Scored 640 in first Attempt Need Help

[bacchewar_prashant]

Hi Ron and Stacey,

I have scored 640( Q48, V28 ) in GMAT on Monday. First of all I want to thank MGMAT for their wonderful resources. I referred all of MGMAT guides and particularly liked maths and SC guides. In addition I referred to Thurdays with Ron.. I dont even have words to describe how great these sessions are.

One additional data I want to provide is my accuracy in OG Verbal 2 was 75%+ in CR and RC and about 55-60% in SC.

Well, I desperatly need your help once again. I belong to Indian IT Male category. Schools that I intend to apply will outrightly reject my application with this mediocre score. I need atleast 70-80 point improvement in my score.

I took two GMAT prep test in real exam conditions i.e. with AWA and 8 min break in last week of my preparation. Scores were

GMAT Prep 1 : Q49, V34 - Overall 690
GMAT Prep 2 : Q48, V24 - Overall 590

I know this is huge variation. All this variation is due to verbal score.
One reason I could figure out of this variation was I did badly in Reading Comprehension in GMAT prep 2. I could only get 5 correct in 14 RC questions where as I got 10 RC correctThis surely means that there are some gaps in my study. I found two mistakes that I did in RC section were that I was totally relying on my first reading of the passage in GMAT prep2 and did not went back to relvent sections of the passage. I totally corrected this in my real exam and I am sure that I must have got atleast 9-10 questions correct in my RC.

In both GMAT prep I did well in CR and got good accuracy more than 75% but I felt that in actual GMAT I was straguling a bit. at least 3-4 questions I was not able to co-related the answers choices with the argument. I need your help here as to what might have gone wrong.

In SC I am not really good and in both GMAT preps I got accuracy of 50-55%. In real test this section gave me a really tough time.
Most of the questions I was struglling to find out the meaning of the sentence even after reading 2-3 times and after that I use go to error analysis. Mostly I was not able to figure out whats is going on.
SC section is what has let me down. I need your suggestions on how can I improve SC drastically.

Additionally I took two MGAT CATs , I scored
MGMAT CAT 1 : Q44 V34 Overall 640
MGMAT CAT 2 : Q47 V33 Overall 660

Based on the CAT scores I felt that I will score 32-34 in verbal but that did not happen.

Since you guys have trained thousend of students I am sure that you can suggest some plan to improve in verbal drastically. I have 3 months of time with me since GMAT is going to change after June I dont want to face one more section.

I also feel that my quant score also need an improvement. I am familier with most of concept but let me tell you I was totally blanked on at least 4-5 problems and did not have any clue how to proceed with them. Most of them were related to number properties functions. Rest of the problems were pretty straight forward same pattern as one can see in OG and GMAT prep. Please suggest some way to improve in quants to 49+ level. I remember Ron telling in one of his session that GMAT is insight based test. I really want to know whether one can develope this insight.

Finally will be realistic to expect 70-80 points improvement in 3 month time frame.

Once again thanks a ton to MGMAT

--Prashant

[StaceyKoprince]

A couple of your comments tell me that you would benefit from learning more about how the test is scored.

I am familier with most of concept but let me tell you I was totally blanked on at least 4-5 problems and did not have any clue how to proceed with them.

I see at least one or two quant questions on which I feel the same way... and I score in the 99th percentile. It doesn't matter how good you get - they can give you something that makes you think, "Huh???" :)

One additional data I want to provide is my accuracy in OG Verbal 2 was 75%+ in CR and RC and about 55-60% in SC.

Discussing accuracy without also discussing both timing and difficulty level tells us almost nothing about your actual skills. Many people make the mistake of prioritizing accuracy over timing - and that makes it harder to maximize your real test score.

Read this:
http://www.manhattangmat.com/blog/index ... to-win-it/
Then log into your MGMAT account and read the Scoring section of our free e-book The GMAT Uncovered. Then come back here and tell me what you've learned from your reading. :)

It's possible to improve 70-80 points in roughly 3 months, yes, though obviously not everyone achieves that. You're asking good questions to start and you want to make sure as you go along that you're giving yourself access to helpful resources, etc. That might mean things like these forums, certain books or other resources, a study group (if you can find someone who's strong in verbal and needs help with quant, that'd be ideal), possibly even tutoring (that's very expensive but can also be quite valuable).

For quant, you're at the level where you would benefit from our Advanced Quant strategy guide - it was written for people who are in the 70-80 range right now (percentile) and are trying to push to 90+. It focuses on teaching you how to think your way through the complex problems they toss at us at the higher end, which is what Ron was talking about. (In other words, the book doesn't say "here, memorize these formulas and rules" - it's not Advanced Quant in that sense. Rather, it focuses on how to figure out what they're talking about when they wording of the problems starts getting really hard.)

Back to SC. Part of that is going to be going back over our SC Strategy Guide. (You don't mention whether you have it, but it seems like almost everyone has that book, so I'll assume you do too :) If you haven't already, make some flashcards with the rules you're still struggling to learn. In particular, I like flashcards with this setup:
[one side] If I see _____
[other side] I will think / do ______

And this: go back over some old OG problems you've already done (start with easier ones). Don't read the original sentence - cover it up. Compare the differences you find in the answers and try to answer the question only based on the differences. Also articulate very clearly: this difference means they're probably testing XYZ. And articulate HOW you know that. You often won't be able to answer the question completely (since you're not reading the original sentence), but go as far as you can. Then ask yourself: what else would it be useful to know / find in order to finish answering this? Then go see whether you can find those things in the non-underlined portions that you didn't read at first.

You also mention struggling with meaning. Have you read these articles? They'll provide you a good starting point for that issue.

http://www.manhattangmat.com/blog/index ... orrection/
http://www.manhattangmat.com/blog/index ... on-part-2/
http://www.manhattangmat.com/blog/index ... h-meaning/

[bacchewar_prashant]

Hi Stacey,

I took GMAT for second time today and score exactly the same overall score 640 but with slightly different split Q49 V28. My quant percentile improved by 5% from 80 to 85%.

I am totally frustrated now and really not sure what should I do to improve my verbal score.

I wrote 2 full length test( i.e. along with AWA and breaks) just week before actual test
1. MGMAT Q47V34 - 670
2. GMAT Prep 1 Q48V31 - 640

I thought I have improved on SC this time. But in actual exam I has terrible time in SC. I was almost blanked and I was not able to see any errors such as Subject Verb, Pronouns etc.

I did well on CR in both the practice test about 8 question correct out of 11. But in actual test I was having tough time on them. Surprisingly I got 4 prompts with blank in them. I definitely did not do so well.

Finally I think I feel very pressurised at the end of the verbal section and was not able to think for last 5 mins just marked something.

Please Please give some suggestion so I that I can improve to 34-35 level in verbal. Time is not a constraint. I have atleast years time with me.


Thanks in advance.
Prashant

[StaceyKoprince]

It sounds like some stress got to you during the verbal portion - you felt that you sort of blanked out and you had trouble thinking / concentrating. Those are all symptoms of stress and also mental fatigue.

Does anything described in this article sound familiar?

http://www.manhattangmat.com/blog/index ... you-crazy/

How about this one?
http://www.manhattangmat.com/blog/index ... anagement/

Both articles also have suggestions about how to handle mental fatigue and stress / anxiety.

At the same time, your real test scores are in the same range as your last two practice test scores, so your score didn't drop severely or anything like that. Given your practice test scores, you should have expected something in that range. :(

You said in your first post 6 months ago that you wanted a 700-710, so you weren't actually ready to take the test (assuming that this is still your goal score). That may also have increased the pressure - you knew your practice tests weren't at 700+, so you would have felt like you had to be perfect, and of course nobody's perfect on a test like this, so as it starts to feel hard, that increases your stress... and then your performance suffers. Could that have happened?

I don't know what you worked on since your first post, so it's hard for me to give you specific advice right now. What have you been doing for the past few months? Of the advice that I gave you last time, which parts did you try and what seemed to work vs. what didn't work?

What materials have you been using? Have you been working on your own? With a friend? With a tutor or in a class? Etc.

The "fill in the blank" question format on CR can be used with any of the existing question types - it's just another way to write, say, a Strengthen question. Your task there is to be able to recognize which type of question it is and then do your normal process for that type. (Our 5th edition CR book has a chapter dedicated to this.)

Did you feel that you got questions that looked like this on SC:
http://www.beatthegmat.com/mba/2011/03/ ... sc-problem
http://www.beatthegmat.com/mba/2011/03/ ... -problem-2
http://www.manhattangmat.com/blog/index ... problem-2/

These types of sentences and underlines can be harder to decipher / figure out.