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Rebooting GMAT prep after a bad test. Need suggestions.

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Rebooting GMAT prep after a bad test. Need suggestions.

by mseeker » Tue Jul 29, 2014 5:11 pm
Hello everyone!

I come in a little late as I was slightly shaken by my GMAT score and wanted to forget about it for sometime. I appeared for my test on the 10th of July and scored a super disappointing 620 - Q48 V27. This is my worstever verbal score.

My previous CAT scores were

Previous CAT scores:

- Actual GMAT - Oct-2011 - 570 (37 quant, 30 verbal)
- Veritas CAT #1 - 680 (49 quant, 34 verbal)
- Veritas CAT #2 - 680 (49 quant, 34 verbal)
- Manhattan CAT #1 (Free) - May-27 2014 - 600(45 quant, 29 verbal)
- Veritas CAT #3 - 700 (50 quant, 36 verbal, IR 4)
- GMAT Prep 1 - 670 (48 quant, 32 verbal, IR 5)
- Veritas CAT #4- 680 (49 quant, 34 verbal, IR 4)
- Veritas CAT #5 - 650 (48 quant, 32 verbal, IR 4)
- Veritas CAT #6 - 680 (48 quant, 36 verbal, IR 6)
- GMAT Prep 2 - 670 (48 quant, 32 verbal, IR 8)

Actual GMAT (10th July '14) - 620 (48 quant, 27 verbal, IR 4, AWA 5.5)

I started my prep mid- March and joined Veritas classroom courses. My study schedules was as below.

Weekdays -

5:00 AM to 7:00 AM
40-50 questions of either Quant or Verbal - 5:00 AM to 06:00 AM
Review the questions- 6:00 AM to 07:00 AM

8:00 PM to 11:00 PM
40-50 questions of either Quant or Verbal - 8:00 PM to 09:30 PM
Review the questions- 09:30 PM to 11:00 PM

Weekends:

6-7 hours each on Saturday and Sunday.

I used to take tests on either a Thursday or Saturday 09:00 AM to 13:30 PM. and reviewed them the same day. These were timed and included both IR and AWA.

I used the following materials:

Veritas books and material for concepts
Official Guide 10
Official Guide 12

I took a 2 week off from work before my exams and was committed to tests and practice all day alng from 29/07 to 08/08.

09/08 - I went and visited the centre in order to be sure of its location and ensured I got comfortable.

Test Day:

I couldnt sleep well on the night of Wednesday although I went to bed at 10:00 PM but I didnt manage any sleep until it was 03:00 AM. I tried reading and even watched Argentina v/s Holland for 15 mins but none helped.

I woke up at 06:30 and had my breakfast got a few red-bulls and felt at ease at the centre.

Test:

AWA - Easy.
IR - I always targeted working on the first 8 problems and took wild guesses in the last 4 and used the same approach here.
Break : Ate 1 snickers:
Quant - I never felt any panic during the test, was never short of time and infact believed that I would score close to 50. When I reached Q#37 I had 2.5 minutes.
Verbal - I wasnt the best at verbal but I thought I was making any big mistakes as the questions were challenging to me. I always had trouble goign through all 4 RC passages so I to manage time I risked the 3rd passage starting at Q27 to Q30 and did it casually to make up most of it in the last 10. I had 4 minutes to spare for my 41st question.

Test result and analysis : I believe I might have gone down in the lat 10 questions, oing downhill starting the passage at Q#27.

As of now I am a little shaken up but I have restarted my prep with Quant review and Verbal review. I have now taken it up as a challenge and upped my target score as 740 and I AM GOING TO BEAT IT! I have a target of last week of August.

I am open to any suggestion that could help clear my mind and also help me realise what could have led to this failure.

Many Thanks,
Shobhit
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by [email protected] » Tue Jul 29, 2014 10:19 pm
Hi Shobhit,

With the information you've provided, we can try to put together the various factors that affected your performance on Test Day.

Sometimes, Test Takers just have a "bad day", which is certainly possible in your case. The lack of sleep, combined with the "few red-bulls" you had early in the day, could have very easily thrown off your performance. One of the interesting aspects about the Verbal section is that there is no "safety net" - when you make a mistake, you won't know and there's almost no way to "catch" a silly mistake once you've made it. Those two factors might be it.

I do want to talk through a couple of other details in your post:

1) Your studies were "book heavy", which can sometimes lead to problems on Test Day. Book-work doesn't properly simulate the conditions of a live GMAT. Taking lots of practice CATs won't necessarily solve this problem either, since those exams are a relatively small part of your prep.

2) Your highest practice CAT scores came on the Veritas practice CATs. Other than the Official GMATPrep CATS, every other practice CAT on the market has some "biases" in it, which means that they're not perfect examples of what you'll see on Test Day. I'm sure that the Veritas CATs were fine in terms of helping you prep, but it certainly appears that they might have given you an over-inflated sense of your Verbal ability.

3) Your CATs had some significant variation in WHEN you took them. Most Test Takers perform best "earlier in the day and earlier in the week", but that's not a rule that applies to everyone. Part of maximizing your performance is in figuring out the perfect combination of day and time, so that you can schedule your GMAT under those conditions.

4) Practicing "all day" for 2 weeks before your exam likely "burned you out" a bit.

You can absolutely retake the GMAT in a month's time and score higher. With your new score goal (740), some significant adjustments (especially in how you deal with the Verbal section) will have to be made. This likely means investing in some new resources and learning some new tactics for dealing with the Verbal section. You'll also need enough time to practice these tactics so that they become second nature. You're not going to be able to score 700+ by "winging it" in the Verbal section.

GMAT assassins aren't born, they're made,
Rich
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by mseeker » Wed Jul 30, 2014 5:48 pm
Thanks Rich!

So, I do understand I need to get the right approach. I realise I doubt myself when I deal with the following.

Quant : Looking at my CATs, I tend to make mistakes whenever the test throws me a trickier question, probably a 700+ so my ratio of right to wrong would be at best around 2:6 which defnitely doesnt let me touch mark in Q.

Verbal:

a) I get stuck with 2 last choices and if they are tricky in case of SC, I tend to read them again and again and ultimately it fries my brain which is when I try to take an educated guess resulting in wrong answers.
b) I think I dont approach CRs very technically, I read the question first, then read the argument and after that I read the options to find my answer. I now realise, I do take time in this, I dont make any notes and once I am on an answer I am mostly confident about it. This probably leads me into a bias and sometimes I dont refer back to the argument to verify.
c) I am royally bad at RCs, because the moment I get something weird and long I am zapped and I start reading fast with a 1.5 min target to finish the first glance. Then I start answering the questions and looking at all my CATs, this has not helped me much.

To score a 740, I need to push my Q to a 50 (I think being an engineer, I am confident I can get this) but pushing a V to 40 seems very daunting. My best has been a 36 and I realise I am bad when it comes to choose the right answer between the last 2 options I get.

As you have mentioned, my preps were book heavy, what would you suggest as a change in strategy for me to improve? Which materials can help me now? I can push my date by a week or 2 to ensure I do my best in this attempt.

Cheers,
Shobhit
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by [email protected] » Wed Jul 30, 2014 6:36 pm
Hi Shobhit,

The Verbal section of the GMAT is as consistent and predictable as the Quant section is, so you need to change the way that you "see" and react to Verbal prompts. For CR and RC, you have to get into the mindset of predicting what the correct answer is BEFORE you look at the 5 options. There are tactics to help you learn to do this. The method of "narrowing it down to 2 and then guessing" is NOT one you should be using unless you have no choice - if you use it too often, then it can actually really hurt your performance.

You mentioned that you wanted to take the GMAT in the last week of August; is that the latest that you could take your GMAT? While 1 month might be enough to help you to hone your skills, a bit more time might really help you to push your scores up to your new goal level.

GMAT assassins aren't born, they're made,
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by mseeker » Wed Jul 30, 2014 8:23 pm
Thanks for your prompt reply Rich!

I am still planning a date, and have end of August as a tentative date, however, if an extra week or two can help me prep better without losing focus, I would take this option and push it to 9-10 Sept.

While doing a CR prompt, I do create a picture of premises and conclusion before I attack the options, but I would like to know more if writing something helps or is there a better strategy to break such questions into parts.

For RCs I just know read the passage, pay attention to the starting paragraph, notice the structure and key words and emphasise on the conlusion. Attack the question - always refer the passage. But I generally make mistakes either by falling for trap answers or with questions which relate to different parts of the passage to construct answer due to lack to time or the quick read.

I want to make sure before I write GMAT, I am equipped with the right approach and I do give some exceptional CATs to boost my confidence.

Cheers,
Shobhit
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by BestGMATEliza » Wed Jul 30, 2014 9:42 pm
Hi Shobit,

I thought I would weigh in on some strategies to help you with the problems you discussed in your previous post:

Quant: Your next steps should be work on practicing with the most difficult questions. MGMAT has an advanced quant book I used to study and found it very helpful, for both practice questions and strategies for dealing with the most difficult questions.

Verbal:
a) stuck with the last 2 on SC-
Sometimes when it comes down to the last two, its not a matter of strict rules, but GMAT preferences. For example, the GMAT tends to prefer concise answers. That doesn't necessarily mean that the most concise answer is always the correct one. But, if all other aspects are equal then the more concise answer will usually be the right one. I would recommend reviewing the SC book and paying special attention to the GMAT preferences.

b) Approaching CR
It is important to have a strategic approach to CR. It will save you time and help you get the correct answer more accurately. Reading the question first is a good start! After you read it you should be able to identify what question type it is, so you know exactly what you are looking for when you read the passage. In most cases, after you read the passage, you should have a good idea of what you are looking for in an answer. For example, for weaken questions, you can't really know exactly what they will come up with to weaken the argument, but you should be aware of what the argument's flaws are that can be exploited to weaken that argument.

c) Reading Comp
The best way to get better at reading comp is practice practice practice! It is a really difficult section and a lot of people have problems with it, especially when you are under a time crunch. I think a good way to integrate reading comp study into your every day life is try to read more complicated material, like scientific journals, in your free time. If you are more practiced with reading this material, you will improve your RC skills immensely.

Hope this helps!
Eliza Chute
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