRE. Check out Chelsey’s upcoming GMAT prep offerings here.