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Time for me to Stop Studying on my Own? - GMAT Quant Help

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Time for me to Stop Studying on my Own? - GMAT Quant Help

by andyaf » Sun Sep 23, 2018 5:53 am
Hello,

I recently started the process of studying for the GMAT on my own. I have access to all the Manhattan Prep Books and am building my study schedule. My target score is 750.

Last weekend I took an Official GMAT Practice Exam (from MBA.com) - scored 500 Overall [38 Quant , 38 Verbal] - I thought this was okay given it was my first time :D

I decided to take a practice exam from Manhattan GMAT (CAT exam) to get a better understanding of which specific areas in both Quant and Verbal I needed to work on. To my surprise, I scored a 32 on the Verbal (yay, better) but scored a 9 (1 percentile) on the Quant (worse).

I found the Quant section of the Manhattan Prep CAT exam to be substantially harder than the official GMAT practice exam. However, I am unsure of what to do next to boost my score. Reviewing the Manhattan Prep score report - I need to review all areas of math.

Was hoping to get some feedback/comments/friendly advice/ therapy on what I should do next. Should I:

1. Stop self-studying and immediately subscribe to a Manhattan Prep in-class course.
2. Working through all the Manhattan Prep Quant books and then check if my score rises
3. Take another Manhattan Prep CAT exam and attempt to get a more accurate Quant score (maybe I had a "bad day")
4. Other??

Thank you very much for the help! :D
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by ceilidh.erickson » Wed Sep 26, 2018 3:45 pm
You said that you got a 38-V, 38-Q on your 1st CAT. That would track to a 630, not a 500: https://www.manhattanprep.com/gmat/gmat ... alculator/
I assume that you mean percentiles. IGNORE YOUR PERCENTILES! They are misleading: https://www.manhattanprep.com/gmat/blog ... mat-score/

I think it's likely that you have a lot of quant work to do, but don't ignore your verbal. The recipe for a 750 is ~93 total points. That's impossible to do without getting above a 40 on the verbal.

Do NOT take another exam right away - that's a waste of your time. Exams are there to measure progress. If you haven't learned or improved anything since your last practice test, there's really no reason to expect a higher score. Take another one when you feel like you've improved your content knowledge and strategies. If you take a class, the syllabus will assign practice exams at the appropriate intervals.

I think that taking a course is usually a good idea for students starting out with scores below 600 / inconsistent scores. A class will provide structure about what to study when. An expert instructor can also provide invaluable advice on general test strategy. You can learn the content on your own, but it's often harder to infer strategic takeaways on your own.

You can take the 1st session of our 9-week course for free, in-person or online: https://www.manhattanprep.com/gmat/resources/
I definitely recommend trying a class and seeing how much you learn from that 1st session. Many other companies also offer free trial classes, so shop around!

If you have any questions about Manhattan Prep resources, contact us: [email protected] or +1.800.576.4628.
Ceilidh Erickson
EdM in Mind, Brain, and Education
Harvard Graduate School of Education
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hi

by Scott@TargetTestPrep » Thu Sep 27, 2018 9:02 am
Hi andyaf,

I'm glad you reached out, and I'm happy to help. The good news is that you were able to score 500 despite not studying for very long, correct? Thus, I wouldn't hit the panic button quite yet and discontinue your self-study. If after another 4 to 6 weeks you find that you are not making the improvement you need, you should perhaps think about changing up your study routine. To see what GMAT prep materials are available, take a look at the reviews here on Beat The GMAT.

Also, I recommend that you hold off taking any further practice tests. As you already know, you need to improve in all areas of quant. So, focus on making those improvements rather than taking more tests. Remember, GMAT practice tests serve two main purposes: to provide diagnostic information and to get you accustomed to the test-taking experience. In other words, by taking a practice test, you can get a sense of what types of GMAT questions you are comfortable answering, arrive at a reasonable estimation of how you would score on the GMAT at that point in time, and practice taking the GMAT and handling its various challenges, such as time pressure and the varying difficulty of the questions presented.

Can practice tests be valuable tools for learning and continued score improvement? Yes, of course, if they are used properly and at optimal times in your preparation. However, you should not use practice tests as primary learning vehicles because they don't really provide the kind of practice that you need to increase your score. To improve your score, you need to learn the basics of answering various types of GMAT questions, and then practice applying what you have learned by carefully answering practice questions in order to learn to answer them correctly. When you first learn how to answer a particular type of question, answering that type of question correctly can easily take way longer than the two minutes or so per question that you are allotted when you take the GMAT. So, to effectively prepare, you have to practice answering questions of each type without the constraints of the exam, and work up to the point at which you can answer questions of each type in around two minutes.

When taking a practice test, you don't give yourself the kind of time you need to learn to answer questions. Two minutes per question flies by, and if you want to finish each section of the test on time, in many cases, regardless of whether you have figured out how to answer a question, you may have to pick an answer and move on. So, while taking a practice test can be a great way to work on your overall approach to taking the GMAT, taking a practice test is not a great way to learn how to get right answers to various types of questions. To hit your score goal, you likely need to focus on the latter type of prep. You certainly can benefit from taking one diagnostic practice test early in your preparation to gauge your current skill level (as you have done), but why spend three hours taking another practice test (and another, and another) to learn the same thing over and over again: you have to learn more content and develop more skills to hit your score goal. Using practice tests in such a way wastes a valuable tool.

Once you have done substantial preparation and mastered much of the content tested on the GMAT, when you sit for practice tests, they will actually show, to some degree, lingering weak areas. I say "to some degree" because although practice tests provide a pretty good approximation of how you will score on the GMAT at a particular point in time, the sample size of the number of questions found on any practice test is rather small (31 quant questions and 36 verbal questions), so practice tests don't do a very good job of showing specific areas of weakness. For example, let's say that on a practice test, you encounter one rate-time-distance question among the 31 quant questions, and you get the question wrong. Should you conclude that you need extensive work on rate-time-distance questions? Of course not. Similarly, what if you correctly answered the rate-time-distance question? Does that mean you're good to go on such questions? Maybe. But maybe not. In fact, let's say that out of six practice tests, you saw a total of six rate-time-distance questions and correctly answered them all. Can you conclude that you're solid on rate-time-distance questions? Probably not. One thing that makes the GMAT challenging is the vast potential for variation in the questions. There are hundreds -- maybe thousands -- of variations of rate-time-distance questions that can appear on any test. So, correctly answering five or six (or ten) rate-time-distance questions doesn't really tell you much. You must take care not to over-infer based on a handful of practice tests and nothing else.

If you have any further questions regarding your study plan, feel free to reach out to me directly.

Also, you may find it helpful to read this article about how to score a 700+ on the GMAT .

Scott Woodbury-Stewart
Founder and CEO
[email protected]

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by [email protected] » Thu Sep 27, 2018 2:41 pm
Hi andyaf,

To start, a 500 is a decent initial CAT Score (the average Score on the Official GMAT hovers around 550 most years). That having been said, it will take a LOT of work to raise a 500 to 750+, and you'll have to make significant improvements to how you handle BOTH the Quant and Verbal sections. A 750+ is essentially the 99th percentile - meaning that 99% of Test Takers either CAN'T or WON'T do what it takes to score at that level. Limiting yourself to a book-heavy Study Plan will probably impact how much you improve (and how quickly you improve), so you might want to re-consider your stance on investing in a GMAT Course.

Before I can offer you any additional advice, it would help if you could provide a bit more information on your timeline and your goals:

1) When are you planning to take the GMAT?
2) When are you planning to apply to Business School?
3) What Schools are you planning to apply to?

GMAT assassins aren't born, they're made,
Rich
Contact Rich at [email protected]
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