GMAT Strategy

Received a PM asking me to respond.

First, it looks like you've already made some good progress from your initial attempt, so nice job with that.

When you say you knew you weren't as prepared as you should have been on the 3rd try, can you elaborate? Why did you feel that way? (Lots of specific detail, please!)

In terms of taking it a 4th time... well, you'll either get a higher score or you won't. If you don't, it doesn't change much, and if you do, then the schools will be more willing to overlook the fact that you took it 4 times (it's always better, when taking multiple times, if you can show an upward trajectory).

You don't mention what you'd like to score on the test, though I assume you want more than a 620. How much higher are you trying to go? There's a difference (in terms of advice to give) depending upon whether you're trying to get to the 650 you scored on practice tests right before the real test or whether you're trying to score significantly higher than that.

In general, looking at the dates of your tests, it looks like you may be kind of up-and-down in terms of how you're studying. You took three tests in May (the last two very close together) and then didn't take another test for almost 2 months. Is it the case that you've been finding it hard to get motivated at times? Slow-and-steady study is really important for this test. It's much better to wait until you have 2 to 3 steady months that you can devote (and then find a way to motivate yourself) than to do things in little spurts.

Your quant score looks a bit more stable (42 to 46 range) on your recent tests than your verbal (29 to 38 range). First, was the 38 an outlier? Did you see a lot of questions you'd see before or something like that?

Second, did you take the essays when you took your practice tests? If not, you may not have been fully prepared for the stamina issue. (Especially because you took a practice test 4 days before the real thing and 3 days before that - so you tired yourself out right before the real thing. I tell my students not to take a practice test within 5 days of the real thing and not to take practice tests more frequently than once a week.)

Anywy, so fatigue may have been an issue as well. What do you think - how did you feel during the test?

Oh, and what did you get on the essays - do you know yet?

I do not write essays on my practices as I feel they are a waste of time.

So, this would be equivalent to training for a marathon by building up the stamina to run only the first two-thirds of it. What do you think is going to happen during that last one-third? Are you going to do as well as you've done for the first 2/3?

It is absolutely NOT a waste of time to do the essays on your practice tests. You have to be prepared for a 3.5 hour test, not a 2.5 hour test. You may have felt fine, but I guarantee you that you weren't as "on top of your game" for the verbal section as you normally were (when you weren't doing the essays first). If you want to make sure you're fully prepared next time, this is one thing to change.

Have you already done a Post-Exam Assessment with MGMAT? Students who took our courses are eligible for this (free) service. If you haven't done that yet, contact the office ([email protected]) and request a Post-Exam Assessment. It's a free phone call with an instructor to debrief from your test experience and figure out a game plan for moving forward.

You did have a good instinct about your preparedness; if you want a 700, you need to be scoring in that range on practice tests in order to have a reasonable shot when you go in to take the real thing. Remember that for next time - sometimes, it's worth losing $250.

Were you also concentrating a lot more on verbal than math? That might account for the dip on the quant side of things; it's important to keep up your skills across the board.

So, we've got some ideas as to why your score took a bit of a dip; it will be important to deal with those things so that something similar doesn't occur next time. Now, we've also got to deal with the difference between your practice test range (mid-600s) and your goal score (700); it will take some more work to try to lift yourself that last 50 points.

For each specific question type, are you struggling with content, technique, timing, or all of the above?

If content, what specifically is giving you the most trouble? (eg, in SC, modifiers and verbs) Include in this category the different types of questions for CR and RC (eg, find an assumption vs. weaken or inference vs. main idea).

On what types of questions or content areas are you struggling with technique or timing? (Technique is knowing how to identify / categorize a particular type of question and knowing what you're expected to do / answer as you move through the problem.)

Also give me any other detail you have noticed about your own strengths and weaknesses and the kinds of errors that you tend to make repeatedly.