GMAT Strategy

I used old prep material to take my exam yesterday. When I looked at the new material I found that the OG for 2016 used many of the exact same problems my 2010 material had. I decided to use the 8 Manhattan Guides to base my prep. I figured that the material largely remained the same so there would be no issue.

I researched Integrated Reasoning to get up to speed. I did about 15 practice problems, finding them to be pretty easy, and I just moved on.

On test day I get totally and completely stunned by the 2nd IR question. I'm not sure what it was, but I simply could not collect all of the necessary information in my head to address the questions in a timely manner. I wasted nearly half of my allotted time on one passage and ended up not finishing the entire 2nd half of IR. I got a TWO as a score on IR...13th percentile. Ugh.

Naturally at this point I was stunned and on tilt. Took my break, tried to recompose and did the quant. Again time seemed to be a huge factor here. I just felt like I had absolutely no time to consider any of the problems, and certainly no time to check if I fell into any traps (which I now believe I most certainly did.).

Ended up with a 42Q score. Incredibly disappointed. I managed to somewhat salvage an overall terrible test performance with a 39V (which was a lot of luck, I think) but this is just awful for me. It's essentially excluded me from my top two schools and now I have to try and fix this for the third.

How do you guys get your Quant and IR skills up to snuff to deal with these problems with the, in my opinion, brutal time constraints? What material do you use?

I'd be happy with 85h percentile quant and IR. I think I can make that work.

RJ43 wrote:I used old prep material to take my exam yesterday. When I looked at the new material I found that the OG for 2016 used many of the exact same problems my 2010 material had. I decided to use the 8 Manhattan Guides to base my prep. I figured that the material largely remained the same so there would be no issue.

I researched Integrated Reasoning to get up to speed. I did about 15 practice problems, finding them to be pretty easy, and I just moved on.

On test day I get totally and completely stunned by the 2nd IR question. I'm not sure what it was, but I simply could not collect all of the necessary information in my head to address the questions in a timely manner. I wasted nearly half of my allotted time on one passage and ended up not finishing the entire 2nd half of IR. I got a TWO as a score on IR...13th percentile. Ugh.

Naturally at this point I was stunned and on tilt. Took my break, tried to recompose and did the quant. Again time seemed to be a huge factor here. I just felt like I had absolutely no time to consider any of the problems, and certainly no time to check if I fell into any traps (which I now believe I most certainly did.).

Ended up with a 42Q score. Incredibly disappointed. I managed to somewhat salvage an overall terrible test performance with a 39V (which was a lot of luck, I think) but this is just awful for me. It's essentially excluded me from my top two schools and now I have to try and fix this for the third.

How do you guys get your Quant and IR skills up to snuff to deal with these problems with the, in my opinion, brutal time constraints? What material do you use?

I'd be happy with 85h percentile quant and IR. I think I can make that work.

A couple of questions for you: how many practice exams did you take? How did those scores compare to your score on the actual test?

As for new material, you might want to check out the most recently released official material (one question bank consisting of about 400 problems + 4 additional practice tests.) You can find all of this at mba.com

And feel free to check out our question bank: https://www.veritasprep.com/gmat/gmat-question-bank/

I'm embarrassed to even answer the question, but I did not take any practice tests. I took the exam 5 years ago and got a 640. I felt that I knew what I was getting into this time and that my time would be better spent trying to more deeply understand the material. I was wrong.

I'm particularly frustrated because my quant score this time is the exact same as it was the first time.

Right now I'm thinking I need a new, larger question bank and to make my prep imitate the environment of the actual exam. Get used to working under the clock.

RJ43 wrote:I'm embarrassed to even answer the question, but I did not take any practice tests. I took the exam 5 years ago and got a 640. I felt that I knew what I was getting into this time and that my time would be better spent trying to more deeply understand the material. I was wrong.

I'm particularly frustrated because my quant score this time is the exact same as it was the first time.

Right now I'm thinking I need a new, larger question bank and to make my prep imitate the environment of the actual exam. Get used to working under the clock.

Nothing to be embarrassed about - it's a common misconception that so long as you drill away on the core concepts, you'll be ready for the test. What most test-takers find is that mastering the fundamentals is just the first step. Once you have that foundation (and it sounds as though you have a decent base, though one that can be improved) you want to take regular practice exams to master the timing and fine-tune your strategies. In my experience the average test-taker will end up taking between 6-8 practice tests before sitting for the real thing. (Though, of course, there's plenty of variation.)

[email protected] wrote:Hi RJ43,

From what you've described, you essentially just worked your way through lots of practice questions - and that type of approach is not a particularly great way to significantly improve your GMAT score. As such, right now you do NOT need a new question bank; you'll invariably approach those new questions in the exact same ways that you approached all of these other questions (and likely score at the exact same level as you did on this recent GMAT).

Before I can offer you the specific advice that you're looking for, it would help if you could provide a bit more information on how you've been studying and your goals:

Studies:
1) How long have you studied?
2) What was your exact score on this GMAT?

Goals:
3) What is your goal score?
4) When are you planning to apply to Business School?
5) What Schools are you planning to apply to?

GMAT assassins aren't born, they're made,
Rich

Hi Rich,

Thanks for the response.

1) I studied for about two month's regularly. About 1-2 hours each night. 4+ hours a night in the 10 days leading up to the exam.

2) Q42 V39 IR2 660

3) My goal scores are Q48 V39 IR6. I know that the programs I am applying to weigh quant performance more than total score.

4) I was planning on applying next week, but now I am considering holding off until next year because I have no time to take the exam again before this year's registration deadline. April and June are application deadlines for other programs I'd consider.

5) Executive MBA programs in the bay area. Have my heart set on Haas but I know my Quant and IR scores are going to sink me.