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Frustration!

by sarsar » Mon Jun 12, 2017 4:51 am
Hi Guys,
So I only need 450 to be able to continue my Thesis at my University but I just can't seem to get that score! And I know that's pretty low!
I took 3 real tests so far and I always get somewhere between 380 and 420... !
I 'm very weak at Quant from school days and my English skills are fine but I don't know if they are good enough for GMAT Verbal.

I took 1 full classroom course this year in February and 2 courses with private tutors last year and the studying has been dragging on and off since 2015.
I've been studying since March 2017 almost everyday with Weekends off!

Last year I took some mock tests from the GMAT official website and I got somewhere between 400 and 450, and I took a test couple of weeks ago from 800score.com and I got 400.
I'm trying to finish the official guide book now (green book with both Quant & Verbal).

I would highly appreciate your help because I'm about to give up!
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by ceilidh.erickson » Sun Jun 18, 2017 9:40 am
The good news is that you're not far from your goal score, so you should be confident that you can get there!

You say that you've been studying daily since March, but you only took mock tests last year. That's not enough! At this point, you should be taking a practice test at least once every 2-3 weeks.

It's not enough to "finish" the books and learn the content. You need to practice under timed conditions so that you're able to balance timing, stamina, and decision-making.

When I see students scoring below a 500 even after extensive practice, the issue is usually one or more of the following:

1. Timing.
If you run out of time in a given section, your score will drop precipitously at the end. Have a timing strategy and practice staying on top of your target time. This means that you'll need to guess and move on with the more difficult problems.
Here's more:
https://www.manhattanprep.com/gmat/blog ... rt-1-of-3/
https://www.manhattanprep.com/gmat/blog ... ut-timing/
https://www.manhattanprep.com/gmat/blog ... mat-quant/
https://www.manhattanprep.com/gmat/blog ... illing-me/

2. Careless errors.
Many students think that because they know the rules, their score will improve. But if you're making careless mistakes on the easy problems - even if you know the rules - your score is not going to go up. You need to carefully track the mistakes you've made and think about how to avoid those errors in the future. More here:
https://www.manhattanprep.com/gmat/blog ... -studying/

Good luck!
Ceilidh Erickson
EdM in Mind, Brain, and Education
Harvard Graduate School of Education
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by DavidG@VeritasPrep » Mon Jun 19, 2017 3:19 am
sarsar wrote:Hi Guys,
So I only need 450 to be able to continue my Thesis at my University but I just can't seem to get that score! And I know that's pretty low!
I took 3 real tests so far and I always get somewhere between 380 and 420... !
I 'm very weak at Quant from school days and my English skills are fine but I don't know if they are good enough for GMAT Verbal.

I took 1 full classroom course this year in February and 2 courses with private tutors last year and the studying has been dragging on and off since 2015.
I've been studying since March 2017 almost everyday with Weekends off!

Last year I took some mock tests from the GMAT official website and I got somewhere between 400 and 450, and I took a test couple of weeks ago from 800score.com and I got 400.
I'm trying to finish the official guide book now (green book with both Quant & Verbal).

I would highly appreciate your help because I'm about to give up!
Can you go into a little more depth about your process for breaking down practice tests after the fact? What often happens is that test-takers leap a little too quickly from one practice exam to the next without doing a thorough enough dissection of the previous exams. As a result, bad habits tend to persist.

Ideally, after each test, you'd boil down what you find into 4-5 actionable takeaways. Perhaps there'd be a few sections of content that necessitate a bit more drilling. Once you've completed additional drills and solidified your strategic adjustments you'd take another test.

(And if, in the course of reviewing a test, you're stuck on a problem, or feel certain that there's a better approach, post the problem here - you'll get plenty of valuable feedback.)
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by [email protected] » Mon Jun 19, 2017 10:02 am
Hi sarsar,

Since you originally posted this message in a different Forum on this site, I copied over my response (as a reminder of some of the ideas that you need to work on):

A score goal of 450+ is really modest, so you should be able to achieve that goal with a few adjustments to how you deal with the Exam. To hit that level, you don't need to correctly answer ANY questions that you think are too hard or too weird - so you should 'dump' any questions that you don't feel good about (just take a quick guess and move on). There should be plenty of questions that you CAN deal with though - and on those questions, you have to do the necessary work (on the pad, NOT 'in your head') to correctly answer them. If you can keep the little mistakes to a minimum, then you should be able to hit your goal.

Have you gone back to review your last practice CAT Test? If not, then you should plan to review your entire performance. Be honest with your assessment - how many questions did you get wrong that you COULD have gotten correct (meaning that you made some kind of little mistake, misread something, missed a detail, etc.)?

In addition, if it's been at least a month since you last took a FULL-LENGTH CAT (with the Essay and IR sections), then you should plan to take one soon. Once you have that score, you should post back here and we can discuss the results (and how best to proceed).

GMAT assassins aren't born, they're made,
Rich
Contact Rich at [email protected]
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