620 to 700 GMAT - with 80/80 split

[motteboss]

Hi all,

This is not for all, but for a select few who felt they had genuinely under-perfomed in their first attempt at GMAT. 700 is a pedestrian attempt for most.

I just gave my GMAT today. I got a 700 (37V 48Q). I know its not exactly earth shattering, but I was aiming for a 80/80 split and have just achieved it! I was unfortunate in missing a quants question by making a wrong choice at the very end and ended up over utilizing my break lamenting on the loss of 1 question! So I ended up losing two minutes in my Verbal test even before I had started.

I was heartbroken when I scored a 620 in my previous attempt despite scoring well in my mocks.

Will break down my prep.

First Attempt : NOV 2008
Score: 620
Splits: Dont bother. But skewed towards quant.
Effect: Disastrous.
Prep time: 12 days. Yes 12 days. I was working my pants off and all I could eke out with my boss was a miserable weeks leave. The week before that I managed to push some workload on my colleagues and managed a few hours of prep everyday. The first 5 days, I had a look at the OG and finished it on the 7th day. Then I started giving some mocks 800 GMAT, Manhattan and the like for the next 4 days. I was clocking in two mocks per day without the mocks adding any value to my score. I ended up with a 620, which was my worst performance comparing all my mocks.

I learnt my lesson and my limitations. And stayed away from GMAT for a year.

Lessons learnt:
- You need at least 4 weeks of solid prep for a decent score.
- Constant practise will help.
- Mindlessly doing mocks will not help.
- Awareness built on excellent resources like beatthegmat (and Sahils notes!)
- Sentence correction can kill you. But it has a set of rules which you can polish and vastly improve your skills.

Second attempt: Aug 2, 2010
Prep goal: 800! (realistically anything above the mystical 80/80 split)
Score: 700 (48 Q, 37 V with 82%/80% split)
Prep time: a month on Grockit(which is recommended!) averaging about 2-3 hours per week just to keep in touch with the GMAT pattern + 25 days of proper prep with below material.

Prep material:
1) Maths:
Text books + OG + beatthegmat forums for probability/statistics and rate problems.
For brushing up basics.
https://www.mathcentre.ac.uk/
Solid resource for all basic math prep. Will attach the files.

2) SC:
Manhattan GMAT.
Sahils notes. (towards the very end. A mistake. Do use it in advance)

3) CR:
CR bible helped. But I used the BTG forums for excellent questions and explanations (GMATGuruNY is a particular favourite for his clear explanations both in Math and Verbal. No love lost with the rest of you I hope!)

4) RC:
Ignored it. Realised that working hard on CR helps you build some decent RC solving capabilities. Moreover, I believe that reading skills cannot be improved in weeks. Just let it be.

Online resources:
www.grockit.com - Good for building up some basic practise. Necessary if you find GMAT prep ardous rather than interesting. Worth the money spent.

https://www.manhattangmat.com/ - Good set of mock tests. Question banks are expensive and not really worth the money IMHO. Money well spent.

My profile: (Did not want to bore y'all with unnecessary details earlier!)
26/M
Mech Engineer - NIT Nagpur, India
Co - curriculars - Some
Sports - Some
5 years workex in International logistics, Supply chain Management and port management.

And yes. I will not retake the test. Do not see any value in it.

Cheers.

[kvcpk]

Congratulations on a very good score!!

[indiantiger]

Great jump in score

[selango]

Dude 700 is awesome score...Congrats..

[siddaggarwal]

You are my inspiration man; I scored a 620 in late July just now and I am wanting a score in the high 600s close to from 670-690....Thanks for the words

[motteboss]

Hello All,

Kvpck, Indian tiger and Selango: Thanks!

Siddaggarwal, I am glad to be of any assistance. Some thoughts,

- 620 to 700 is very much possible. I can go further and say that even 620-750 is also equally possible. The key thing is to give yourself time. I realised my limitations early on. I felt that I needed a month at least to get a good score.
- I worked just on verbal for 80% of my prep. It had brought me down earlier. I am a believer that a good split helps rather than having a 720-730 with a skewed split. Yes, my quant score (hence my overall score) was affected due to lesser focus, but my verbal score improved to a great extent.


Some prep gyaan that helped:
1) Probability and Statistics: I found the following resources very very helpful.
- 'Cartoon guide to statistics': I could not recall the means,modes and SD clearly. I needed to brush up my foundations. This book more than helped. It also has a neat chapter on probability. And its a fun read. It was recommended by an instructor on Gockit
- BTG forums: Over a week, I compiled a roll of the best explanations for various varieties of

Permutation and Combination problems. I saw that patterns emerged in various P & C problems, and I could solve any problem basis the dozen problems I had saved and studied.

2) Alligation, rate poblems, number theory,inequalities : I used CAT(Common Admission Test) material. Totally useful, because the shortcuts explained can be a time saver.

3) Critical reasoning: I started prepping with CR Bible for a brief period.

4) SC: Manhattan SC guide. A necessity. Sahils notes and Spideys notes (used it at the very end.). Stayed away from 1000 SC and 1000 CR because of the lack of explanations and typos.

5) Quality Practice: Practice is good but I preferred quality to quantity because of time constraints. Used Grockit as explanations are good.

6) Tests: Did not over do it. Completely skipped Kaplan tests this time as they gave me a whole range of scores from 660 - 750 the last time I used them! Used Manhattan tests (you can purchase a set of 6 tests). I felt that the Manhattan tests had significant improvements in the verbal section and quant was quality stuff as usual.

7) Last stretch: I used another book called Kaplan GMAT 800. Recommend to wrap up your prep with this.

Cheers.

[DreamYogi]

Was Grockit useful for both Quant and Verbal practice?

[motteboss]

HI Dream Yogi,

Yes Grockit was useful for both Quant and Verbal.
Explanations were good for quant and verbal.

Cheers.

[hemanthp]

Saw the interesting article. My experience:

My first attempt was in July and I scored 680. (49Q and 34V). I was shattered but the score was pretty close to what ETS, GMAC Prep and Manhattan scores that I got. So my quick advice is if you are not aiming above what your scores in these mocks (esp. the ones that I mentioned) then postpone your test and really step back and take a good look at where you are losing marks. Hoping very strongly or reading blogs from someone who says he/she got 650 in these mocks but ended up with 720+ is encouraging but not realistic.

In my score I know where I did a mistake. I calculated 6C3 to be 10 instead of 20. I missed this and had I got this one I might have gotten 700 and I wouldn't cared to write again. I have taken up the date on the 26th and will gauge where I stand and take a call.

The first time around, I took Mocks, as someone said "Mindlessly", this is not going to help. You need to know you will get a score and get it. If that is not happening then you have to sit down and carefully look at whats going wrong. I think I didn't do that. If I got a low score, I moved on thinking I will get better in the next one.

My second time I am preparing with focus. I feel that I can only get so much better in SCs and am sure I cannot master the rules of Grammar except the basic ones. So I mastered the SC basics (ManG SC guide) and Kaplan premier and am doing a ton of practice. I think the 2 things that is really in our hands is CR and RC. I am giving a lot of focus on CR (did OG, kaplan 800, kaplan premier and 1000CR) and I feel my accuracy is improving. For RC, I am reading a variety of articles on the net on abstract topics. Some of these are ridiculous but helpful. I go through the newspapers editorials esp. the ones written by foreigners.

I am doing the 1000 series. I agree there are typos and stuff but using forums like PagalGuy and BTG and grockit, you can learn a good deal about a few things.

Oh, 1 bigggg thing i realized the first time around is when you are taking a mock, make sure you spend an hour on AWA. I thought this is not going to be a big strain on my mind but trust me it is. I did get a 6 but I was half exhausted by the end of the first hour.

I hope I do well the second time around. All the best to everyone else. If anyone has any advice for me, please feel free.

Thanks.
Hemanth

[motteboss]

HI Hemanth,

In my case, I had little time. So I was looking for quantity over quantity. Practise is always good.
I see that you have a great AWA score and 680 is pretty good.

I do agree with most of your points. One part I agree with you the most is timing. Rushing to get over with the exam is not a great idea. Good luck for your prep.

A 3 month prep window would be ideal.
1 month for building up quant,1 month for building up verbal funda,1 month for fine tuning what you have learnt and optimising.

I saw one point about you getting tired after an hour. I took feedback from some people who truly killed the GMAT. I summarise the points as follows.. you must have heard this many times before, but I should reiterate!
- Exercise helps. A lot. Build up a routine a month before your exams at least.
- Splashing your face with plenty of cold water helps a lot between Quants and Verbal. Read somewhere that cold water floods your brain with blood or something. Worked for me.
- Fruit juices at breaks worked for me. Red bull like that always made me more nervous for some odd reason!

Cheers

[anants13]

Prep material:
1) Maths:
Text books + OG + beatthegmat forums for probability/statistics and rate problems.
For brushing up basics.
https://www.mathcentre.ac.uk/
Solid resource for all basic math prep. Will attach the files.

Can you please attach the files for math prep from the mathcenter website....

Thanks

[motteboss]

HI Anant,

I have posted the files in the post at the beginning of the thread.

Login and download. If you still got problems, pm me.

Thanks.

[anirudhsaraf7]

Hi MotteBoss Many Congratulations on a good score

"BTG forums: Over a week, I compiled a roll of the best explanations for various varieties of

Permutation and Combination problems. I saw that patterns emerged in various P & C problems, and I could solve any problem basis the dozen problems I had saved and studied"

Can you just provide these questions which you have collected from BTG?

It will be of great help..

[motteboss]

Hi Anirudh,

I am not sure if I still have it, but will look around and post it.

Thanks.
Mithun

[motteboss]

There you go.

I found two of the files for CR and Probability. The probability list contains explanations for the most common question types and it certainly helped me out..

Afraid, I have lost the other lists..

Good luck!