Same GMAT Score Twice! When to take again?

[RyanW468]

My target Gmat score is a 720 and I've taken the Gmat two times. On the first attempt (Dec 12.) I was 47/38 and on the second (Jan 7) I was 46/38. Obviously 690 is a good score but given I have another month or 2 to put into the Gmat, I'd like to push into the 700 range.

After taking the first test I spent most of the next month reviewing and re-doing all of the quant problems I had gotten wrong previously while reviewing more advanced concepts in quant and sentence comprehension. Now, having gotten the same score I am unsure of how to proceed. I hesitate to repeat this same process as I'm not positive it will give me a different result. I'd like to retest within the next month but am unsure if that is too soon.

I've not had much of a timing problem on the quant section and typically get tripped up on some of the wordier data sufficiency problems. On verbal I typically have to guess on 2 questions throughout the section to finish on time.

I've been going through some of the Manhattan resources and am unsure how to proceed. Given how I have scored on my recent GMAT Official Mocks (700, 710, 720), I am targeting a 48 on quant and a 40 on verbal.

What should I be trying to do before I retake again? Many articles mention analyzing my weaknesses but I've devoted a lot of time to that. Perhaps I just overachieved the first time I took the Gmat and underachieved the most recent time. Does anyone have any experience like this? Should I be looking at a tutoring session, advanced quant course, etc.?

[StaceyKoprince]

First, yes, a 690 is a really good score. I know you want more, but I just want to make sure to give you credit for that!

Your 1st and 2nd tests were only about 3.5 weeks apart—it's not unusual to see the same score in that timeframe. So I wouldn't think of it as having underachieved on that second test. It was worth trying to see if you could get there and not have to study anymore—the test has a standard deviation of 30 points, so your goal is within 1 SD of your first test score.

But I wouldn't advise you to go for 3-4 weeks this time. I'd give yourself maybe 6-8 weeks. Again, it could work in 3-4 but you might just find yourself where you are right now, with another month gone. You've tried that once; now it's time to try something different (as you noted in your post).

Before we dive in, you may qualify for a Post-Exam Assessment, depending on what program you did. The PEA is a free one-on-one meeting with an instructor to debrief from the official exam and set up a plan for your retake. If you didn't already do this after your first exam (only one comes with the program), email our student services team at gmat@manhattanprep.com to see whether your program qualifies for this and to sign up, if so. (If you took any full course or did the full Interact program, you qualify.)

Overall, the highest Q score is 51, so you're 4-5 points below the peak. The highest practical verbal score is 45 (it's really rare to score above that), so you are 7 points below that peak. So there's a little bit more room for improvement on the verbal side.

But let's couple that with your comment that you're targeting Q 48 and V 40, based on your official practice test scores. First, the most common scoring combo out of those two subscores is a 710, not a 720. See here:
https://www.manhattanprep.com/gmat/gmat-score-calculator/

If you can get Q up one more point (to 49) or V up one more (to 41), that's more likely to get you the desired 720. Either way, you're looking at trying to pick up another 1-3 points on Q and 2-3 points on V. So this is pointing to spending roughly the same amount of time on Q and V—or maybe even a slight edge to V.

Next, you said that, for your second exam, you reviewed advanced Q and SC concepts (right? you said "sentence comprehension"—I'm guessing you meant sentence correction, but you could also have meant reading comprehension). And you did a bunch of quant problems.

Did you not review CR and RC at all (or very little)? And was most or all of your problem focus on Q—not SC?

Did you get the Enhanced Score Report for either of your official exams? Costs $30 but can often provide data that's useful to help you figure out what to do for a retake—though not always all that useful. See this article for more detail:
https://www.manhattanprep.com/gmat/blog/enhanced-score-report-part-1/

I'm guessing you haven't because you didn't share that data but, if you have, please include the data in your next post. I'd be happy to analyze / tell you what I think.

Big picture: If you feel like you're spinning your wheels / not sure how to dig in and improve at this stage, then yes, something like tutoring or the Advanced course would help. That of course means spending more money and I have a conflict of interest in recommending something like that—so I'll just say that these kinds of solutions are useful when you feel that you've hit a wall and aren't sure you can come up with effective ways to push yourself to that next level.

If you qualify for a PEA and haven't done it yet, sign up for that right away. If you think you might want to do some tutoring, you can tell our student services team and they'll try to pair you with someone who has tutoring availability—so you can meet for free for an hour to see whether you connect well enough with this person to want to spend money on tutoring.

The next Advanced course starts in 9 days (and that program runs for 5 weeks, which is probably just right for your timeline). There's a significant discount if you've already taken the regular course—ask our student services team, but it's like half off or something.

So I'd try to get the PEA in ASAP (assuming you're eligible) and then you can decide how you want to move forward. (Note: It can take up to a week to get the PEA scheduled, so put in the request right now—gmat@manhattanprep.com.)

[RyanW468]

Hi Stacey,

Thank so much for the response. I think you answered some of what I already had assumed. I unfortunately do not qualify for the PEA as I only purchased the Manhattan self-study toolkit.

I actually just heard about the ESR a few days ago and bought it yesterday for my first test. From a verbal standpoint I haven't focused as much on CR or RC because I started from such a low bar in SC. The general breakdown was:

Verbal Percentiles:
81SC
83RC
74CR

Math Breakdown:
PS/DS both 57th
Arithmetic 71st
Algebra/Geometry 42nd
Geometry/Rates,Ratios/ValueOrders/IneqAlg/CountingSets: 40%/80%/60%/66%/50%

At this stage I am willing to push my next test back to the end of February and put in the work required. I've not had a problem with investing time, it is moreso that I feel like I have exhausted what I can do on my own. If I were to self-study another 6 weeks I'd be doing the same thing and I'm not sure it'd put me in the best spot.

Do you think the advanced course would be too focused on harder material for what I'm going for?

[StaceyKoprince]

I'm sorry I'm just getting back to you now—I've been traveling for work.

Ok, so your verbal is pretty even across the board—good work bringing your SC up. If you haven't been spending much time on CR/RC, then it seems like that's the next logical place to focus on that side. Seems like you'd have a good chance to bring those up once you actually spend some time and energy on them.

How was your average timing for all of the different question types? And when you look at timing across the 4 quadrants—was that pretty steady or did you spend a lot more time in some quadrants and rush in others? Tell me that detail if so.

PS/DS percentile is even, but I'd like to know whether there was a timing differential. If one is decently faster than the other, then that's more of a strength.

The Alg/Geo vs. Arith split is notable. Looks like you've got a good handle on real-number stuff but there's work to be done on Alg/Geo. Remember the strategy chapters that talked about things like Smart Numbers, Working Backwards, etc? That's basically taking algebra problems and turning them into arithmetic...and you're better at arithmetic. So it seems like that's one natural place to focus your attention on quant.

The percentages indicate show Geo as the lowest—but there are also typically only about 3-5 geo problems on the exam. (Do you have any sense of how many you saw?) A 40% figure seems to indicate that you saw 5 and got 2 right. How do you feel about geo in general?

I think you're right in the wheelhouse for the Advanced Course. Most people taking that are starting in the 650 to 700 range and looking to get into the 710 to 730-40 range. You want a 720—so, yes, this class would be appropriate for you.