Need Advice

[gorgeouzmale]

Hello,

I always wanted to write a good debrief of my successful GMAT experience. Alas, that never happened so far. I have written GMAT twice and have scored subpar in both the attempts. The first time I took a whole bunch of books BARRONS, KAPLAN, OG12, VERBAL and QUANT REVIEW, POWERPREP CR and MANHATTAN SC and gave equal importance to every book. I took all the CAT of KAPLAN, MANHATTAN, POWERPREP and GMATPREP. I was scoring around 640 on KAPLAN and MANHATTAN CATs and around 710 on POWERPREP and GMATPREP CATs. Finally, when I gave the official GMAT on April 04, I scored 640(V35,Q43,E6.0). I was pretty dissapointed, but was determined to do better the second attempt.

I enrolled for the full GMATPILL study program with the +50 point guaranttee. I had little more than a month for preparation and wanted to give the second attempt before the new IR section was introduced. I had a solid one month preparation, in which I only used OG12, VERBAL and QUANT REVIEW and GMATPILL videos. I again took MANHATTAN and GMATPREP CATs. This time I was scoring consistently above 730 on CATs. I even wrote few GMATCLUB quant and Verbal exams. I was scoring around 25-30 on the quant exams and around 35 on the verbal exams. When I gave the second official GMAT on Jun 02, I scored a dismal 600 (Q37,V35). I was very dissapointed.

I want to give GMAT again. But, I dont know what I should do to score above 700. I still dont know what mistake I did during the preparation for my second attempt.

Seniors/Experts, Please advice on how should I go about preparing for my next attempt. I want to score high. Kindly, help.

[StaceyKoprince]

The first thing I'm noticing is the sheer *volume* of stuff you did. Doing a lot of stuff doesn't necessarily equal studying well. :) I'm guessing you may have spent too much time focused on quantity and not enough time focused on quality of study.

Next, we need to figure out why your practice test scores were so much higher than your real test scores (the second time).

And why did your score drop on the 2nd real test (compared to the first)? Your verbal didn't improve; your quant dropped. Did you have timing problems? Did you burn yourself out in the final week leading up to the 2nd test?

Read this:
http://www.manhattangmat.com/blog/index ... ent-wrong/

What do you think applies in your case (from that article)?

Next, use this article to analyze your most recent MGMAT CAT(s).

http://www.manhattangmat.com/blog/index ... ice-tests/

If you took those CATs under conditions that were likely to have inflated your score (saw lots of repeated questions, didn't stick to the standard timing, skipped the essays, etc), then go to an older MGMAT CAT that was taken under closer-to-official testing conditions.

Come back here and share your analysis. (Note: not just the raw data. We want your analysis - what you think the data means and what you think you should do about it. It's very important to develop the ability to do this kind of analysis for yourself.)

We'll figure out where to go from there!