Scored a 530 on the first attempt, want to cross 550

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I took the GMAT in March 2015,and scored a 530, the business school I am applying for has a minimum requirement of 550. I spoke with the admissions committee and they said they will assess me on this score.
Last week, they accepted me into their MBA programe with a conditional offer to score 550 in GMAT.

I want to concentrate on increasing my verbal score from 23 and get close to the 30 mark.

When i did my first GMAT, i mostly studied from Barrons and Princeton Review.

I now have the OG 15 and the OG Verbal. I also plan on purchasing the GMAT question Pack 1.


I plant to sit for my second attempt in the next week or so.

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by [email protected] » Tue May 19, 2015 8:51 am
Hi zob_hk,

From a statistical standpoint, a 530 is close enough to a 550 that you could have 'lucked' your way into a 550 last time. This is meant to say that you're essentially performing at that level right now (and raising Verbal up to a V30 isn't necessary for you to achieve your Overall Score goal).

That having been said, if you're taking the GMAT again in the next week, then you should put some time in on the "bigger" categories as that's where you'll find the bulk of the available points (and certainly some that you missed the first time around).

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by DavidG@VeritasPrep » Wed May 20, 2015 7:15 am
I've you're taking the test in the next week or so and are looking for a quick way to boost your score, consider mindfulness meditation: https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archi ... on/275564/

Happy to pass along my favorite guided meditations if you're interested.
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by Rich@EconomistGMAT » Thu May 21, 2015 11:03 am
Hi zob_hk,

The "stock" answer is that many students enrolled in Economist GMAT Tutor typically see their scores vary +/- 30 points between exams, meaning you're technically well within striking distance of 550. However, I'm curious to know if you've taken any previous practice CATs. If you have and have kept a thorough error log, take a look through and see if you can identify any question types that are holding you back. If you haven't done this, review any practice exams you've taken previously and try identifying any problem areas or timing issues you might be having. With only a week to spare, you'll want to hone in on improving in some of your weakest areas to get your score up the few points you're looking for.

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by VivianKerr » Sat May 23, 2015 11:43 am
Hey Zob,

So you're super-close, although I'm not sure you can 100% pull out an extra 20 points in less than one week. What is the exact date of your re-take? Could you postpone it by an extra week so you have time to formulate a solid 10-14 day study plan?

I think the problem is that Barron's and PR aren't sufficient for high-scorers. I'd recommend you also get the MGMAT SC book. The reason it's so valuable is because it divides its chapters by SC concept, and then lists in the back all the OG 15 questions that test that specific concept, so you can read about the concept, then immediately put it into action with back-to-back official questions testing that same specific concept.

If you try to do the OG15 straight through, cover-to-cover, then you'll just be doing a jumble of concepts and so there's less likelihood of mastery.

I'd recommend you plan to do the GMATPrep CATs at regular intervals, then do an Error Log for each one (see attached template). So, for example, a 14-day schedule might look something like:

Day 1 - GMAT Prep 1 (baseline) + Error Log
Day 2 -
Day 3 -
Day 4 - GMAT Prep 2 + Error Log
Day 5 -
Day 6 -
Day 7 -
Day 8 - GMAT Prep 3 + Error Log
Day 9 -
Day 10 -
Day 11 -
Day 12 - GMAT Prep 4 + Error Log
Day 13 -
Day 14 - ACTUAL GMAT

You may want to do a couple sessions with a tutor to make sure your CR and RC strategy is in good shape. After each Error Log, I'd pick 3 concepts from this attached GMAT concepts list to hone in on in the days in between CATs. The idea being that rather than doing the "throw everything at the wall" approach, you're limited your focus so you can mastery a limited number of tested concepts.

You should ALWAYS be working on RC, even for 15 minutes/day. It takes the longest to master, and you can't ignore it for a few days and then do 4 hours of it expecting tremendous improvement.

So your list after one CAT might be:

RC - Main Idea
SC - Parallelism
CR - Strengthen

Choose whatever concepts you missed the most on your CAT or you feel the least comfortable with. Utilize resources from GMATClub, Beat the GMAT, your OG, and your old books so you can cover each concept from many angles.

Here's an example of how I approach CR: https://gmatrockstar.com/tag/gmat-critical-reasoning/

And RC: https://gmatrockstar.com/2015/03/13/conq ... -question/

Even if these strategies aren't for you, come up with a way of utilizing your scratch pad in a way that allows you to get above 90% accuracy when you work untimed.

Good luck! You're really close to a 550, you just have to get organized, practice in a smart way, and work on codifying your approach to every question-type.

Best,
Vivian
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by zob_hk » Thu May 28, 2015 5:42 am
Thank you all for your feedback.

I sat for the GMAT this morning , and was shocked to see my score drop 50 points.
I was devastated at first and considered giving up on MBA, but I am not giving up so easy. After all am not looking for a 700+, all I need is a 550 which fundamentally should not be so hard to get. I will speak to the business school and am confident they will give me some more time to achieve the required minimum school.

I want to dedicate a 30 day study plan and reconsider my prep material.

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by Rich@EconomistGMAT » Thu May 28, 2015 7:49 am
Hi zob_hk,

Sorry to hear your score dropped so dramatically. I'm curious to know more about how you ended up preparing leading up to your 2nd attempt. I'm also curious to hear if your verbal score was what held you back again on this attempt.

Best,
Rich

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by zob_hk » Thu May 28, 2015 8:07 am
Rich@EconomistGMAT wrote:Hi zob_hk,

Sorry to hear your score dropped so dramatically. I'm curious to know more about how you ended up preparing leading up to your 2nd attempt. I'm also curious to hear if your verbal score was what held you back again on this attempt.

Best,
Rich
Hi Rich,

My Q scored dropped 3 points and Verbal score by 2 points. I normally do very well in Q, in my practice Cats I have consistently score in the mid 40. The drop in Q score was a real shock.
My prep for this attempt, 8 days . I mostly did the practice question sets from OG 15 . Worked on a set pattern to approach CR, RC and SC questions , and time management .

BRs
ZK

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by DavidG@VeritasPrep » Thu May 28, 2015 8:13 am
These kinds of fluctuations aren't uncommon from test to test. And you absolutely should not give up - simply make it a goal to consistently hit 600+ on practice tests before you take the official test again. That way, even if you have an off-day, you'll still have your target score.
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by MartyMurray » Thu May 28, 2015 11:14 am
Hi zob_hk.

The truth is that often people's scores go down initially after they do some preparation.

What underlies that is basically this.

A person has a way of operating. That way of operating may not get him to his target score, but it gets him to whatever score he gets.

Then he decides to learn some more in order to get a higher score, and he takes a practice CAT, or in you case the actual GMAT, only to be surprised by a drop in score, rather than the increase he had expected.

What happened? He started learning a new way of operating and yet didn't fully develop in that new way. So now he is operating in a new way to which he is not really accustomed, and he doesn't do as well.

That could be much of what is going on with you.

You focused on verbal, and on new ways of handling verbal questions, and maybe didn't put as much energy into quant this time.

Twenty points may not seem like much, but partly because of things like changing the way one operates, increasing one's GMAT score by any amount can be a bit of a project.

What this all means, obviously, is that after a score decrease, just keep at it and your score will bottom out, and start to increase again, on a more solid foundation.

So just keep playing the game and learn to get more right answers. To achieve the verbal score you want, you need to be getting maybe 70 to 75 percent of verbal questions right in practice.

For some ideas on putting points on the board, you could check out this blog post. https://infinitemindprep.com/raising-you ... the-board/
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by [email protected] » Thu May 28, 2015 11:54 am
Hi zob_hk,

With this latest GMAT score, there's some evidence that you didn't retain enough from your prior studies to improve your situation on your own. While you mentioned some of the practice materials that you used, I'd like to know a bit more about the work that you've done so far:

1) How long did you study before each GMAT attempt?
2) How many hours were you studying each week (on average)?
3) What were your scores on your practice CATs (including the Quant and Verbal Scaled Scores)?
4) Did you take the ENTIRE CAT each time (including the Essay and IR sections)?

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