Scored 600 on the GMAT (Q33 + V39). Need 720+.... Help!

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Hi everyone!
I studied 150 hours over the course of 2.5 months and only scored a dissapointing 600 (Q33 + V39) on my official exam.
I took CATs from Kaplan throughout this period and have been using material from:
-Kaplan
-Veritas Prep
-Manhattan Prep
-OG

On my CATs, the most I ever scored on quant was 36. Can someone please give me advice on how to score 46+ on quant?
Also - how much more time do you think I will need to raise my score? I'm applying to grad schools this fall.

Thanks in advance!

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by diegocml » Tue Apr 12, 2016 9:03 pm
Hi WillNotGiveUp,

I'm sorry to hear you haven't met your target score, YET.

In fact, your current score is exactly my goal score. Could you please tell me what were the results of your past CATs, if any and what was your study routine?

Thanks a lot and don't give up!

Cheers,
Diego
Diego

1st GMAT attemp: 410 (Q18 V27)
2nd GMAT attemp: 490 (Q35 V23)

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by WillNotGiveUp » Tue Apr 12, 2016 9:47 pm
Hi Diegocml,

My past CAT scores ranged from 480-600, with most at 570.
Regular study time: 2+ hours on 4/5 weekdays and 4+ hrs each weekend day.
Quota of 16 hrs/wk

Quant
Math Basics:
-Veritas Prep GMAT Series 1-12 Elite Test Preparation - Raised my scored from 23 to 33
-Kaplan Online Resources - This came with an in-person course I bought but the online resources are really sufficient. You get 9 CAT exams with the option of taking any in-person at a test center, video lessons, and many exam questions. You can even build personalized exams that focus on your areas of weakness. I took these quizzes over and over.
-Manhatten Prep - To go into detail about math topics
-OG Problems - Did a few of these every evening.

Verbal
-OG Problems
-Kaplan's Online Resources to take quizzes on areas I needed to focus on. For sentence correction I really just went with what sounded right and concise.

For both, I think analyzing why I solved incorrectly and remembering how to get it right helped.

Good luck to you!

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by MartyMurray » Wed Apr 13, 2016 3:12 am
That verbal score is a good starting point for a 720+ total score. One thing that you should do is increase your verbal section score by going over your past tests and looking over the verbal questions that you didn't get right. For each verbal question that you don't get right ask yourself questions such as, "How could I have gotten this one right?", "What about my process caused me to choose the wrong answer?" and "What did I need to see in order to get this one right?"

The best way to increase your quant score is to work on quant topics one by one until you become an expert in handling each of them. Put it this way, if you are a total expert rock star at handling all of the types of questions that show up in GMAT quant, you will score 46+.

Each topic that you totally learn to rock translates to a point or two increase in your quant section score.

In order to accomplish this, you need to go beyond the questions in the OG to doing not five or six but dozens of questions of each type, doing them on an untimed basis and shooting for understanding and RIGHT answers. Only after you get can 80 - 100% right when doing them untimed should you seek to speed up. Getting wrong answers quickly is useless.

For thousands of categorized quant questions, one place you could go is here. https://bellcurves.com. You can access the quant question bank by going to the GMAT area and setting up a practice account.

There are other similar resources too.

To get great ideas for how to handle types of quant questions, you could search for those types online or on Beat the GMAT. Also, by posting questions you can get responses full of great ideas for getting to their answers.

For some more insight, check out the levels of understanding discussed in this post.

https://magoosh.com/gmat/2013/careless-m ... gmat-math/
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by [email protected] » Wed Apr 13, 2016 4:12 pm
Hi WillNotGiveUp,

To start, if you never scored any higher than a 600 during practice, then this Official Score makes a certain amount of sense. To take this a step further, if your goal is 720+, then why didn't you push back your Test Date so that you could continue to study?

From what you described, it sounds like you were focused on taking lots of CATs and doing practice questions, but it's unclear about the Tactics you learned and how you were approaching the Quant and Verbal sections overall. While a V39 is a fantastic performance in that section, the Q33 means that you probably weren't comfortable with all of the content that is tested in the Quant section, you missed out on LOTS of 'strategy-based' points and you made a variety of little mistakes throughout that section.

Thankfully, the GMAT is a consistent, predictable Exam, so you CAN train to score at a higher level. With a Q46 goal, you'll likely need to invest in some new practice materials and learn/practice some new Tactics.

1) Did you have to rush to finish the Quant section on Test Day? If you did, then how many questions did you have to rush through and 'guess' on because you were low on time? Did you leave any questions unanswered?

2) How many CATs did you take over the 2.5 months of study?

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by WillNotGiveUp » Wed Apr 13, 2016 4:27 pm
Marty Murray,
Thanks for the great tips! Think I need to circle back and master all quant topics.

Rich,
For studying quant, I started off studying each topic - probably in not enough detail. Then I just did problems and reviewed them.

1) I guessed on many questions throughout but finished in time.

2) I took 7 or 8.

I guess my real question is how do I master each quant topic? I have read each book cover to cover and done drills but that's obviously not enough...When I do practice problems, I don't know how to approach most of them to start off with. Am I missing a step here?

My weaknesses in quant are:
Data sufficiency
Properties of Sets
Number Properties
Word problems

I have reviewed material on the latter three many times. Which material would you suggest? I can't seem to find good explanations on data sufficiency.
Anything is possible!

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by WillNotGiveUp » Wed Apr 13, 2016 4:27 pm
Marty Murray,
Thanks for the great tips! Think I need to circle back and master all quant topics.

Rich,
For studying quant, I started off studying each topic - probably in not enough detail. Then I just did problems and reviewed them.

1) I guessed on many questions throughout but finished in time.

2) I took 7 or 8.

I guess my real question is how do I master each quant topic? I have read each book cover to cover and done drills but that's obviously not enough...When I do practice problems, I don't know how to approach most of them to start off with. Am I missing a step here?

My weaknesses in quant are:
Data sufficiency
Properties of Sets
Number Properties
Word problems

I have reviewed material on the latter three many times. Which material would you suggest? I can't seem to find good explanations on data sufficiency.
Anything is possible!

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by MartyMurray » Wed Apr 13, 2016 5:35 pm
WillNotGiveUp wrote:I have reviewed material on the latter three many times. Which material would you suggest? I can't seem to find good explanations on data sufficiency.
Ironically enough, in a way your question summarized why you are having trouble.

I am not saying that you are an explanation junkie, but some people tend to be what I call explanation junkies. Somewhere along the line they get the impression that if they just read enough explanations they will score high on the GMAT.

That's not really right.

While, obviously, reading explanations of how to answer questions can be useful, especially if they describe cool ways to get to answers as many of the explanations on Beat the GMAT do, reading explanations is not usually sufficient for increasing one's score.

What you really need to do in order to score higher is to improve your processes.

What do you do when you first see a question?

What do you do if at first you have no clue how to answer it?

What do you do when a data sufficiency question asks for the value of a variable?

What do you do when faced with a complex word problem?

To score above 700 you need to develop nice effective processes for handling things, and part of what doing that takes is working through quant questions slowly, figuring out how to hack your way to answers.

Develop your processes.

That having been said, if you want to some ideas for how to get to the answers to data sufficiency questions, go through a bunch of data sufficiency threads on Beat the GMAT. Often a DS question gets answered two or three different ways in the same thread.
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by MartyMurray » Wed Apr 13, 2016 10:37 pm
WillNotGiveUp wrote:I guess my real question is how do I master each quant topic? I have read each book cover to cover and done drills but that's obviously not enough.
Scoring high often takes doing simply more than you have done. It becomes a bit of a project, and you can't just rely on some basic explanations and no big deal drills. You have to go beyond that to really understanding how the questions work, and how the math underlying them works.
When I do practice problems, I don't know how to approach most of them to start off with. Am I missing a step here?
For instance, you could learn some strategies for answering rate questions and do some drills, and in doing all that you would learn to get basic rate questions right most of the time, but if a somewhat more complex or twisted rate question shows up, and likely one will as you get into the 700's, then if you haven't totally understood the underlying concepts and looked at them from different angles, you won't, as you said, know how to get to the answer.

So part of what's missing is depth of understanding. Another part may be just spending more time per question pondering how to get to the answer. I mean, for one thing the way to get a high score on the test is to figure out, hack, estimate, do SOMETHING to get to right answers, and the skills used in doing those things are usually best developed via pondering how to get to answers. "What can I do here?"

The truth is that most people, even people who score deep into the 700's don't immediately see how to answer every question. It's what you do when you don't see how at first that makes the difference, and you need to get used to pushing until you do see.

One way to practice that is to make the questions you don't know how to answer into research projects. If you truly don't know how to answer one, rather than giving up on that question and going to the explanation, you could go back to your resources and do some research into what goes into how to answer such a question. Often you can keep working and researching until you get the answer, and in going through that process you develop the depth of understanding that you needed all along to get the answer.

Generally speaking you need to realize that getting to your score goal is going to be a bit of a project, and that there is a reason why only 10% of people score 700 or higher on the GMAT. To get a top score, you have to do some top work.

For some more ideas, check out what I did during my training for the last time I took the test. I may not have needed to do as many questions as I did, but overall the level of intensity described in the post is basically what it takes to score relatively high.

https://www.beatthegmat.com/mba/2015/05/ ... rty-murray
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by [email protected] » Thu Apr 14, 2016 9:59 am
Hi WillNotGiveUp,

From your last post, it sounds like you don't have a standard set of 'steps' that you go through when dealing with Quant questions, so you're not sure how to approach prompts (and your overall 'work' suffers as a result). It's still not clear how comfortable you are with the math content that you'll face on the Quant section, but since you scored so high in the Verbal section I think it's safe to say that you can read, retain information and properly take notes without too much trouble. All of those skills are essential to performing at a high level in the Quant section too.

1) Have you scheduled your next Test Date yet?
2) What is your availability to study over the next few months?

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by WillNotGiveUp » Thu Apr 14, 2016 3:43 pm
[email protected] wrote:Hi WillNotGiveUp,

From your last post, it sounds like you don't have a standard set of 'steps' that you go through when dealing with Quant questions, so you're not sure how to approach prompts (and your overall 'work' suffers as a result). It's still not clear how comfortable you are with the math content that you'll face on the Quant section, but since you scored so high in the Verbal section I think it's safe to say that you can read, retain information and properly take notes without too much trouble. All of those skills are essential to performing at a high level in the Quant section too.

1) Have you scheduled your next Test Date yet?
2) What is your availability to study over the next few months?

GMAT assassins aren't born, they're made,
Rich
1) It's on May 3rd but I plan to reschedule. Do you think this is possible to get down by mid July?
2) I will be working 40-60 hours a week for the next few months.

I think I struggle with translating the word problem into math too. Any tips on that?
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by [email protected] » Sat Apr 23, 2016 3:29 pm
Hi WillNotGiveUp,

Since you've been studying a certain way for several months now, you've likely developed some 'bad habits' that will take time to fix (and replace with new 'good habits'). Combined with your score goal and Official GMAT Score, I think that you'll likely need at least 2 months of consistent, guided study to raise your Quant to the necessary level (and keep your Verbal skills sharp).

When it comes to rescheduling your Exam, remember that you have to do so at least 7 full days in advance of your current appointment (which means you'll have to make your choice sometime in the next couple of days).

Based on everything that you've described, I think that you would find the EMPOWERgmat Quant Score Booster to be quite helpful. Most of our clients complete that Study Plan in under a month (although you shouldn't try to rush through any of the material; we can also talk about how to make the necessary adjustments to help you focus on your particular 'weak areas'), so the time commitment wouldn't be too intense. We have a variety of free resources on our site (www.empowergmat.com), so you can 'test out' the Course before setting up an account.

If you have any additional questions, then you can feel free to contact me directly.

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by eric4867 » Tue Apr 26, 2016 7:35 pm
My baseline was exactly where you are right now, 33/39. Check out target test prep. They are quant specific. I've been doing their program along with the veritas program and my quant is up to a 42 so far and I still have 6 weeks left to go until my test. It sounds like you are putting in the hours, are they quality hours? It's way better to spend 20 minutes on 1 question and understand it rather than do 10 questions and not review. Make sure you strive for quality hours. Also, I find that after 60 minutes my retention drops significantly. Are you taking small breaks? If you cut your study sessions to 60 min, it's easy to do one before work, one at lunch, and 2 in the evening.