2 Years Studying - Plateauing/Volatile CAT Scores

[ryan.buckmaster]

It's sad to say but I have been studying off and on since 2011. All in, I estimate that I've studied about 1000 hours. I started with the MGMAT in-person course and scored a meager 430 (Q21/V28) on 6/26/11 at the beginning of my studies. I brought my CAT scores up but they've been quite volatile, scoring as high as 640 (Q39/V38) with a MGMAT CAT on 11/4/11 after studying for 25+ hours/week since that June, but also scoring as low as 510 (Q28/V32) with GMATPrep just 3 days prior. Ultimately, I scored a 580 (Q35/V35) on 11/5/11. I then studied for another 6 months beginning the following summer (2012) while mainly focusing on quant and ended up scoring the same frustrating 580 in December 2012 with a different breakdown (Q42/V28). Before I took the test, I received multiple CAT scores in the mid 600s, topping out at 660 but also saw a score as low as 590. Then in March of this year, I got back on the wagon and again began to study for this dreadful test. This time, I focused on the OG problems and went through all of them. I took my first CAT exam in 2013 last month and have now taken 4 for the year. Including all tests since 2011, my quant score has never been over 44 and my verbal score has never been over 39 and in most cases, I seem to be only close to one of these peak scores when the other score is much lower.

My scores for this year's tests are even lower than last year's, despite having logged another 400+ hours since last year. Moreover, last year my verbal score was usually around 36-38 and now it's all over the place as seen below:

MGMAT 10/19/13 590 (Q40/V32)
MGMAT 10/27/13 620 (Q37/V37)
GMATPrep 11/5/13 580 (Q42/V28)
GMATPrep 11/24/2013 590 (Q40/V31)

So I have two problems.

1) I am totally inconsistent and never do well on verbal while also doing well on quant and vice versa
2) Even if I were to get a quant score of 44 and verbal score of 39 on the same test, which would be a miracle, I'd still only get about a 670/680.

Timing has been an issue for me but lately, I've been staying on the benchmarks and feeling like I've been doing better with the timing. However, the scores are still low.

For some background info, I'm a CFA charterholder so I assume I have at least a moderate level of intelligence. I'm also a native English speaker who writes a fair amount at work. Any advice/insight on what you think my problem is and whether there's still hope for improvement would be fantastic. I wanted to apply to top 15 b schools by round 2 but at this point, I'm considering giving up on business school and accepting that not everyone can "beat the GMAT."
Thanks in advance.

Ryan

[StaceyKoprince]

I'm sorry you're having such a tough time with the GMAT.

You mention lots of volatility in your practice scores. This is often due to one (or, more likely, a combination) of several causes:

(1) Exam conditions: not taking the exam under 100% official conditions (including essay, IR, length of breaks, etc). If you don't always follow official conditions, then you will give yourself artificial advantages on some tests but not others.

(2) Timing issues. Everyone has timing issues; the question is just what your issues are and how severe they are. (Finishing the section on time does not mean that you don't have timing issues.)

You can use the below to analyze your most recent MGMAT CAT(s) and help you figure out what timing (and other) issues exist:
http://www.manhattangmat.com/blog/index ... ice-tests/

(Note: plan for that evaluation to take a good 45 to 60 minutes. Don't rush it.)

(3) Burnout. Speaks for itself. Have you flipped over into the "quantity" burnout mindset (where someone just does more and more and more out of frustration with not getting results), to the point that you're trying to learn / remember way too much, more than anyone's brain could reasonable take in?

(4) Wrong mindset / study focus. Read this:
https://www.manhattangmat.com/blog/inde ... lly-tests/

You took one of our courses. Have you signed up for a free Post-Exam Assessment yet? This is a phone call with an instructor to figure out what happened on test day and come up with a plan to re-take the test. If you haven't, please send an email to studentservices@manhattangmat.com and request the Post-Exam Assessment. If you have, please let me know what you discussed during your PEA (and when it was).

Next, read the below; have you been doing the "second level" of studying? Or primarily the first level?
http://www.manhattangmat.com/blog/index ... -the-gmat/

Figure out what you think might be going on based on all of that analysis, then come back here and tell me all about it. Wherever you can, formulate hypotheses about what you might do to address particular situations - even when you're not sure, toss ideas out there. (I want you to do this because one thing you need to develop is the ability to analyze the situation, come up with a hypothesis about what to do, and test it out, then figure out how to adjust if that's not working.)