Need Advice for Retake (Scored 550 but goal is 650)

[tejada.ronald]

Hi All -

I took the test yesterday (nov 23) and didn't achieve my goal. Please provide some advice as to what I should do now. I plan to retake the test in a month from now. I don't want to waste my time.

Score on Test:
550 Q32 (28% percentile) V34 (70%)

The math really felt easy to me and I had no issues with timing. As I was thinking about how it went wrong, I realized that I may have guessed too much and under-thought some of the questions.

Background:
1. Taken MGMAT Course and did all HW
2. Taken all 4 GMAT Prep tests and scored 640 each time (don't know how)
3. Have completed all OG Guide questions
4. Have completed all Gmatprep Question Pack 1.

October 14 - Gmatprep Exam 1: 640 Q46 V33
October 26 - Gmatprep Exam 2: 640 Q40 V38
November 10 - Gmatprep Exam 3: 630 Q48 V28
November 18 - Gmatprep Exam 4: 640 Q45 V34

[thisisveek]

Did you go through the Manhattan gmat Quant guides? Those helped me solidify my grasp on the material. A Q score in the 30s to me reflects the existence of gaps in the knowledge. Also, the actual GMAT answers are tricky. They provide many answers that we can arrive at by making a slight mistake, hence they always feel easy and yet we get some wrong without even knowing.

[tejada.ronald]

I do think I have a grasp of the material. I believe I am not consist with my approach when taking the actual GMAT. As I will have at least another month until I decide to retake the exam, I figured I would redo all the OG Guide problems. I would try to solidify what I learned in class and in hw/practice problems.

Would doing all the OG Guide practice problems be of any help to me? I was thinking of doing them over again and analyze each question to achieve "level 2" learning as Stacey describes.

I am also thinking of really nailing down sentence correction, as this area is where I can learn and push my verbal score higher.

[StaceyKoprince]

If you took our course or one of our Guided Self-Study packages, then you're eligible for a free Post-Exam Assessment (if you haven't done it already). This is a phone call with an instructor to figure out what happened on test day and come up with a plan to re-take the test. If this applies to you, please send an email right away to gmat@manhattanprep.com and request the Post-Exam Assessment.

The first thing that jumps out at me: the swing in your Q and V scores. They were fluctuating quite a bit and it will be important to figure out why.

Second, your V score was consistent with your practice scores, but your Q score was much lower. So we want to figure out why Q dropped.

Third, you said you had no timing issues. I haven't met anyone who doesn't have any timing issues on Q - myself included. :) Everyone has SOME timing issues; it's just a matter of what yours are and how serious they are.

Given that you felt Q was "really easy," there's a good chance you were rushing and therefore made lots of careless mistakes / fell into lots of traps.

Next, you mention wanting a 650 - a 100 point increase - in a month. Most people would need more than 1 month to achieve a 100 point increase. You can go for it, of course, but be aware that you've set a pretty ambitious goal. If you don't have a particular deadline, give yourself the needed time - don't try to push the test into a certain date just because you want to be done with it. (Though I very much understand that feeling!)

Depending on your timing issues, it might be possible that you will fix the quant side of things in 4 to 6 weeks, enough to get your score up into the low 40s. That will get you close to your goal, but you will likely need to do a bit more to reach 650. Because verbal is your strength (and it's generally easier to improve our strengths), you will also want to do some studying there, yes.

In terms of what to concentrate on, I'd like to get some more detailed data on your strengths and weaknesses in order to advise you. Use the below to analyze your most recent MGMAT CAT(s):
http://www.manhattangmat.com/blog/index ... ice-tests/

Figure out what you think you should do based on that analysis (and everything else I've written in this post). Then come back here and tell us; we'll tell you whether we agree and advise you further. (Note: do share an analysis with us, not just the raw data. Part of getting better is developing your ability to analyze your results - figure out what they mean and what you think you should do about them!)

One more thing: you mention wanting to redo "all" OG problems. This comment actually illustrates the "quantity over quality / do it ALL" mindset that I'm trying to get people to avoid when I talk about the 2nd level of learning. Don't get yourself into the mindset that you're going to do "all" of these. That will just make you feel that you have to move on to a new question before you've fully extracted what you can learn from the question in front of you right now.

These questions themselves are not going to be on your test.Rather, you're using these questions as a tool to help you learn how to think your way through future new problems. That's what you're really trying to learn - and you do that by taking lots of time to pick apart a single problem, then moving on to the next one. Not by trying to do every problem in the book. :)

Here's the "2nd level of learning" article (for others who might be reading this):
http://www.manhattangmat.com/blog/index ... -the-gmat/