Retake in 20 days : 650 to 700+

[shiprak974]

Hello ,

I have been preparing for the GMAT for quite a while now and have given the GMAT twice.
June'15 TEST#1 650 Q47 V33
Sep'15 TEST#2 600 Q48 V25

I'm really struggling to improve on the verbal section (as a non native English speaker) for my third retake . I've done the manhattan strategy guides twice and OG completely and now trying to find new questions to practice on. I've also solved a lot of problems available on gmatclub etc. Analysing the same way as suggested by Stacey ( love her articles !) but unfortunately even though i know the patterns I'm unable to apply the same during a test.

Now,I need to retake the gmat urgently because of the approaching deadlines and that a school specifically asked for it. I have also gone through the 14 day plan by Chris and still there is no visible improvement in my score.My mocks have ranged from 610-670 and my target score is 700+. I come from a competitive applicant pool and hence a 700 is necessary to get an admission at my dream school.

Last couple of mock scores :
MGMAT : 630 Q45 V32
GMATPREP : 660 Q47 V34
GMATPREP : 650 Q48 V28

My Quant score usually varies from 47-50 and verbal score from 25 to 34. As such in verbal my problem areas are :

Quant : P&C, DS number properties, ratio & proportion

RC : Inference questions, specific detail questions
SC : concision, pronouns & modifier, Inverted Subject, verb agreement
CR : weaken , evaluate the argument, inference

On analysing my paper further, there are 6 questions in " too fast category", 8 in "warning" and 2 in "slow" in the verbal section. Too fast were majorly careless mistakes and so i have start maintaining an error log.

I havent got any four or more questions wrong in a row and my actual time (vs the cumulative time) doesn't vary by more than 2 minutes except in the end when by the last question I have 5 to 7 minutes left. Also If I focus too much on say SC , my accuracy improves in that section and subsequently drops in CR and RC. Could you tell me how i can strike a balance between RC, CR and SC ?

Please help me cross the 700 barrier !

thanking you in anticipation

[StaceyKoprince]

Let's start with what happened on your 2nd official test. Your Q score went up 1 point but your verbal score dropped 8 points. What do you think happened?

Here are some potential causes:
https://www.manhattanprep.com/gmat/blog ... t-wrong-2/

If we can figure out what went wrong, then we can put measures in place to prevent it from happening again (and to hopefully lift your score next time).

The official test offers something called an Enhanced Score Report (read more about it below). Each report costs $25. You might want to order it for the two tests so that you can compare the detailed results for verbal - that might help you to figure out what went wrong on the verbal.
https://www.manhattanprep.com/gmat/blog ... re-report/

(Note: the reports don't give a ton of data. But they will allow us to see whether the drop was equal across all three question types, or whether just one or two question types were primarily responsible. Given your short timeframe, it would be very useful to know, for example, that you were still fine in one area but another area was very problematic. Still, it will cost you $50, so you have to decide whether that money is worth it to you.)

Next question: did the school say that they want to see a particular verbal score? Or are they mostly interested in seeing a 700+ score? If the latter, then let's try to max our your quant score, since it's your stronger area. You'll still need to lift verbal, too, but it will take some of the pressure off.

In terms of frequency:

Quant : P&C, DS number properties, ratio & proportion

P&C is permutations and combinations? Or probability and combinatorics? Either way, guess immediately and move on. (You'll likely see 1 on the real test. If you see 2, one of them is likely experimental.)
Number properties: need to do decently well on divis & prime and pos / neg.
Ratio: need to do decently well

RC : Inference questions, specific detail questions

Yes, need to work on these. See here:
https://www.manhattanprep.com/gmat/blog ... rehension/

SC : concision, pronouns & modifier, Inverted Subject, verb agreement

Ignore concision and inverted subjects. Modifiers are very important. Pronouns are useful.
(Seriously, don't even think about concision on the test. "concision" is just a cop-out for "if you were a native speaker, you'd know a certain construction was right or wrong." It's useless. And they don't really use it anymore, because the test has become an international test and they're not trying to make it biased against non-native speakers.)
Try this:
https://www.manhattanprep.com/gmat/blog ... ce-part-1/

CR : weaken , evaluate the argument, inference

Weaken is common - need to be able to do well on those. You'll probably only see one inference (on CR). Ditto evaluate. So don't worry about those as much.

See here:
http://www.manhattanprep.com/gmat/blog/ ... reasoning/

Also If I focus too much on say SC , my accuracy improves in that section and subsequently drops in CR and RC. Could you tell me how i can strike a balance between RC, CR and SC ?

Yes! This is a common problem. Read this:
http://www.beatthegmat.com/mba/2015/07/ ... s-say-what

(The short answer: don't actually concentrate on one topic for a long period. Mix up your studies - since the test is mixed up, too. If you practice mixing things up, you'll do better on the real thing.)

For careless mistakes:
https://www.manhattanprep.com/gmat/blog ... -the-gmat/

What about quant? What can we do there to put you at the 50 end of your typical 47-50 range? Are you making careless mistakes there too?

[shiprak974]

Hi Stacey

Firstly thank you for so much for replying and going through my extremely lengthy post !

For my second attempt , I was a bit anxious, sleep deprived and had to hurry on last 10 questions and guess on most of them. My screen froze for a while and I had to switch the computer. ALthough, this cant be the assigned cause for the drop, but probably did make me more nervous.

So for timing issues, I'm trying to stay within the benchmark time frame for questions like Question 8-10 for the initial 15 minutes. and developing a 1 minute time sense. Yes, I will go ahead and order the Enhanced Score card just to know my weak areas.

Specifically the college asked for a score higher than 700, so yes I'm working on my quant score and will raise to a 50-51 level.

"P&C is permutations and combinations? Or probability and combinatorics? Either way, guess immediately and move on. (You'll likely see 1 on the real test. If you see 2, one of them is likely experimental.)
Number properties: need to do decently well on divis & prime and pos / neg.
Ratio: need to do decently well"

Permutations & combinations, i think it ll be a good move to skip those. Both Number properties and ratio proportion are on my Immediate To-do-List

So moving on to Verbal, For RC I'll probably take a minute longer to reconfirm my answers on Detail questions and inference ones and will memorize the wrong answer types. For SC, rereading Pronouns and Modifiers from strategy guides and practicing from OG will be enough ?
Avoiding concision and inverted Sub verb for now.
And lastly for CR , currently working on Weaken problems, Out to gain mastery !

And for your last point , from today I have made sets of ten questions (mixed) to strike a balance. and I plan to give it twice a day.

On Quant generally careless mistakes on Data sufficiency ,so familiarising myself with the traps involved particularly on number properties. And i need to start guessing on some quant problems , I try and work on each ( but not for more than 2.5 minutes) but just to have a relaxed attempt I will pick my five problems to skip

Does this plan sound good to you ? and I will keep you posted !

thanks a bunch,
Shipra

[StaceyKoprince]

For my second attempt , I was a bit anxious, sleep deprived and had to hurry on last 10 questions and guess on most of them. My screen froze for a while and I had to switch the computer. ALthough, this cant be the assigned cause for the drop, but probably did make me more nervous.

Well, nerves can definitely affect your performance, so the screen freeze probably did haev some impact. The bigger issue is that you had to guess on most of the last 10 questions. On average, you'd get just 1 out of 5 right - ie, you likely had a big string of wrong answers right at the end, and that would cause a big score drop.

In fact, if you were that far behind at that point, there's also a good chance that your earlier performance wasn't even that great. When people spend extra time earlier on, they tend to get sucked into spending it on problems that are too hard anyway - so they're not even getting those problems right.

In other words, yes, the timing is a major concern and you've definitely got to remedy that before you take the test again. But you already know that.

Remember, too, that you also need to make better decisions during Q and IR. If a particular problem is really hard for you, then it is likely to use up too much of your finite mental energy. At times, you may decide to let something go in an earlier section specifically because you have an eye toward saving that mental energy for verbal.

You can do this even when you're going for a 50-51 on quant (and I'm glad you already recognized that you want to try to lift that side, too). I have had multiple students score 51 on quant while also giving themselves 4 "freebies" (random guesses) on hard questions they see throughout the section. (Of course, your overall skills have to be quite good to score 51, the top score!)

Re: verbal wrong answer types: don't think of it as "memorizing" the wrong answer types. You can't memorize your way to a really good score, not on the GMAT. Think of it as having the ability to categorize / analyze in a way that allows you to spot those common traps. Start challenging yourself to explain the wrong answers aloud (even better if you can find a study buddy and take turns). Even if you're by yourself, though, you'll "hear" when you aren't actually confident about your reasoning and then you'll know you've got more work to do - digging deeper into the analysis, looking up what others are saying on the forums, etc.

(Do the above for all three verbal types, not just RC.)

I don't know whether re-reading only pronouns and modifiers will be enough. Neither do you, actually. You know you need to review those areas right now, so do so. But you may discover as you continue to analyze OGs that you need to dive back into review on other topics.

Speaking of, note that your big focus is on analyzing questions, not simply practicing them. Analysis comes after you try them. Read this:
http://tinyurl.com/2ndlevelofgmat

Then tell me what you got out of that and how it's going to influence your studies. Actually, while you're at it, read this too:
https://www.manhattanprep.com/gmat/blog ... -the-gmat/

And, finally, let's address that anxiety from your second test. Try this:
https://www.manhattanprep.com/gmat/blog ... mat-score/

Okay. Go do it!