Help needed to increase GMAT score from 660 to 700 plus

[sashankl2000]

Hi

I am a non-native English speaker and have been preparing for the GMAT from the past 3 months giving 10 hours a week (mostly on weekends because my weekdays are packed because of a 15 hrs job daily). I have used the Manhattan SC and CR guide and found it helpful. I started off my prep with a GMAT prep test in which I scored a 570. Off late I have given 2 MGMATS and a GMAT prep test in which I have scored 660 and 670 respectively.
I mostly always score 47-49 (never touched 50) in quant and 33-34 in verbal. I want to increase my verbal score by at least 5 points!
One pattern I noticed in my Verbal section is that I mess up my RC's whenever I give them on MGMAT but surprisingly do well when I give them on GMAT prep (just one or to mistakes in all the RC qs). So I am not able to judge how I actually fare in the RC section. Can you please help me out with this.
I get time only on weekends to prepare and it will continue to be that way because of my job. My GMAT test date is on the 2nd of June.
Can you kindly suggest how I go about my next 3 weeks.
Many thanks in advance
Sashank

[StaceyKoprince]

You haven't mentioned a goal score. Are you pretty close to your goal score already? Or do you still have a ways to go?

Did you take those practice tests under 100% official conditions, including the essays? If you deviated from official conditions in any way, tell us how - deviating from official conditions can result in artificial score inflation, which means that you would need to do more work before you could expect to reach that same level on the real test.

Next, do you already know that the scoring scales for quant and verbal are not the same? 47 to 49 on quant is in the 80s, percentile-wise, while verbal 33-34 is in the high 60s / low 70s. Raising verbal by at least 5 points would put you in the mid-80s or higher, comparable to your current quant score. If you're going to do the work to get that kind of verbal score, you should also be trying to raise quant, because quant is already your strength.

You mention that you are about 3 weeks away from your test date and also that you have to cram your study into 2 days over the week-end because of your work schedule. Unless you are already roughly in the range that you want to score on the real test, you should consider taking more time. If you want to hit 50+ points higher (especially if you took your practice tests under non-official conditions!), then 3 weeks is typically not enough time, especially given that you are really only doing 2 days a week.

Note: I know that you have to study this way because of your work commitments, but you should know that the same amount of time spread over 7 days is going to be a lot more effective than the same amount of time spread over 2 days, especially with a 5-day break in between every 2-day study period. Your brain just doesn't learn as effectively or efficiently when you study in that way. That means you have to take into account that it may take you longer to get to your goal.

Okay, now that we've got all of that out of the way, let's talk specifics. On RC, are there any other differences that you noticed? Did you get more passages of a certain type on the MGMAT tests than the GMATPrep test? Or certain question types? Maybe you really struggle with Social Science passages or Inference questions and you happened to get more of one type on one test. Go look at the passages again - did you happen to like the actual topics on GMATPrep more than MGMAT? That happens sometimes - sometimes it's just luck.

What about timing? Was your time fine for both? Or did you have timing pressures on one that might have caused you to have to read / work more quickly and thus make more mistakes?

What about official testing conditions that might have affected your stamina (remember that verbal is the last section)? Did you, for example, take the essays on one test but not the other? Take longer breaks on one test than the other? Etc. Anything that would have made you more tired on the "worse RC" test and that could have affected your reading speed, comprehension, etc?

Re: the rest, I need more data from you to advise you. Use the below article to analyze your recent MGMAT tests, then come back here and post your analysis (not just the raw data - include what you think the data means, because you have to learn how to analyze yourself!). Then we'll tell you what we think.

http://www.beatthegmat.com/mba/2011/02/ ... sts-part-1

Also, you mention using the MGMAT SC and CR Strategy Guides. What other resources / materials do you have available for your study?

[sashankl2000]

Thank you Stacey for your reply.
1)Firstly my goal score would be somewhere between 700 and 730.
2) I usually take tests without the essays. In fact haven't taken a test with both the essays to date. When it comes to breaks during the tests ,which you can take in the MGMAT, I usually end up taking a break of at least 30 seconds during each section due to some unavoidable circumstances.
3) I agree with your opinion of distributing my study hours over the week instead of cramming them on the weekends but I really have no other option unless I put my papers (which I might very soon!)
4) Coming to the RC section, I guess I like many students hate reading Rc's on dull. boring and philosophical subjects but nonetheless since I have already appeared for an MBA entrance exam called CAT in India which has much tougher RC's to comprehend as opposed to GMAT, comprehending RC's is not a real big issue. The real problem lies in narrowing down to 1 option from the 2 options shortlisted.
5) About my quant section, honestly I think there are very few questions which I might not be able to solve in this section. Its just that I end up making the silliest of mistakes which really take up my time. I understand this is quite a major issue because a score of 50 in quant and a score of 48 usually has a difference of about 20-30 points on the GMAT.
6) Coming to the material I use, I joined some tutorial classes called IMS in India which trains you for the GMAT, but I must admit that their material is nowhere close to Manhtattan GMAT's material in quality. You guys are way ahead.
Thanks

[StaceyKoprince]

Ok - so your practice test scores might be artificially inflated because you have been skipping the essays and you have been taking breaks when not normally allowed. You also want a score that is 30 to 60 points higher than your best practice exam. Given that, and given the limitations on your study schedule, the best advice I can give you is to take a bit more time.

You want your practice tests to be in the 700 to 730 range and you want to have taken those tests under 100% official conditions (including essays). No breaks except for the two 8-min official breaks, etc.

For verbal, one of the hardest things is to narrow down to 1 option from the last 2. When studying problems (not doing - when analyzing after you finish), ask ourself these 4 questions:

1) why was the wrong answer so tempting? why did it look like it might be right? (be as explicit as possible; also, now you know this is not a good reason to pick an answer)

2) why was it actually wrong? what specific words indicate that it is wrong and how did I overlook those clues the first time (if I got it wrong)?

3) why did the right answer seem wrong? what made it so tempting to cross off the right answer? why were those things actually okay; what was my error in thinking that they were wrong (if I did get it wrong)? (also, now you know that this is not a good reason to eliminate an answer)

4) why was it actually right?

If you can learn these things, particularly #1 and #3, that will go a long way toward helping you to make better (and efficient) decisions when you get down to the two toughest answer choices.
Don't forget to do the above even on the Qs that you got right - solidify the learning on all Qs.

For careless errors on quant, take a look at the section of this article that addresses careless errors, and start doing what it says:
http://www.manhattangmat.com/articles/error-log.cfm

You may need to look into getting some additional materials - it sounds like you're not totally happy with the full set of materials you have right now. For quant, it sounds like your issue isn't one of content but more of careless errors, so you may not need new materials for that. For RC, you may want something else. Here are some articles that summarize some of the main principles for RC; they're basically intros to the principles in our book:

http://www.beatthegmat.com/mba/2010/04/ ... mp-passage
http://www.beatthegmat.com/mba/2010/07/ ... rc-passage
http://www.manhattangmat.com/articles/a ... estion.cfm