GMAT Attempt 3 Advice

[Big4Advisory]

GMAT 1st Attempt(October 2012): 460- Quant 36 Verbal 10
GMAT 2nd Attempt(April 2013): 540 - Quant - 36 and Verbal - 27.
After failing the GMAT for the 2nd time I am planning to take for a 3rd time. The below is my background, goal, materials used, test summary, and outlook. Any advice is much appreciated!

Background
26 Year Old Male
Double major: Finance/M.I.S
College: Top 100 state school
GPA: 3.5/ Major GPA: 3.75
Job: Advisory/Consulting- Big 4 firm

Goal

Get my MBA from a TOP 25 MBA program. I have not decided on part time vs full time. The schools i'd be aiming for are Tepper, McCombs, Kenan-Flagler, and Marshall. However, my top goal would be getting into the Tepper Part time program.

Materials Used

OG 13
Verbal Guide 2nd edition
Quant Guide 2nd edition
Powerscore CR Bible
All of the MGMAT Guides
Error Log
Thursday's With Ron Videos
GMAT PILL- Sentence, RC, Quant Videos

Study Strategy

My 2nd attempt started out 3 months ago as a new years resolution to once again take my GMAT. I also conveniently had a project end at work and had a lot of downtime starting at the end of February. I put together a study schedule that was going to consist of going through each chapter of the MGMAT guides(completed this the first time around as well), including problems in the guide, followed by problems in the OG that were related to these questions. As I was completing some of the MGMAT guides I would also include a video from the GMATPILL series or a Thursdays with Ron video to complement what I learned. Overall, I probably spent about 60-70 hours studying in February and 90-100 hours studying in march. I'd estimate around 200-225 hours of study time total including first week of april.

Once I finished through all of the MGMAT guides I would continue completing problems in the OG guide(1-2 RC, 5-7 CR, 5-7 SC, 5 PS, 5 DS per night) and began taking practice exams on the weekends. I bought the official notepad and marker for the exam to simulate the test environment. The following were my practice exam scores.

MGMAT 1 - 690 - Q44, V39
GMAT PREP 1- 620- Q42, V34
MGMAT 2- 690 - Q46, V38
MGMAT 3- 740- Q46, V45
MGMAT 4- 690- Q45, V39
MGMAT 5- 730- Q45, V45
MGMAT 6- 700- Q45-V40
GMAT PREP 2 690- Q47, V38

As I was going through the practice exams I did an analysis of the areas I needed to focus on and I would go back to the MGMAT guidesor look for additional resources to get help on those areas. I also did a pretty solid analysis of my errors with my error log. The last week I focused on this error log and went back through the OG13 and looked over missed problems.

Test Day

I was given 2 markers when taking the exam. I was already use to the test booklet due to the fact that I bought the same one online for my practice exams. When the instructions were on the screen I decided to write down 2 time tables for Verbal and Quant. I did this for all of my practice exams as well.

My essay was pretty easy. The topic was [deleted by Stacey - don't give any details of the official test!]. I started out by creating an outline in the testing window. I also followed the template on GMATCLUB for AWA 6.0. I thought this was pretty easy and finished with about 10 seconds left.

My IR questions weren't that bad, however I ran out of time with about 2 questions left so I quickly had to make decisions. It looked like my last 2 question were easy so I kind of regretted focusing so much time on the 2 MSR questions I was given. I took the break after the QUANT section. I washed my face and drank a little bit of water.

The Quant section was very similar to the GMATPrep and much easier than the MGMAT questions that I faced. However, as my score shows, it must have not been that easy for me because I didn't do that great. I had about 3-4 Geometry questions. 2 of them were very tough and I skipped the one. I also had a very easy combinatorics problem that I know I got wrong thinking back about it. [deleted by Stacey] Overall, I didn't feel that bad about the Quant after taking it. I was hoping to score about a 40 at least.

Once again I took the break and splashed water in my face. I felt like I improved the most in verbal since the last time I took the exam . I had really focused on the CR bible and SC guide with about an 85%+ hit rate in the Verbal Guide 2 for SC and 85% for RC+. I was able to get through the first 5 problems very quickly(3 SC and 2 CR). The first passage I received was about the moon and was very long. I quickly skimmed through it. This one was really easy, I know for a fact that I did well on it. My other 3 passages were a lot more difficult with one science, one history, and I cannot remember the last one. However, with that said I am not really sure where I slipped up in verbal except maybe for the more difficult passages and a few of the CRs.. I felt like I was pretty solid with SC and verbal in general. I finished with about 25 seconds left.

I was estimating my score to be about 600-650 range. I was really shocked when I saw it come up on the screen. I felt like this time around I was going to score around 650-690 based on my practice exams.


Going forward

I have pretty much gone through the materials multiple times. I would need to get an new OG12 guide because I have answered all of the questions. I also have invested a lot of time and money into this. I am looking at a over a year for studying 2 exams which I did terrible on and not sure if I can open one of these books again.

The 3rd attempt
I have a busy summer schedule coming up but I have a window of about 5 weeks that I can squeeze some studying in before I go on vacation. I would not like to leave a gap in my study schedule. Do you think this would be enough time to boost my score from a 540 to the 650-680 range? I feel like I have the basics down, however I ran into some timing and test anxiety during the test day.

My 5 week study plan would be the following.
1. Go through all 5 MGMAT guides again(2 chapters a day including problems)
2. All OG12 problems again(5-10 per section a day) + Error log
3. 2-4 GMATPREP Exams(I feel like this gave me the best estimate of my score the first time around- therefore I was going to take it multiple times)
4. Aristole Prep SC guide- I have not gone through this yet and was going to add this to my list of materials to help boost my verbal score more.

[StaceyKoprince]

First, most important thing: do not give details about specific official test questions (or the essay topic). Do you remember that document you signed before the test started? That was a legally-binding document stating that you would not disclose official test / question details to anyone! I've deleted the relevant text from your post. If you posted anywhere else online, go back and edit your posts yourself.

Did you take your practice tests under 100% official conditions, including essay and IR, length of breaks, etc.? Did you do ANYTHING that would not have been allowed on the real test? That can cause an artificially inflated practice score.

Both your quant and verbal scores dropped on the real thing. This could have been due to mental stamina issues if you had regularly been skipping essay and IR. It could have been due to timing issues (but it doesn't sound like you had any major timing problems).

You might also, though, have been making careless mistakes without realizing it. Did you used to have timing problems? Sometimes people "fix" that by going too quickly in future - then you make mistakes but you think you're answering things correctly. At the very least, it sounds like that last bit happened, because you thought the sections were fine but they obviously weren't.

Okay, on to our discussion of the re-take. You did improve big-time on verbal since your first exam, so great work there!

5 weeks is almost certainly not enough time to jump from 540 to 650-680. I'm not saying it's impossible - but most people would need more time to make a 100+ point increase.

You mentioned this:
"I would need to get an new OG12 guide because I have answered all of the questions."

Does that mean that you actually wrote in the book? Do NOT do that again, with any of your materials. You can never write on the test questions during the real test, so don't get into the habit of doing that in practice. In fact, you should prop the book up vertically so that you have to keep looking up to see the problem and down to write - just like you do on the real test.

In terms of what / how to study, I'd like you first of all to read the how to study / how to learn section of this article:
http://www.manhattangmat.com/blog/index ... -the-gmat/

I suspect that you have been spending too much time doing problems and not enough time really analyzing the problems that you did. Your goal here is not about the quantity of material you can get through in a day - it's about the quality of your study.

Go take a look through that and then come back here to
(a) ask me any questions, and
(b) give me a summary of your understanding of the "how to study" process and what it means to analyze a problem, not just do a problem

That article above also contains a section on time management, so dive into that as well.

If you'd like, you can also use the below to analyze your most recent MGMAT CAT(s):
http://www.manhattangmat.com/blog/index ... ice-tests/

Then come back here and tell us the results of your analysis and what you think you should do based on that analysis. We'll tell you whether we agree and advise you further. (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!)

Don't do the above, though, until after you have first read the Studying and Struggling article!