GMAT Strategy

Hi all,

I was looking for any guidance on formulating a study plan for a taker trying to improve on a 680 [Q49 V36]. 01/2016 was my most recent exam. I am waitlisted at my dream school and I believe the weakest part of my profile was my GMAT score and thus want to retake and raise it to provide the adcom with a new update of my progress. However, I am finding it difficult to make a ~1 month study plan because it seems a lot of the ones I see are geared towards people just starting out with the GMAT. I understand the need to rebuild my foundations to improve but it almost seems counter intuitive to be working through "easy" material at this stage. I am also in a dilemma because I feel like I already have a lot of great study content to use but I have burned through all of them and sometimes find myself remembering problems. Ideally, I would like to not have to go and spend another great deal on new materials unless its necessary.

Here are what I have used:
MGMAT In-Person Course + Full Study Kit [strategy guides, OG, online CATs...etc.]
GMATPrep Software [Practice Exams]
Magoosh Premium subscription
GMATFix application subscription

I have ID'ed the Verbal section [particularly RC, but all of them if I'm being honest] as my problem area. It's frustrating because I have followed strategies on best ways to answer these questions and feel I'm doing them the right way and have full confidence in my answers and then at the end of the exam, the screen shows that I am in the V35-37 range.

For full context, (actually more for reassurance for myself), I once scored a 710 on the GMATPrep Software so I know it's in me somewhere...I just need to find it and access it officially within a month!

Thank you in advance for any help or guidance you can provide!

You don't need a study plan per se. You more need to plan to strengthen some weaker areas. Understand the following.

In a way it does not matter what you work on as long as whatever you work on will increase your score. Get it?

For instance, if there are six areas of quant that you could be better at and you work on three of them, your quant score should go up. Right?

Also, if you just get much better at RC, your verbal score should go up.

So the thing to do is to go back over your practice tests, if you have not already, and figure out what you could be better at and focus directly on those things.

To score higher in quant probably you need to improve the accuracy of your work some and to get better at handling certain types of questions.

For more detail on how to increase your quant score, you could check out this blog post. How To Increase Your GMAT Quant Score

Your verbal situation sounds like so many I hear about. You know all the "right" ways to handle questions. Guess what. Those "right" ways are good for getting exactly what you have been getting, verbal scores in the mid 30's. For instance, the splits method for SC questions is good some of the time and eliminates the right answer other times. So if you use it, you might feel confident, only to find that you have generated an OK but not great hit rate. Similarly, strategies such as eliminating extreme answer choices to CR and RC questions may be good for getting easier and medium level questions right, but are often almost useless for getting answers to harder questions. So to score higher on the verbal section, you need to go from using the "right" strategies to learning how to actually get RIGHT ANSWERS.

There is a saying out there that says something along the lines of that people who score in the 600's are concerned with how to answer questions and people who score in the 700's are concerned with how to get the right answers.

So to score higher in verbal you need to change the processes that you are using so that you get more right answers.

You only need roughly about a half dozen more right answers, by the way, to get into the low to mid 700's.

To develop those processes, you need to continue doing verbal practice questions, slowly, and shooting for a high hit rate, say 90% right. If you are not getting 90% right doing them slowly, then figure out what about your processes needs to be changed. For any question you miss, ask yourself what you needed to see in terms of logic and details in order to get it right. GMAT verbal is not a test to see whether you learned the right strategies. It's a test of vision and decision making skills.

Meanwhile, you should continue to take practice tests, fresh, not repeated, tests, to put your developing skills to the test and to give yourself venues for practicing accuracy and refining your timing.

A month is plenty of time for getting from 680 to well into the 700's, and by practicing slowly and developing some tighter processes in quant and verbal you should achieve that goal no problem.

My target score is anywhere +700, but to be specific, I want to be at least in the 720 range. Since January, I have not done much GMAT wise but in the past week or so have began to pick up the pace and begin re familiarizing myself with various concepts.

I am targeting Wharton and applied Round 2 for it, as well as HBS, CBS and NYU. I may have been a bit overly dramatic using the word dream but Wharton was my preferred due to what I believed to be a fit culturally, its location, and personally, me having grown up around the area and having always earmarked it as my ideal [family members also having attended].

I really appreciate both answers. While I understand that there is no quick fix, and to an extent the odds are not in my favor, I'd regret not attempting it again in order to put myself in the best position possible.