Got 650 three times!

[liu1993918]

I am sorry for my long post. Now, I really need some help.
I took GMAT three times, and the scores are very close. The 1st is 650 (Q51, V27, IR 6, AWA5), the 2nd is 640（Q50，V27，IR4，AWA6）, and the 3rd is 660 (Q50, V28, IR4, AWA6). Even though I truly fell that I get improved, my scores don’t get improved.

Let me show my study plan during the 3rd prepartion, which lasts only one month.
In the morning, I use one hour to remember English words (I am not a native speaker), and another hour to read English magazines such as Economics. Then my routine is 10 PS and DS questions. That's all the effor I put for Quant.
In the afternoon, I concentrate on my Verbal (my weakness). During this one month, for the first 5 days, I only did RC ( my weakest part in Verbal). I would do 4 to 5 passages in one day and watch RC part in "Thursdays with Ron". During these 5 days, I truly understand how to deal with long passages and short passages, and how to deal with main idea questions and inference/specfic questions.
Then I move on the SC for the next 5 or 6 days, but I still maintain one RC everyday. I used the new method taught my Ron. I go through a very large number of problems and only look for only one type of error. Then I found I can deal with one SC problem in 60s.
CR is my strongest part according to others, so I didn't pay much attention on it.
In the final week before my exam, I quite my habits of reading magazines and remembering words. I randomly select some new questions and put these questions like a real test——usually, I will select 10SC, 10CR, and 2 RC passages. I think doing so may help me get used to the test.
I forgot to mention that my average pace on SC is usually 60s, CR is 2M, and RC 2.5M. According to the all the questions that I did in this month, my ACCURACY of RC, CR, and SC is 72%, 84%, and 83%.

I did one GMAT PREP(Reset) in final 7 days and I only did the Quant and Verbal parts. I scored 750(Q49, V42), although I already did 2 RC and 5 CR questions before.

The Test Process:
When I was in the test, I kind of cannot understand the questions of IR at first. That's the reason why I got 4 on the IR. But I feel really fluent on AWA, since my previous scores are already 6.
According to Quant, I finished Quant in 62 Minutes and I took some relax until my time in the Quant is over. Then when I was attacking Verbal, I fell I kind of cannot concentrate on the questions 100% and I kind of keep reminding myself the importance of this exam. Actually, in my previous real exams, my concentration is even worse and this time is my best shot. When I was attacking RC and CR, I felt more comfortable. However, when I was attacking SC, I fell really really different from my experience of practice. My SC correct rate is very stable, I usually maintain every question in 60S, and I can find the Split and how to deal with these Splits. But in the real exam, I find myself didn't know how to attack SC for almost 4 to 5 questions. I don't know whether it is my problem or the SC questions changed.
I get stuck on SC, that really influences my concentration. My practice and MOCK exams are more fluent. I have to mention that I didn't pay attention to the TIME. I know my pacing is quite good in the practicing and doing so may waste my time and distract my concentration. At last, I found out I am a little bit ahead of time. When I left 4 questions, I have 10 or 11 minutes.

Now, I really want to improve my performance, but I don't know how. Please gice me some advices.


P.S: After I view vast amounts of articles in the MGMAT Blog, I sort of understand what problems I had. If I am wrong, please correct me.
1. I think my biggest problem is timing issues. I don't understand the mindset of GMAT before, so I am litte hurry-scurry during the whole verbal part. I don't know what should I do, when I confront some specfic situations.
2.I never throughly analyse the wrong answers in RC & CR part.
3.I only did one MOCK EXAM during my 3rd prepartion and I only did Quant and Verbal part, so I cannot fully analyse my weakness and strength and my score is inflated.
4.I only take 10-minute-break between 2 hours study. Maybe I studied too long. I usually study 7 hours a day, including remembering English words, reading English magazines, and content of GMAT.
5. I don't know whether my study plan has problems.

Also, I don't know how long I need to prepare for my next test to get 700 scores. Since I already took 3 times and taking 5 times on GMAT is not a good thing, the next test is really the last. I want to make sure I can get 700+ the next time, that really makes me nervous.

[StaceyKoprince]

I'm sorry that you're struggling with the GMAT.

The GMATPrep score was unfortunately artificially inflated because you had already seen about 25% of the questions before.

I fell I kind of cannot concentrate on the questions 100% and I kind of keep reminding myself the importance of this exam. When I was attacking SC, I fell really really different from my experience of practice.

It sounds like the first part usually happens (you mentioned that it happened in your earlier tests as well). This kind of stress can really impact your score because it burns up mental energy that you want to be putting towards the test.

Try this:
https://www.manhattangmat.com/blog/2013 ... mat-score/

For SC, this can happen for a couple of reasons. If you were really mentally fatigued by that point, then this would be a common symptom - things feel "different" and you feel like you're not really taking in what you're reading.

There are some harder SCs in which the splits are more complicated - it's not just a single word switching back and forth but a whole chunk of the sentence changes and moves around. Were those the ones that were giving you trouble?

Check this out:
http://www.manhattangmat.com/blog/2012/ ... orrection/

I think you're right that you may have been missing some things because you didn't always use a consistent process before. Finishing 10-11 minutes early (and not getting the score that you want) indicates that you may have left some points on the table through careless mistakes.

I never throughly analyse the wrong answers in RC & CR part.

This concerns me the most. If you're not thoroughly analyzing the answers (and the rest of the problem!) after you finish working on a problem, then you're not actually learning how to get better. If you analyze why the correct answer didn't look good for some reason and why some wrong answer looked better than the right answer, then you'll learn how avoid the trap next time. If you don't, you won't.

Did you read this?
http://tinyurl.com/2ndlevelofgmat

If not, start studying in the way that that article describes. Go back over the problems you studied for the past month and, this time, actually learn from them.

I wouldn't plan a specific date yet for your next test. What you've been doing hasn't been working in the way that you want, so you first need to figure out how to learn (for the GMAT). Once you can figure that out, then you can go ahead and start learning that way, and then you can see how much time you think you might need to get the score you want.

You've already started to figure this out in your last post. Read the "2nd Level" article above and dive a bit more deeply into that analysis piece. What else do you need to start doing in order to learn better?