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Help needed

by jp78 » Wed Dec 31, 2014 12:44 am
I have a very sad story, which is really demotivating& Frustrating . Little about myself, i am an Indian Engineer working in middleast for last 12 years.I was really happy with my jobs ,and now i feel that my nature of job is getting saturated and that some management tools can help me to grow further in the management domain.When i realize this fact, i started to think of doing MBA.Here comes my main issue- GMAT; knowing that i need to spend considerable amount of time and effort for the preparation , i started the preparation from the basics. I spent almost 5 years for the preparation , tried wit different test preparation stuff, hoping that i can get atleast 650 score,but still i could not achieved my target score.

My mock scores:

Economist Gmat tutor:
Aug 8 2014: 590 Q(45) V(28)
Aug 15 : 610 Q(47) V(28)
Aug 31 : 630 Q(44) V(34)
Sep 24 : 590 Q(44) V(29)
Oct 2 : 630 Q(50 V(28)

GMAT Exam(5th Attempt): 570 Q(39) V(31)

Again i studied for another almost 2 months and my mockups were:
Veritas(paid mocks)
Dec1 : 680 Q(48) V(35)
Dec3 : 680 Q(49) V (35)
Dec5 : 680 Q(49) V (34)
Dec13: 680 Q(47) V(37)
Dec17: 710 Q(46) V(41)

Needless to say that i took GmatPrep official Mockup multiple times, and my score was fluctuating from 600 to 670.
My last gmatprep retake On Dec 20 was 710 Q(49) V(38)

GMAT Exam 6th attempt : 590 Q(45) V(27).


My Actual GMAT Score:

Sept 2010: 470 Q(35) V(21)
Feb 2011 : 500 Q(39) V(19)
Oct 2013 : 500 Q(43) V(17)
March 2014:550 Q(45) V(21)
Oct 2014 :570 Q(39) V(31)
Dec 2014 : 590 Q(45) V(27)

MY Preparation materials:
Used only OG 10, 11, 12 for first two GMAT Exam.
Before 3rd Exam:
Manhattan all strategy guides.
All OG books.
E-gmat course.

Before fourth exam:
Apart from above , i added Magoosh preparation (Verbal only)

Before fifth and sixth:
enrolled Economist Tutor full course, and i covered 90% of the coursework.

Apart from all the study material that i mentioned above, i was using Gmatclub & BeattheGmat forums regularly and used to solve lot of quants & Verbal questions carefully; Moreover i purchased all Manhattan mocktest and the question banks and went through multiple times.


Now, Frankly speaking, i am ready to go for another one more attempt, but i am little bit concerned about this. i don't whether is it really worth taking Gmat 7 times, and what would be the response from the MBA schools admission committee. Moreover, i don't know what to do.
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by manyaabroadtpr » Wed Dec 31, 2014 4:01 am
Hi,

Don't be disheartened and if you still believe in the idea of doing an MBA and moving ahead in your career, then nothing should stop you from pursuing your dream.

However, for this time, we would genuinely recommend you to join a coaching institute that can look at the gap areas, identify reasons for your low scores and can guide you on how to prepare well for GMAT. With you, it seems there is also a case of burnout as you have spent more than 5 years on GMAT. Typically, it takes anywhere between 3 to 4 months to prepare well for GMAT and get to your target score.

Let us know how do you wish to proceed further. We would again reiterate that you should walk into your nearest gmat coaching center and speak to an expert on how to go forward.

www.manyagroup.com
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by MartyMurray » Wed Dec 31, 2014 9:33 am
Well, at least your score is going up. That's a good sign.

From the sound of it, you are working on a broad sample of question types. Maybe you need to be more focused on specific areas in which you are weak. Just a thought.

I am wondering what is holding your score down.

Timing issues?

Errors?

Not seeing how to answer questions?

Maybe you could provide us with more insight here.

At least you are one determined dude. That makes this actually a motivating story.

With that in mind, I say this. Don't let anything make you sad, sap your motivation or frustrate you. There is only one way to go in life and that is to keep getting better at the game.

Obviously you could eventually achieve any score right up to 800 on this test. You just need to figure out what else you need to do to drive your score up. Any positive move you make gets you more points, as you have experienced.

While it would take more information for me to be able to tell what exactly it might take to do this, it is doable.

Here's what I did to drive my score up. Maybe you can get some insight from it. https://www.beatthegmat.com/780-debrief- ... tml#735376
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by [email protected] » Wed Dec 31, 2014 10:13 am
Hi jp78,

You've provided a lot of information, which is good - it helps to diagnose what's been going wrong for you on Test Day (it's actually a combination of factors). As it stands, you're not that far away from scoring 650+, but you're not going to get to that level if you continue to study as you have been.

Based on what you've described, I have a few questions/suggestions:

1) When you took your CATs, how often were you taking the ENTIRE CAT (including the Essay and IR sections)?
2) Since you've been studying for so long, how many of these CATs did you take more than once?
3) What time of day did you take these CATs and what time of day were your Official GMATs?
4) What day of the week did you normally take your Official GMAT?
5) On Test Day, did you ever have pacing problems in the Quant or Verbal sections? Did you finish early or have to rush just to finish? Did you have to guess on a bunch of questions at the very end (or did you ever leave any questions unanswered?)?
6) How long was the ride from your home to the Testing Center?

Here are the immediate issues:

First, it's almost a certainty that you weren't taking your practice CATs in a realistic, Test-like fashion. ALL of those scores are "inflated" which means that you chose to do things in a way that did NOT match Test Day. This can include, but is not limited to, skipping sections, pausing the Test, taking a Test repeatedly, inconsistency in days/times that you took the Test, seeing questions that you had already answered, etc.

Second, many of the questions that you would have answered during your frequent visits to BeatTheGMAT and GMATClub are questions that appear on practice CATs. When you came across those same questions during a CAT, you consciously (or unconsciously) already knew the answer. The result is that you didn't need as much time to answer the question (or finish the section), your stress levels were lower, any pacing problems that you have would have been less of a factor, etc. - the sum total being that this contributed to the "inflated" scores that I mentioned above. As such, you rarely received a true assessment of your strengths and weaknesses, so you didn't know what to focus on during your studies.

Third, there's some kind of "block" or "disconnect" for you when you're studying Verbal. You've used the MGMAT Books, the E-gmat Course, Magoosh Verbal and Economist - none of any of their products or materials appear to have helped you "break through" your Verbal block. The V31 in October, 2014 is an outlier which you weren't able to match in December, 2014. Either none of those products are good enough to help you OR you're not using Verbal training materials correctly. This might mean that you're not doing enough work, it might mean that you're not following the strategies/tactics, it might just mean that at the end of the Official GMAT you're too tired to remember your training... but something is clearly off.

Fourth, since you've been at this for so long, you've developed a series of "bad habits" - they're just how you respond to the Test. It's going to take some time to break you out of these bad habits, so you should not be scheduling another Official GMAT too soon. You're also going to need to invest in a GMAT product that is rigorous with its teachings and you must train to follow those lessons without deviating. If you think "I don't need to take notes", then you're making a mistake. If you think "I can just do this in my head", then you're making a mistake. If you think "I don't like grammar, so I'll just pick the answer that sounds like how people talk", then you're making a mistake.

Thankfully, all of these issues can be fixed. The GMAT is a predictable, standardized Test, so you CAN train to CRUSH it. You just can't do things "your way" any more.

GMAT assassins aren't born, they're made,
Rich
Contact Rich at [email protected]
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by ceilidh.erickson » Fri Jan 02, 2015 10:06 am
Adding to what Rich mentioned... stark disparity between practice tests and the real test usually indicates one of a few things:

1) Not taking CATs under real test conditions:
- not timing yourself accurately
- hitting pause or taking long breaks
- not doing the essay or IR

2) Bad test conditions
- not getting enough sleep for several days before
- not eating enough (loss of blood sugar really affects your ability to make decisions)
- taking the test at a time of day when you're not usually alert

3) Anxiety
- stressing out about your score while you're taking it
- not pacing yourself well enough

If you can identify the root(s) of the discrepancy, it will be much easier to build a plan to fix it.
Ceilidh Erickson
EdM in Mind, Brain, and Education
Harvard Graduate School of Education
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by jp78 » Sat Jan 03, 2015 2:52 am
Thank you very much to all spending time and evaluating my situations.


Quant preparation:

Thankful to Manhattan Quant strategy guide and Economist Tutor(giving lot of strategy to tackle questions) . Both of them are really fantastic, and i have learned lot from these guides.

Observation during My Gmat exam:
1. Anxiety=Time: still i remember, as far as my performance with the question in a row is good , my confidence gets boosted. but when i see my answer is not matching with any of the given options( most of the time because of some silly mistakes), then i starts getting panic and try to redo the same question : the after effect is loosing lot of time.From here onwards, my confidence level gets lower and i was more concern about the time rather than concentrating the question.Finally i am forced to simply guess few questions in a row.

Incorrect way of Quant Preparation:

I have never solved quant questions on timely manner(2 min) so far. I have considered Quant just matter of numbers and figures that can be solved by some sort of formula, but never considered as a concept or something that really required sharp thinking and logical approach;Mostly, i go for long calculations instead of shortcut methods(Clever methods)- that consumes my time.

In short i can say, i need some good strategy to attack quant not just knowing the concept, as i have mastered almost the basic of Gmat quant.

Verbal:
As a non-native english, i have lot of issues with verbal. Main issues is i am not able to understand the meaning of long complex sentences within 2 min. it takes more time to do so.

SC: In the beginning, it was a major issue for me , but now after spending lot of time with Manhattan SC strategy and Thursday with RON ,improved lot. i can say my accuracy is around 75%.

CR: CR bible - This is the only book i have used so far. In beginning, i never followed any process step by step to get the correct answer . solely i was believing my intuitions and i used to get most of the questions correct.But after my Third attempt, i decided to change my way of handling CR. i started to follow some process to handle CR questions. I adopted the methods from Economist Tutor and Manhattan Thursday with RON. My accuracy increased eventually. But my main issue is , whenever i sat for a Gmatexam, which is timed, i am not able to follow the process, as the implementation of the process takes more time for me.Instead of following process i simply use my intuitions for picking the answer.Because inside my mind i have a feeling that if i follow the process then i can not finish the question within 2 min, so i go my normal way eventually my accuracy falls.


I believe here that in order to increase my accuracy, i need to strictly follow the process in a timely manner.


RC: As most of the non-native english speakers, i was scared about RC. but after last 5 GMAT Exams, i really started loving RC.The first thing i started doing is daily basis i read few articles of Wall street journel and economist. I take RC as that someone wants to talk to me through this Reading comprehension. I believe that i am atleast in 27 because i started handling RC is a different method.Now slowly i am getting comfortable with RC, but still i need more to do.

Writing all about, i feel that i need some sort of strong strategy that works for me to resolve my problems,and my major concern is anxiety and timing.

Now to the points of RICH:

1.I don't take the CAT along with Essay& IR.
2.I never took CAT more than Once except GMATPREP exam( as it has only 4 CAT exams).
3.Last 2 Official GMAT was on 12 pm. my mocks were on 7.30 PM after my job.
4.changes according to the availability.
5. Yes i have issue with Quant and i used to guess a number of question at the last(even i found those questions are very simple, had i got enough time i would have got my quant score atleast 48) but not with verbal( that could be reason my Verbal score is lower side).
6.hardly 10 min drive from home to testing center.
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by [email protected] » Tue Jan 06, 2015 12:45 pm
Hi jp78,

I think that you understand what's "missing" from your studies, so your focus on needs to be on CONSISTENCY and REALISM. You've spent a lot of time and effort studying in a way that just did NOT match what you were going to face on Test Day. Before you start studying again, you need to mentally prepare yourself to do things DIFFERENTLY this time.

As such, you should not schedule another Test Date until you've gotten into a study routine that addresses all of the issues that you've written about (and that have been discussed by the other posts in this thread). You can choose to use whatever prior study materials that you have or you can start "from scratch" with a new set of materials. I think that it's going to take you some time to get out of all of these "bad habits" and the mindset that you had during your prior studies though.

GMAT assassins aren't born, they're made,
Rich
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by [email protected] » Tue Jan 06, 2015 9:22 pm
[email protected] wrote:Hi jp78,

You've provided a lot of information, which is good - it helps to diagnose what's been going wrong for you on Test Day (it's actually a combination of factors). As it stands, you're not that far away from scoring 650+, but you're not going to get to that level if you continue to study as you have been.

Based on what you've described, I have a few questions/suggestions:

1) When you took your CATs, how often were you taking the ENTIRE CAT (including the Essay and IR sections)?
2) Since you've been studying for so long, how many of these CATs did you take more than once?
3) What time of day did you take these CATs and what time of day were your Official GMATs?
4) What day of the week did you normally take your Official GMAT?
5) On Test Day, did you ever have pacing problems in the Quant or Verbal sections? Did you finish early or have to rush just to finish? Did you have to guess on a bunch of questions at the very end (or did you ever leave any questions unanswered?)?
6) How long was the ride from your home to the Testing Center?

Here are the immediate issues:

First, it's almost a certainty that you weren't taking your practice CATs in a realistic, Test-like fashion. ALL of those scores are "inflated" which means that you chose to do things in a way that did NOT match Test Day. This can include, but is not limited to, skipping sections, pausing the Test, taking a Test repeatedly, inconsistency in days/times that you took the Test, seeing questions that you had already answered, etc.

Second, many of the questions that you would have answered during your frequent visits to BeatTheGMAT and GMATClub are questions that appear on practice CATs. When you came across those same questions during a CAT, you consciously (or unconsciously) already knew the answer. The result is that you didn't need as much time to answer the question (or finish the section), your stress levels were lower, any pacing problems that you have would have been less of a factor, etc. - the sum total being that this contributed to the "inflated" scores that I mentioned above. As such, you rarely received a true assessment of your strengths and weaknesses, so you didn't know what to focus on during your studies.

Third, there's some kind of "block" or "disconnect" for you when you're studying Verbal. You've used the MGMAT Books, the E-gmat Course, Magoosh Verbal and Economist - none of any of their products or materials appear to have helped you "break through" your Verbal block. The V31 in October, 2014 is an outlier which you weren't able to match in December, 2014. Either none of those products are good enough to help you OR you're not using Verbal training materials correctly. This might mean that you're not doing enough work, it might mean that you're not following the strategies/tactics, it might just mean that at the end of the Official GMAT you're too tired to remember your training... but something is clearly off.

Fourth, since you've been at this for so long, you've developed a series of "bad habits" - they're just how you respond to the Test. It's going to take some time to break you out of these bad habits, so you should not be scheduling another Official GMAT too soon. You're also going to need to invest in a GMAT product that is rigorous with its teachings and you must train to follow those lessons without deviating. If you think "I don't need to take notes", then you're making a mistake. If you think "I can just do this in my head", then you're making a mistake. If you think "I don't like grammar, so I'll just pick the answer that sounds like how people talk", then you're making a mistake.

Thankfully, all of these issues can be fixed. The GMAT is a predictable, standardized Test, so you CAN train to CRUSH it. You just can't do things "your way" any more.

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

All this is so true, great insights on where change needs to be made... going through similar pain as jp78... Note the best feeling, but I need to make the necessary changes. I will keep this advice handy.
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