Appearing for the second time

[brijmohan]

Dear instructor,

I gave my first GMAT in Aug, 2013 and scored 710. I am not satisfied with the same and would like to reappear with a target score of 760-780. In my first attempt, I had gone through OG and Manhattan SC guide. Apart from this, I had gone through GMAT Prep questions and Manhattan SC online question bank. For tests, I had appeared for 6 MGMAT CATs, 2 OG tests and 1 Kaplan test.

I am hoping to take the next attempt in April 1st week, though I am flexible.

I have the following questions regarding preparation:
- Should I appear for GMAT again - have other students been successful in scoring higher even when they got a 700+ score in the first test?
- What should I do differently from the first time? Would like to score atleast 50 points more.
- How do I find out my main weaknesses that I should focus on? During my actual GMAT, I had distinctly felt that I did poorly on RC and CR.
- In my second innings, which all materials should I refer to? Will it be useful to go through OG again?
- How many tests should I give and when?
- Which tests can I give now given that I have already appeared for Manh 6 CATs and OG tests.
- When should I take the GMAT date? How much preparation time is ideal?

Thanks.

[StaceyKoprince]

It is extremely challenging to score 760+. Only 1% of all students score in that range.

It is so challenging that I can't even give you a timeframe for how long you might need. Most people never get there. Of those few who do, some take a few weeks or months; some have taken 6 months or longer. If you really want a 760+, you are going to have to learn things that the vast majority of people can ignore.

Read this:
http://www.manhattangmat.com/articles/7 ... erence.cfm

For all GMAT testers, the average score change from first official test to second official test is +30 points. However, if you dive into the data, most of that score increase average comes from people who messed up the timing on their first test. People who didn't mess up their timing the first time don't, on average, see a big increase on a 2nd test.

Do you have a particular motivation for selecting that score range? No schools require scores that high. If you're choosing that based on a personal goal... I'm not telling you NOT to go for that score, but I do want to make sure you understand what it really means.

You will need materials that teach you HOW to take the test - not just study materials that contain practice problems (such as the OG). You will need to learn every last formula, rule, etc. and you will have to learn all of the testing techniques, even the ones that are very sophisticated / challenging to use.

For example, if you were using our materials to study, you would have to master everything in all 5 of our quant books, including the "Extras" (advanced) chapters. You would then need to master most things in our Advanced Quant book. For verbal, you would need to master everything in all 3 of our verbal books, including the advanced chapters.

For both, you would need to study / understand OG questions so well that you could explain to someone else not just how to do the problem, but how to do the problem 3 different ways, which way is the best way for this particular problem, how the problem could change and how that would change the solution process and possibly the solution method, what traps the author of the problem set and how to know that they're there (plus how to avoid them), and so on. And you'd need to be able to do all of this very efficiently, since most of your questions would be at insanely high difficulty levels.

Make sure that you have a really good reason for wanting that score before you put yourself through all of that. :)

Next, nobody can answer the question of how many tests to take and when or even exactly what to study - there isn't a one-size-fits-all formula for this. You'll start just like everyone else: by taking a full-length practice test (including essay and IR) and analyzing it to determine your strengths and weaknesses. You'll work from there for approx 2 to 4 weeks and, when you feel you've made significant progress since that last test, you'll then take another and repeat the whole process.

The two best practice tests out there are GMATPrep and our tests, so I actually recommend that you do them again. It has been 6+ months since you took those tests, so you likely will have forgotten a lot of the questions.

Take a look at this article on how to set up your study plan (including how to analyze your practice tests, etc):
https://www.manhattangmat.com/blog/inde ... our-score/

If you want to check any parts of your study plan with us, feel free to come back and ask!

[brijmohan]

The reason I have set myself that target is because in my first attempt I had targeted 730 (GMAT median score in most schools) but scored 710. This time I want to score 740 so I want to target 760. The logic might seem a little flawed but I want to give myself some buffer in case I screw up on test day.

I understand your push on what it would take to get there (and I must admit that you have scared me!). My break up in GMAT was 50 (quant) and 35 (verbal). Essentially, I want to improve significantly in verbal. So, I can limit my effort to verbal and make it to 750 if I really do improve in it. Let me know if it makes sense. Also, it seems to me that Manhattan tests are much closer to actual GMAT than GMATPrep. In my last Manhattan tests, I scored in 700 range but in my last GMATPrep test, I scored in 750 range.

Also, regarding preparation and referring materials, I am planning to go through all your verbal study guides and practicing from GMATPrep Problem Pack and official Verbal/Quant review. Let me know if this sounds good.

[StaceyKoprince]

I totally understand (giving yourself a buffer).

You will still need to work on quant - if you're going to hit a score that high, you basically have to max out one or the other (quant or verbal). Since quant is already your strength, you want to try to max that one out at 51.

Our tests are good but so are the real practice tests. :) The scores are within the standard deviations that these kinds of tests have; it could've gone the other way!

All right. So I'm glad that I scared you a little bit. Now you know how seriously you have to work if you want to make this happen. That's good.

In addition to our Verbal Strategy Guides, here are some other resources. They follow / use the same strategies as our Guides, but give you some additional practice, insights, etc.

RC:
https://www.manhattangmat.com/blog/inde ... rehension/

SC:
https://www.manhattangmat.com/blog/inde ... em-part-1/
http://www.manhattangmat.com/blog/index ... orrection/

CR:
https://www.manhattangmat.com/blog/inde ... reasoning/

Also make sure to master the timing for verbal:
http://www.manhattangmat.com/blog/index ... nt-part-1/

Finally, make sure you are prepared to get decent scores on essay and IR while using minimal brain energy. That means actually studying for these sections more than you might otherwise!

For IR, use our IR Interact lessons (they're free - they're in your student center under Homework & Practice).

For essay, use this:
http://www.manhattangmat.com/blog/index ... no-thanks/

And check back in here periodically!

[brijmohan]

Thanks so much for your guidance!

For quant, I mostly lose out on silly mistakes. For example, I read the units wrong or don't read the question carefully, etc. I have not been able to improve on this part for a long time. Do you think I can do anything about this? As such, I have not faced any issues in finding problems too tough or not being able to apply the concepts in quant.

In verbal, I just don't seem to improve in RC. I have gone through your strategy guide and keep practicing RC but I don't see any significant improvement. I tend to score 11-12/15 (I mostly practice RC questions in timed groups of 15). What can I do for it?

[StaceyKoprince]

Yes, there are definitely things you can do to minimize careless mistakes! Look here:
http://www.manhattangmat.com/blog/index ... -the-gmat/

Are you struggling with all questions types on RC? All passage topics? Or are there any patterns - do you struggle more with detail questions vs. main idea? Or science passages vs. business passages?

When you read the explanations, do you understand why the right answer is right and what mistake you made? Or do you struggle to understand the explanations?

Have you looked through my articles on RC as well? (I linked to them last time.)

[brijmohan]

Thanks for your guidance. I have started noting down careless mistakes - quant and verbal.

For RC, I have noted that I mess up in except and inference questions. I am mostly comfortable in business and science passages but not arts and philosophy. How can I improve? Also, where should I practice RC and CR. I have finished OG in my first attempt. I started verbal review but its questions are way easier. What do you suggest?

[StaceyKoprince]

Before you do more new questions, figure out why you're messing up the types that you're messing up. Until you do that, you're just going to keep making the same mistakes on the same types.

When you mess up on Except questions, what happens? What answer do you end up picking? The 4 wrong answers all have the same thing in common, so the typical mistake here is that someone forgets part-way through that they're looking for the EXCEPT answer and they pick something that would be the answer if it weren't an except question. Is that what's happening?

Except RC questions also typically require you to check the passage for each answer. Is that where you're struggling?

Ditto on inference - why do you think the right answer is wrong? What draws you to the wrong answer that you pick?

Read some social sciences topics every day. Try this source:
http://mag.uchicago.edu/arts-humanities

And this:
http://mag.uchicago.edu/law-policy-society

Look for the boring topics, not the headlines that you find interesting. :)

Then start practicing by looking over the RCs and CRs that you have already done in the past. Pick them apart and be able to articulate what the trap is in the most tempting wrong answer and why someone would be tempted to eliminate the right answer. (Also be able to explain why the wrong ones are wrong and why the right one is right, of course!)

When you're done with that, you can try doing problems in GMAT Prep Pack #1, a paid set of problems you can purchase in the GMATPrep software (about $30 for 400 problems, last I checked). But look further in the verbal supplement, too - they're not ALL that easy...

[brijmohan]

Hi Stacey,

Thanks for your continued guidance. I am facing three problems in verbal now:
1. I tend to spend 2.30 mins in every CR question
2. I tend to get stuck in long, convoluted RCs - first I spend about 5 mins reading them and then 1.30 mins each for answering
3. In quant, it is very easy to figure out whether I'm doing well against time - I just have to ensure that the number of minutes remaining is double the number of questions remaining. In verbal however, this calculation is not easy. I tend to spend some time here and there trying to calculate the number of minutes I am behind. How can I do this quickly and more effectively?

Please let me know what can I do to address each of the above issues. Thanks.

[StaceyKoprince]

You may be able to get away with those higher average times IF you pick a certain number of questions to just let go. You can still get a decent score this way, though you likely won't be able to score 80th+ percentile on verbal.

Is that acceptable to you? If so, you'll need to random-guess quickly on about 7-8 questions in the section (more if they're all SC; fewer if they're all CR - but I wouldn't make them all one question type).

That'll save you about 10.5 to 12 minutes across the section.

But I'm going to suggest a few other things to try first.

When you spend 2.5m on CR, where is that time going? How much time do you spend reading? How much time do you spend on the answers? If your reading speed is slow and it takes you extra time to understand the argument, then you may be stuck with that.

A lot of people, though, waste time on the answers. Here's the answer elimination process:
- 1st pass through answers: place answers into 1 of 2 categories, definitely wrong or maybe. DO NOT decide whether something is right at this stage.
- 2nd pass through: look only at the "maybe" answers, compare, choose one
- When you are down to two answers on verbal, look at each answer ONCE more, then pick one and move on.

Are you doing that? People often lose time trying to decide at stage 1, when you can't know yet because you haven't looked at all of the answers, or stage 3, when people agonize back and forth multiple times over the same two answers.

On RC, you say that you often take 5 minutes to read. You are almost certainly reading too carefully / too deeply. Pretend you're about to go into a meeting with the CEO of a potential new client. Your boss asks you to review the summary of the company's most recent annual report. The summary is 6 pages long.

The meeting starts in 5 minutes.

What are you going to do? :)

You're going to read, yes, but you're also going to prioritize. You're going to pay attention to the "big picture" information and leave the details for later. You get to keep the summary with you, so you can always glance down to reference a specific detail if needed.

That's what you're doing on this test too. You're not actually trying to read everything carefully and thoroughly understand it. You're just trying to get the main ideas, the big picture - and you'll go back into the passage later for any necessary details. (Which you're already doing anyway, because you can't really remember all of those details after the first read-through, right? So skip trying to learn them all on that first read-through.)

But, if you're already doing all of those things, then you may need to do what I referenced at the beginning: accept that you're not going to be going for an 80+ score on verbal, plan to skip a certain number of questions spread throughout the section so that you can maintain a steady performance to the end.

Also, in terms of keeping track of time, what I do for verbal is Method Two in Section 5 of this article:
http://www.manhattangmat.com/blog/index ... nt-part-2/

You group the questions into four "chunks" with the expectation that you'll get one new RC passage in each chunk. As long as that's true, the time works. BUT you keep track (I make a dot on my left hand with my pen every time a new passage pops up). So if I've already had 2 passages by Q10, then I know I should be a bit more behind on time. If I haven't yet gotten a passage, I know I should be a bit ahead of time.

[brijmohan]

Thanks Stacey! You are on the money for CR. I get stuck with answers. Will implement what you suggested. On RC, I just don't get even the big picture for convoluted big RCs. Sometimes, I just get stuck. But, will try what you suggested.

Also, your 1-minute sense suggestion (in your time management article) has been very helpful. It just keeps me very aware of time and stops from getting stuck.

Recently, I gave a Manhattan CAT (have given all Manh CATs before but gave it after mixing the complete question bank). I scored 39 in verbal. Also, I left one question in this test which I felt was way beyond my capacity. I have two questions:
1. I committed several silly mistakes in this test. For example, when I reattempted these questions after the test, I got them right. I just don't seem to be going through the options carefully enough. How can I work on this? Do you have access to my tests? Will you be able to look at it? I can describe it to you completely if you can.
2. How do I judge that I am ready for the test? As of now, I have taken the test date in early May.

Thanks!

[StaceyKoprince]

Good, I'm glad the timing stuff is helping.

I can technically see your tests, yes, but I can't go analyze it for you - that level of help is reserved for private tutoring or someone asking before / after their class.

You can, though, post a question here (in the MGMAT Verbal CAT section) and get a response from a teacher.

But, usually, careless mistakes occur because of a combo of 2 things: (1) your brain is getting tired, which (2) causes you to trip up in weaker areas.

The remedy is two-fold:
(1) Figure out what mistake you made and WHY and build a habit that will minimize chances of a repeat. WHY did you make that particular mistake vs. a different one?

(2) Figure out how to conserve mental energy. When you're deciding whether to keep going on a hard problem, that decision does NOT just affect *this* problem. It also affects everything else you have left to do. Let a few of the hardest ones go faster and save that mental energy for later in the test, when you need it to help you minimize your careless errors.

Re: when to take the test, the best time is when you're scoring at or above your goal score on practice tests taken under official conditions (including essay and IR). This is another reason you don't want to take a ton of practice tests and just "use them up." If you know the questions, then you can't use that performance result to tell whether you're ready.

Have you done the two paid GMATPrep tests yet? If not, save them! You can use those to see how you're doing when you get closer to your test date.

[brijmohan]

Hi Stacey,

I am not very sure whether it is realistic to get a good GMAT score even after scoring high on GMATPrep tests. The reason I say this is because last time I scored 710 on GMAT even though I got 760 on both GMATPrep tests. What do you think is the right score to get on GMATPrep if I want to score about 750 in GMAT?

Thanks.

[StaceyKoprince]

There isn't one universal answer - it's different for everybody. The only general rule-of-thumb that I can give is that you shouldn't expect a higher score on the real thing than on practice tests (that does happen for some people - but don't count on it!).

Also, if you are talking about the two free GMATPrep tests, then at least one was done in easier conditions than the real thing, because the second GMATPrep test uses the same IR questions as the first test. So you were seeing repeated questions. That would've meant you weren't as mentally tired as normal going into Q and V.

[brijmohan]

Hi Stacey,

My exam is less than two weeks away now. I was thinking what should I eat / drink during the exam. Finally, I narrowed down to eating bread and drinking lime water (with salt, little sugar and some Indian spices). Does this make sense?

Thanks.