Help on GMAT test prep!!...

[shivrakesh65]

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Hi Stacey,

I have currently taken a few mock tests on GMAT prep and I'm not able to go beyond 620.

My scores are in the range of 580-620 both inclusive!

I'm looking to ace the GMAT & get a score in the range of 700 to 750 if not more!

As the schools that I'm targeting are elite Ivy League schools in the US & also premier schools in Europe , the likes of Insead & LBS.

My test prep techniques are the below.

1) I go through the concept notes in Manhattan about a particular topic in quant , post which I start off with Medium difficulty questions & progress to complex problems..I'm able to manage most of them, but I do sometimes struggle with timing, especially in the 750 plus questions..I manage to get them correct eventually but lose out on time...But I have gauged my weaknesses in quant & it's mostly in Sets, co-ordinate geometry & sometimes permutations & combinations...
2) For verbal I really cannot gauge my weakness , as sometimes I get the harder questions correct & sometimes I don't, there isn't a set pattern, maybe that's the reason fir the variance in my d ires, although not by much!..I study a topic memorise the rules in SC, CR & apply it, sometimes I do very well, sometimes I don't!..When I introspect my errors , and read the explanation answers , I wonder why I didn't think of that as I'm in agreement with most of the answers..
For eg : In CR , I am easily able to identify the Premise & The conclusion, however on D-day I falter big time, on the application!

I am really confused on my test prep techniques...as I'm really not making any concrete progress!!!

In quant I'm not able to go beyond 48 (scaled score), despite knowing all the concepts..

I'm really frustrated at this point and I don't want to give up on the GMAT, as getting into these B-schools means a lot to me...

Please could you help and recommend the right approach for me, so that I can reach my target score within limited time....

Looking to hear back from you on this soon.

Regards,

Rakeshh

[StaceyKoprince]

I'm sorry this test is driving you crazy.

What specific materials are you using to study? Are you using our books? The Official Guide? Something else?

A score of 48 is very good on quant (51 is the top score)—but it is true that, if you want to hit 700+ and quant is your stronger area, then you want to try to hit 50 or 51 on quant. If you are able to hit 50 in quant then you would need a score of about 35 in verbal to reach 700.

The topic areas that you listed as weaknesses for quant are not very commonly tested. It's unlikely that you would have more than one of each of those topics. I think the real issue on quant is this:

I manage to get them correct eventually but lose out on time

The GMAT is known as a "where you end is what you get" test. The test is recalculating your scoring level after every single problem, so by the time it gets to the end—where you end is what you get. This means that it's important to have a steady performance across the entire section. If you spend too much time earlier on and have to rush on the last 5 or 10 questions, then your score will drop at the end—that is, you will get a lower score than you may be capable of earning.

I'm sure you already know that the GMAT is an adaptive test—but you're not fully aware of what that means, because you're still trying to take the test like it's a non-adaptive school test (where your goal really was to try to get everything right). No matter how good you get at the GMAT, you are going to have to guess on some questions. This is because the test is adaptive: it will purposely give you questions that it thinks are too hard for you to answer in a reasonable amount of time.

When the test does this, your task is to recognize that this problem will take much to long and let that problem go. The test-makers are not looking for you to get everything right. They are looking for you to exhibit good business behavior—which means that you can recognize something that is not a good opportunity and say, "No, thanks, I'll pass."

Read this:
https://www.manhattanprep.com/gmat/blog ... -the-gmat/
(You can also watch a webinar of the same topic—the link is in the article.)

Then come back and tell me how you have to change your approach to quant.

For verbal, it sounds as though you usually understand, after you read an explanation, why the correct answer is correct and why the wrong answers are wrong. That's good news, even if you didn't pick the right answer yourself. Your next task is to figure out how you fell for the trap answer. Ask yourself:

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, in future, to pick a certain answe—because it might lead you to pick the wrong 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?
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? (also, now you know that this is not a good reason to eliminate an answer in future)
4) why was it actually right?

In other words, you need to learn how they set traps for you on verbal by making a wrong answer seem better than the right answer. As you learn that, you will be less likely to fall for the wrong answer!

Try that out and let me know how it goes. If you find that you continue not to make progress on your own, then you may want to consider whether taking a class or working with a tutor is worth the money for you.

[shivrakesh65]

Dear Stacey,

Many thanks for sharing your strategies on preparing for the GMAT.

Per your questions my responses are as below.

I'm currently using both Manhattan 5th edition quant books for concepts, along with GMAT club questions that I solve as practice & also the manhattan advanced quant series.

For verbal I'm using gmat club guidelines & forums for concepts & sometimes manhattan.

However I do still struggle on timing with quant , but I'm better than where I started, as I'm beginning to let go a lot more difficult questions & not let my ego get the better of me!

But sometimes I do, considering the fact that I find quant very interesting...

For verbal I really require handholding as I need someone to let me know where my reasoning is faltering, especially on tougher critical reasoning & sentence correction questions.

Fortunately for me in RC I can grasp most of the passages in one go, albeit still needing to reread certain paras in the passage, in case of any specific information that would be required to answer say a para 2, or a para 3 inference question. I do well in most of the science & political passages..My accuracy is pretty much north of 75%..But I do sometimes struggle on tougher inference questions..This goes for CR as well!

My performance in verbal is extremely erratic, sometimes I do very well & sometimes it is nothing better than shoddy!

I need someone to analyse these root causes ,that is pulling my score down & help me scale up quickly to the 700 mark.

What kind of a Tutor program would you recommend?

Looking forward to hearing from you on this one.

Thanks again for your continued support!

Regards,

Rakeshh

[StaceyKoprince]

I don't know enough about gmat club's materials to know whether they are enough for you for verbal. You do need materials that will teach you the grammar, meaning, and other issues in depth (similar to our SC strategy guide).

And you need a cohesive set of strategies for RC and CR. Our company publishes books for these—so do other companies. You can choose whatever you like, but you do need something that teaches you a complete set of strategies across all of the sub-types within RC and CR (as well as strategies for how to read / deconstruct the argument for CR and how to read the passage for RC).

If you'd like to learn more about our approaches, you can read some of my CR and RC blog posts linked here (these are older posts, but they have links to lots of others):
https://www.manhattanprep.com/gmat/blog ... rehension/
blog/2013/06/19/the-master-resource-list-for-critical-reasoning/

If you decide to work with a tutor, then I would recommend getting the books that are from that tutor's company—that way what the books and the tutor teach you are the same.

You'll need to do a little research to see what tutoring prices are like (it's expensive, of course). Pay attention to the company's reputation. See whether you know anyone who did tutoring with a particular company or person and what they think. Talk to the companies, too, to ask any questions you have and also just to get a feel for whether you think that company is going to take care of you.

When you're matched with a tutor, that tutor should be asking you a bunch of questions about your study history, your goals, strengths and weaknesses, and so on. S/he should use that information, along with data from a practice test or other work, to put together a customized study plan for you. (Though, note, since you are looking to increase 100+ points, a tutor won't be able to tell your study plan from start to finish. Rather, there will be a starting plan to lift your score some, but then she/he will have to take a look again at how your strengths and weaknesses have changed to get you to that new scoring level so that she / he can figure out the next set of steps to take to achieve another score lift, and so on.)

Also, given that you are looking for 100+ points and that you are not starting from scratch (ie, you have done a lot of work already but are finding yourself stuck at a plateau), there's a good chance that you will need more than just a few hours of tutoring. Someone who's at 620 and needs to get to 650 might only need a few hours to tweak a few things. Someone who wants to go from 600 to 700+ is going to need a more comprehensive program.

[shivrakesh65]

Hi Stacey,

I am willing to give your company a go with regards to my Test Prep for the actual GMAT.

I have taken quite a few tests on the Manhattan GMAT, however i wasn't able to make any marked improvements in my GMAT scores, which has currently reached a plateau.

Although i must say that your Quant questions are way tougher than the simulated GMAT Prep.

In the GMAT Prep i got only 9 questions incorrect, which gave me a score of 48 on Quant, vs yours which was 17 questions incorrect and a core of 41!

And it is difficult to tackle your questions in 2 mins, as some of them hit the roof, in terms of level of difficulty, esp on the Quant section!

This kind of demotivates you, when you see two different test scores which so much variance.

On the books that i use, i rarely stick to one company's test prep in terms of data, esp on the quant section, as i look for shortcut approaches to tackle Quant questions, because most of the 700+ level questions are difficult to comprehend in one go & impossible to ace in 2 mins!

So structured approach dosen't work always, esp whe you're hard pressed for time!

Also what would be significantly more different in private tutoring vs your inline class?

Is there different methods/shortcuts/speed solving tactics taught in the former, vs the latter?

Will see my scores jump faster in a private tutoring environment vs an online class , which has multiple students, so getting personalized attention would not b that easy?

Also do you also do private/Online tutoring?

[StaceyKoprince]

Yes, our quant is quite challenging. Generally, when people see a big difference in score between GMATPrep and our tests, that usually signals some kind of a timing issue—which is, at heart, a decision-making issue. If you hang on too long to something that isn't working out, you're going to mess up your timing and that's going to lower your score.

Any practice test can never 100% simulate the real test for the simple reason that you know the real test counts (and the practice test doesn't). You are going to be tempted to hold on longer on the real test because you know it counts now—so it's harder to let go when you really should let go. We're trying to recreate those conditions as much as we can, even though you know our test doesn't count.

So analyze your results. Are you having some timing / decision-making issues? If so, work on that before you go in for the real test so that you don't risk experiencing a score drop on test day.

The differences between class and private tutoring really have to do with the personalized attention. The same material is available to you. A teacher is going to teach what the class needs—but there are sometimes competing needs in a classroom. A tutor can make choices based solely on what you need. Often, there are multiple valid approaches to a problem; a tutor can help you to figure out which types of approaches are the best ones for you and the way your brain works. (A teacher can do this, too—but not as much, since there are many students in the class.)

That means that a tutor can typically help you faster / more efficiently than a teacher in a class—or, in some cases, the tutor can actually uncover / diagnose something that might not get uncovered at all in class, since the teacher is trying to help 5 or 10 or 20 other people at the same time. (And so this is why tutoring is so much more expensive!)

We do offer both in-person and online private tutoring—in-person in cities where we have instructors and online to anyone, anywhere!