Need your advice Stacey for retake - 690 (q50,v33)

[gmatango]

I have been following MGMAT past 1.5 years and am a great fan of yours and Ron's posts. I took the Next Gen GMAT yesterday and got a disappointing 690 (Q50,V33) and would like to seek your advice on retake This was my second attempt and here are my two debriefs.

First Attempt:

GMAT 1: 650 (Q50,V29) - Oct 2011

I am an Indian with engineering background and 3 years of exp. in financial service domain. I prepared for about six months on my own. I completed almost every available GMAC material -- OG-10,11,12,VR2, Paper test, GMAT Prep docs (for SC,CR,RC).

For SC I studied from e-GMAT and MGMAT SC guide but most of my learning was from amazing explanations on this forum. I initially referred to MGMAT guides for RC and CR but practiced mostly from official material.

The exam day experience:

For verbal, the first half went well but in the second half I ran out of time and had to guess on couple of questions. I believe because I mismanaged time I must have been got few questions wrong in a row, pushing my score down. Nonetheless, V-29 was a shocker as I was getting between 33 and 37 in GMAT Prep test. In MGMAT CATs also I was scoring in mid 30s.

Second Attempt:

This time I studied for less than two months. Started with revision of OG - 12, VR2 and GMAT Prep docs and then jumped onto GMAT Prep question bank. I made full 3:30 hr tests from these questions banks and practiced them like official tests. My accuracy was 80% in all three verbal sections. This made me confident that at least I would cross V37-38.

The exam day experience:

Verbal - I really don't know what happened as I was confident in marking answers and had plenty of time towards the end (around 30 minutes for 10 questions: with no RC). I got two very long RCs (4 paragraphs each), of which one was very tough; in fact, I found both tougher than what I did during my preparation. Moreover, I was not very confident on 1-2 RC questions. Besides guessing on 1 CR and 1 SC, I was confident on other CRs and SCs. I really don't know how and where the test adapted to 33 level as I spent ample time on each question to mark confidently. I was disappointed and shocked to see V33 and am really worried about how to approach verbal section.

Future Attempt:

I plan to retake the test by end of July and am targeting 720+ with V37+.

Firstly, I don't know how to diagnose my test performance as during past few weeks I solved GMAT prep question bank with 80% accuracy in verbal.

Secondly, what should I study this time for verbal as I have done all the official material at least once and I want to practice on fresh questions.

Lastly, any other suggestions that could help me achieve the target score. I am really confused and clueless.


Many Thanks & Regards.

[StaceyKoprince]

A 690 is a great score. I know you want more, but I just want to acknowledge that you've already done a great job - give yourself some credit for that. :)

For your second test, you said:

had plenty of time towards the end (around 30 minutes for 10 questions: with no RC)

You had 30 minutes left for the final 10 questions, and none of those were RC? Let's say that half were CR and half SC, so average time needed would have been 5*2 + 5*(1m20sec) = about 17 minutes. You had WAY more time than you actually needed, which means that you rushed at some point earlier on. When you rush, you make careless mistakes. By definition "careless" mistakes are made on things that you *could* have gotten right, so now your score is going down.

And you were that far ahead despite the fact that 2 of the 4 RCs you had before that point were very long and harder than usual - which usually means taking a little more time.

So you probably left some points on the table through rushing and making careless mistakes. Were you finishing your practice tests that early (or having that much time available towards the end)?

Also, have you seen this?
http://www.manhattangmat.com/blog/index ... orrection/

Do you think you had some SC issues that were similar to what is described in the article?

Re: what to do next, let's try to figure out first what likely went wrong (since that then tells us what to do next). Official materials are the best materials, so if you have done them all before, then put some aside for a few weeks till you start to forget them, and then you can start to go over thema gain.

[gmatango]

A 690 is a great score. I know you want more, but I just want to acknowledge that you've already done a great job - give yourself some credit for that. :)

Thanks for those kind words.

And you were that far ahead despite the fact that 2 of the 4 RCs you had before that point were very long and harder than usual - which usually means taking a little more time.

I do remember giving slightly less time than required to the 2 RCs. But I never thought I would be penalized so heavily for doing so. At worst, I think I would have got 3 questions wrong out of 8 questions on those 2 RCs (4x2).

So you probably left some points on the table through rushing and making careless mistakes. Were you finishing your practice tests that early (or having that much time available towards the end)?

I was completing practice tests more or less on time with 5-10 minutes left at max. But I do agree that rushing through those 2 RCs would have costed me badly. As I had carefully spent time on CRs and SCs, I was confident about them while marking the answer choices, whereas for couple of RC questions I was not so confident.

Now this brings me to another area of concern: how to improve RC ? In fact, I got confused between two close choices in a global question (about primary purpose of passage). GMAT quite often uses close words/language to trick the test taker in global questions. How can I better prepare these question types ?

In addition, my RC accuracy was lowest (72%) of the other three sections in GMAT prep question bank. What are some ways to improve in RC in general ?

Also, have you seen this?
http://www.manhattangmat.com/blog/index ... orrection/

Do you think you had some SC issues that were similar to what is described in the article?

For SCs I have been focusing on understanding the meaning first and then looking for splits and answer choices. So I don't think these issues are pertinent in my case. Also, I have been actively following yours and Ron's posts on MGMAT forum, which in itself cover the whole universe of GMAT grammar.

Re: what to do next, let's try to figure out first what likely went wrong (since that then tells us what to do next). Official materials are the best materials, so if you have done them all before, then put some aside for a few weeks till you start to forget them, and then you can start to go over thema gain.

I think I need to concentrate more on RCs this time and revise CR and SC. But the problem with official material, which I have done 'n' number of times, is that for SC and CR I clearly remember the correct answer. So I won't be able to diagnose my performance. Any alternative study material if you could suggest ?

Also, any other strategy you could suggest after knowing my case to improve my verbal score.


Many thanks for your time.

[StaceyKoprince]

But the problem with official material, which I have done 'n' number of times, is that for SC and CR I clearly remember the correct answer. So I won't be able to diagnose my performance

You're confusing *doing* with *learning* (which is a very common mistake people make). You don't learn much while you're doing a problem. You learn by analyzing and picking that problem apart in great depth before you go on to try a new one (on which you can then apply your new learning). 80% of your learning comes AFTER you've checked your answer. If you haven't been doing that analysis, then you haven't actually learned what you need to learn from all of those questions for which you already know the answer.

Here's how you actually learn from a problem:
http://www.manhattangmat.com/articles/a ... roblem.cfm

Have you been digging into these problems to that kind of level?

And here are examples of that analysis process on three verbal questions:
http://www.manhattangmat.com/articles/GMATprep-SC.cfm
http://www.manhattangmat.com/articles/CR-assumption.cfm
http://www.manhattangmat.com/articles/a ... estion.cfm

Then, *when* you are ready for new material, you can use GMATPrep 2.0 Prep Pack #1 (download GMATPrep 2.0 and look for the details for Prep Pack #1).

But do not do not do not use those questions until you have actually learned how to get better. Otherwise, you're just wasting a bunch of new questions!

More RC:
http://www.manhattangmat.com/blog/index ... p-passage/
http://www.manhattangmat.com/blog/index ... c-passage/
http://www.manhattangmat.com/blog/index ... rehension/
http://www.manhattangmat.com/blog/index ... -passages/

http://www.beatthegmat.com/mba/2010/09/ ... prehension
http://www.beatthegmat.com/mba/2010/11/ ... il-problem

[gmatango]

Hi Stacey,

I recently took the GMAT a week back and scored 710 (q50, v35). It is a decent score but for an Indian applicant it's below average. So I am thinking of rolling the dice and applying to few schools in round 1 and probably improve my score for some schools in round 2.

However, I am clueless who to improve v35 to v40. As I have exhausted every official GMAT material, I am thinking of improving my CR and RC by doing LSAT papers. I believe to push 5 points from v35 I need to drastically improve my comprehension and reading skills. For SC, I plan to revise official material.

Could you please add any suggestions to my future GMAT preparation strategy.


Many thanks.

[StaceyKoprince]

I do think that LSAT CR is more challenging in general - though there are some additional question types there that you won't find on the GMAT. LSAT or GRE RC can also help to prepare for the GMAT - RC is fairly similar in all three.

I'm worried about something though - this isn't really just about doing more problems. You did a bunch of problems already. Are you *learning* in the right way? If not, then doing more problems (and ones that aren't even GMAT problems) isn't really going to help much.

I just looked back at my last post and saw that I mentioned this a couple of months ago when we last "spoke." How did that advice work for you? How did it change the way that you studied and learned?

Verbal 35 to verbal 40 is a jump from about 75th percentile to 90th percentile. That's a pretty significant jump and most of it is going to come from how you think (as opposed to facts or rules you know). See the top section of this new article to understand what I mean by that:

http://www.manhattangmat.com/blog/index ... an-part-2/

Do you think that you have already been learning how to think (as opposed to what to know)? (Also, I just want to point out: when you're *doing* problems, you are not actually learning HOW to think. You learn how to think from analyzing the problems AFTER you finish doing them. Then, the next time you do a new problem, you can APPLY that new thinking that you learned when analyzing your previous work. That's why it takes so much longer to analyze problems than to do them in the first place.)