GMAT Strategy

I am trying to decide on my next move , the decision that is confusing me is what road should i take on scoring above my target of 550. I have taken the GMAT two time so far. First time was nothing short of a disaster, I scored a horrible and disapointing 330. Basically I was not ready for the GMAT and only studied for a short time. Before the exam I took only one practice exam which i skipped the essay section and score 510. Furthermore, i had guesses on roughly 11 questions on the quant section during the exam. I deciding to take the gmat again a year later on July 15, after i had studied all 8 Manhattan GMAt books feeling very confident scoring roughly 525 and above on my practice exams. On my exam date I scored a 420, I was devastated, its been a month since i looked at a gmat book, even though i feel defeated but i dont want to give up on my goal of scoring above 550 on the GMAT. My question is what should i do differently in my preparation. I work full time, but have decided to reduce my work to four days, as i take one class at the local university and study for this exam. I really want to defeat the GMAT and get my life back. I have all the MGMAT books, and was thinking should fork over the 1,000 dollars to take there online class or would it be a waste of money, or is they a better route that i can take. The beat the gmat forum and community has been helpful in raising my score to 420, but now i would to raise it to my goal of 600. Please feel free to give any advice, all is appreciated.

Hey eskebrands,

Sorry to hear about a frustrating test experience! I certainly admire your dedication, though, and you should be proud of your improvement thus far...sometimes it just takes a few steps to cover those couple hundred points you want instead of being able to do it all in one fell swoop.

I know you've said that it's been a month or so since you've looked at GMAT prep (probably a good break to clear your mind and remember that life is full of other, non-GMAT things!), but while it's still fresh I think it's crucial for you to analyze "what went wrong". A few steps:

1) Take inventory of which concepts and question types you were missing on your practice tests.

1a) Then think about test day - did you see a lot of those things? Knowing a few main culprits for your score deficit can give you direction as to what to emphasize next.

2) Again with the practice tests, how was your pacing? How often did you need to guess? How many questions did you leave unanswered? And on test day - was your pacing what you expected? Was it worse? If pacing seems to have been an issue, that's something to address as you study - both "getting faster" and "knowing which concepts/question types might require guesses to have time for the rest".

3) Have you thought much about the "silly" or "careless" mistakes you made on practice tests? Do you remember committing any of those on test day? Typically when people underperform on the real thing vs. their practice tests ,a good portion of that comes from having made more under-pressure, clock-is-ticking, "silly" mistakes (solving for x when the question wants y; misreading the conclusion; leaving your calculations a step short; computational errors; etc.). So pay attention to those and focus on just being aware of them - simply recognizing your mistakes and fixing them before you submit your answer is a great way to save yourself quite a few points.

4) Think honestly about the night before / morning of the test. Which concepts scared you? Which questions were you hoping you didn't see? Which questions during the test drove you crazy, wasted your time, shot your confidence, etc.? Make those things points of emphasis going forward - don't let fear grip you...the things that, as you tossed and turned the night before the test, you wished you had spent an extra evening studying - now you have that extra study time to shore them up.

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Honestly, before you spend money on a class or a tutor, I'd take inventory of the items above (and others like them that come to you as you debrief your experience). Then ask yourself whether you feel comfortable fixing them on your own. If you think you need some assistance, the classes are a decent investment, but you get the highest ROI if you enter a class with a reason - you know why you're there, what you need to learn, why you need to keep up with the homework, etc.

Hey Brian ,
First I would like to thank you for taking the time to answer my call for help. Honestly, i felt on test day that I have not mastered the Data Sufficiency section and sentence correction. Furthermore, It felt like 80% of my quant section was Data Sufficiency, quite frustrating, to say the least. I did not get a lot of value question maybe ten at most, and I strongly believe five of the value questions were the last five questions of the exam. In short, yes i did see a lot of the question I was having problem on the practice exams. On the other hand, my pacing was good in the math section i guessed on maybe the last three questions. However, the Verbal section I had overextended my break and came back to the exam seven minutes late, I believe this killed my timing and I played catch up to the clock. Im gonna analyze all my practice exams to see exactly what type of questions I need to focus on.