GMAT Strategy

Hi Folks,

I need some piece of advice .

I gave my GMAT last week, and scored 650(49Q,31V), which I feel, can be improved to 700+ atleast.. I had prepared for Gmat for close to 3 weeks and studied the following materials:

a. OG 11
b. Verbal Preview
c. OG 10
d. Manhattan SC
e Notes of rajat ,spidey and others.


During the preparation, My GMAT prep scores were 690(Q49,V37) and 640(Q49,V31).

During the tests, for my quant , I got around 85% questions from DS.All of them, i felt was a bit tuff. I think, I was able to solve most of the tuff DS questions. and completed the section in time. My GMAT prep results showed that, I was getting around 5 questions wrong in 0-25 and around 4-5 questions wrong in 26-37.

On real GMAT test, I experienced eexactly the same.almost 80% DS questions. All kind of tuff.

I am assuming the same thing ( which happened during the GMATPrep) happened to me on actual test.Other thing I observed on actual GMAT test was, I got around 5-7 questions around sequences and progressions, all of them revolving around the same fundamentals.

I had only studied questions 50-150 of OG11 maths section (DS) one day prior to the test. I was aiming to score around 50/51 in this section. Please provide some advice on this.


Now for the verbal section:

I admit that I am weak at the CR section. I would narrow the question down to 2 options but unfortunately ,still wont get the CR right. My OG CR hit rate was around 60%. However, The timing would range from 2-4 mins.
I had practiced questions from OG CRs and VerbaL preview. I would not get most of the questions right in the first place, inspite of narrowing down the options to 2.On revising the same questions from OG, I knew what the answer would be, as I had read the explanation earlier. So this would not help.

My RC and SC hit rate was much better at 75%-85%. SC timing was less than 1min 45 sec. Timing for RC passages were around 8-9 mins/passage

During the GMAT Prep tests, I found :

Between questions 1-25 , I would get around 5-6 questions wrong, which I would complete by 45-55min. Most of the wrong questions were the CR . I would get 3 RC by this time.

Between questions 25-41, I would get 8-9 questions wrong which would be clusters of 3-4 questions.I was kind of short of time for last 3 questions. Most of the time, the fourth RC comes between 32-37q, which kind of eats of majority of the time of last 25 mins. So after I finish off this RC, I am generally left with less than 10 mins for remaining 4-5 questions.

Of these 5 (37-41)questions, I tend to get my CR q wrongs and SCs most of the time correct.

I feel, I am not managing my time effectively and correctly, and am getting my most wrongs in the last 15-20 questions.

The same thing was reflected in one Manhattan test 680(Q48,V37).

I had given all the 3 tests in last week before my GMAT.

I am looking forward to score of 720+.

I am planning to retake the test in another 6 weeks from now.

I plan to revise OG 11 once agian.For CR I need to focus more on analysing line of reasoning why a certain option is right or wrong, buut doing questions from OG for CR maynot help.

what other material can I refer to .

Please provide me suggestions on how I could improve

a. Quant score to 50/51 levels

b. Verbal section score to atleast 40+ levels.
Esp with respect to CR: how i can cut down on time to narrow down the option and get it right, in less than 2 mins.I know practise is the key. What materials can I refer on this.

With regards to tests, what are the other tests I can take to judge my score.

-Any help is appreciated.
-Thanks