2nd GMAT Attempt Worst than First

[NYC0990]

Hi - I was hoping to please have some guidance. I first took the GMAT at the end of May and scored a 640 (44Q, 35V). I unfortunately grossly mis-timed myself and my verbal score suffered significantly. While I was upset, I wasn't too beat up about the verbal score because I mainly attributed it to timing (I scored a 41V on GMAT Prep and 41+ on 800score tests).

After my first attempt, I decided to work through the Advanced Quant book. I found the book very helpful in providing guidance on attacking exponential equations and quadratics. I practiced timed sets and reviewed each problem thoroughly, ensuring to pull away at least one "takeaway" on each problem.

I re-took the exam this past weekend and performed significantly worse on the Quant (35Q, 38V). I find this quite worrisome; I didn't even score this low on the first CAT I took... the CAT I took before I even started studying!

While I'm not going to ask "what went wrong", I would like to ask if you have any suggestions on how I should approach my game plan this next month.

Thank you
NYC0990

[StaceyKoprince]

I'm sorry you had a disappointing test experience.

We do need to ask what went wrong, actually - if we don't figure out what went wrong, then we're going to find it hard to come up with an effective game plan.

You talk about having timing troubles on verbal the first time, but then you only talk about what you did to prep for quant the second time. How did you try to fix things on verbal? Your verbal did go up, but it still wasn't as high as your practice test scores.

Read this to help figure out what might have gone wrong:
http://www.manhattangmat.com/blog/index ... ent-wrong/

What applies to your case? And I'm going to add one more question that didn't exist when the above article was published: how did IR feel? How well prepared were you? (For IR, this means: prepared to get an okay score while also minimizing the mental energy expended so that you don't tire yourself out before quant and verbal.)

You can also analyze some of your recent MGMAT CATs using this article:
http://www.manhattangmat.com/blog/index ... ice-tests/
Then come back here and tell us the results of your analysis. (Note: do share an analysis with us, not just the raw data. Part of getting better is developing your ability to analyze your results - figure out what they mean and what you think you should do about them!)

[NYC0990]

Thank you for the response, Stacey!

IR didn't necessarily bother me; I don't think fatigue would have been an issue (I work in Finance and quite used to being mentally alert for extended periods of time).

On my first test, I realized I deliberated too long on certain verbal problems and really wanted to get a disciplined timing strategy down.

To give you a bit color on my verbal game plan last month:
- To fix my timing issues, I primarily did timed practice sets. Targeted 2 - 2.5 minutes to read short passages, 2.5 - 3 minutes to read long passages, 1.5 - 2 minutes per question.
- Similar strategy for CR - timed sets with a focus on 2 minutes for each
- SC: Focused primarily on parallelism and modifiers - these felt like weak categories for me

I performed an analysis on my CATs and have discovered the following:

Critical Reasoning
- I seem to be weak in Strengthen / Weaken (only around 50% right vs. 60% for CR in total); timing is fine at ~2 minutes
Reading Comprehension
- Inferences: my weakest and slowest category
Sentence Correction
- Comparisons are by far my weakest and slowest category

Quant:
- Geometry: I seem to have difficulty with Polygons and Triangles & Diagonals
- Word Problems: RTW, Overlapping Sets are weak areas (and slowest!). Statistics has always felt weak, but seems like I do relatively well in this area.
- FDP: Fractions, Percents and Ratios are all problematic for me (slowest and lowest accuracy)

Over the course of the next month, I would like to accomplish the following:
1. Bring Quant to a 46 (2 points above my first test)
2. Bring Verbal to a 41 (in-line with my practice tests)

To accomplish these goals, I am aiming to do the following. I also kindly ask for your advice :)

Quant: Re-work CAT problems diligently. I am unsure that OG problems will be helpful - I feel like I know these problems too well and review of these problems will be redundant. Do you have any other suggestions?

Verbal: It would be helpful if I could have some advice on improving CR and RC. I always feel it is difficult to study these areas. GMAT Prep has been at 41V (scored a 42V as well, but that was a 3rd attempt and there were probably 2-3 repeats); my 800score tests have ranged from 41 - 45; unfortunately the real thing came in at a 38V.

Thank you again for taking the time to read and respond to my post!

NYC0990

[StaceyKoprince]

Ok, let's see.

I am unsure that OG problems will be helpful - I feel like I know these problems too well and review of these problems will be redundant. Do you have any other suggestions?

Read this:
http://www.manhattangmat.com/articles/a ... roblem.cfm

Is this how you're reviewing problems? That's how you actually learn, and that's a very different thing than re*doing* problems. If you haven't been analyzing the problems that you did in the past, learn to do that first (on problems you have already done) before you bother to try a bunch of new problems. Otherwise, you're learning very inefficiently. :)

(And of course do this in the areas you identified as weaknesses.)

Next, what do you think might have caused the 3-point drop in verbal? The weaknesses that you later identified from your CATs? Were there other things that felt harder on the real test? Did you mess up the timing even a little bit?

CR:
http://www.manhattangmat.com/blog/index ... g-problem/
I'm including this one because you said you struggled with RC inference, which is the same general idea as CR inference:
http://www.manhattangmat.com/blog/index ... e-Problem/

strengthen / weaken:
http://www.manhattangmat.com/blog/index ... n-problem/
http://www.manhattangmat.com/blog/index ... n-problem/

RC:
http://www.manhattangmat.com/blog/index ... p-passage/
http://www.manhattangmat.com/blog/index ... c-passage/

http://www.manhattangmat.com/articles/a ... estion.cfm

For SC, read this; does it sound familiar / consistent with your real-test experience?
http://www.manhattangmat.com/blog/index ... orrection/

Additional problem sources: first place I'd go is GMATPrep. There are 90 free questions and you can buy about 400 additional questions for only about $25. :)