How can I reach 700 from a 600 in 3 weeks?

[pathaniaus]

My name is Udai. I am a college student in good academic standing at a liberal arts college in Ohio and I am preparing for the GMAT.
I began my preparation for the test on the 19th of May. I have been working and taking summer classes so the time I have devoted to the gmat has been off and on, but I try to keep consistent and do atleast a couple hours a day.

I have been using all of MGMATs materials (the 8 book package) and I have taken 5 cat exams.

CAT 5: Q35 V36 - 600
CAT 4: Q40 V32 - 590
CAT 3: Q42 V35 - 640
CAT 2: Q40 V26 - 550
CAT 1: Q30: V28 - 490

I have 21 days till my test. I really do not understand why my quantitative score is decreasing. My timing, for quant, is okay, i generally practice with a stopwatch and set to one hour, do as many questions as possible and try to set a goal of 35 questions per hour (so that way I do questions under 2min). My verbal increased by almost 10 points and that's a solid improvement, so I must be doing something right, but how do I tackle the math?

Generally, I tackle one section a day, with 60 questions. I give myself 2 hours (except for SC) to do the 60 questions and after, I review. Reviewing and reading answer explanations is most important to me. Also, in those 2 hours, every question that I thought was difficult, I circle, and do them again during my review so I know how to tackle it. I think I have the right idea, but I do not understand why my scores have been decreasing.

My summer classes are over and so is my internship. I have 21 FREE days to prepare for this test. I am willing to do whatever it takes to get my target score of 720. Given that I have all the time in the world, I have understood from my scores that I MUST have a solid strategy to approach the last 3 weeks of my preparation.

How should I approach this? I have gone through and exhausted all the math guides and have only the OG 11 and 12 and OG 12's supplementary guides to complete. Also, I haven't yet touched the official software offered by mba.com

Your advice will be invaluable to me. I have been told by a couple graduate schools that I will receive a fellowship if I get 690+.

Thank you!!

Udai Pathania

[Stacey Koprince]

Received a PM asking me to respond.

There are a number of reasons why this could be happening. Luckily, there's a lot of data in the test reports that can help you to figure this out.

First, go take a look at the problem lists from the quant section. How does your performance vary over the 37 questions? Are you getting a higher proportion of questions wrong toward the end of the section? Do you have a string of questions wrong in a row anywhere? If so, where, and how long? How's your stamina? How's your timing? (I know you say it's okay, but I talk with students all the time who manage to finish the section on time, but when we look at the data, we can see that they have some questions on which they spend WAY too much time and then they go fast on other questions to make up for it - and they make too many mistakes on the questions on which they're rushing.)

Also, when did you take these practice tests? If you take practice tests within a few days of each other, it's not unusual for the scores on later tests to go down because you're basically just tiring yourself out. Personally, I wouldn't take a practice test more than once a week. (It's also not actually useful to take a test more frequently than that. We don't learn much while taking the test. We learn from the review we do based upon the strengths and weaknesses we uncover when analyzing the test results - and that takes time!)

You may also be pushing yourself a bit too hard during your study sessions. You say that you spend 2 hours doing 60 questions and then review. The general review ratio should be that you spend at least twice as much time reviewing as doing. So if you spend 2 hours doing, your review time should be 4 hours.

But you'd be totally wiped out if you tried to study for 6 hours straight, so a better plan is to do 40 minutes worth of problems and then spend 80 minutes reviewing those problems. That gives you a good 2-hour chunk in which to learn, which is about the limit of most of our brains when trying to learn material well enough for retention and easy retrieval in the future. Then, if you want to study more that day, take a substantial break (at least 1 hour, ideally at least two) and then do another 2 hour study session (with the same ratio as above). If you want to do a 3rd study session in the same day, then make sure you take a very substantial break (at least 3 hours) before the 3rd session.

So, I need to mention that you're looking for a 100+ point improvement in 3 weeks. That's a pretty challenging goal. You may be able to achieve it, but I just want to warn you that most people would not make that kind of leap in 3 weeks. If you have the flexibility, it might be the case that you'll end up having to think about postponing your test - just keep that in mind.

Save the supplement questions for now and go back to your OG and the CATs you've already taken. I'm guessing, based upon what you typed, that you haven't been reviewing the questions in the way that you need to review them, so you're going to have to go back and do that now. Here are the questions you should be asking yourself (and you ask these on EVERY problem, whether you got it right or wrong):

Was I able to CATEGORIZE this question by topic and subtopic? By process / technique?
Did I make a CONNECTION to previous experience? Or did I have to do it all from scratch?
Did I COMPREHEND the symbols, text, questions, statements, and answer choices?
Did I understand the CONTENT being tested?
Did I choose the best APPROACH?
Did I have the SKILLS to follow through?
Am I comfortable with OTHER STRATEGIES that would have worked, at least partially? How should I have made an educated guess?
Do I understand every TRAP & TRICK that the writer built into the question, including wrong answers?
Have I MASTERED this problem? Could I explain every aspect, fully, to someone else?
How will I RECOGNIZE similar problems in the future?

On verbal questions, you can also ask yourself:
- why was the wrong answer so tempting? why did it look like it might be right? (be as explicit as possible)
- why was it actually wrong? what specific words indicate that it is wrong and how did I overlook those clues the first time?
- why did the right answer seem wrong? what made it so tempting to cross off the right answer? why were those things actually okay - what was my error in thinking that they were wrong?
- why was it actually right?

You can still ask yourself those questions on verbal ones that you get right - just pick what you think is the most tempting wrong answer.

[zuleron]

You need to get your Quant to 44 and your Verbal to 40. Follow Stacey's advice and you will be ok. But 44Q and 40V should be your goal.

[pathaniaus]

Stacey and Zuleron,

Thank you so much. Seriously. I took a CAT yesterday and scored a 630. Q47, V29. I think I am the weakest in CR, what is the best way to learn how to to do CR problems? This was my second attempt with the official gmat software. I am a bit confused tho, I got 14 wrong in the quant section, yet I got a 47? And in my Verbal I got 10 wrong. How accurate is that score?

Regardless, Stacey, I think you are completely right, I have been pushing myself too hard for this test. I need to relax, its just a test, and I will do it again and again until I receive the score I need. I am going to try your approach and see what happens.

I have my test in 11 days now, and I know I won't get the score I'd like to. (I know that isn't the best attitude but I don't see myself going up to a 720 in 11 days from a 630).

I will let you guys know. And thank you for your response.

Udai Pathania

[Stacey Koprince]

Nice job on the test! That's exciting.

The scoring is accurate (you took a GMATPrep, right?). One of the things you need to know immediately is that this is how the scoring works: everybody gets a LOT wrong. The test is not scored based upon percentage correct.

Think of this as a tennis match, not a test. You're going to win some points and the other guy is going to win some points; you're not going to win them all, right? Your goal is to put yourself into position to win the LAST point. Translated, that means you have to put yourself in position to answer the last question - you have to have time to address it. Otherwise, you've lost the last point, and by extension the match. When the other guy hits a winner, don't go running after it so fast that you hit the fence and injure yourself, thereby hurting your chances on the later points. (Translation: don't go way over when the problem is too hard.)

Your overall goal is to get those questions right that you can get right within the appropriate per-question timeframe, while recognizing when you're given something that you CANNOT do within that timeframe (whether you would get it right or wrong doesn't matter) and making the best educated guess that you can within the timeframe.

If you get any one question wrong anywhere on the test, even the easiest question the test gives you, that won't (necessarily!) prevent you from getting a 700. If, however, you get a string of questions (4+) wrong in a row, your job just became much harder, and if that string occurs at or towards the end (in other words, if you run out of time), it's unlikely that you'll hit the 700. So, steady performance is the key, not 100% performance.