Preparation for IR

[freespirit]

How much time should be given to IR preparation? I have given GMAT once and did not prepare for IR much. I got a 4. Is that a decent score? I am giving my GMAT again in few days and I am wondering that Is giving practice tests with IR section sufficient for the preparation. Please help me with this.

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Hi freespirit,

The national average for the IR section is right around a 4.3, so your score is fine. The good news is that just about every Business School who has spoken on the subject considers IR to be a NON-FACTOR in the application process. The data collected on this section doesn't consistently correlate with scores in other sections, so Business Schools haven't found a way to use that data to gauge applicants. The short answer is that it IR doesn't matter in the short term, so you shouldn't spend too much time or energy trying to improve. This might change going into the future, but it likely won't be for at least several years.

GMAT assassins aren't born, they're made,
Rich

[vomhorizon]

I scored a 680 (Q43, V41) IR 3 in my first attempt back in feb.. I am going to be writing the GMAT again in a few weeks. So far i have not started preparing for the IR. The plan i have is to watch all the videos from manhattan GMAT: https://www.manhattangmat.com/ir.cfm and use the free qustions from the OG, and the Question pack 1 for practice. I have already practiced with the resources mentioned, but do not remember much so it should be fairly new for me. This should take around 4-5 days total. I am not planning to do anything else. I'm aiming for a 5...I cannot afford to spend more time preparing for IR, as i am way too busy and wish to apply to a few R1's, so have to work on my applications as well. If you score around a 5 you should be ok, quite a large number of your fellow applicants would have taken the gmat w/o IR so the colleges should not hold an average score against you.

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Hi vomhorizon,

Your plan sounds fine (as long as you're not burning yourself out learning material that has no bearing on your application). IR questions are mostly about pattern recognition and basic note-taking. You also have to be prepared to dump a question or two when things become too complex or difficult. 1 more correct or incorrect IR question won't make much of a difference to your overall IR score and if you're wasting too much time answering one prompt, then the stress will start to pile on. The danger here is that said stress will carry over into the Quant Section (and this section matters a LOT). Stay calm, make good decisions and don't get bogged down and the IR section should go fine (just know going into it that you're NOT going to "ace" that section).

GMAT assassins aren't born, they're made,
Rich