GMAT Strategy

Hi all,

I have a friend who took GMAT last week. He quitted his job to focus wholeheartedly on GMAT. he reviewed all OG & Question Pack 1 questions by perusing detailed explanations of Ron Purewal on Manhattan GMAT forums for SC. He also did LSAT very well. His average WRONG rate for LSAT CR is less than 15% and for all RC passages from GMATPrep is less than 15% as well.

However, his GMAT score was only 670 (Q50-V31) while he actually aimed for 720+. I just don't know how to advise him since he did study & review very carefully and meticulously.

Thanks in advance.

Hey Patrick,

Sounds like he did a lot of things right! OG questions are essential, Ron Purewal at MGMAT gives a lot of great advice and a 670 is a strong score, BUT a below 15% hit rate on RC is NOT a good sign. LSAT CR can be good to use for GMAT CR in certain specific cases, but in general it is too different from GMAT CR for it to be worth emphasizing. There is plenty of difficul high-quality GMAT CR material out there.

Is your friend a non-native English speaker? That's the impression I'm getting from your description and his score.

Remember that studying is MORE than just answering questions. What was his STRATEGY for each of the 3 Verbal question types. For example, here's how I approach RC:

Step 1 - Read the Passage & break it down into a Passage Map!

Step 2 - Rephrase the Question in simple terms (and identify the Q-type)

Step 3 - Write Down a Prediction (answer in your OWN way on your scratch paper FIRST!)

Step 4 - Eliminate 3 Choices (using "+", "-"", and "?" symbols to record "first impressions")

Step 5 - Carefully Compare the "Final Two" (find the "discernible difference")

Questions to Ask of the FINAL TWO:

- Does One Answer Use Unnecessary Extreme Language?

- Is One Answer Outside the Scope of the Passage?

- Does One Answer Not Specifically Answer THIS Particular Question?

- Can I Rephrase One Answer to Make It More Understandably Incorrect?

----

With a below 15% hit rate, it makes me think your friend did NOT have such a thorough strategy for this question-type and did not practice is extensively both untimed to gain HIGH accuracy, and timed to negotiate pacing pressure.

Your friend may simply have not had an ironclad strategy for CR and RC, and been able to recognize some of the more advanced grammar concepts in SC.

If he/she plans to re-take, my suggestion would be to completely re-examine strategy for Verbal, as well as push for even higher content mastery.

A final note: students' scores tend to DROP on Test Day, so unless your friend was consistently scoring a 740+ on multiple practice tests, there was probably no reason to assume a 720+ was "in the bag," so to speak, on the actual GMAT. Because of anxiety, almost EVERYONE scores a bit below their most recent CATs. It's very common!

Best,
Vivian

Hi Patrick124,

I'm curious if your friend's first attempt at the GMAT was an official attempt or a practice exam. If it was an official attempt, had he taken a practice exam (full length, timed, etc) as part of his prep? As Vivian alluded to, the GMAT is an event that you can train for, so focusing primarily on book materials often leads to students plateauing at certain levels and not necessarily learning from bad test-taking habits. If you can shed a little more clarity on his previous prep, we should be able to add to what Vivian has already suggested.

Best,
Rich

VivianKerr wrote:Hey Patrick,

Sounds like he did a lot of things right! OG questions are essential, Ron Purewal at MGMAT gives a lot of great advice and a 670 is a strong score, BUT a below 15% hit rate on RC is NOT a good sign. LSAT CR can be good to use for GMAT CR in certain specific cases, but in general it is too different from GMAT CR for it to be worth emphasizing. There is plenty of difficul high-quality GMAT CR material out there.

Is your friend a non-native English speaker? That's the impression I'm getting from your description and his score.

Remember that studying is MORE than just answering questions. What was his STRATEGY for each of the 3 Verbal question types. For example, here's how I approach RC:

Step 1 - Read the Passage & break it down into a Passage Map!

Step 2 - Rephrase the Question in simple terms (and identify the Q-type)

Step 3 - Write Down a Prediction (answer in your OWN way on your scratch paper FIRST!)

Step 4 - Eliminate 3 Choices (using "+", "-"", and "?" symbols to record "first impressions")

Step 5 - Carefully Compare the "Final Two" (find the "discernible difference")

Questions to Ask of the FINAL TWO:

- Does One Answer Use Unnecessary Extreme Language?

- Is One Answer Outside the Scope of the Passage?

- Does One Answer Not Specifically Answer THIS Particular Question?

- Can I Rephrase One Answer to Make It More Understandably Incorrect?

----

With a below 15% hit rate, it makes me think your friend did NOT have such a thorough strategy for this question-type and did not practice is extensively both untimed to gain HIGH accuracy, and timed to negotiate pacing pressure.

Your friend may simply have not had an ironclad strategy for CR and RC, and been able to recognize some of the more advanced grammar concepts in SC.

If he/she plans to re-take, my suggestion would be to completely re-examine strategy for Verbal, as well as push for even higher content mastery.

A final note: students' scores tend to DROP on Test Day, so unless your friend was consistently scoring a 740+ on multiple practice tests, there was probably no reason to assume a 720+ was "in the bag," so to speak, on the actual GMAT. Because of anxiety, almost EVERYONE scores a bit below their most recent CATs. It's very common!

Best,
Vivian

Hi Vivian

I am REALLY SORRY for my wrong information. I intended to write that the rate of wrong answer but then I wrote Correction rate, thus make you misunderstand the information and thought that he had a very low Verbal performance.

Overall, of 4 passages, which have 14-17 RC questions, he usually made a maximum of 2-3 wrong questions.

For CR, after exhausting all the official GMATPrep CR collection that was downloaded from gmatclub, he started working on LSAT.

670 was his first attempt.

His performance on 4 GMATPrep (2 free and 2 from Exam Pack 1) were

740 - 760 - 770 - 760 (The Q scores were from 50 to 51 and V scores were from 42 to 47)

I would discount this score because he might encounter some questions that I had done in his prep. But i think the this score must be much lower than his actual ability.

Do you have any advice?

Btw, he's Asian but he studies in an international college.