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430 without prep 1st Attempt, 340 after 2 weeks of prep!Help

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430 without prep 1st Attempt, 340 after 2 weeks of prep!Help

by PK_16 » Mon May 16, 2016 2:32 am
Hi Guys,

Need your help and advise as I feel miserable right now :(

I recently quit my job to study for GMAT so I can join my local institution that requires me to score a 500. I took a mock exam on 30th April just to see where I stand and got a 430. A 430 didn't seem that bad so I was suppose I was rather relaxed. During the past two weeks I've gone through the Crash Course for the GMAT, just reviewing certain concepts with practicing certain problems here and there. Today I decided to take another mock test from the GMAT prep software and scored a 340! I feel miserable right now and I need to score 500 to secure my admission. I have to do the exam on 5th June and i'd really appreciate any advise on the study plan for the next two weeks.

Thanks.
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by [email protected] » Mon May 16, 2016 12:16 pm
Hi PK_16,

Many Test Takers spend 3 months (or more) on their GMAT studies before they hit their 'peak' scores, so the simplest answer to your situation is that you have not put in enough time and effort yet. If your score goal is 500+, then you would still need to improve that initial 430 by 70+ points. That type of improvement, even at this 'level', will still take time.

A practice CAT, when used properly, will give you the score that you EARN. Have you had a chance to review this most recent CAT? How many questions did you get wrong because of silly/little mistakes? How many questions did you have to rush through to finish each section? How many questions did you have to guess on? These are all important details - and the answers will help you to define what you have to work on.

With a Test Date on June 5th, you have a little less than 3 weeks to go - but you don't have the time to learn everything that the GMAT will throw at you. During this time, you should look to focus on the BIG categories in Quant and Verbal. You might be able to get comfortable enough with them to pick up the necessary points that you're looking for.

1) What is the application deadline for the School that you're interested in?
2) What is the latest that you can take the GMAT?

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Rich
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by OptimusPrep » Tue May 17, 2016 7:02 pm
PK_16 wrote:Hi Guys,

Need your help and advise as I feel miserable right now :(

I recently quit my job to study for GMAT so I can join my local institution that requires me to score a 500. I took a mock exam on 30th April just to see where I stand and got a 430. A 430 didn't seem that bad so I was suppose I was rather relaxed. During the past two weeks I've gone through the Crash Course for the GMAT, just reviewing certain concepts with practicing certain problems here and there. Today I decided to take another mock test from the GMAT prep software and scored a 340! I feel miserable right now and I need to score 500 to secure my admission. I have to do the exam on 5th June and i'd really appreciate any advise on the study plan for the next two weeks.

Thanks.
With this time frame, I would recommend you to go through the concepts of the preparatory books/course that you are following and then solve the official questions only.

Try to solve as many of them as you can.
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by PK_16 » Sat May 21, 2016 11:38 pm
Hi Rich and Optimus,

Thanks for your feedback and apologies on the late reply as I was keeping myself away from my computer for a couple of days. I've already got accepted in the school for the September intake with a conditional offer. The latest I can do the GMAT is 2nd week of August. However, I am flying on a family vacation from 6-20th June (which I cannot get out of :/) therefore I decided to do the first test on 5th before flying to get the bare minimum to get a full acceptance in the uni. The minimum they require is 450-500. Once I get back, I can study for 5.5 weeks and try and do another test by the second week of August and replace the score with the previous one.

Currently, I am following a Princeton review syllabus (a 1 month crash course I took 2 years ago) which includes studying the Verbal and Quant Review, working on problems from the drills in these books and solving questions from the OG relevant to that particular topic. I am trying to put in 4-5 hours of study and I'm trying to increase this.

From the exam I gave a week and a half ago (after only reviewing the crash course for GMAT book) I got a 340 which was worse than my attempt without studying at all, 430. I started guessing from the 17th question in Quant and 27th Question in Verbal. I got 19 incorrect in Verbal and 23 incorrect in Quant which is horrible :(

Anyhow, I am going to study as much as possible by the 1st week of June and do a mock exam. If I score above 450, I will go ahead and do the GMAT to secure my admission for this year and do the exam once again in August.

Do let me know if you have any further comments on feedback.

Thanks & Regards.
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by [email protected] » Sun May 22, 2016 9:58 am
Hi PK_16,

With 2 weeks to go, you should focus on eliminating little mistakes from your work. With your score goal, you don't have to correctly answer ANY questions that you think are too hard or too weird - so the best option when you face those types of questions is to DUMP them immediately. Doing so should help improve your current pacing issue and give you the necessary time to nail the 'gettable' questions. This concept is tough for many Test Takers to accept, but given the limited time before your Official GMAT, it's an essential concept that you have to get comfortable with in a hurry.

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by MartyMurray » Tue May 24, 2016 8:15 pm
Hi PK_16.

The key to increasing your GMAT score is getting better at getting right answers. In order to do that, you have to either learn more about the concepts or building blocks of the questions or learn to better use what you know to get answers.

In order to decide how to proceed, you can look over your practice tests and see what you had to do better in order to score higher.

You may discover, for instance, that data sufficiency questions tripped you up more than problem solving questions did. If that is the case, then you could increase your score by working on data sufficiency questions, learning to notice what's going on and to not get tricked.

In verbal you may find, for instance, that you were getting sucked in by trap answers. So to address that issue you could work on seeing the difference between trap answer choices and answers that actually logically answer the question asked.

In all cases, the idea is to directly address what you see when you go over your tests.

As you do these things, you will get the best results by doing practice questions slowly and carefully, seeking to consistently get right answers. Getting right answers is what you have to get good at, and so when practicing you need to take as much time as necessary for getting right answers.

Keep in mind as you do this that overall the GMAT is a test of vision and use of logic. So as you do practice questions you could ask yourself, "What do I have to see in order to get this one right?"

In a week or two you can get much better at seeing what you need to see.
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by ceilidh.erickson » Sun Jun 05, 2016 7:15 pm
From the exam I gave a week and a half ago (after only reviewing the crash course for GMAT book) I got a 340 which was worse than my attempt without studying at all, 430. I started guessing from the 17th question in Quant and 27th Question in Verbal. I got 19 incorrect in Verbal and 23 incorrect in Quant which is horrible Sad
Your issue is not content, it's TIMING! If you run out of time and miss that many questions, it won't matter which ones you got right before that. You need to develop & practice a concrete timing strategy.

You need to practice regularly under time constraints. When you're doing problems from the OG, use a stopwatch or Mprep Navigator to time yourself, and practice cutting yourself off and guessing when you go over 2 minutes. Then, build yourself up to doing a set of 5 questions in 10 minutes, then 10 questions in 20 minutes.

Then when you're taking CATs, be vigilant about tracking your time. Here's information on how to set up your scrap paper to track your time with maximum efficiency: https://www.manhattanprep.com/gmat/blog ... tch-paper/ As you're going through the test, whenever you notice that you're more than 2-3 min behind time, SKIP A QUESTION within the next few questions. I recommend that every student skip at least 3, but you can skip up to 6 before it starts to hurt your score. Skip (and when I say "skip," I obviously mean "put in a guess answer," not "leave blank") the questions that - based on previous practice tests - you know that you're less likely to get right anyway. Then you'll have more time to commit to the ones that you're more likely to get right.

Here is some more info about time management:
https://www.manhattanprep.com/gmat/blog/ ... anagement/
https://www.manhattanprep.com/gmat/blog/ ... nt-part-2/
https://www.beatthegmat.com/how-many-pra ... tml#738904

Good luck!
Ceilidh Erickson
EdM in Mind, Brain, and Education
Harvard Graduate School of Education
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