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GMAT Low Score 690 (Q49 V34)

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GMAT Low Score 690 (Q49 V34)

by highflier_2000 » Thu Mar 10, 2011 7:00 pm
Guys..

I've worked for three months on my GMAT. This is my second attempt... I hardly touched Quant.. I spent all the time working on verbal..

Books I've used..

1. Official Guide 11th and 12th
2. Kaplan 2011 Ed and Kaplan 800
3. MGMAT SC, RC and CR

I discovered Ron Purewal's posts at a very late stage.. so didn't really get to fully watch em all. He is a genius.. Truly a gifted teacher.. Ron if you're ever in Michigan, I owe you a couple of beers.. :) If you guys are not watching em you are missing something from our prep..
https://www.manhattangmat.com/thursdays-with-ron.cfm



Firstly, practice tests turned out to be phenominally important. MGMAT is very close to the real deal.. the score I got on MGMAT was insanely close to the real deal.. GMAT PREP was a little higher.. (maybe beacuse the questions have become very common). .Dont try Kaplan CATs close to test date.. it can be very depressing.. I quit studies for a week after I saw the 500s.. :)


GMAT PREP 1 700
GMAT PREP 2 680
KAPLAN1 580
MGMAT 1 Q48 V35 680
MGMAT 2 Q48 V34 680
KAPLAN2 560
MGMAT 3 Q47 V41 720
MGMAT 4 Q48 V35 680
MGMAT 5 Q47 V41 720
GMAT PREP 1 (Redo) 720

REAL TEST: 690 (Q49 V34) , AWA 5.5 .. added 3/17/11

So I am not overly disappointed.. Could have been a lot worse. In case you are wondering why I took the test when my avg was like around 690 ~700... I already took the date and didn't want to chicken out

So now How can I improve my score ? I need to get to the next step.. upper 700s.. I did try doing the statistics approach.. I am just randomly weak in everything CR, RC, SC...

Thank you for reading.. Any help is appreciated.
Last edited by highflier_2000 on Thu Mar 17, 2011 11:36 am, edited 1 time in total.
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by rishi raj » Fri Mar 11, 2011 7:52 am
I like the fact that you are not disappointed with your current score even though you are aiming for a higher one. This kind of attitude really helps one see things in perspective and doesn't let you get pressurized when you prepare. As you said that you're "randomly" weak in Verbal, find exactly what is the reason for that ? Do have a firm grasp of the concepts in SC? Do you know the right strategies in CR? For example, if someone were to ask you what kind of answer should you look for in an inference question, would you be able to tell exactly what kind of options should you be looking for ? Basically, SC and RC are all about the ability to identify patterns. If you see most of the people who do not end up getting a good score on the Verbal section , you'll see that the common thread running across all these people is that they are too much "question centric" instead of "pattern centric" ,as a result of which when they see difficult questions they start from scratch instead of knowing what to watch out for while doing questions. Sentence correction, as such , is an area can be mastered if you know the rules inside out. These rules are in fact what are tested in higher difficulty questions, albeit in a more complex way-either through the combination of two or more error types or by making the sentences complex. Go through MGMAT SC Guide and Aristotle SC Grail really diligently and I think you should become good at tackling SC questions.
RC is more about practise and the more you practice the better you'll become,so I suggest that you practice as many passages as possible so that you become familiar with a plethora of topics and also to enable you to implement the strategies you'd have learnt .Hope that helps!
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by lunarpower » Sat Mar 12, 2011 8:26 am
highflier_2000 wrote:So now How can I improve my score ? I need to get to the next step.. upper 700s.. I did try doing the statistics approach.. I am just randomly weak in everything CR, RC, SC...

Thank you for reading.. Any help is appreciated.
if you haven't seen this post, check it out:
https://www.beatthegmat.com/550-to-720-i ... tml#330724
that post basically tells you how to get *the most* out of your REVIEW of problems -- let's just say that it's possible to squeeze a lot more juice out of the official problems (especially in SC) than most people think.

also, if "upper 700s" is your goal, *and* if you tend to learn like most other posters here, then you are probably going to need some fundamental reforms of the way you think about many of the problem types.
what i mean is that many posters here seem to want to learn everything by memorizing lots and lots of rules. while that approach can certainly make an impact, there are certain problem types that are completely immune to it -- i.e., that are *impossible* to solve via memorized rules. chief among these are "strengthen/weaken" CR problems, which, unfortunately, are also the most common problem type in the CR section.
i've talked more about those problems in the MARCH 3 session recording here:
https://www.manhattangmat.com/thursdays-with-ron.cfm

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finally -- in quant, if you are already at q47-48, it is extremely unlikely that you'll improve much further by studying "textbook style" math. rather, the best way to tack a couple of extra points onto your quant score is to study "backup methods" for quant -- see the FEBRUARY 4 recording at the link above.

good luck!
Ron has been teaching various standardized tests for 20 years.

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by highflier_2000 » Mon Mar 14, 2011 11:00 am
Thanks guys.. I will definitely work on your advice..

I will keep you posted with my progress. :)
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