Advice sought for re-take

[JunaidS573]

Hi

I would like to share my GMAT experience and appreciate feedback/strategies on how I can improve as I am not happy with the current outcome.

Preparation

In terms of preparation, I spread it over 3 months with varying levels of intensity, mostly studying for an hour after work on weekdays and 2-3 hours on weekends. Last 2 weeks I spent about 4-5 hours per day. I started off by finishing all Manhattan Prep books, doing end-of-chapter questions, suggested Official Guide questions and making my own notes for retention.

Initially I finished about 60% of Official Guide questions. Then I did 3 Manhattan Prep CATs. Scored 580 (Q41, V 30), 640 (Q47, V 31) and 660 (Q 43, V 37). Used the diagnostics to work further on my weak areas, re-read the relevant sections from Manhattan Guides and practice quizzes from Gmat club tests. I then attempted 2 free GMAT prep tests and scored 710 in each. Test 1 (Q 47, V 42); Test 2 (Q 49, V 39).

I then finished the entire GMAT Official Guide Questions and Official Guide Verbal Supplement. Finished GMAT Prep Question Pack 1 for Problem Solving, Sentence Correction, Critical Reasoning and Reading Comprehension. Finished around 75% of Data Sufficiency.

Subsequently I did around 11 GMAT club tests, scoring an odd 31 and the remaining were spread out in 40s with an average of around 44 and highest of 48. Just did the Quant. Also did all DS sets of Bunuel excluding the set which contains around 50 or so DS questions.

For the last 2 weeks, I finished 4 Gmat prep tests (Pack 1 and Pack 2). Scored 670 (Q 47, V 35), 730 (Q 50, V 39), 680 (Q 47, V 36) and 660 (Q 48, V 34). I did GMAT prep on every alternate day. Also focused on GMAT Prep Question Pack 1.

I did maintain an error log. However, it was mainly just the Level 1 of analysis, i.e. noting down the questions I got wrong. Didn't dig deep into Level 2 by classifying error by sections or types.

Test Day

I started with Verbal followed by Quant. Verbal started ok. However, towards the last 20-30 mins I realized I was behind scheduled so had to speed up. The mix at that stage was CR/RC so that unsettled me a bit. Had to guess on 2 questions to make up for time. I didn't feel too comfortable with the RC and CR in the exam. I felt they were of higher difficulty. Even for the ideas stated in the passage, I was struggling to find the relevant text in the passage. In my mocks, I was getting about 11/12 out of 14 right for RC passages. For Official Guide questions also, I had accuracy range of 80% or so. However, I knew I was struggling with RC in the exam. CR I struggled even in mocks with an accuracy of 50% - 60%.

For Quant, I was comfortable with the timing. Towards the middle I had to pace myself by skipping one question to catch up. Overall there were 3-4 questions where I was't sure about the approach.

I scored 660 (Q 48, V 34). This is the exact same break-up as my last GMAT prep, which coincidentally was my lowest mock score as well for my Gmatprep exams. However, in my last GMAT prep mock, I had messed up on my SC, a section I had been performing constantly well on. Also messed up on CR. In the real exam, I messed up on RC and CR. Quant score was in line with my mocks. My last Manhattan Prep CAT was also 660 with a different sub-section breakdown. I had taken it a while back.

Strategy for Re-take

I attempt to sit again end September. However, I am thinking of perhaps spending on a one-on-one course to further drill down on my weak areas and improve. I am targeting 730 plus as that is the average of the MBA programs I am planning to apply for. There are 2 options which come to my mind, one is the Manhattan Prep Advanced Course for 650 + candidates and the other being one-on-one online tutoring. I am leaning towards the latter as you can reach 650 with a different combination of strengths and weaknesses so I would prefer a customized approach.

For Quant, I did not review the error logs. I just reviewed the mistakes for Official guide quant and the GMAT prep mock exams. I plan to review all the mistakes from Official Guide quant. Also finish GMAT Quant Guide which I did not touch. I feel I can boost my Quant score to at least 50 if I follow these guidelines. In addition to these I plan to go through Manhattan Prep Advance Quant guide to be comfortable with the thinking process for 700+ questions. I have just ordered a copy.

For Verbal, I clearly need to work on my CR as I have been consistently underperforming. However, for SC and RC I do not know as I have exhausted all official guide materials. Will do the new ones for 2019 Official guides.

Given the work commitments, I am planning to do 1-2 hours on weekdays and 3-4 hours on weekends.

Would you think one-on-one course would be useful or should I continue with the self-study approach? Also how can I approach CR differently? Should I re-read the CR guide? And Is a 70 point improvement possible in 1.5 months? I am rationalizing it based on a 2-point improvement in Quant and 4-5 point improvement in Verbal.

ESR Summary

I have summarized my ESR below

Verbal

CR 49 percentile (1.42 min/question)
RC 57 percentile (2.11 min/question)
SC 81 percentile (1.24 min/question)

Overall 1.45 min/question

% correct (1st quarter 75% ; 2nd quarter 57%; 3rd quarter 86%; 4th quarter: 50%). Average response time was 2.10 for 3rd quarter and 1.19 for 4th quarter).

Quant

PS 58 percentile (1.51 min/question)
DS 70 percentile (1.48 min/question)

% correct (1st quarter: 100%; 2nd quart: 43%; 3rd quarter: 29%; 4th quarter: 100%)

[StaceyKoprince]

First, I know that you want a higher score, but good work on getting yourself to 660, which is a very solid score. Just make sure you appreciate that you've done a lot of good work so far.

Your last 4 official practice tests were in the 660 to 680 range and you took these over a period of 2 weeks, so that's a pretty good indicator that your level really was in that range. Your official test score goes along with that data.

Your goal is 730. Your official Q was 48 and V was 34. The top score in each section is 51 (though it's very hard to score higher than ~45 on V).

So you have 3 points you could pick up on Q and you have 11 points you could pick up on V (if we use 45 as the top score). Given that Q is obviously your strength, you can probably mostly do what you need to do on your own to pick up another couple of points there, with some light direction from a teacher / tutor. Most of your work will need to be on the V side.

Okay, now I'm reading the rest of your post. It sounds like you feel pretty confident that you can do what you need to do on the Q side, too.

Based on your ESR, your SC was much stronger than the other two sections. There's also the time management issue. And it's jumping out at me that you said most of your study time was spent on Level 1 studying, not Level 2—but you're also telling me you don't know what to do for SC and RC because you have "exhausted all OG materials." But you have already hinted at what you need to do—you need to study those same materials at a different level.

In terms of the Advanced Course vs tutoring, yes, tutoring is fully customized, unlike the course. Tutoring is also much more expensive—that's the drawback. If the cost is not an issue for you, then it's likely that you will get more out of tutoring. (The course is going to spend about half the time on Q...you probably don't need that kind of outside help in this area.)

If you are concerned about the cost (as many people would be!), then you can try the course first and just do a little supplemental tutoring afterwards if you still need more targeted help. The Advanced course is 15 hours, so about 7.5h will be spent on V. This would stretch out your studies more though; tutoring is more direct—that's why it's at a premium.

Re: the timeframe, 660 to 730 is an ambitious goal for 1.5 months. It's not impossible but I would guess that, on average, most people in that situation would need a little more time, maybe 2 to 3 months. (And, of course, it isn't the case that a certain amount of time will guarantee a certain score.)

Also note: If you can get Q to 50, then you'd need V 39-40 (or 5 to 6 points) to hit about 730.

Ultimately, you'll have to decide what you want to do, since it's your money. Even if I knew someone had unlimited funds, I wouldn't necessarily recommend tutoring; everybody is different. Given what you've described, though, you do seem to be a good candidate for tutoring. You'll have to decide whether you think the cost is worth it to you.

Finally re: CR, I'll point you towards a couple of resources that use our existing materials / strategies but have you digging a bit deeper. But if you decide to do tutoring or the Advanced Course, then of course work with whatever your teacher gives you.

First, you referenced 1st level vs. 2nd level, so I assume you already have this, but just in case:
https://www.manhattanprep.com/gmat/blog ... -the-gmat/

Next, take a look at this for CR specifically:
http://www.beatthegmat.com/mba/2015/12/ ... stion-type

And you can use this to help you with the above:
blog/2013/06/19/the-master-resource-list-for-critical-reasoning/

(And you can also search our blog for more CR posts that are similar to the ones linked in the last post above.)

[JunaidS573]

Thank you Stacey. Appreciate the detailed response. Really useful.

Just a quick follow-on. I have already gotten my copy of Manhattan Advanced Quant guide. However, given the length and the complexity I feel it will require considerable time to get the maximum benefit out of it.

I wanted to get a better sense of the ROI in terms of time spent on this guide. Just to add a bit of context, in my actual quant, the difficulty level was medium high throughout. I got 100% correct in the 1st and 4th quarter. However, in the 2nd and 3rd quarter my accuracy was 43% and 29% respectively. In the 2nd quarter, I spent 2.03 minute/correct answer and 0.58 minute/incorrect answer. In the 3rd quarter, I spent 1.42 minute/correct answer and 1.08 minute/incorrect answer. For the 1st and 4th quarter I spent 2.20 and 2.15 minutes/question respectively. So I was spotting my problem areas and giving up on them without getting stuck. However, there were too many of those so I ended up with 48 rather than a higher score.

Do you feel Advanced Quant guide will be useful in that regard by helping me think through the steps when I see a higher difficulty problem so I solve a few of them rather than letting go of them all? Or should I focus on my relatively weak areas like geometry etc.?

[StaceyKoprince]

If you do have any holes in your foundational content knowledge, then you will need to plug those in order to hit a 50 or 51 on quant. The Advanced Quant guide assumes that you know all of the content and strategies that are in the 5 "main" strategy guides, including the material in the Extra chapters at the end of each guide.

You can get away with still having a few weaknesses in the Extra areas—but you need to know everything in the main / non-Extra chapters.

From there, yes, the issue is being able to think your way through increasingly complex problems, and that's exactly what the Advanced Quant guide is for. The fact that you scored a 48 already indicates that you can benefit from this guide—just note that you still may need some of the material in the main strategy guides, too.

I will also add: I would say that about 50% of the problems in AQ are harder than anything you would likely see on the real test. So sometimes you will be doing some problems that you feel are crazy hard and you'll be wondering whether this is really useful. It is, as long as you remember two things: (1) Sometimes you do want to overtrain (do something harder than you're expecting to do on the real thing, so the real thing doesn't feel as hard), but (2) You don't want to overtrain so hard that you injure yourself (so when something is just really super hard for you...that would be the time to bail and move on...which is also part of your training for this test )

[JunaidS573]

Thank you Stacey. Really useful and clarifies a lot of things for me.

I will re-read the problem sections for me from Manhattan Prep foundation books first. I am quite comfortable with the theory aspect but sometimes struggle with the application concept on higher difficulty level questions. I went through the Introduction chapter of Advanced quant guide to get a feel. While I couldn't solve any of the 3 examples, however, I learnt a lot by going through the detailed solution steps, in particular the dialogues between the big picture guy and task doer.

I am also going through your Critical section posts and filling out Excel tabs for each of the various CR question types. I am finding it really useful and am feeling more comfortable tackling the problems now.

[StaceyKoprince]

Great, glad to hear it! Keep me posted. Good luck with everything!