GMAT second attempt

[AseemJ807]

Hey

I gave my First GMAT exam and scored 680. My break up was as follows:
quant:48
verbal:36

I had prepped really hard and mocks scores were as follows:
GMAT PREP 1-660
GMAT PREP 2-680
GMAT PREP 3-720
GMAT PREP 4-750

But I will admit that I took breaks while giving my mocks and i suffered from anxiety issues related to accuracy of answers. Hence I used to pause and check if my answer is correct or not. I know it was a blunder but i couldn't contain myself from doing that.

However, this time i have resolved to not do anything of these sorts. So I gave my first diagnostic test (given in OG 2016) and scored 37 in quant and and 37 in verbal.

Could you please guide me as to how should I study further so that I can reach my target of 780. I have full two months to prepare.

Thanks

[StaceyKoprince]

First, I want to say: Great job on getting to 680! I know you want a higher score, but a 680 is already a very good score. That's a real accomplishment.

Next, we need to address the anxiety issue. If you found that you couldn't make yourself take a full practice test without pausing to check your answers—then that's a significant source of anxiety. (Also: What did you do if you discovered that you'd gotten it wrong? Did you change your answer to the correct answer? I'm wondering whether your practice test scores are inflated.)

Take a look at this:
https://www.manhattanprep.com/gmat/blog ... mat-score/

And this:
https://hbr.org/2015/02/pronouns-matter ... ourself-up

And if you want to try a mindfulness program, I've had several students like this program:
http://www.10percenthappier.com/mindful ... he-basics/

I've tried it myself—they have a 1-week free trial and then there is a paid program beyond that. I highly recommend trying it out.

Depending on how significantly you feel the anxiety may be affecting you, you might also want to talk to a therapist who specializes in performance anxiety (athletes do this all the time!).

Next, I'd encourage you to set intermediate goals—it actually increases anxiety to think "I've got to go from 680 to 780" because that's such a large jump. So let's set a first goal, something like 720, and then 750, and so on.

We also have to talk about one more thing: Why do you want a 780? The very top schools have averages in the 730s—so no school "requires" you to get a 780. It's also not the case that a 780 is going to "get you in." The schools use the GMAT more like a threshold indicator—if you're above some certain threshold, then they're not concerned about your ability to do the work. But, from there, they'll use the rest of your application to decide whether they want to let you in.

I mention that simply because less than 1 percent of all test takers will score 780+—it's a very hard level to hit. And if it's also adding to your anxiety to think that you "must" get to that level...then we might help your anxiety by making the scoring goal more reasonable. If you score "only" a 740, you'll still be above the average for every business school out there!

Okay, let's talk more about an actual study plan. What materials are you using? How have you studied so far? Read this:
https://www.manhattanprep.com/gmat/blog ... our-score/

Think about the various aspects I discuss in that article (and let me know what you think!).

Next, read this:
https://www.manhattangmat.com/blog/inde ... lly-tests/
Are you actually approaching both the test and your studies in that way? If not, what do you think you need to change / improve to implement this mindset?

Next, read this (right now):
http://www.manhattangmat.com/blog/index ... -the-gmat/
Are you studying in this way now? How? If not, what do you need to change going forward?

If you have taken one of our CATs, you can use this article to analyze it:
http://tinyurl.com/analyzeyourcats

If you do analyze an MPrep CAT, feel free to share your analysis here. (Note: do share an analysis with us, not just the raw data. Your analysis should include a discussion of your buckets—you'll understand what that means when you read the last article. Part of getting better is developing your ability to analyze your result—figure out what they mean and what you think you should do about them!)

[AseemJ807]

Hi Stacey

Thank you for the response. So coming to anxiety part, I have had conversations with my parents which have helped me relax and not take too much pressure. But yes, I am now going to start with meditation so I am calmer during the exam.

Yes, my last GMAT prep score i.e. 750 I guess is a bit inflated because while checking answers , I did change one or two but thats purely because I wanted to feel confident in respect of score as my GMAT was two days away but then it was a blunder.
Coming to score part, The reason I set my target was that since I wasted the money the first time, I increased the horizon of my goal, so to satisfy myself but I do realise and accept that something like 740 or 750 would be sufficient to be a competitive candidate for my dream school i.e. Harvard Business School. The barrier of 780 is more of a personal fight and 740 the actual score that will make me a probable candidate. As Manhattan advanced quant says, give up the immediate battle to win the bigger one. So yes I will make aim more realistic and keep it at 750 or 740 and anything above that, will be a bonus or god's blessing upon me.

The materials I used in my first attempt were as follows:
The full Manhattan Set including advanced GMAT quant.
Some topic wise questions for quant from gmatclub.com
I gave two CATs as well and score 630 and 700 respectively, but I took breaks and paused to checks answers in the latter.

Presently, I went through all the concepts of quant and verbal and I'm using Kaplan 800 to get myself in the groove and I'm feeling pretty comfortable. Im yet to give a CAT. When I give, I will certainly share the analysis. Also, I have started maintaining an error log.

So I have two questions:
a) What should be the way forward from here after I'm done with kaplan 800? Should I go through Manhattan Advanced GMAT quant again and do the questions? Any set of questions that I should be practicing or any additional study material that I should have?
b) What should be my next date of GMAT? Personally, I plan to give it in the period between July 15 and July 22.

Thanks!

[StaceyKoprince]

I'll answer your second question first: Plan to take the real test again when you are scoring in your desired scoring range on tests that are taken under 100% official conditions.

Re: what to do next, if you have already been through most or all of your materials once, then the goal is not to go through all of them again. The goal is to diagnose your particular strengths and weaknesses and study accordingly.

Look at recent practice tests or problem sets that you have completed. Diagnose what went well and what didn't go well across multiple dimensions: timing and overall decision-making, solution process, question type, content area. You can also use my 2nd Level article linked in my last post to help you learn how to analyze individual questions.

Finally, I'm glad that you've spoken with your parents and are trying the meditation / mindfulness materials. This is useful for all of life, not just the GMAT!

Look for your low hanging fruit—things that:
(1) You got right but you were on the 2+ min side: is there a more efficient approach? Or can you get better / more efficient at the approach you did use?
(2) You got right but any part of it felt clunky / annoying. What's a better way? Or what do you need to practice so that it feels less clunky?
(3) You got right this time but could see how you might not always get that right. What do you need to do to move the needle more towards "I'm confident I'll always get something like this right."
(4) You got wrong but it was a careless mistake. How to minimize that type of mistake in future? (Don't just tell yourself what you "should" do. Drill it. Make the remedy a habit.)
(5) You got wrong but the explanation makes 100% complete sense and you're like, yeah, I can totally do that next time. Or you used to know it but forgot because you haven't reviewed it in a while. Practice whatever that is.

Then, go after those things! Do whatever you need to do, in your books or practice materials, to remedy the issues that you identified above.

Don't spend a ton of time (at least at this point) on things that you got wrong and the solution doesn't make complete sense to you. Don't spend a lot of time on things that you got right but it took you way too long (like 3.5-4+ minutes) and you don't see a better / faster way to learn to do this. Get those kinds of questions wrong faster, that's all. Later, you can see whether studying the lower-hanging fruit gets you to your goal score already or whether you may have to learn some of this stuff that's harder for you. But you may never have to study this stuff! I still guess on combinatorics and 3D geometry even though I score in the 99th percentile!

When you feel that you have addressed the major low-hanging fruit that you have identified from your recent work (this should take maybe 2-3 weeks, if you are really digging deep), then it's time to take a CAT, analyze that, come up with your new list of low-hanging fruit, and repeat the whole process.

[AseemJ807]

Hey Stacey
So I took a weak and went through Kaplan 800. I managed this book quite efficiency and In verbal section, its CR which is my weak point. If I go more deep, I cab say weaken or assumption questiones are the ones which I get most wrong and next in line comes the paradox questions. Apart from that SC and RC are pretty manageable.

But in quant, I tried to apply your technique of finding the low hanging fruit but I just couldn't. Its not that I am weak in any particular area of maths, it's the super advanced level questions which get me stuck. Even some advance questions I do solve as well but some are those that I just cannot find a way through. But I would like to state 'advanced geometry' questions are ones which leave me more in a fix. So could you help me to tackle this problem? Should I dive into advanced MGMAT quant again? Any sets of questions I need to practice?

[StaceyKoprince]

You're not noticing any careless mistakes anywhere? Things that you do know how to do but you still don't always get them right—either because you work too fast or you're feeling nervous or whatever and your process breaks down somewhere? That kind of thing shows you a weakness that you might not realize is a weakness (because you do know how to do it...but you still don't always get it right.)

Anything like that is the most important "low-hanging fruit" because these are things that you do know how to do, but you could lose the points if you're not careful.

If that kind of thing never happens, then yes, the next level is really at the Advanced Quant level, since you already scored Q48 on the real test. Re-try these questions, but don't stop there. See whether you can articulate aloud the thought process that you would want to use if you see something like this on the real test. And don't just say what you're doing, but how you know to take each step. That latter part is the key—you're training yourself how to think through new problems in future. You're not just memorizing a rote set of steps.

But I have another question about timing and (possible) careless mistakes. When you hit something on the real test that you can't do (and this will always happen, even if you eventually get to the top score of Q51), do you hang on too long and waste time / mental energy over it? If you don't let these ones go, then you risk rushing or tiring yourself out (or both) and losing points towards the end of the section to mental fatigue or timing issues. So just note that, no matter how much you study, you're still going to hit some "I've never seen this before!!" stuff and you're not going to know what to do with it. How you react to that can make a difference between scoring 50/51 and 48. Specifically, you have to do the opposite of what a lot of people do: You have to let go. If you really don't know how to do it, it's very unlikely that you'll figure it out right then and there.

[AseemJ807]

Hi Stacey

So thank you so much for the advice. You people are great. If I ever come to USA (I get Harvard or Stanford), I'm dropping at Manhattan Prep just to thank personally. The low hanging fruit works wonders. I gave Manhattan CAT and scored 720, under proper official conditions. My break up was as follows: Quant:50 and verbal: 37. The fight continues to push verbal above 40. The major mistakes were in CR, which I practiced hard and improved. So I gave a GMAT Prep Mock. It is pertinent to state that this was a used MOCK as I had used it previously. The score in the same was 680-Quant:49 & verbal: 33. Out of 41 questions:
I got three CR wrong
I got Eight SC wrong
I got two RC wrong

This was shocking because in all practice sessions, My Success rate of SC was 90%. Also, I read on various forums that the questions i got wrong were those which were more than 10 years old. So I have two questions are:

Is the drop in score a reason to worry because I was confident to reach 740?
How to improve Geometry DS questions? I have finished Manhattan Advanced Quant.

[StaceyKoprince]

You are very welcome! Most of the questions in GMATPrep (especially the two free exams) are older questions, yes. But remember that this is a standardized test—things don't change all that radically over the years, by definition.

I'm going to start with your last question first: How to get better at Geometry DS questions.

The real answer here applies to all question types and content areas: How to get better at anything? First, you have to identify what it was that caused you to stumble on the specific questions that you missed. Was there actually knowledge that you didn't know? Put it on a flash card and memorize it. Or (as is more often the case) was it something else? Did you know the material already but not recognize it because they found some way to disguise what they were really asking? Or did you have issues with the process somewhere? (I'm guessing process is at least part of the issue, since you specified DS—if it were pure content, then you'd be having issues equally on DS and PS.) What process was it that you struggled with? DS in general? Or maybe a strategy that you applied, such as Testing Cases? Or trying to rephrase the question? (Maybe you could have rephrased, but didn't?)

Or, for geometry in particular, did it have to do with something more visual? Did you make a mistake when you were working on your diagram on your scrap paper? That kind of thing.

Or, as often happens on geometry, did you make an assumption that something was true when it wasn't necessarily true? Or did you fail to infer some fact that you really were allowed to infer?

All of those questions are designed to get at the one big question: What caused me to fall short on this problem? (It might be more than one thing.) Once you identify that, you can then answer the question "What should I do to get better"—I need to fix this thing that caused me to fall short.

Re: the drop in score, I'm noticing that your quant mostly stayed the same (49 vs. 50) but verbal dropped more (33, down from 37). And from your data, it looks like SC was the biggest culprit—so you need to dive into those problems to try to figure out what went wrong...and use that to figure out what steps are needed to fix those issues. Then you can feel confident on those issues / topics, too, when you take the real test. (Also: progress on these tests, like life in general, is rarely linear. You usually have ups and downs. That's okay! Just learn from the downs, that's all.)

Any test has a standard deviation—you won't score exactly the same way every time. The real test has a standard deviation of about 30 points. I don't know whether GMATPrep is the same (if it's not, it would be somewhat larger...maybe 40 points?). So a 680 score is within range of the 720 you scored on our test. We can say that your scoring range is in the 680 to 720 range right now—and part of the question is how to maximize your performance on test day (like an athlete who wants to peak on the day of the big match).

This article talks about how to peak on test day, by the way:
http://www.beatthegmat.com/mba/2016/09/ ... mat-part-1

In short: You are making good progress. There is more work to be done. Dig in, analyze, see what you can discover. Let us know how it goes.

[AseemJ807]

Hi stacey

So I gave my second attempt and scored 690. (Q50 AND V: 35). Yes a little below my target score but I worked really hard. Got really good with SC, RC and CR but they were not just coming together at the time of exam. I gave many mocks but was always within the range of 680 to 720! I am pretty satisfied this time around as I finished my sections well before time. I had given my everything and studied 8 hours a day. But not everyone can score a 730 or 740.

So this is a thank you note to MGMAT as it is the best available resource for GMAT. The instructors are amazing. Books are great and mocks have a great accuracy. Thank you Stacy and entire MGMAT.

Last question, with this score, is it possible for me to make it to Harvard or Stanford?
If I give you a little brief about myself, it goes as follows:
I have a NGO of mine.
I have three internships: EY, J.K. Cements and Goldman sachs
I have co-founded two societies in my college and been in Core committee of the other two.
I have organised the biggest food fest of my university.
I have written a research paper in economics.
I have also attended an international conference organised by HSBC and LSE.

Just want to know your opinion.

Regards
Aseem Jain

[StaceyKoprince]

Hello! Thanks for following up and letting us know how things went. I know you didn't reach your ultimate goal, but you still did extremely well—you can be proud of that.

My area of expertise is really just the test—I am not an expert on admissions. We do have a forum folder called something like "Ask an Admissions Consultant"—I would try posting your question there. They will probably also want to know your field of study and GPA. They may want to know other things as well; unfortunately, I don't know enough about the full admissions process to tell you what those things might be—so just go ahead and post and they can tell you what else they would like to know.

I will say: It is extremely difficult for *anyone* to get into either HBS or Stanford GSB. I haven't looked at the numbers lately, but typically fewer than 10% of applicants are admitted (I think it might be closer to 5%). These two schools have many more strongly qualified applicants than they can possibly accept—and that means that many great candidates are rejected every year.

I say that not to discourage you from applying but to encourage you to apply to other schools as well. I think anyone applying to these two schools should do the same.

Good luck with applications! Let us know how it goes!