Help needed !!!!!!!!!!!!

[pranab.banerjee82]

I took my GMAT on 8 th Dec 2009 and got 480 (Q36 , V 21) and I am very very frustrated at this point of time . My target was 650 - 700 and I want to achieve that score and I need help as to what I am doing wrong .


My GMAT Prep score just one week before the exams was 580 and I hoped to get at least above 550 but 480 is below my expectation . However I have seen a definite change in the question types that are there in actual GMAT as compared to GMAT prep . They seem to be much tougher in actual CAT specially the SC and PS .

In my prep exams I have never scored below 40 in quants but in actual test I was just overwhelmed by the questions . Can any one please confirm this finding of mine OR is its just me who thought that the problem patterns are actually changing.

Study Strategy used :

I have used OG 10 , 11, 12 twice atleast each of them .

Manhatten SC , Quants and CR .


I took 5 Princeton tests, 2 Manhattan CATs and 5 GMAT Prep CATs in my 6 months of study .

I am now confused as to what should be my strategy now where should I start ?

can some one please help .......

[j_sibal]

I am assuming you took your exam in India. I did take mine on the 14th in Delhi, and while my GMAT score went up from a 480 (which I took in August), to a 530 this time - I did find that the quant questions on average were no less difficult than the MOST difficult questions I have faced in the Manhattan prep exams. None of the questions I faced were 1 liners - all had at least 3 lines to them. The questions mainly revolved around complicated and twisted inequalities/absolute value, which are the hardest questions for me to answer - even when relatively simple - especially in DS format. To give a reference of difficulty on the MGMAT prep, the questions I faced were similar to these in terms of difficulty and concepts tested: (if you have done enough of the MGMAT prep tests you can check them out by name) "Absolute Coordinates (this type of Question is a total block for me) ", "The powers that be(2)", "A Radical Radical", etc. The aforementioned questions would normally take me a very long time to do (10 minutes plus, if at all).

Only after probably answering most of the preceding questions incorrectly did I face questions around the 500-600 level difficulty level. By then I had run out of time had only around 30 seconds to answer each question which forced me to guess the last 8-10 questions. I find that the OG is a very poor representation of the type/difficulty of questions which you will be facing if your aim is 650+. Possibly only the last 4-5 questions in each section represents anything remotely close to the difficulty of the exam. However the diagnostic exams given at the beginning of the guides are a closer approximation of the difficulty level (according to me) of the actual exam.

As far as the verbal goes, I actually scored higher on the GMAT than on the MGMAT prep tests - without studying at all!

[pranab.banerjee82]

I agree with j_sibal that the difficulty level of quants and verbal is no where near what you get in GMAT prep exams .

Most of the quants problems were what I have never seen before , same for the verbal section none of the questions did test just one of the error . Most of the questions had more than one error and a lot of the question specially SC were intended meaning was tested along with other errors .

So I can see a definite change in test pattern . So I would like to know what should be the study strategy what study material should I refer as I can definitely see only studying OG is not enough .

[rkim81]

I agree. The verbal section for the actual GMAT is much harder than any practice test. Though I do believe that MGMAT comes close in verbal in light of my test experience.

Here's a tip for CR, try doing past LSAT Practice tests. LSAT CR is similar to GMAT, but I find that they're thicker and generally harder. I finish GMAT CR questions now at about 2 minutes or less with an 80% hit rate as a result of LSAT CR practice which would be about 40 CR questions a day. Where you find LSAT practice tests is up to you.

I agree, the OG is way simpler than the actual GMAT. It seems like most of the OG math questions are at about 300-500 level MAX. But what's important are the concepts you learn from them. Some suggestions. Search online for combinatorics/permutations tutorials. If you're lucky you can also find some question banks with answer explanations. (On my test day, I encountered at least 4 probability) Don't know if you acquainted with this site, http://www.beatthegmat.com, but it has lots of resources and great contributors to help you on your GMAT journey.

Personally, I always go back to the inaction problem sets in MGMAT's quant guides. These questions test the theory so well that every time I review it, I get refreshed and my theory solidified. I rarely tackle OG. I went through OG at the beginning of my prep not acquainted with a lot of the strategies. I do refer to the MGMAT additional question banks. If you haven't activated them yet DO IT! There are some tough questions there that really test your knowledge and application of theories. Also, the flash cards are great resource for extra questions and helps you remember key concepts.

If you're willing to invest a considerable amount of money, I suggest buying Veritas' books. While not very good for learning strategies or tips in my opinion, I think they're great for question sources because they make their own questions and have about 14 books in total for each section of the GMAT. It should keep you busy and the level of difficulty varies, but I find it to be much more difficult than any OG's.

I recently bought the Kaplan Advanced 09-10 edition. This books is better for practice than anything. While it does give you detailed answer explanations for CR (some really tricky CR questions in this one, some debatable), RC and SC, I feel that their math strategy basically teaches you how to guess by plugging in values, which is not entirely bad. I heard good things about Kaplan 800 for practice and theory, but don't have any experience with the book so can't say.

Here's some things that I did to break the 600 mark, which took me about a month to do. My previous strategy was to blow through questions. But after the insightful Stacey Koprince wrote on article available on beatthegmat.com, I started taking more time analyzing the question than actually solving it. I walked through every single question and talked myself through the question. I would spend about twice to three times the amount of time reviewing than solving! And I did the same for practice tests. This was so beneficial, because by doing this you see how creators of the GMAT try to trick you! Also, I made cue cards of the those really tough questions and committed them to memory, but more importantly, tried to figure out how the GMAT would test this same theory in a different way, which means just be keen on the question and the lessons learned from it.

For math, my strategy for each question looked like this. Read the question, write down what I know, what I want and what I need. I can emphasize this enough, sometimes through all the calculations you can actually lose sight of what you're really looking for. Then I'd try to solve the question using the theory and strategies I've learned. I generally like to tackle questions algebraically first, and I ALWAYS double check my calculations while I'm solving the question. In fact, I write down EVERY calculation I do, and NOT do them in my head. If it becomes obvious at first glance or by a failed attempt that the question is very abstract, then I'll assign smart values and plug in play, or values from the AC's, usually start with D. Then worst case scenario, I'll guess. I noticed that the more theory I learned, the better I was able to eliminate answer choices, and make educated guesses. I was lucky on one CAT and guessed most of the questions that gave me trouble correctly.

I think that when you have a strategy to tackle a question that is completely different from the textbook explanation and yields a correct answer, then you are on solid ground. It means that you know the concept inside and out and can tackle it using varied approaches. Find the approach that best fits you and stick with it, but also know that there are other approaches and be ready to use them when you have to.

Even if you do know all the theory, it won't guarantee that you're in your target range. This is one point that I ignored for much of my prep, ENDURANCE. Test taking strategies are the primary recipe for a good score, but if you can't hack it for about 4 hours, then your performance will suffer. Take all practice tests with AWA, in fact I feel that the AWA helps to get my mind going, like jogging in the morning, warming me up for the harder parts of the test. Also consider what kind of snacks you will eat during break, you NEED energy. I usually eat a banana or some other fruit to keep my blood sugar levels up so I'm alert for each section.

Lastly, be confident. Confidence comes from solid knowledge of the theory but also in your test taking strategy. I used to let every single question I was unsure about get to me and put pressure on myself to get that higher score range, when I really should have been focusing on endurance and test taking strategy. If you feel uneasy about a question or feel like you got it wrong, don't let it get to you. What's done is and done and you can't change it. So don't let any stress affect the next question you do, because there will be more questions waiting to for you. You have to roll with the punches, know when to give up on a question and move on to save time for the questions that you can get right.

The GMAT is a beatable test. Every day of my prep I feel like I'm getting closer to my goal. Reading people's stories online on how they've achieved their goals also gives me inspiration and reminds me that this kid in high school, that got 52% in calculus can get a scaled quant score of 45 just by dedication and hard work. You can do it too!

Hope this helps and good luck!

[pranab.banerjee82]

Thanks a lot rkim81 ,

Its greatly appreciated . As you said GMAT is a beatable test and if others can do it so can I .I am aware of the forum betthegmat and its is here that I first read a couple of articles written by Stacey Koprince . I would suggest every person willing to take GMAT should read them at least once . These articles are just awesome and if you work accordingly you are bound to succeed .

I have also heard people trying to improve their CR and RC doing LSAT questions . What is a good source for these questions is there a question bank or a book perhaps that i can solve ?
Also can you please tell me the books that I can use for practice . I have gone through Kaplan 800 in my last prep some of the questions were really tricky . But if you read the review for this book you will find that its not that good after all , rather i find Manhattan books more suitable for GMAT and they tell you the kind of tips and tricks one need to tackle tricky questions. Having said that I dont want to just focus on strategy and tough problems since GMAT is an adaptive test I just dont want to loose out on simple problems which will indirectly reduce my chances of facing a tough problem . So I guess practice plays an important role too .

What source apart from OG would you suggest . Also how do I have access to Manhattan question bank ?

Sorry to ask so many queries but my head is buzzing with a lot of them .

[rkim81]

First, I'd recommend going through the Power Score Critical Reasoning Bible. It doesn't have a good question bank, but it has great strategies. It really breaks down CR. When you think about it, you can't really teach CR, its something that's developed of years of experience. But Power Score definitely helps you to identify the types of incorrect answer choices.

Second, bittorrent! There is a plethora of resources online available to you if you're willing to download. Search it for yourself, there is however a set of LSAT tests with Kaplan explanations, for about 40 tests.

If you're not scoring in the 650-700 range, then apart from endurance and test taking issues, its a matter of knowing your theory cold. So before blowing through questions make sure that you know the theory inside and out. It's easier said than done I know.

Like I said Veritas Prep books are good questions sources. They are much more difficult in terms of their question base, and 14 books for each section of the GMAT definitely helps. It's just a matter of how much you are willing to spend on your prep.

Kaplan 800 got good reviews 4 out of 5 stars by Dana J. Regardless, it all comes back to knowing your theory. I wouldn't attempt any of the additional resources until you know your theory cold. Or maybe you're like me and learn by doing. Kaplan Advanced 09-10: you know my opinion on this book.

Something that Stacey said really rings true here, you want quality of prep not quantity. However, if you're like me and obsessed with every aspect of the test you want to do lots of different question types to keep your mind working and fresh.

As for the Manhattan GMAT question banks, every one of your Manhattan guides has a sticker on the last page of the book. Input the code and you'll have access to them. You can reset them after you've finished them. You will only have those question banks available to you from the books that are materially in your possession. But why ask me? Call technical service, they know the product better than I.

That's it and good luck in your prep. Next time you post, I hope to hear how you broke all expectations and scored great!

[pranab.banerjee82]

Thanks very much for the reply , I really appreciate it a lot .

[StaceyKoprince]

I'm sorry I'm only getting to your post now; I've been on vacation since 15 Dec.

First, I have to address this:

Second, bittorrent! There is a plethora of resources online available to you if you're willing to download. Search it for yourself, there is however a set of LSAT tests with Kaplan explanations, for about 40 tests.

The information that you find there was not made available for free by the people who own that information. In other words, test prep materials obtained that way are obtained illegally. (And, before you ask, no, I don't just apply this to GMAT prep materials because I'm in that industry. I've never downloaded a song illegally either. :)

I actually don't agree that OG questions are too easy. (Though sometimes the mix of GMATPrep questions can be a little light.) I can find plenty of things from which to learn in OG - and I'm scoring in the 99th percentile.

As rkim was noting, our major task is to learn how to recognize problems (that we've never seen before!). Every problem we study will not be on the test, but there will be similar problems. A lot of people think that means they'll see essentially the same problem but with different numbers. That might happen, but it's not usually that easy.

Instead, we'll see problems that test the same concepts, but use somewhat (or sometimes very) different wording. Our task is to recognize that the wording really means the same thing.

Here are some problems from OG that illustrate what I mean:
Quant supplement DS #39 and OG 11 DS #153
OG12 PS #5 and OG12 PS #14
OG12 PS #99 and OG12 PS #201

I've gone through and matched all the DS and PS problems from OG12 and the old and new quant supplements, and I rated each match a 3 (one part but not the whole thing), 4 (fairly close but still some differences), or 5 (pretty much exact match). The three I listed above are all rated 5. They don't look like "exact matches" if you are just looking at them superficially - but each pair is ultimately testing the exact same thing.

(Exercise: go look at the pairs and articulate to yourself exactly how they are similar. Match and "translate" different parts of the questions to see how you can recognize that they're really the same!)

I've used quant examples above because I've only done this matching exercise for quant so far, but the same thing is true for verbal. You can test the same grammar rule in 10 different questions and, while the words will be somewhat or very different, the same fundamental concept is still being tested.

For RC and CR, there are a limited number of question types within each, and there are certain things we need to do depending upon the specific question type. There are also certain ways that they tend to write trap answers depending upon the type of CR or RC question. I need to learn to recognize (1) the overall type of question, (2) the trap wrong answers, and (3) the "this doesn't look good" right answers (also traps!)

Re: noticing differences on the real test, I hear that a lot, but mostly from people whose scores have dropped on the real test. The people who score where they expected to score don't typically have that reaction. They can't totally change the test for only a subset of test-takers (and, in general, they can't drastically change the test at any one time - it's standardized, so they have to make any changes very gradually), so I think it's more likely that you weren't as fully prepared to recognize variations on problems that were ultimately testing the same concepts. There was also probably some element of stress involved - knowing that it's the real thing can make it harder to perform and remember everything in the way that you need to.

So, what to do? The first thing to do is to figure out why your score droppped. Start with this article:
http://www.beatthegmat.com/a/2009/10/26/my-score-dropped-figuring-out-what-went-wrong

Do the analysis described in that article, then come back here and let us know what you figured out. If you need help interpreting data or figuring out where to go from there, we would be happy to help.