Just took GMAT Friday and scored 600 (q40,v33). My 2 latest practice tests prior to that were 660 (Q42,V39) and 630 (Q39,V37. I took the test during a heatwave and the AC in the center was broken, also my computer crashed in the middle of the test
Anyways I'm not going to let that get me down, I just scheduled a retake for exactly 1 month from now since I'm still in the study mode. I'm shooting for a 650-680 so I know it's DOABLE!! I have the following prep material at my disposal (I have gone through all except OG13): All MGMAT books, Access to Online MGMAT classes, OG 12&13,OG Q&V Supplements, Powerscore CR, Kaplan Gmat800.
Please let me know what the best way to prep would be, given that I have 30 days til my exam. Should I go through all the MGMAT guides again and OG13 or should I focus on doing every problem from OG13 and going over the answer strategies for each problem?
Thank you!!
Need retake advice: Scored 600 (q40, v33). Test in 1 month
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Assuming the basic are covered, you should focus on the advanced sections of MGMAT and solving problems/CATs under timed conditions from Princeton Review 1047 GMAT problems, OG13, MGMAT CAT's, GMATClub CAT's, GMAT Focus, GMAT Prep (get the problem pack I).
Re-reading material in math does not help applying it.
Also visit beatthegmat and gmatclub forums. Try to solve the problems other people post under timed conditions. That will quickly show your weak areas.
A good tutor can help you with your weak areas - teaching you the right approaches and giving you focused homework for practice. From my experience, the official solutions in OG12 suck and not always give the best approach to a problem. It is probably the same with OG13.
Re-reading material in math does not help applying it.
Also visit beatthegmat and gmatclub forums. Try to solve the problems other people post under timed conditions. That will quickly show your weak areas.
A good tutor can help you with your weak areas - teaching you the right approaches and giving you focused homework for practice. From my experience, the official solutions in OG12 suck and not always give the best approach to a problem. It is probably the same with OG13.
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A good idea would be to do simulation tests at least every second day during the last two weeks before the exam. You need to build up stamina necessary to stay focused during the long time that the GMAT takes.
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I really agree with this comment. There is a big difference between understanding the concepts and learning how to master this exam. Speaking with someone who really knows what they are talking about helps a ton. Just helps you gather perspective on complete your knowledge has to be for you to do well.tutorphd wrote: A good tutor can help you with your weak areas - teaching you the right approaches and giving you focused homework for practice. From my experience, the official solutions in OG12 suck and not always give the best approach to a problem. It is probably the same with OG13.
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i received a PM regarding this thread.
i will avoid telling you that you should hire a tutor, because, well, i'm a tutor, and i don't want to give biased (and annoying) advice. like when you see lawyers' advertisements saying, "you need a lawyer!" well, of course they would say that.
tutoring might be helpful, but it also might not.
if you are not enough of a self-starter (or are too busy, or too stressed) to glean The Truth from the zillions and zillions of instructor posts on these forums, then tutoring could be massively helpful. on the other hand, if you already understand the basic philosophy of the exam and you have enough time (and motivation) to distill the most important essentials from what's here, then you may not need a private tutor.
there are also other variables. (1) do you learn better alone, or do you learn more socially? (2) if you are busy, will you be more likely to carve out the time and actually DO THE WORK if you are beholden to a tutor?
etc. etc.
there's no simple answer. tutoring is expensive, so, ideally, you should figure out whether it's a good decision before you take the plunge, not after.
aaaaaaaaaanyway...
by the way, you should avoid the SC problems in kaplan 800. essentially every single problem that has been posted here from that source has had very serious issues.
even if you've seen the problems before (about 80% of OG13 problems are in OG12), they still have a great deal of value. there's still a ton of review that you can do -- review that extends well beyond just solving the problem and understanding why the correct answer is correct.
* on quant, you should try to find every way you can possibly find to solve the problems. backsolving, plugging in your own values, etc. are paramount.
clearly, you aren't going to find more than one way to solve the problem during the practice test itself, but, in your review, you should be able to find multiple approaches to MOST problems. so, that's a substantial added component of review.
* on sentence correction, you should insert the correct answer into the sentence, and then justify EVERY weird-looking or unfamiliar construction in the sentence -- regardless of whether the constructions are actually in the underlined portion of the sentence. e.g., if you see any modifier, anywhere, then spell out exactly what it modifies and exactly why that's ok. etc.
* on critical reasoning, you should try to make your own analogy arguments that use the same type of logic as the official question (but with different topic material). also, on any strengthening/weakening/evaluation/explanation type problem (together that's like 85% of all the questions), you should be able tomake up your own correct answer that works in some way that's different from how the given correct answer works.
here are some other posts you can read:
https://www.beatthegmat.com/retaking-gma ... tml#464164
https://www.beatthegmat.com/where-am-i-g ... tml#443962
https://www.beatthegmat.com/stuck-at-quo ... tml#413529
good luck.
i will avoid telling you that you should hire a tutor, because, well, i'm a tutor, and i don't want to give biased (and annoying) advice. like when you see lawyers' advertisements saying, "you need a lawyer!" well, of course they would say that.
tutoring might be helpful, but it also might not.
if you are not enough of a self-starter (or are too busy, or too stressed) to glean The Truth from the zillions and zillions of instructor posts on these forums, then tutoring could be massively helpful. on the other hand, if you already understand the basic philosophy of the exam and you have enough time (and motivation) to distill the most important essentials from what's here, then you may not need a private tutor.
there are also other variables. (1) do you learn better alone, or do you learn more socially? (2) if you are busy, will you be more likely to carve out the time and actually DO THE WORK if you are beholden to a tutor?
etc. etc.
there's no simple answer. tutoring is expensive, so, ideally, you should figure out whether it's a good decision before you take the plunge, not after.
aaaaaaaaaanyway...
if you think that irregularities like these caused a low score, you can file a complaint and have the score cancelled retroactively. (not after this much time has passed, but you can do that within a certain window of time, like 24 hours or something.)bond0007 wrote:Just took GMAT Friday and scored 600 (q40,v33). My 2 latest practice tests prior to that were 660 (Q42,V39) and 630 (Q39,V37. I took the test during a heatwave and the AC in the center was broken, also my computer crashed in the middle of the test :(
that's too much material. you basically shouldn't need much besides the OG at this point.Anyways I'm not going to let that get me down, I just scheduled a retake for exactly 1 month from now since I'm still in the study mode. I'm shooting for a 650-680 so I know it's DOABLE!! I have the following prep material at my disposal (I have gone through all except OG13): All MGMAT books, Access to Online MGMAT classes, OG 12&13,OG Q&V Supplements, Powerscore CR, Kaplan Gmat800.
by the way, you should avoid the SC problems in kaplan 800. essentially every single problem that has been posted here from that source has had very serious issues.
there's a lot of stuff you can do with the OG problems.Please let me know what the best way to prep would be, given that I have 30 days til my exam. Should I go through all the MGMAT guides again and OG13 or should I focus on doing every problem from OG13 and going over the answer strategies for each problem?
even if you've seen the problems before (about 80% of OG13 problems are in OG12), they still have a great deal of value. there's still a ton of review that you can do -- review that extends well beyond just solving the problem and understanding why the correct answer is correct.
* on quant, you should try to find every way you can possibly find to solve the problems. backsolving, plugging in your own values, etc. are paramount.
clearly, you aren't going to find more than one way to solve the problem during the practice test itself, but, in your review, you should be able to find multiple approaches to MOST problems. so, that's a substantial added component of review.
* on sentence correction, you should insert the correct answer into the sentence, and then justify EVERY weird-looking or unfamiliar construction in the sentence -- regardless of whether the constructions are actually in the underlined portion of the sentence. e.g., if you see any modifier, anywhere, then spell out exactly what it modifies and exactly why that's ok. etc.
* on critical reasoning, you should try to make your own analogy arguments that use the same type of logic as the official question (but with different topic material). also, on any strengthening/weakening/evaluation/explanation type problem (together that's like 85% of all the questions), you should be able tomake up your own correct answer that works in some way that's different from how the given correct answer works.
here are some other posts you can read:
https://www.beatthegmat.com/retaking-gma ... tml#464164
https://www.beatthegmat.com/where-am-i-g ... tml#443962
https://www.beatthegmat.com/stuck-at-quo ... tml#413529
good luck.
Ron has been teaching various standardized tests for 20 years.
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Ron thank you very much for your well thought out reply. I'm pretty self motivated and I know that I can stick to studying on my own. I would love to have a tutor but unfortunately at several hundred dollars per hour it's well out of my reach (even though it's definitely worth the investment)lunarpower wrote:i received a PM regarding this thread.
i will avoid telling you that you should hire a tutor, because, well, i'm a tutor, and i don't want to give biased (and annoying) advice. like when you see lawyers' advertisements saying, "you need a lawyer!" well, of course they would say that.
tutoring might be helpful, but it also might not.
if you are not enough of a self-starter (or are too busy, or too stressed) to glean The Truth from the zillions and zillions of instructor posts on these forums, then tutoring could be massively helpful. on the other hand, if you already understand the basic philosophy of the exam and you have enough time (and motivation) to distill the most important essentials from what's here, then you may not need a private tutor.
there are also other variables. (1) do you learn better alone, or do you learn more socially? (2) if you are busy, will you be more likely to carve out the time and actually DO THE WORK if you are beholden to a tutor?
etc. etc.
there's no simple answer. tutoring is expensive, so, ideally, you should figure out whether it's a good decision before you take the plunge, not after.
aaaaaaaaaanyway...
if you think that irregularities like these caused a low score, you can file a complaint and have the score cancelled retroactively. (not after this much time has passed, but you can do that within a certain window of time, like 24 hours or something.)bond0007 wrote:Just took GMAT Friday and scored 600 (q40,v33). My 2 latest practice tests prior to that were 660 (Q42,V39) and 630 (Q39,V37. I took the test during a heatwave and the AC in the center was broken, also my computer crashed in the middle of the test
that's too much material. you basically shouldn't need much besides the OG at this point.Anyways I'm not going to let that get me down, I just scheduled a retake for exactly 1 month from now since I'm still in the study mode. I'm shooting for a 650-680 so I know it's DOABLE!! I have the following prep material at my disposal (I have gone through all except OG13): All MGMAT books, Access to Online MGMAT classes, OG 12&13,OG Q&V Supplements, Powerscore CR, Kaplan Gmat800.
by the way, you should avoid the SC problems in kaplan 800. essentially every single problem that has been posted here from that source has had very serious issues.
there's a lot of stuff you can do with the OG problems.Please let me know what the best way to prep would be, given that I have 30 days til my exam. Should I go through all the MGMAT guides again and OG13 or should I focus on doing every problem from OG13 and going over the answer strategies for each problem?
even if you've seen the problems before (about 80% of OG13 problems are in OG12), they still have a great deal of value. there's still a ton of review that you can do -- review that extends well beyond just solving the problem and understanding why the correct answer is correct.
* on quant, you should try to find every way you can possibly find to solve the problems. backsolving, plugging in your own values, etc. are paramount.
clearly, you aren't going to find more than one way to solve the problem during the practice test itself, but, in your review, you should be able to find multiple approaches to MOST problems. so, that's a substantial added component of review.
* on sentence correction, you should insert the correct answer into the sentence, and then justify EVERY weird-looking or unfamiliar construction in the sentence -- regardless of whether the constructions are actually in the underlined portion of the sentence. e.g., if you see any modifier, anywhere, then spell out exactly what it modifies and exactly why that's ok. etc.
* on critical reasoning, you should try to make your own analogy arguments that use the same type of logic as the official question (but with different topic material). also, on any strengthening/weakening/evaluation/explanation type problem (together that's like 85% of all the questions), you should be able tomake up your own correct answer that works in some way that's different from how the given correct answer works.
here are some other posts you can read:
https://www.beatthegmat.com/retaking-gma ... tml#464164
https://www.beatthegmat.com/where-am-i-g ... tml#443962
https://www.beatthegmat.com/stuck-at-quo ... tml#413529
good luck.
I agree with you about having an overload of material, I will just stick to the OG12 since I have the MGMAT supplement for it that explains all the quant answers in a sensible way, vs the OG's official answers.
Thanks for all the suggestions as to what to do while studying the OG, I believe that will be key to my success on the retake.
My only question now is how should I deal with the timing? Should I do all the OG 12 under a time constraint,and then review all the possibilities your discussed, or should I just take an untimed approach so I am able to study the problem more carefully.
Thank you!
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doing problems for the first time = timed.
review = untimed.
review = untimed.
Ron has been teaching various standardized tests for 20 years.
--
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Voit esittää kysymyksiä Ron:lle myös suomeksi
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Quand on se sent bien dans un vêtement, tout peut arriver. Un bon vêtement, c'est un passeport pour le bonheur.
Yves Saint-Laurent
--
Learn more about ron
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Pueden hacerle preguntas a Ron en castellano
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--
Quand on se sent bien dans un vêtement, tout peut arriver. Un bon vêtement, c'est un passeport pour le bonheur.
Yves Saint-Laurent
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Ron,lunarpower wrote:doing problems for the first time = timed.
review = untimed.
I looked at some of your Thursdays with Ron videos and they seem to be be really good. Do you think I should watch several of the ones that focus on the topics that I am weak in? (ie. hard inequalities, CR, abs value, and SC)
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i certainly wouldn't object to your watching my videos. (:bond0007 wrote:Ron,lunarpower wrote:doing problems for the first time = timed.
review = untimed.
I looked at some of your Thursdays with Ron videos and they seem to be be really good. Do you think I should watch several of the ones that focus on the topics that I am weak in? (ie. hard inequalities, CR, abs value, and SC)
i may be interpreting something incorrectly here, because i'm reading this question as "hey ron, do you think i should watch *your* videos for the topics on which i need the most help?"
i mean, it's pretty clear that my answer to that question would be yes. so maybe you were asking something else?
Ron has been teaching various standardized tests for 20 years.
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Quand on se sent bien dans un vêtement, tout peut arriver. Un bon vêtement, c'est un passeport pour le bonheur.
Yves Saint-Laurent
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Quand on se sent bien dans un vêtement, tout peut arriver. Un bon vêtement, c'est un passeport pour le bonheur.
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I should have been a bit more clear. I meant given that my test is a month from now, should I use your videos on the subject matters I am most weak at, vs just looking at problems on the subject in the OG. But anyways I think I answered my own question as I watched a few videos already and they are really good.
thanks again!!
thanks again!!
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okay, i got you. i'm glad you like the videos.
good luck!
good luck!
Ron has been teaching various standardized tests for 20 years.
--
Pueden hacerle preguntas a Ron en castellano
Potete chiedere domande a Ron in italiano
On peut poser des questions à Ron en français
Voit esittää kysymyksiä Ron:lle myös suomeksi
--
Quand on se sent bien dans un vêtement, tout peut arriver. Un bon vêtement, c'est un passeport pour le bonheur.
Yves Saint-Laurent
--
Learn more about ron
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Pueden hacerle preguntas a Ron en castellano
Potete chiedere domande a Ron in italiano
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Voit esittää kysymyksiä Ron:lle myös suomeksi
--
Quand on se sent bien dans un vêtement, tout peut arriver. Un bon vêtement, c'est un passeport pour le bonheur.
Yves Saint-Laurent
--
Learn more about ron