How to prevent a GMAT breakdown

[StefanoD538]

I am stuck. I have been preparing the GMAT for 6 months now. However, the results have not been satisfying. I am here to share my experience and to seek suggestions.
• Personal background: 26 years, non-native, management consultant
• Objective: 700+
• Study sessions:
- I have few or no hours available during the week. However, I have dedicated the majority of the weekends to GMAT preparation (thus we are talking about at least 15 days of study, or 120 hours).
- Moreover, during exam sessions (August and Christmas' holidays) I studied full-time for at least 2 weeks (adding an additional 25-30 days, at least 200 hours)
- Overall, I prepared far more than the average test taker does, however, I know that this way of studying is not ideal since sessions are spread away (also happened that a couple of times I couldn't study even during the week end, so I didn't touch a book for two weeks or more).
- Unfortunately, I won't be able to modify my schedule

• Material used:
- Manhattan: went through all the books + question banks
- Competitor: went through all the series, including for high scorer
- OG: all the 2015 series

• Tests:
- August 13, 2015: MGMAT, 640 (Q43, V34). I was quite satisfied since I started preparing 3 weeks before and this was the first test ever, so I thought that I could easily score 700+ with more preparation
- August, 19, 2015: GmatPrep, 690 (Q45, V40). After just 6 days (spent entirely at reviewing the concepts which were at the basis of my mistakes) I improved the score significantly. Good.
- August, 21, 2015: GMAT real, 610 (Q41, V34). A disastrous result. I couldn't accept plummeting from the 690 of just 2 days before. I had timing issues and left several question unanswered (3-5). It was such a nightmare, holidays would have soon been over and I would be back to normal work life, which implies no/few study.
- December, 24, 2015: MGMAT, 620 (Q42, V33). Back to holidays; time to see where I stand after the Sept.-Dec. weekend study. Shame! The score felt to the same level of August. But I didn't give up and I started an extremely intense two-weeks studying in order to try the exam immediately after winter holidays.
- January, 01, 2016: GmatPrep, 720 (Q47, V42). I thought: done. Finally I broke through the 700 wall; my goal. Truth to be told, it was the same test I took in August, but honestly I could not remember the questions. Even if this was not the case and I unconsciously remembered few of the questions of 6 months before, I think it was quite a step up. I kept studying to reinforce the progress.
- January, 06, 2016: Competitor, 730 (Q50, V44). Wow. Here we go. Then I should be on truck, two in a row, it cannot be a coincidence.
- January, 08, 2016: MGMAT, 640 (Q44, V34). Bombed. How come? I was doing great on more than half of the test, I was able to solve most of the questions. I got 8 right in a row on Quant and 10 right in a row for Verbal, out of which 5 were 700-800 questions. I even reached 99%ile while I was at question 20. Then how was it possible? The reason was that I entered a vicious circle: after getting right a question, the next one was harder, so took me more than 2 min. to finish it, but I got it right. The next question thus was even harder, and it took me even more than the previous question and so on. Long story short, I left unanswered 3 questions and I was forced to guess on the last 4 questions (all wrong, by luck). So in total 4 questions wrong in a row plus 3 unanswered. This drastically impacted on my result. Just to give you an idea, in verbal I was 85%ile at the end of question 34 (the last I had time to read properly) but finished at 71%ile. This test proved that what I thought to be a commonplace is indeed the most valuable inside for the gmat: the main task is not to answer ALL correct questions, but rather to choose to which answer.
- January, 09, 2016: GmatPrep, 710 (Q48, V39). Newer back down. Lesson learned from MGMAT, I tried to skip the question for which I was sure to need more than 2 mins and I made it. Two days later I was going to take the exam, so I reviewed all mistakes and also the theory were I was not so strong.
- January, 11, 2016: GMAT real, 660 (Q45, V36). For f*ck sake! What's wrong with me? I had not skipped many question, and timing was ok (I left one verbal and no one in quant, just rushed on the last 2).

• Takeaway: At the moment I am lost, I honestly do not know what to do to improve structurally; I am fed-up especially when I think that now I am back to work and I won't have much time until next summer. Dragging the GMAT along with you for months is such a strenuous experience. I had sacrificed my last 6 months, spending little time with my gf, family or friends. And yet did not succeed.
It has always been like being on a swing, scores were going up and then down, up and down again. After 6 months I got a score which is near to what I had 6 months ago almost without studying (just +20).
What should I do now?
I have almost completed all available resources and I know well all the theory, so going back to books won't be useful. Then practice? But where? I have done probably more than 2.000 question (Q+V) and I don't know where to find additional material, though I have few CAT left.
I know I still have a bit of a timing issue but how to improve with it? Also, as you might have noticed, the go live-factor is quite heavy for me. In both tests I significantly underperformed simulations.

Any suggestion / help would be much appreciated.

Thank you all,

Stefano

[StaceyKoprince]

I'm sorry the test is giving you trouble. As you noted, your limited availability is not ideal - and as a result I actually want to congratulate regarding how far you've come despite extremely limited time to study. I know you're feeling frustrated and you want more, but you should still feel good about how far you've come so far.

I'm guessing that, in addition to your timing problems (which typically take 4-6 weeks to truly make better, not just 2-3 weeks... or 2-3 days--more on that later), you are also having issues with mental fatigue - and that that is exacerbating the normal stress that anyone feels when taking this test.

Our general recommendation is not to take a practice test within 5 days of the real test. By my count, you took 2-3 practice tests within 5 days of the real thing.

This is similar to running a couple of practice marathons a few days before you run a real marathon. All you're going to do is tire yourself out.

To top it off, you know the real test counts - and so you're more nervous when you sit down. That causes you to burn mental energy faster, and so you underperform on the real test.

Your MPrep CAT from Jan 8th had big timing issues - and you said "lesson learned" and you "fixed" this for the real test, but your real test was just 3 days later!! There's no way someone can actually learn how to make the best decisions in just 3 days. You know intellectually what you need to do, but you haven't yet examined dozens and dozens of questions in order to figure out the kinds of clues that should tell you when to keep going vs. when to bail. Rather, you're making more "snap" judgment calls based on nothing more than gut feel - and likely making wrong calls, skipping some that you could've gotten and working on some that you really should have skipped.

The good news is that you can learn how to make better, more consistent decisions so that your score stays more consistently up near that 700 level. But it's going to take some time / work.

You said that you can't modify your work schedule (to be able to study during the week). A study session doesn't have to be 2 or 3 hours. Are you able to study for 15 minutes a day during the week? Maybe, on some days, two sessions of 15m each? Or two or three sessions of 10m each? On public transport on the way to work. When you unexpectedly have 10 minutes free before your next meeting starts. Go to the bathroom for 10m and study there.

Little bits and pieces of reinforcement will help immensely. Pull out a single OG problem that you worked on yesterday and ask yourself, "Okay, what's the most efficient way to solve this and WHY? What are the clues I would want to notice to tell me to take a certain path? How would I make an educated guess if I had to? Why is that wrong verbal answer so tempting? What's the trap - how do they make it look okay even when it's wrong? Conversely, how do they make the right answer look not-so-great, even though it's right?" Etc.

Shorter or longer, when you sit down to study, use this to drive your work:
http://tinyurl.com/2ndlevelofgmat

And practice this mindset when choosing what to do with a block of questions and a limited amount of time:
http://tinyurl.com/executivereasoning
https://www.manhattanprep.com/gmat/blog ... -the-gmat/

For practicing in an adaptive setting (without having to take a whole practice test), I recommend the official product GMAT Focus. (www.gmatfocus.com) They only make it for quant, not verbal. (GMAC: if you read this, we'd really like for you to make this for verbal too, please!) But it's a great way to practice this tug-of-war and learn how to make really good decisions about what to do and what not to do.

Note: you practice doing it while you're doing the problem set. But

you learn how to get better in future

by analyzing your decisions afterwards and telling yourself where you made the right decisions, and why, and where you should make different decisions in future, and why. (The why can never be, "I shouldn't have spent time on this one because I got it wrong anyway." You'll never know that you're going to get something right or wrong! The why has to be something like, "The problem has characteristic X and Y, and I have weakness Z, so as soon as I realized W, I should have made the call to guess and move on.")

Okay. For the increased stress / anxiety during the test, try this:
https://www.manhattanprep.com/gmat/blog ... mat-score/

Now, tell me two things:
(1) Why does it not matter that you did a bunch of questions? Why will you be going back over some of those questions again? (Though not all 2,000 of them please!!) What will you be trying to accomplish when you look at those questions again?
(2) What do you need to change in your fundamental approach in order to increase the chances that you'll hit your goal next time?