GMAT Strategy

This is gonna be long....

But please do read it .Will really appreciate if people can provide some motivation & a good study plan for retake....


I had given GMAT on Monday .Had a terrible score of 550 .Never expected that I would get such a bad score. Though I was not scoring 700 in my mock tests, still I was scoring okay types on MGMAT, but still very bad on GMATPrep
My mock tests scores are as follows:

1). MGMAT 1- 580( Q 43 V 28) - Without AWA
2). MGMAT 2- 620(Q 43 V 34) - Without AWA
3). MGMAT 3- 670(Q 47 V 34) - Without AWA

With AWA :
4). MGMAT 4- 640(Q 46 V 31)
5). Kaplan Online free test - 580
6). Kaplan Test (CD ROM) - 630
7). Powerprep 1 - 640
8). GMATPrep1 - 620 (Q 48, V 28)
9). PowerPrep 2 - 620
10). GmatPrep 2 - 640 (Q 42, V 35)

Some of my difficulties on my the mocks tests:
I scored a 48 in Quant on GMATPrep1 but a dismal 28 - in verbal
Then on the GMATPrep 2 - I scored a dismal 42 in Q and a promising 35 in verbal
I always scored 43 or above in Quant on MGMAT tests (which is considered difficult for Quant) & got a 39 in Quant on the real test.
I don't know but I thought I did very well on PowerPreps (both of them) but still got as low as 640 & 620

Things I did during my prep:

Manhattan SC - Fourth Edition (Did it twice)
Powerscore CR Bible
OG 12 ( Twice )
1000 CR
Verbal OG ( A lill bit )

There are some issues I have noticed:

• SC

I still feel, my SC concepts are not that strong (I am not confident enough) .I still can't do a SC question within 90 seconds timelimit.Sometimes I take as long as 2 minutes, and some other times I take 60 seconds or 90 seconds. Yes I know some of my weaknesses but all of those are not conceptual, some of them are related to not feeling confident enough.

• CR

I have learnt all the basic concepts from Powerscore bible .I know how to find premises and a conclusion. I know how to attack a weaken, fill in the blank, strengthen, evaluate a plan, evaluate an argument sort of questions .But I still get those questions wrong. My accuracy rate for the last 40 questions (OG - 12) was very very low...20 correct out of 40.I did try few questions from 1000 CR set ( LSAT CR Questions ). YES I get those correct more often .Though I have not done all of them ,I did few, up to 250 & I was very comfortable with almost all of them. My accuracy rate was 80 % on those.
But when it comes to OG level questions, I really do suck. Don't know whether there is some mental block in my mind, or my logic is not according to GMAT test setters.

• Quant

I usually got 43 and above on all the MGMAT tests .But managed only a 39 on the real GMAT .Yes, there's one more thing that went wrong on the real GMAT exam .I was foolishly working out the last Quant question on the test (even when there were only 20 seconds left) .The time expired and I couldn't complete the test .Is the penalty of not completing the test (I was on last question) so severe that I could even get as low as a 39 ???
Now my confident has drastically fallen. I am almost shaken up .I can't even think of applying with this score .There is no other option but to retake the test next month.
But I need few advices from people & from Counselors.
1). When should I appear for the retake. If I retake the test in the last week of November, will I be having enough time to apply in R2.I am interested in applying to some of the top 25 in the US and to some top universities in UK.The list is

• • • University of Michigan--Ann Arbor (Ross)
      University of Texas--Austin (McCombs)
      Georgetown University (McDonough)
      University Of Rochester-Simon
      Indiana University--Bloomington (Kelley)
      Cass University - London
      Canfield - UK

2). what should be my game plan now. I don't exactly know from where to begin? I did my best to read, learn, revise, implement .I did OG twice .Still I think I am nowhere (Don't even fall in the average INDIAN GMAT scorer category)
3). I still have problems in solving CR and SC questions, even after practicing so hard , even after learning all the concepts. How can I do them better this time. Do I need to do OG -12 again? I believe that my problem in SC is implementation of the concepts. But what about CR.How can I get the logic and confidence?
4). which tests can I take now? I have done all MGMATs, 2 Powerpreps , 2 GMATPrep , 1 Kaplan.
5). For GMATPrep & other tests , I noticed the pattern whenever I got a low score in Verbal .I noticed that in the first 15 questions I normally get 6-7 wrong ( with 3 or 4 questions wrong CONSECUTIVELY ) .I Do also get 3 or 4 questions wrong CONSECUTIVELY more than once .Is this pattern causing a serious decrease in the scores ? How can I improve to not repeat this sort of pattern?

I have thought about doing the following:

To revise everything for a 1 week.

Then, will practice (timed) by mixing questions from 1000 SC, 1000 LR & 1000 CR ( LSAT Questions )- 37 Questions (75 mins) and 700 + level MATH questions - 41 Questions (75 minutes)

The above timed practice session (2 and a half hour) will help me reach up to a certain high end level (As I have read that the LSAT questions are tougher than GMAT)

Will give a mock test after every 5 days of practice & analyze my mistakes during practice session & mock tests

Read about Grockit? Should I practice questions from there?
What more can I do?? Is the above method good?

Will really appreciate if someone can really help me to come out of this tragic failure.