GMAT Strategy

My scores in the mock tests are wayward and I have my exam on Aug 30(on my Bday )

Here are my results of free practise tests.
Veritas - 27/03/2015 - 650(Q49/V31)
MGMAT - 07/05/2015 - 540(Q43/V21)
Kaplan - 25/07/2015 - 710(Q 97percentile, V 43 percentile)

The scores are so wayward that I am not understanding whether I should be happy or sad. I am really confused about where I am with respect to my test preparation.

My Quant status :
After the veritas and MGMAT mock tests, i spend some time on the analysis of the tests. I was making many silly mistakes in quant. Like, in q question which was saying one quarter of an year, i considered it as 4 months instead of 3 months etc.. These things were dragging me much behind and also I observed that at the end of the section I was guessing around 10 questions due to lack of time which I think is very very bad.

Then I took kaplan gmat.
The only thing i did differently while taking kaplan mock gmat(3 days back) is that, in quant section strictly i told myself that i have to keep the pace of 2 minutes per problem. and after one 1 minute, if I have no clue about where to start from, I promised myself to guess and move on. This worked for me and I was able to solve all the problems and had exactly around 123 seconds for my last problem. Achieving this was great pleasure to me. When i saw the score, i felt even more happier to see a 97% in quant(event after getting 12 questions wrong(all the questions i got wrong were of difficulty hard. basically I got all low and medium right and 60% of hard right)). So, more or less I am planning to follow the same strategy for quant and hopefully it will work for me.


My Verbal status :
One thing common in all the mock tests is that my verbal skills are very weak.
Over last 2 months I have spent my time (in bits and pieces) mostly on verbal section but i must admit that I have not given my 100% and hence there is no drastic improvement in the verbal score.

While I gave kaplan mock test, I tried to follow the 2 minutes logic i followed for quant but it was simple not possible. I am unable to read/comprehend and evaluate the arguments(CR/RC) in under 2 mins.

At the end, I had to guess around 15-16 questions in under 3 minutes.

For RC's I am taking about 15 minutes to understand the RC and answer the questions comfortably (I jot down the gist in my own words of each para while I read).
for CR i am taking about 3-4 minutes to answer comfortably (I use T-diagram approach of MGMAT).
for SC questions i am taking about 90 - 140 seconds (I use split method).

I want to utilise my next 1 month in the best way I can and I require assistance from experts here to plan my strategy for next one month. kindly help.

Hi buddyme,

I'm curious to know if your practice exams were full length and timed. While your 2nd attempt was considerably lower, your first and third attempts aren't too far off. That being said, if these weren't as close to a real GMAT experience as possible, it's difficult to say if you should be satisfied.

I'd also like to know more about the following:

1) What's your target score?
2) What's your motivation for taking the exam next month?
3) When do you want to apply for business school?

Best,
Rich

Rich@EconomistGMAT wrote:Hi buddyme,

I'm curious to know if your practice exams were full length and timed. While your 2nd attempt was considerably lower, your first and third attempts aren't too far off. That being said, if these weren't as close to a real GMAT experience as possible, it's difficult to say if you should be satisfied.

I'd also like to know more about the following:

1) What's your target score?
2) What's your motivation for taking the exam next month?
3) When do you want to apply for business school?

Best,
Rich

Hi Rich,
Thank you for the post.
>I'm curious to know if your practice exams were full length and timed.
Yes. all the three tests were full length and timed. But i have took breaks. I took almost an overnight's break for MGMAT while may be 20 mins break for kaaplan and veritas.

1) What's your target score?
700+
2) What's your motivation for taking the exam next month?
I was not completely aware of the admission procedures and I waned to apply for B-schools for the 2016 batch.
I saw that the dead lines for the first rond were in september/october. So, I thought to give myself the maximum time possible and scheduled the exam on Aug 30. I did this around 4 months back.

3) When do you want to apply for business school?
2016 batch

I will be waiting for your feedback. I really want to utilize my 1 month to the best I can.

Best Regards,
Sandeep

[email protected] wrote:Hi buddyme,

I have a few questions about these CATs, since something in the data seems 'off':

1) Did you take the ENTIRE CAT each (including the Essay and IR sections)?
2) Did you take your CATs at home?
3) Did you take them at the same time of day as your Official GMAT?
4) Did you do ANYTHING during this CAT that you couldn't do on Test Day (pause the CAT, take longer breaks, etc.)?
5) What were the Quant and Verbal SCALED SCORES (not the percentiles) for each?

Since your GMAT is in just over 4 weeks, you'll have to put in some serious work to improve how you deal with the Verbal section.

What is your goal score?
Do you have the flexibility to push your Test Date back?

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

1) Did you take the ENTIRE CAT each (including the Essay and IR sections)?
No. I have skipped these sections in kaplan. I have taken them in MGMAT and Veritas mock cats.

2) Did you take your CATs at home?
Yes

3) Did you take them at the same time of day as your Official GMAT?
All three tests i took were in different times. But the kaplan test was closest to my official GMAT timings.

4) Did you do ANYTHING during this CAT that you couldn't do on Test Day (pause the CAT, take longer breaks, etc.)?
Yes. I did it in almost all the cats due to some emergency situations. The break was least in kaplan and longest in MGMAT.

5) What were the Quant and Verbal SCALED SCORES (not the percentiles) for each?
I was not able to see it in kaplan test. They are only showing the percentiles.

>> Since your GMAT is in just over 4 weeks, you'll have to put in some serious work to improve how you deal with the Verbal section.
I understand that Rich and I am ready for it. Will be very helpful if you can assist me with some tips for verbal exclusively.

What is your goal score?
700+

Do you have the flexibility to push your Test Date back?
I was not completely aware of the admission procedures and I waned to apply for B-schools for the 2016 batch.
I saw that the dead lines for the first rond were in september/october. So, I thought to give myself the maximum time possible and scheduled the exam on Aug 30. I did this around 4 months back.
I will consider pushing if I am really in a bad state by the exam time.

I have recently seen the complete range of videos at gmatprepnow. I am finding them very useful and I would like to give them significant time in my next 1 month.

Eagerly looking forward for your tips and feedback.

Best Regards,
Sandeep Kumar

I'd suggest having a handful of concrete action steps in place to improve your verbal score.

- Make sure you're up to speed on the principles tested in Sentence Correction. Here's our free SC lesson: https://www.veritasprep.com/gmat/free-gmat-lesson/

- Do all the SC questions in the Official Guide and make sure you understand them thoroughly. Post any questions you have here.

-Do the same for CR

- Read voraciously. (Anything challenging will do.) There's research suggesting that the physiology of our brains changes when we read more: https://www.theatlantic.com/education/ar ... in/282952/

- Consider incorporating some mindfulness meditation. https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archi ... on/275564/

[email protected] wrote:Hi buddyme,

Based on everything that you've described, there is a significant 'unknown' in your studies thus far - none of your CAT scores can be considered 'accurate', so we don't know what your actual ability level is. By taking your CATs in an unrealistic fashion (longer pauses, skipped sections, starting at different times of day, etc.), you haven't taken a complete CAT that properly matches what you will face on the Official GMAT. As such, we REALLY need to see how you handle a FULL-LENGTH CAT, taken under test-like conditions.

As such, I highly recommend that you plan to take a FULL-CAT (including the Essay and IR sections), all in one sitting, away from your home, at the same time of day as your Official GMAT, etc. Since you only have about a month left to study, it would help a great deal if you can take the CAT this weekend. Once you have your scores, you should report back here. Without that data, it's tough to give you the pointed advice and suggestions that you're looking for.

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

Hi Rich,
I have just completed a full CAT(GMAT Prep Software) (IR and essay included) with no breaks.
I got 600 Q49 V24

I am attaching my scorecard including the complete data.
Kindly provide feedback and any sugesstions on study plan wil lbe greatly helpful.

Best Regards,
Sandeep Kumar

buddyme wrote:I have just completed a full CAT(GMAT Prep Software) (IR and essay included) with no breaks.
I got 600 Q49 V24

I am attaching my scorecard including the complete data.
Kindly provide feedback and any sugesstions on study plan wil lbe greatly helpful.

Ok. First the easy part. On quant you seem to have taken care of most of those silly mistakes you were making. Now you could go over you tests and see what areas of quant you could still get better at. Then do targeted work to get better in those areas. One way to do that is by setting up a practice account here, https://bellcurves.com/, and using the categorized quant questions in the question bank for practice. If you are uncomfortable with any concept, you can be pretty sure that after doing 60 questions of that type, you will be much more comfortable.

Also, keep working to reduce silly errors by developing more of an accuracy mindset, becoming more aware of the types of silly mistakes you make, and learning to catch yourself before you make them.

Other than that, maybe just keep regularly doing a variety of quant questions to get more practice and stay ready for anything you might see in the quant section.

As far as verbal goes, you need to do a lot of work there and fortunately a month is a decent amount of time. I am wondering a few things.

- What is your accuracy rate in each type, SC, CR, and RC?

- Are you mostly having trouble with speed and efficiency, getting right answers but not completing enough questions, or are you also having trouble getting right answers?

- You mentioned using the splits method for SC. Is that working for you, or are you finding that by being too mechanical you are choosing wrong answers?

- Do you often succeed in narrowing down to two verbal answers?

- How much have you actually worked on GMAT verbal. In other words, to what degree is the issue here simply that you have not worked on verbal much?

Marty Murray wrote:

buddyme wrote:I have just completed a full CAT(GMAT Prep Software) (IR and essay included) with no breaks.
I got 600 Q49 V24

I am attaching my scorecard including the complete data.
Kindly provide feedback and any sugesstions on study plan wil lbe greatly helpful.

Ok. First the easy part. On quant you seem to have taken care of most of those silly mistakes you were making. Now you could go over you tests and see what areas of quant you could still get better at. Then do targeted work to get better in those areas. One way to do that is by setting up a practice account here, https://bellcurves.com/, and using the categorized quant questions in the question bank for practice. If you are uncomfortable with any concept, you can be pretty sure that after doing 60 questions of that type, you will be much more comfortable.

Also, keep working to reduce silly errors by developing more of an accuracy mindset, becoming more aware of the types of silly mistakes you make, and learning to catch yourself before you make them.

Other than that, maybe just keep regularly doing a variety of quant questions to get more practice and stay ready for anything you might see in the quant section.

As far as verbal goes, you need to do a lot of work there and fortunately a month is a decent amount of time. I am wondering a few things.

- What is your accuracy rate in each type, SC, CR, and RC?

- Are you mostly having trouble with speed and efficiency, getting right answers but not completing enough questions, or are you also having trouble getting right answers?

- You mentioned using the splits method for SC. Is that working for you, or are you finding that by being too mechanical you are choosing wrong answers?

- Do you often succeed in narrowing down to two verbal answers?

- How much have you actually worked on GMAT verbal. In other words, to what degree is the issue here simply that you have not worked on verbal much?

Hi Murray,
I got 14 questions wrong in Quant this time. and around 8 of them were silly mistakes.

I am working on developing an accuracy based mindset. I think this will give me most returns on my test day.
BDW, What is the highest raw score in a section and how good/bad is 49?

- What is your accuracy rate in each type, SC, CR, and RC?
It is not constant and highly fluctuating. But one thing i know is that I am at 50 percent mark in all these things.

- Are you mostly having trouble with speed and efficiency, getting right answers but not completing enough questions, or are you also having trouble getting right answers?
Both. Speed is a bigger problem. I have subcribed for 6 free veritas cats, do you suggest me to try an untimed test in verbal section and see how i perform?

- You mentioned using the splits method for SC. Is that working for you, or are you finding that by being too mechanical you are choosing wrong answers?
Yes it is working for me. It helps to find the possible faults and then narrow down.

- Do you often succeed in narrowing down to two verbal answers?
In SC and CR mostly yes. in RC either i get the answer or will have no clue at all. For RC i am noticing few things related to reading speed. If I try to read very slowly and try to note down the important points, my comprehension is less and when I read fast my overall comprehension is better and i get to understand the passage but again I am not able to answer the questions without referrng to passage. I really dont have a working strategy for RC. Currently I am trying both of them at test time. If one is not working I am trying to do the second. I think i have to work on it.

- How much have you actually worked on GMAT verbal. In other words, to what degree is the issue here simply that you have not worked on verbal much?[/quote]

I have covered the video lectures of veritas and I have read the MGMAT SC book(read it 2-3 times) but i am not remembering them. But undoubtedly i have improved my accuracy in SC but I dont remember thecomplete stuff i read in it. I am solving questions in prep4gmat while travelling to office. This is prettymuch the stuf I have done so far for verbal section. Apart from this, I am reviewing my mistakes in the tests.

I have the books of of MGMAT and veritas and I also have the OG's
I have all the materials required. I have to plan my schedule and work on it. Looking forward for your reply.

Best Regards,
Sandeep Kumar

[email protected] wrote:Hi buddyme,

What Verbal materials have you already worked through?
What Verbal materials are you using right now?

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

Hi Rich,
I have covered the video lectures of veritas and I have read the MGMAT SC book(read it 2-3 times) but i am not remembering them. But undoubtedly i have improved my accuracy in SC but I dont remember thecomplete stuff i read in it. I am solving questions in prep4gmat while travelling to office. This is prettymuch the stuf I have done so far for verbal section. Apart from this, I am reviewing my mistakes in the tests.

I have the books of of MGMAT and veritas, video lectures of veritas and the OG's. Looking forward for your reply.
Also, I am walking through the economist video lectures.

Best Regards,
Sandeep Kumar

Hi Rich,

Going with my prior experience, I am at my best when I do self-study. While I was preparing for grad and other entrance exams, I did poorly after taking coaching than before when I did self-study. So, as of investing in alternate sources, I am not considering one-one tutoring but if there are some other self-study resources that you would like to suggest, I will surely consider taking them.

Best Regards,
Sandeep Kumar