retake gmat

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retake gmat

by sarat0994 » Sat Nov 10, 2018 9:48 pm
hello all,

i have started prep in september and gave my exam on november third i was aiming at 600 but i ended up with 400 in the final exam

i am not adept either in quant or verbal.

i have given gmac official mocks.
1) 540 V28 Q36
2) 550 V30 Q36
3) 510 V26 Q35
4) 500 V28 Q31
5) 440 V20 Q31
6) 380 V21 Q20

i have given the last two exams in the last week i couldn't push back my exam and last scores demotivated me before exam .i am planning a retake in jan and any advice would regarding coaching institutes, online tutorial and prep strategies would help.

Thank you
P.S:i haven't taken any coaching just used gmat club questions and og material.

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by [email protected] » Sun Nov 11, 2018 11:36 am
Hi sarat0994,

I'm sorry to hear that Test Day did not go as well as hoped. The 'swings' in your practice CAT/mock Scores imply that you might have taken those Exams in an inconsistent fashion - and in ways that did not necessarily 'match up' with what you faced on Test Day. Before we discuss any of those details - and how you might proceed with your studies - it would help if you could provide a bit more information on how you've been studying and your goals:

Studies:
1) How many weeks have you studied? How many hours were you studying each week?
2) What study materials have you used so far? Were you following a particular study plan?
3) Did you take the FULL practice CAT each time (including the Essay and IR sections)?

Goals:
4) What is your goal score?
5) When are you planning to apply to Business School?
6) What Schools are you planning to apply to?

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by sarat0994 » Sun Nov 11, 2018 8:37 pm
Hi Rich,

1) started serious prep around mid september spent 6 to 8 hrs and in the month of october approx 10 to 12 hrs , a total of 7 weeks of prep ,before that i was familiarising with gmat content,i have spent time of 2 to 3 hrs thrice a week basis.

2) Used GMAT 8 official week plan,used magoosh for lessons and questions and initial mock tests i have scoring 350 to 400 in magoosh mocks in september,by end of september stopped using magoosh as the questions were exhausted,started using OG , and questions from beat the gmat and gmat club.

3) I haven't taken IR and AWA sections until the last mock, got an IR score of 3 in the last one,except the first one, i took all the exams at once,with section breaks in between

a) observed pattern in math: i have a difficulty of managing time,end up misreading the questions or would do silly, mistakes found myself with forgetting methods to solve problem would get 15 to 17 questions right.

b) observed pattern in verbal: would get 18 to 20 right, i face often face issues with time,missing the last question ,i would always mark the last 5 questions randomly almost every time,my score in would drop down whenever i get RC's at one shot (3rd mock &5th mock) ,found that there's a drastic difference in score when i got the first RC wrong and rest correct in the last mock. i CR get 50 % right , SC 70%


4) My goal score is 600 +
5) I am planning to apply for fall 2019. (i didn't start applications for any of them,however i have checked deadline of respective universities)
6) beedie,ryerson,haskayne,alberta and Asper school of business are the schools i would like to apply.

i have 3.5 years of experience in operations,with 76% in undergrad(B.B.A hons.),72 % in 12 and 74 % in 10th. i am planning to quit my job spent more full time on Gmat preparation in december and january.

Thanks

Sarat

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by [email protected] » Mon Nov 12, 2018 11:02 am
Hi sarat0994,

From what you have described, it sounds as if you worked through lots of practice questions, but it's not clear whether you were actually practicing Tactics and training to take advantage of all of the built-in patterns that GMAT question-writers put into the Exam or not. Raising a 400 to a 600+ will likely require at least another 2-3 months of consistent, guided study - and you'll have to make significant improvements to how you handle BOTH the Quant and Verbal sections. Thankfully, the GMAT is a consistent, predictable Exam, so you CAN train to score at a higher level.

While I do NOT think that you would have to leave your job for this next phase of your studies, it would help to be more specific about your overall timeline (so that we could better plan out how best to proceed):

1) What are the exact application deadlines for the Programs that you plan to apply to?
2) Going forward, how many hours do you think you can consistently study each week?

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by sarat0994 » Mon Nov 12, 2018 10:23 pm
Hi Rich,

1) The universities which i have planned have deadlines varying from feb 25 to may 1 (ryerson 25th feb ,haskayne 1st march, beedie 22nd march, alberta april 15th and asper 1st.may (i have been informed by respective university reps to apply atleast 3 weeks prior to deadline taking processing time into consideration ,which leaves with jan end the best time for a retake). besides i have to give IELTS as well (which i will try finishing off as soon as possible)

2) i can spend 12 hrs a day.

P.S.:i have problems in replicating the mathematical concepts i have learnt, sometimes i get hard problems correct sometimes even the easiest ones wrong, it depends on the topic , and sometimes i spend too much on one topic and after revisiting the topic after a week or 10 days i end up forgetting the procedure for some problems. i guess i have failed to prioritise quant chapters properly, i have spent time of different kind of word problems but i did find any of them in the exam. for me each time majority of the problems seem new when i practise and therefore i find myself solving problems correct which resemble the previous ones, anything other than that i end up getting it wrong.

i have spent too much time on quant and reduced prep on verbal spending 4-5 every 3 days.

i think this is my last chance for fall 2019, i can't take any chances this time (580 plus would work)

Thanks,

Sarat.

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by [email protected] » Wed Nov 14, 2018 8:34 pm
Hi Sarat,

Studying 12 hours a day would probably be too much studying - and would likely lead to an increased chance of 'burning out' before your Exam (and that is something that we want to avoid). If you want to study 6-8 hours a day, then that would probably be fine - but you must build in several 'breaks' throughout the day so that you do not tire out and your study time is focused and effective.

Raising this 400 to a 600+ will take a lot of work, but the good news is that you do NOT need to correctly answer any GMAT questions that you think are too hard or too weird to hit your Goal Score. You do have to keep the silly/little mistakes to a minimum though.

Given your timeframe and the other details that you have described, you would likely find it beneficial to invest in a GMAT Course of some type (either Guided Self-Study or instructor-led) that would provide you the proper structure and focus on teaching you all of the content, Tactics and little 'secrets' to the Exam. Most GMAT Companies offer some type of free materials (practice problems, Trial Accounts, videos, etc.) that you can use to 'test out' a product before you buy it. We have a variety of those resources at out site (www.empowergmat.com). I suggest that you take advantage of all of them then choose the one that best matches your personality, timeline and budget.

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

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by Scott@TargetTestPrep » Wed Nov 28, 2018 6:58 pm
Hi sarat0994,

I'm glad you reached out, and I'm happy to help. The first thing that jumps out at me is that although your score goal is 600+, your practice test scores ranged from 380 to 540, so it's clear that you were taking practice exams before you were ready to do so, right?

GMAT practice tests best serve two main purposes. The first purpose is to provide diagnostic information. In other words, by taking a practice test, you can get a sense of what types of GMAT questions you're comfortable answering and arrive at a reasonable estimation of how you would score on the GMAT at that point in time. The second purpose is, naturally, to provide a way to practice taking the GMAT and handling its various challenges, such as time pressure and the varying difficulty of the questions presented. People often misuse practice tests as primary learning tools. You may have seen posts that go something like the following: A person with a score goal of 740 has been preparing for six weeks, has already taken all six of the official practice tests, and is wondering why her scores have been 600, 590, 570, 610, 600, and 560. In such a case, the person likely has been using practice tests as primary learning tools, meaning that taking practice tests has been much of, or possibly most of, what she has been doing to drive up her score.

Can practice tests be used as valuable tools for learning and continued score improvement? Yes, of course, if they are used properly and at optimal times in your preparation. However, practice tests should not be used as primary learning vehicles, because practice tests 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 taking the GMAT (or a practice test). The two minutes per question can fly by, and if you want to finish sections of the test on time, in many cases, regardless of whether you have figured out how to answer a question, you may have to just 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, practice tests are not a great way to practice getting right answers to various types of questions. To effectively prepare for the GMAT, you have to practice answering questions of each type without the time constraints of the test, and work up to a point at which you can answer questions of each type in around two minutes. Thus, there is very limited utility in taking practice tests before you have done substantial preparation. When you take multiple practice tests early in your prep, the tests simply underscore exactly what you already know: You need to learn more content and develop more skills to hit your score goal. Why spend three hours taking a practice test just to learn what you already know, wasting a valuable learning tool in the process?

Of course, you can benefit from taking one diagnostic practice test early in your preparation. Furthermore, once you've 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 that require further study. I say "to some degree" because although practice tests provide a pretty good approximation of how a person would score on the GMAT at a particular point in time, because the sample size of questions on any practice test is rather small (31 quant questions and 36 verbal questions), practice tests don't do a very good job of pinpointing specific areas of weakness. For example, let's assume that of the 31 quant questions on a given practice test, you encounter one Rate-Time-Distance question and get it 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? Are you good to go on those questions? Maybe. But maybe not. In fact, let's assume that you took six practice tests, 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 the test. So, correctly answering five or six (or ten) Rate-Time-Distance questions doesn't really tell you too much. You must take care not to over-infer based on practice tests alone.

Since you scored 400 on your actual GMAT, it's clear you lack the GMAT quant and verbal fundamentals necessary for a high score, right? Since your previous study plan seemed to be centered on doing practice questions, I'm not surprised that you were unable to improve your GMAT score to a higher level. Moving forward, you need to follow a linear study plan that allows you to slowly build mastery of one GMAT topic prior to moving on to the next. Within each quant and verbal topic, begin with the foundations and progress toward more advanced concepts. This process will take some time, but if you follow my advice, I'm confident that your GMAT score can improve. You may consider using a GMAT self-study course to study in this way and stay on track, so check out the Beat the GMAT reviews for the best self-study courses. You also may find it helpful to read the following article about
developing the proper mindset for GMAT success .

If you'd like more specific advice on how to improve your quant and verbal skills, feel free to reach back out, and I can provide some further advice.

Good luck!

Scott Woodbury-Stewart
Founder and CEO
[email protected]

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by scienceguy » Tue Jan 15, 2019 10:06 am
Hi Sarat - I've found this article really helpful when finding motivation to study for GMAT, lots of helpful ways to get started, hold yourself accountable, and keep going: https://examstudyexpert.com/study-motivation-tips/

Good luck <i class="em em-wink"></i>