GMAT Strategy

Hi,

I am planning to achieve a 760 in a month and I hope to share my story and formulate a strategy for how to approach my final push for next month.

I have been studying GMAT for exactly 6 months, though only more seriously for the past 3. Yesterday I took my first GMAT exam at a official testing center. I booked the exam 1 months ago knowing that I probably won't score that well but still wanted to do it as I wanted to acclimatize myself to a real testing environment.

Here is how it went... I woke up at 4:45am to do some math studying (read some target prep materials, did 1 chapter test and did 5 gmatclub questions), went to work at 6am and got off work early to arrive at the testing center around 3pm, feeling a quite nervous I proceeded cautiously. AWA and IR got me stomped from the get go as I felt my brain wasn't working at all. When Quant started I didn't have enough time to mark down timers and was off to a bad start, and then, got stomped on the very first question... Felt I performed horribly and I went on to verbal, did not do well and even skipped 1 RC passage completely. Prior to clicking to see the final score, I was expecting a high 600 ...

My final score was 720 (IR5; Q49; V38)

One week earlier at home I tested GMATPrep with 730 (IR 7, Q 50, V 39)

Love to get some tips on how to approach studying for the next 4/5 weeks to score a 760, I am also aiming for at least a 7 on IR.

So far, my strategy consists of 2 hour studying week day
1 hour Quant - read chapters from target prep, do some questions and consistently doing 5 gmat club quant qs everyday
1 hour verbal - do 5 CR qs from e-gmat and 5 SC qs from OG2017, then reviewing the notes
sat/sunday 5 hours per day - don't really have much of a plan, just do some more questions and read some more...

I previously went through MGMAT live 3 months, math revolution (took some notes) and currently am using target test prep for math and e-gmat for verbal. I am also having difficulties with improvement in verbal and seem to be stuck right under 40s. It feels like just doing a bunch of questions in CR isn't working?

And how exactly do you tackle IR? I went from scoring 7 one week ago to 5 yesterday...

Any thought on any of these would be great.

Thank You,

hwang327 wrote:Hi,

I am planning to achieve a 760 in a month and I hope to share my story and formulate a strategy for how to approach my final push for next month.

I have been studying GMAT for exactly 6 months, though only more seriously for the past 3. Yesterday I took my first GMAT exam at a official testing center. I booked the exam 1 months ago knowing that I probably won't score that well but still wanted to do it as I wanted to acclimatize myself to a real testing environment.

Here is how it went... I woke up at 4:45am to do some math studying (read some target prep materials, did 1 chapter test and did 5 gmatclub questions), went to work at 6am and got off work early to arrive at the testing center around 3pm, feeling a quite nervous I proceeded cautiously. AWA and IR got me stomped from the get go as I felt my brain wasn't working at all. When Quant started I didn't have enough time to mark down timers and was off to a bad start, and then, got stomped on the very first question... Felt I performed horribly and I went on to verbal, did not do well and even skipped 1 RC passage completely. Prior to clicking to see the final score, I was expecting a high 600 ...

My final score was 720 (IR5; Q49; V38)

One week earlier at home I tested GMATPrep with 730 (IR 7, Q 50, V 39)

Love to get some tips on how to approach studying for the next 4/5 weeks to score a 760, I am also aiming for at least a 7 on IR.

So far, my strategy consists of 2 hour studying week day
1 hour Quant - read chapters from target prep, do some questions and consistently doing 5 gmat club quant qs everyday
1 hour verbal - do 5 CR qs from e-gmat and 5 SC qs from OG2017, then reviewing the notes
sat/sunday 5 hours per day - don't really have much of a plan, just do some more questions and read some more...

I previously went through MGMAT live 3 months, math revolution (took some notes) and currently am using target test prep for math and e-gmat for verbal. I am also having difficulties with improvement in verbal and seem to be stuck right under 40s. It feels like just doing a bunch of questions in CR isn't working?

And how exactly do you tackle IR? I went from scoring 7 one week ago to 5 yesterday...

Any thought on any of these would be great.

Thank You,

Not a bad dilemma to have - once you hit 720, the incremental gains begin to suffer from the law of diminishing returns in terms of the impact on admissions committees. But it sounds like you've made up your mind to give it another shot, so here's my take: you should have exactly one prep goal - to get that verbal score to 44+.

First, you might consider getting an enhanced score report from GMAC. The report will sometimes confirm what you already know, but if you something striking (your Sentence Correction was lagging behind your Reading Comp, for example.) the info can be useful in crafting a study plan.

Second, review the Official Guide, even if you've already completed it. See if there are patterns to the questions you've missed. Anything unclear, post here. Jot a few notes to yourself about simple adjustments you can make. Remember that for all the strategies/grammar rules we teach, the verbal section is primarily about logic and focus. Practice boiling everything down to its essence. Always ask yourself, before you select an answer in sentence correction, if the sentence, when read literally, is clear and logical. Before you select an answer in Critical Reasoning always take another moment and ask if your answer really does impact the conclusion. Before you select an answer in Reading Comp ask yourself if there's textual support for that answer. Be relentless.

Third, address the psychological aspects of testing. The difference between a 720 and a 760 can come down to a slight adjustment in mindset. Consider incorporating some mindfulness meditation. https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archi ... on/275564/

Last, consider some test day hacks to boost performance:
https://creatingpositivefutures.com/3-re ... t-anxiety/