I concede defeat..600(38Q,34V) after 9 months of preparation

[tnaim]

I don't know where to start from. I certainly haven't envisioned myself putting up a post on this forum about such pathetic score; The truth of the matter, however, is that the 600 up there is my score. I'll explain why it is hard for me to "digest" what happened today.
Background: Honours graduate with a Bachelor's of Commerce with a very good academic record. I know that does not mean much in GMAT land but I thought that I at least possessed the desire to excel and worked really hard to do so.

I have decided to take the GMAT back in March 2010. At that time, I knew very little to nothing about this test. I did my first diagnostic test back in March -- without any preparation -- and scored 530.
right there and then, I knew that "stakes are high" and that I needed to be methodical with my preparation plans because my goal, a goal that has not been achieved, was to score in the 700 range.

I did some online research, and put together a plan centered on the official guides of the GMAC. I was finding little help from the explanations offered on the official guides and that's what prompted me to search the answers online. It was at that time that I found out about beatthegmat and mgmat -- my two favorite resources.

I went through the official guides for the first time and did 5 practice MGMAT test. My score at those tests ranged between 520-620. But that was back in May and June and at that point I decided that I needed a major shift in strategy.

I decided to continue to troll the online prep resources, paying extra attention to such experts' posts as Ron's, Stacey's, Ian's and Many others. I also went through the official guides for the SECOND TIME. Not only did I do that, but I also bought the MGMAT strategy guides. Of course, my strategy in analyzing how I was doing on the questions that I attempted evolved to include analyzing both questions that I got right and the ones that I got wrong with the same level of attention.

I tried the second GMATPrep practice test back in July and scored 650 -- after I went through official guides for the second time but before I started working heavily on GMAT Strategy guides.

Unhappy about the score, I shifted focus to the MGMAT strategy guides and I could then feel the difference. My math and verbal abilities really improved. During that period, I refrained from taking any tests for about 4 months. When I took my 6th MGMAT in October, I scored 650. Though unhappy, I thought that my efforts were partially paying off.

I had a log of takeaways in which I maintained the lessons learned from each problem -- in terms of concepts learned, type of mistake made, or even sometimes turning questions into rules -- eg: x^2 - x is divisible by 6.

Before I took any exam, I went through the log to make sure I understand what I did wrong and why I did it.
Then, I registered another book of the MGMAT to get access to 6 new adaptive tests. The scores were as follows:
18/november 750
28/november 690
5/ dec 720
12 Dec 730
I also took two power prep exams and the scores were 710 and 720
I must say that though these exams were retakes, they had very few of the question in common with the tests I took earlier. This is evidenced by the fact that the questions that I had on later tests were of a higher level than the ones that I saw earlier.

My ability to control time was even getting better. My confidence level was improving. I really thought I was in control of the game and was thinking that I will teach the GMAT a lesson.

Exam day:
reviewed a few concepts that I noted in my log and was feeling ready and up for the challenge overall. sometimes, I even felt excited that this whole thing is going to end soon. I was also so happy that I have learned so much from this GMAT experience -- time management, verbal skills, decision making, critical thinking, and reading comprehension. I thought that these skills can be applied in real life outside of GMAT and MBA domains.
I admit that I could not sleep well that night. there was a bit of anxiety every now and then but it was very normal and similar to the anxiety that I would experience before an exam during my undergrad studies.
on the way to the testing centre, I was feeling very optimistic.
Then the exam time comes. I think at that time that I somehow disconnected from my feelings. I started the exam and as I was filling in the school names, I noticed that the clock showed 4 mins remaining, I could not believe my eyes so I scrambled straight through the AWA only to realize that the clock was reset to 30 mins then and that the 4 mins note that was displayed before was just time allocated to choose schools and all that.
I did a decent job on my essays.
The math section: I thought that I was not really seeing a lot of difficult questions but I was keeping a positive time position overall -- had 2 mins for the last section. Having said that, I remember two things:
1) I had to give up on some questions half way through to guess -- but I figured that as Chris Ryan, MGMAT instructor, said "even ppl who get very high scores on the gmat, end up getting a substantial proportion of questions wrong. be ready to cut bait and walk away"
2) I sometimes did not have time to verify the answer I chose, but again I was maintaining a good time position and that was alleviating the pressure off me.

The math section finished with your typical question of a sales associate who works on commission and salary and asks to calculate how much sales were made. I could not calculate that question on time even though I had full 2 minutes. but anyhow, I thought I did not do worse than what I have been doing on later practice exams.

Then came the verbal test, which started off very well, or at least so I think. I can feel the questions progressing in difficulty until I got a long RC passage with 5 questions from what I remember. that passage completely threw me off track, but I tried to get back on track by focusing on the CR and SC questions that came after it. then, another short, but very difficult, RC passage showed up and looking at my score, I'm pretty confident that both have weighed my performance down.
I also started having a problem maintaining my focus on the test for some reason. that lasted for about 5 minutes.
The SC that came after the second RC disaster were not as challenging and I started running out of time so I had to guess on 2 CR questions.

The exam finished and then I saw the score. For a second I can feel that I was out of this world for a minute. I could not even comprehend what the proctor was telling me afterwords. I was just in complete shock and devastation. "600" I was thinking to myself??"I might as well have shown up with only or only two months of preparation"
the pity is I don't know what went wrong but I hope I find out. I have really lost confidence in my ability to make sound decisions.
That's all I have to share for now.

[celestia007]

Don't despair! I know what you went through because I went through a similar experience:

I prepared for 5 months only to get a 520 on my first attempt (Q 32, V 29)... then,
I prepared for another 5 more months after this exam, only to score even worse... 490 ! (Q29, V28). I
I decided to take it 1 last time, and this time prepared for 2.5 months and I'm happy to say - although modest - I am happy with my score of 630 (Q41, V35)!

Lessons I learned along the way:

• 1) Have faith and confidence in yourself and your abilities. Confidence is key when you take that exam.
  2) Study consistently for a short period of time (eg 3 months), instead of a little here and there for 6 months - a focused attempt makes a huge difference in your score.

I've detailed my journey in a blog that I started on the day that I flunked my 2nd attempt, up until the day I took my 3rd attempt. Hope you learn some lessons from it too. Good luck!

[Night reader]

hello tnaim,

Now, I am in thinking that your GMAT preparation took 9 months overall and your post-test attitude to your own test-taking abilities came to be down. I think majority of the BTG experts would show you a tutorship window now...

But wait, one minor issue has been left -

I did my first diagnostic test back in March -- without any preparation -- and scored 530.
...
I went through the official guides for the first time and did 5 practice MGMAT test. My score at those tests ranged between 520-620. But that was back in May and June and at that point I decided that I needed a major shift in strategy.
...
I decided to continue to troll the online prep resources, paying extra attention to such experts' posts as Ron's, Stacey's, Ian's and Many others. I also went through the official guides for the SECOND TIME.
...
I tried the second GMATPrep practice test back in July and scored 650 -- after I went through official guides for the second time but before I started working heavily on GMAT Strategy guides.

Unhappy about the score, I shifted focus to the MGMAT strategy guides and I could then feel the difference. My math and verbal abilities really improved. During that period, I refrained from taking any tests for about 4 months. When I took my 6th MGMAT in October, I scored 650. Though unhappy, I thought that my efforts were partially paying off.

...

You are correct about BTG, as this is indeed the great resource! What I am reading through your preparation way is that you had opted to focus on OGs as your main learning domain and drilled into MGMAT materials. That's fine - OG materials are good up to raising your score to 45 only, and exception here is if you are a quant guy- OG is just a measure pillar- you could score 45+. MGMAT is also offering great materials for GMAT preparation, but again your focus must be on not relearning what you have learned. You would need to be able to assess what areas in quant specifically you are weak and what are your strengths. For example your strength is geometry, and it can be proven with high accuracy rate in your problem solving output; there comes data sufficiency geometry question - your score goes down... Or number properties, which you are comfortable with - some offer the data blocks to prevent your gathering information for the quick and effective solution of all number property problems... You have learned probability, combination and permutation topics and practiced with their content, yet to be able to see these topic problems, one needs to break at least 77% scaled score throughout the test going on.

Now my practical advice to you. Get your marker, pen or whatever you write down with and grab some note pad. Turn on PC and reload GMAT Prep. You think you can crack the test without breaking the quant's? Try doing the first 6 questions back-to-back correctly, focus on accuracy rather on time (only for this case). If you feel the questions after 6 and 7 are still easy, that's OK; it's only CAT algorithm doing well on its imitation job.

morale
We can think that we are great, and we can easily solve for the GMAT parts. When it comes to the real thing we are dangling between some subjective attitudes - luck, GMAC's fault, test center resembles an old sunken sib-marine

Try analyzing each and every mistake in GMAT Prep after the question 6, 7, 8, wherever in the test you start making mistakes. Then ponder the nature of mistakes made - whether you have weakness in the related topic, inability to link the information proceeding from the problem, data sufficiency weakness related to your decision making approach...

Give yourself 1.5 month of analyzing all your mistakes in math practicing with CATs and then take the exam again. I am sure you will improve your score to at least 680. You seem ready for the verbal part of GMAT and need culminating practice and improvement in the quant's. Look, how much time you have already spent studying GMAT. Your concepts must be clear by now. Be patient and score up to the percentile of your real abilities. You are no way defeat.

[ershovici]

Of course 600 is not too promising on GMAT especially if you want to get into one of the top 10 schools, but:
- you always can take GMAT one more time
- I have the same score 600 (M 47, V 28) and I got into GWU that is not top 10 in the US, but is 4 place in international business worldwide (according to FT 2010 rating).

What I mean is that you should interpret your result depending on the goal you have and remember that top 10 schools are not top 10 in every concentration - so look at what are you looking to get from your MBA

[lunarpower]

well -- maybe you should just let it cool down for a couple of weeks, and then consider a third administration. (from my reading, i gather that you've only taken the test twice -- remember that a set of 3 administrations will not be judged negatively by anyone). the test does have a rather large standard deviation, so it's always possible that you just "got all the lights red" on this particular administration.

you may even want to give it one more shot with minimal studying -- the time off will be good for you.
see here:
https://www.beatthegmat.com/620-660-what ... tml#320149

you haven't detailed things like the # of hours/days you've spent studying, but, if you're much like others on this forum, it's probably too many hours, too many days.
time off is part of your "studying", too, for the reasons outlined in that link.

I don't know where to start from. I certainly haven't envisioned myself putting up a post on this forum about such pathetic score; The truth of the matter, however, is that the 600 up there is my score. I'll explain why it is hard for me to "digest" what happened today.
Background: Honours graduate with a Bachelor's of Commerce with a very good academic record. I know that does not mean much in GMAT land but I thought that I at least possessed the desire to excel and worked really hard to do so.

speaking of "meaning much in GMAT land", have you given much thought to why you are following the path that you're currently following?

i mean, we're all focused on the gmat here, since this is ... beat the gmat, after all.
however, one thing that i've noticed in my interactions with a large number of gmat takers who really, really, really want super-high scores -- both online and in person -- is this: there are lots, and lots, and lots, of people who want to go to a 1st tier business school, but don't really have any idea why they want to go there.

one of the other posters on this thread has stated this, too, -- depending on your aspirations, there may well be other programs outside the traditional "1st tier" that suit your needs even better than the 1st tier schools would.

--

here's the one thing that sticks out to me the most (see red highlights):

The math section: I thought that I was not really seeing a lot of difficult questions but I was keeping a positive time position overall -- had 2 mins for the last section.
Then came the verbal test, which started off very well, or at least so I think. I can feel the questions progressing in difficulty until I got a long RC passage with 5 questions from what I remember. that passage completely threw me off track, but I tried to get back on track by focusing on the CR and SC questions that came after it. then, another short, but very difficult, RC passage showed up and looking at my score, I'm pretty confident that both have weighed my performance down.

if you read the red parts, you'll notice the following:

* you are thinking about "difficulty level", A LOT, during the test.

* you're actually tracking your overall performance on the exam, during the exam.

these are both REALLY BAD THINGS to do -- there's no upside to them.
you only have a finite amount of attention, so, every bit of attention that you spend on thinking about difficulty levels -- or on thinking about the number of questions you see, of whatever type -- is a bit of attention that you are NOT spending on the actual problem itself! if you are thinking about these things as consistently as is indicated by what you've written, then it's very possible that you really didn't get to solve any of the problems with your full brainpower.
(not to mention that you won't be able to judge the difficulty levels accurately, anyway. you just won't.
even people who have written problems for 10+ years are still consistently surprised by "difficulty" results. don't bother.)

here's an analogy: imagine that you are listening to what someone is saying to you in a conversation.
now, imagine that you're listening to the same conversation, but, in addition to trying to understand what is being said in the conversation, you are also trying to (a) remember the number of times a certain topic has been mentioned in the conversation already, and (b) try to guess the person's IQ based on the way they are treating the topics at hand.
needless to say, if you are trying to do (a) and (b) at the same time, your ability to process the conversation is going to be severely impacted -- you're going to be doing a lot of "what? i'm sorry, please repeat?"
the same thing is true on this test: the more that you are "multitasking" by thinking about difficulty levels and performance trajectories, that less that you will be able to concentrate on the problem at hand.
WHEN YOU ARE WORKING ON A PROBLEM, DO NOT THINK ABOUT ANYTHING OTHER THAN THE PROBLEM ITSELF.
if you have the correct degree of concentration on the problems, you should be pretty much unable to remember things like how many questions came with an RC passage. this is no joke -- the simple fact that you can confidently state that you were given 5 questions indicates that you are spending too much brainpower on counting questions, and not enough on tackling the questions themselves.

[tnaim]

Thanks all for the advice and the insight. I still have not decided whether I should take the GMAT for a second time, especially that I feel that I have now become immune to GMAT OG questions -- went through them twice in great details, MGMAT CAT -- took 11 exams, and the GMAT Prep test questions -- took 4 exams.
What makes me even more confused is that I don't know what went wrong and thus until I find out what went wrong, I won't have the conviction that I have changed something and thus my GMAT score should improve 2nd time around.
I have contacted MGMAT and their tutoring costs 215/hour for a minimum of two hours. I would not mind spending that kind of money if I know that these sessions will help me get a better score, but I'm not sure yet.

celestia007: Thx for sharing your experience, and if I were to decide to take the GMAT again, I would definitely go for a short period of preparation this time, compare to the period I spent before.

Night reader: thx for the advice and the for the link too!I just wanted to say that I was ensuring after I do the questions on time -- especially later on in the prepartion -- that I go back and analyze the question almost with the same amount of attention regardless of whether I got the right answer.

Ron: it's my first attempt. The mystery is that I feel that I did not panic during the exam, and though I subconsciously kept track just a little of what was going on during the exam -- and btw, I can't help but do that -- I also did that during my practice exams -- the past 5 of which had a score of more than 700. It was when I saw the shocking 600 that I tried to rewind the tape and think, think and think about a possible reason as to how on earth I could end up with such score.
As far as to why I want to go to a top business school, I believe that graduating from a top business school will enhance my career options and allow me access to unique opportunities worldwide. Plus, I have looked at the curriculum for some of the top business schools, and the courses and the whole academic experience seemed very unique and innovative.
I will share with you guys what I end up deciding. Thank you for your time!!

[lunarpower]

Thanks all for the advice and the insight. I still have not decided whether I should take the GMAT for a second time, especially that I feel that I have now become immune to GMAT OG questions -- went through them twice in great details, MGMAT CAT -- took 11 exams, and the GMAT Prep test questions -- took 4 exams.

everyone should take the test a second time, excepting only those people who achieve their stated goal score/range on the first try.
remember that you're in competition with similar students, and that the schools will take your BEST score and use it in considering your application! considering that this policy is almost universal at b-schools, it's really rather foolish to have a "one and out" strategy.

analogy:
in the long jump, you get three tries, and only your longest jump counts for purposes of competition.
imagine the disadvantage at which you'd find yourself if you decided that you were only going to jump once -- in a competition with people (of similar ability) who got three jumps each! even if you were just as good a jumper as those guys, you'd rarely win the competition, simply because you got only one jump vs. the best of their 3 jumps.

also, if you've been doing that much work, it's possible that your primary problem is NOT ENOUGH TIME OFF.
see the comments about "countless hours" here:
https://www.beatthegmat.com/620-660-what ... tml#320149

What makes me even more confused is that I don't know what went wrong and thus until I find out what went wrong, I won't have the conviction that I have changed something and thus my GMAT score should improve 2nd time around.
I have contacted MGMAT and their tutoring costs 215/hour for a minimum of two hours. I would not mind spending that kind of money if I know that these sessions will help me get a better score, but I'm not sure yet.

well -- our tutoring is an excellent value if you have a decently specific syllabus of topics that you want to cover. on the other hand, if you're looking for a complete re-orientation of the way that you study, you would do well to read as much as you can in these forums about more vs. less effective study strategies, try to re-channel your studying, and then come to us after you have some more specific goals in mind.

in any case -- if you took 15 (or more) practice tests, then the probability is almost 100% that you are doing way too many individual problems, and not spending enough time trying to develop generalized lessons and intuition for the common themes connecting those problems.

here's another post in which i attempted to address this whole idea of approaching the test from the wrong mindset:
https://www.beatthegmat.com/dissapointed ... tml#326691

[lunarpower]

continued

Ron: it's my first attempt. The mystery is that I feel that I did not panic during the exam, and though I subconsciously kept track just a little of what was going on during the exam -- and btw, I can't help but do that

you should really, really, really try not to. no upside, lots of downside.

if you were in a battlefield and people were throwing grenades at you, do you think you would be able to count the grenades while you were dodging them? or do you think that you would have to employ your complete concentration in order to dodge the grenades, and, if you started counting them, you'd be a lot more likely to get hit?
same thing here.

attention is finite -- the more attention you pay to Things That Are Not The Problem At Hand, the less attention you have left for the problem at hand.

-- I also did that during my practice exams -- the past 5 of which had a score of more than 700.

ok, but, weren't those repeated tests?

when you repeat tests, you should IGNORE the score(s) that you get on the repeated administration(s).
the repeated tests can still be valuable, in terms of (a) time management/overall test rhythm and (b) GENERALIZED takeaways from the NEW problems that you see, but the scores don't really mean anything if you start to see repeated questions.

As far as to why I want to go to a top business school, I believe that graduating from a top business school will enhance my career options and allow me access to unique opportunities worldwide.

well, ok, fine.
i certainly won't question the truth of these premises -- BUT, if you don't have anything more specific than this to write on an application, then you should probably not apply until you do.
meaning -- if you get a personal-statement question that says something like, "Why do you want to go to HBS?" and you respond with "it will enhance my career options and allow me access to unique opportunities worldwide", then you've basically responded with nothing that will distinguish you, in any way, from the tens of thousands of other applicants. (think about it -- these words are true for literally every single applicant, ever.)

Plus, I have looked at the curriculum for some of the top business schools, and the courses and the whole academic experience seemed very unique and innovative.

are there particular areas that were especially unique or innovative? what was unique or innovative about them?

are there specific courses offered in these schools' curricula (that are not also offered in other schools' curricula) that are specifically well-matched with you and your particular aspirations?

these are the kind of things that you're going to have to consider when you apply to these schools -- remember that the real point is not just scoring high on gmat/gpa, but also distinguishing yourself from the other applicants whose backgrounds are like yours.
i.e. -- if everything you write on your application could also be written by most or all of the applicants who share your background (age/GMAT/ethnicity/field of work), then that's a weak appilcation, even if your numbers are good.
on the other hand, if you have several points on which you are unique, and on which your application stands out from other applications by people with profiles like yours, then that's a strong application.

[tnaim]

Ron,
I know that I sound repetitive but I want to THANK YOU SO MUCH for your replies.

everyone should take the test a second time, excepting only those people who achieve their stated goal score/range on the first try.
remember that you're in competition with similar students, and that the schools will take your BEST score and use it in considering your application! considering that this policy is almost universal at b-schools, it's really rather foolish to have a "one and out" strategy.

I totally agree with you in that I am definitely putting myself at a disadvantage when I just quit from the first time. I am definitely more inclined towards taking the test again now; however, two things are still making me wonder about how wise it is to invest another 2 and a half or three months considering that
1) opportunity cost: i can do something else with my time meanwhile.
2) I just don't know what went wrong the first time.

also, if you've been doing that much work, it's possible that your primary problem is NOT ENOUGH TIME OFF.
see the comments about "countless hours" here:
https://www.beatthegmat.com/620-660-what ... tml#320149

I can certainly attest to the fact that when I was forced to take break from my gmat studies and then get back to them, I could feel that somehow things were "sinking in". I want to mention that I had to spend days trying to understand such concepts as combinatorics and probability only to get one question about it on the exam. It just appeared to me that I had to spend so much time to master concepts. I was left with three choices
1) eat my vegetables and spend whatever time I felt was needed to master the concepts, leading to long study sessions -- which you indicated that it fires back just like a bodybuilder wouldn't exercise 7 days a week
2) practice for 5 days a week -- which would have meant that I would have lengthened my preparation by another 3 months I'm guessing. In hindsight, I did not know that studying 7 days a week wears you out. had I known, I would have stuck to option 2 -- lengthen the preparation period by 3 months.
3) adhere to the time line no matter whether I fully understand the concepts. This would have meant increased anxiety for me on test day as I go in knowing that I am not under full control.

well -- our tutoring is an excellent value if you have a decently specific syllabus of topics that you want to cover. on the other hand, if you're looking for a complete re-orientation of the way that you study, you would do well to read as much as you can in these forums about more vs. less effective study strategies, try to re-channel your studying, and then come to us after you have some more specific goals in mind.

I would really appreciate it Ron if you could elaborate a bit on you what wrote above because I feel that this is where the crux of the problem and the solution lies. I'll explain a bit below
1) Do you think that studying too much was the only reason that I got such low score? I really need to be aware of what happened and how to prevent it from happening again. When I spoke to MGMAT student services advisor Ron, and told him briefly about my experience, the advisor jumped straight to advising me about the two options -- tutoring or class. I just don't know how this is going to help. I agree with you that I have to reorient my strategy and then come up with specific topics to the tutor because this would be the most effective way to handle it. However, my problem right now is how would I redirect my approach? should I just enroll in a class? should I buy different CAT tests cz I'm now very used to MGMAT and GMATPrep's?I'm just not sure. I could provide more details about my study plan if you feel that this is appropriate Ron.

in any case -- if you took 15 (or more) practice tests, then the probability is almost 100% that you are doing way too many individual problems, and not spending enough time trying to develop generalized lessons and intuition for the common themes connecting those problems.

I have a 140-page log in which I kept the general takeaways learned from individual problems.

you should really, really, really try not to. no upside, lots of downside.

if you were in a battlefield and people were throwing grenades at you, do you think you would be able to count the grenades while you were dodging them? or do you think that you would have to employ your complete concentration in order to dodge the grenades, and, if you started counting them, you'd be a lot more likely to get hit?
same thing here.

I agree a 100% with you, but the more that I make myself aware of it, the more I pay attention and the worse the problem gets.
eg: when I know that I don't have to wake up at 6am, I usually have an easier time falling alseep and sleeping restfully during the night; However, if I know that I have to get up that early, I somehow cannot have a good night of sleep. Another example is say if I'm walking in the street, my mind would naturally record a few things here and there as I'm walking. If someone told me to block my attention and try not remember anything, then I find myself having to think about how not to remember. How can I overcome this issue Ron?

ok, but, weren't those repeated tests?

Yes Ron they were. However, I don't think that I had more than 6 repeated question on any test -- 6 in both sections combined Q and V. Also, on my 6th MGMAT -- did not have a single repeated question -- I scored 650. My second GmatPrep was also 650.

i certainly won't question the truth of these premises -- BUT, if you don't have anything more specific than this to write on an application, then you should probably not apply until you do.
meaning -- if you get a personal-statement question that says something like, "Why do you want to go to HBS?" and you respond with "it will enhance my career options and allow me access to unique opportunities worldwide", then you've basically responded with nothing that will distinguish you, in any way, from the tens of thousands of other applicants. (think about it -- these words are true for literally every single applicant, ever.)

for sure, I have to think why I want to go to a top school.
THANK YOU!!!

[eternal_optimist]

Thanks,Ron for your support on this community. Your detailed responses not only to the questions but to the psychological aspects helped me ,to a great extent, get my dream score today. I have been reading your posts for months now and have followed you regularly .Thanks a lot!

[lunarpower]

warning: this post has some repeated information. i didn't want to take the time to go up and read exactly what i'd written already vs. not written already -- and, whatever is repeated will be quite worth repeating.

Ron,
I know that I sound repetitive but I want to THANK YOU SO MUCH for your replies.

no prob

I totally agree with you in that I am definitely putting myself at a disadvantage when I just quit from the first time. I am definitely more inclined towards taking the test again now; however, two things are still making me wonder about how wise it is to invest another 2 and a half or three months considering that
1) opportunity cost: i can do something else with my time meanwhile.

the good news is this: if you've been studying way too much, then part of your "preparation" for your next exam administration will be to STOP studying for a while.
if you're spending lots and lots and lots of hours, then one very likely possibility is that you are actually studying too much, and not giving yourself enough time off.
in this sense, studying is a lot like working out -- if you don't intersperse it with sufficient periods of rest/time off, then you will not derive nearly as much benefit from it. and, in extreme cases, the extra hours that you put in will actually start having a negative marginal effect on your learning. as in, too many extra hours will actually start to undo conceptual learning.

read here:
https://www.beatthegmat.com/620-660-what ... tml#320149

* you should not be studying more than 5-6 days per week (you NEED at least one day off / week, preferably two).
* you should not be studying more than 5 hours in any one single day -- according to much research, this is the effective limit of the amount that normal adult human brains can learn in one day. (this is not the limit to the amount of information that humans can recite, or produce, in one day -- for instance, it's totally possible to work effectively on a powerpoint for 20 hours in a row -- but it is the limit for learning. any attempt to learn for more than that many hours, in a single day, will be completely wasted time; you should just take a nap instead. yes, seriously)
* you should have at least 1.5 to 2 hours of non-brain time per day. (i.e., you can't fill ALL your free hours in the day with studying -- if you do, the effectiveness of your studying will decrease dramatically)

i don't know how much you've been studying, but, if you've been studying in excess of the above recommendations for more than a few weeks, then your brain is definitely going to be in "burnout" mode.

2) I just don't know what went wrong the first time.

well, clearly this is not the sort of thing that i can effectively address in a single post, but i've found that the following 3 are EXTREMELY common problems among users who post on this forum:

1 * depending entirely on mechanical/memorized rules and information, and not using intuition at all
--- this is an especially severe problem, among posters here, on SC problems; many posters try to analyze every sentence strictly in terms of grammar and mechanics. LOTS of the SC choices are perfectly correct from a grammatical standpoint, but are incorrect because they don't have the right meaning -- you can memorize every single mechanical grammar rule under the sun, and you still won't be able to figure these out without using a bit of intuition/common sense to figure out the intended meaning of the sentence.

2 * studying too much
--- see above

3 * not GENERALIZING the lessons learned from problems
--- remember that the problems on the test are not going to look like the problems that you do for homework. so, you can understand everything about a specific homework problem without deriving any benefit at all, if you don't take the time to generalize those specific lessons into things that you might conceivably see ON FUTURE PROBLEMS.

2) practice for 5 days a week -- which would have meant that I would have lengthened my preparation by another 3 months I'm guessing. In hindsight, I did not know that studying 7 days a week wears you out. had I known, I would have stuck to option 2 -- lengthen the preparation period by 3 months.
3) adhere to the time line no matter whether I fully understand the concepts. This would have meant increased anxiety for me on test day as I go in knowing that I am not under full control.

this is a false dichotomy -- you're treating this situation as though there is a bright, easily detectable line between "prepared" and "not prepared". this isn't true.
there is no such thing as being "completely prepared" for this test.
there is no such thing as studying every possible idiom, or every possible sentence construction, or every possible configuration of a probability question, or every possible type of strengthening/weakening question, or ...

instead, you just have to realize that:
* studying has diminishing returns (i.e., the marginal gain in knowledge for each hour of studying is less and less as your study plan goes on ... and, as stated above, will actually go negative if you study too much)
while
* stress has generally increasing returns (i.e., the marginal increase in stress for each unit of studying tends to increase as you study longer)
if you know what basic math graphs look like, then the graph of knowledge gained vs. hours studied would resemble a square root curve (y = √x), while the graph of stress vs. hours studied would resemble the right half of a parabola (y = x^2).
when you get to the point where the curves are parallel -- where the parabola starts to catch up -- it's time to just take the test and get it over with.

when you get to the point where each hour of studying is increasing your stress more than it's increasing your knowledge, your preparation is over. go take the test, or take some time off.

[lunarpower]

1) Do you think that studying too much was the only reason that I got such low score? I really need to be aware of what happened and how to prevent it from happening again.

i don't know -- i haven't coached you.

if you have study patterns that resemble those of a great many posters on this forum (see above -- way too much emphasis on memorization, no emphasis at all on intuitive/general understanding), then, no -- you are basically going to have to change everything about the way you study for this test.

When I spoke to MGMAT student services advisor Ron, and told him briefly about my experience, the advisor jumped straight to advising me about the two options -- tutoring or class. I just don't know how this is going to help.

well -- the reason our student services advisor told you about those two options is that those are the two main products that our company offers. i.e., unless you just want to buy books, that's pretty much all that our student services people can offer you.

the student services people are not trained instructors; it would not be reasonable to expect them to diagnose gmat-specific issues.

I agree with you that I have to reorient my strategy and then come up with specific topics to the tutor because this would be the most effective way to handle it. However, my problem right now is how would I redirect my approach? should I just enroll in a class? should I buy different CAT tests cz I'm now very used to MGMAT and GMATPrep's?I'm just not sure. I could provide more details about my study plan if you feel that this is appropriate Ron.

yeah, let me know what you've already done

I have a 140-page log in which I kept the general takeaways learned from individual problems.

maybe you could list a few (meaning really "a few" -- not tons and tons of them), so i can get the idea of what you're doing.

you should really, really, really try not to. no upside, lots of downside.

if you were in a battlefield and people were throwing grenades at you, do you think you would be able to count the grenades while you were dodging them? or do you think that you would have to employ your complete concentration in order to dodge the grenades, and, if you started counting them, you'd be a lot more likely to get hit?
same thing here.

I agree a 100% with you, but the more that I make myself aware of it, the more I pay attention and the worse the problem gets.
eg: when I know that I don't have to wake up at 6am, I usually have an easier time falling alseep and sleeping restfully during the night; However, if I know that I have to get up that early, I somehow cannot have a good night of sleep. Another example is say if I'm walking in the street, my mind would naturally record a few things here and there as I'm walking. If someone told me to block my attention and try not remember anything, then I find myself having to think about how not to remember. How can I overcome this issue Ron?

it's entirely a matter of priorities.
in my battlefield example, you would obviously not be counting the grenades -- because you understand, at the deepest possible level, that you would die if those were your priorities. therefore, no matter how scattered your attention is in normal everyday life, you WOULD NOT have divided attention in that situation. it just wouldn't happen, because your deep understanding of the priorities would eclipse the temptation to pay attention to all the different stuff going on.

same thing here -- you have to REALLY buy into the idea that THE PROBLEM IN FRONT OF YOU IS THE ONLY THING THAT MATTERS.
you have to understand, deep in your heart of hearts, that paying attention to all that other stuff is going to make you much more likely to "die" on this test, in exactly the same way that counting grenades (or paying attention to the grass, etc.) while grenades are being thrown at you would mean you're dead.
if you get these priorities into your deep consciousness, you will find it easier to concentrate on what matters.

[lunarpower]

ok, but, weren't those repeated tests?

Yes Ron they were. However, I don't think that I had more than 6 repeated question on any test -- 6 in both sections combined Q and V. Also, on my 6th MGMAT -- did not have a single repeated question -- I scored 650. My second GmatPrep was also 650.

yeah, well, 6 repeated questions *on an adaptive test* is quite a bit.
even on a non-adaptive test, that's about 8% of the questions. the total spread of the test is 600 points (800 - 200); 8% of 600 is almost 50 points.
... and on an adaptive test the effect is presumably greater, since those 6 extra correct questions would increase the overall difficulty level of the other problems on the test.
so, yeah, 6 repeated problems could very, very easily account for a different of 60-70 (or more points).

scores from tests with repeated questions are meaningless. you MUST ignore them, although you can still get takeaways from the problems.

for sure, I have to think why I want to go to a top school.
THANK YOU!!!

this may be a stupid question, but ... why would you put so much time and effort into the gmat, if you don't yet have a solid reason for even wanting to go to b-school?

that progression doesn't seem logical to me at all; the only progression that seems to make sense is (1) realize that business school is definitely something you want to do, for SPECIFIC reasons xyz, (2) realize that the gmat is an important component of applying to business school, *AND THEN* (3) put a bunch of time and effort into studying for the gmat.

in fact, it seems that there are quite a few posters on here who are following the steps in reverse order -- i.e., posters who are putting tons and tons of time and effort into the gmat, without any sort of SPECIFIC reason to apply to b-school (other than "it will be good for my career" and "i'll be able to make more money", which are NOT *specific* reasons.)

remember that an MBA is a great thing to have if you need it for a concrete reason -- but very possibly a huge waste of time, money, and other resources if you don't really have much of a reason to get it.
i know i've made this point before, but it's worth repeating:
the MBA is the only american professional school degree that does not constitute a license to practice ANY profession.
e.g., a law degree will allow you to practice law. a medical degree will allow you to practice medicine. etc. etc. an MBA will allow you to practice ... nothing.
so:
realize that an MBA will not benefit everyone -- for many people, it will do nothing.
for some people, it will do worse than nothing -- some people have personalities that just aren't suited to management at all (see here: https://www.beatthegmat.com/dissapointed ... tml#327482), and would be better advised to stay in their current field.
if you can come up with VERY CONCRETE, VERY SPECIFIC benefits that an MBA will bring you, then do the gmat and b-school thing.
if you can't, don't.
and, remember, "it will be good for my career" and "i'll be able to make more money" are *NOT* specific and *NOT* concrete. i.e., they are not real reasons.

[tnaim]

you should not be studying more than 5 hours in any one single day -- according to much research, this is the effective limit of the amount that normal adult human brains can learn in one day.

I have to admit that this is something that I did not know before Ron. Though I put lots of hours and perhaps more than I should, I think that I should change my approach so that I allow for proper break time in between studying sessions

yeah, let me know what you've already done

Briefly
1) did the first diagnostic in mid march -- scored 530.
2) bought the official guides and went through them once -- the main focus was more on the questions that I got wrong. Timing was not of a main focus to me -- that was back in april/may. Long study hours as I had 3 weeks off switching between two jobs.
3) when the results were not paying off -- evidenced by low score on the MGMAT CAT 520-620 -- I changed my strategy and started to focus more on timing considerations, pay more attention to general concepts. I have stopped taking practice tests for 4 months -- from june to october. I'd aim for 3-4 hours studying during weekdays and for 8hrs/week. I'd fall short of that sometimes though, especially on weekdays.
4) I bought all the MGMAT guides. went through them once and noted down all the concepts learned on my log file.
5) took the second GMATPrep test in October and scored 650
6) my strategy in analyzing questions evolved to include questions that I got right and the ones that I got wrong -- regardless. Generally, I'd revisit the question after the test, try to solve it one more time -- under time constraints -- and then analyze each of the choices given -- tricks/traps.
7) took the last MGMAT CAT and scored 650. started to emphasize more and more on timing issues
8) watched most of your videos -- Thursdays with Ron.
9) registered another MGMAT exam and reinstalled GMATPrep..all subsequent practice tests had a score no less than 700 -- I know that you said score does not matter.
10)went through GMAT strategy articles -- eg: dealing with percentages, timing considerations, strategic guessing.

maybe you could list a few (meaning really "a few" -- not tons and tons of them), so i can get the idea of what you're doing.

sure; below are a few examples
"¢ consecutive sets have three properties: 1) avg=median. 2) the number of elements is equal to (range/difference between elemens )+1 3) avg=first+last/2. Notice that you cannot calculate the average of an evenly spaced set using first+last/2
"¢ 1 is not considered a prime factor when factoring a number. However, it's one of the NON prime factors.
"¢ Similar triangles are triangles that have the same angle size and proportional sides lengths. Two triangles are similar if they have two corresponding angles of the same measure, if they have two proportional sides with an angle in between them. The similarity ratio is ½, then area ratio is square of 1/2
"¢ In a two train questions that are traveling against each other, when both trains meet, then they have traveled the total distance between them, and the speed at which they traveled the total distance is equal to the combined speed of both trains D = (r1+r2)T
"¢ You can remove a negative or positive number from both side of an inequality without affecting the inequality
"¢ half of a 1/3 is NOT 1/9. It's 1/6
"¢ |a|-|b|=|a-b| as long as both a and b have the same sign.
"¢ In RC answers, justify every word of the answer that you choose.
"¢ If A can finish job in X hours, B in Y hours, then the amount of work that B does NOT have to do is y/x+y.
"¢ z-y=y-x, then that means that the three numbers are evenly spaced
"¢ my log also includes lots of your takeaways that you have posted posted here on the forums -- rules on when GMAT tolerates pronoun ambiguity, when it's permissible to change original meaning of SC,
"¢ approx 10% of my log includes questions for which I could not come up with general takeaways

this may be a stupid question, but ... why would you put so much time and effort into the gmat, if you don't yet have a solid reason for even wanting to go to b-school?
that progression doesn't seem logical to me at all; the only progression that seems to make sense is (1) realize that business school is definitely something you want to do, for SPECIFIC reasons xyz, (2) realize that the gmat is an important component of applying to business school, *AND THEN* (3) put a bunch of time and effort into studying for the gmat.

I totally agree with you here. I admit that I have not put as much thought as to why I want to go to an MBA school as I probably should have; however, As far as to why I took the GMAT, I know that
1) I love to learn new things. I love education and was sad when my undergrad career came to an end! so I figured that even if for whatever reason I don't end up doing an MBA, I'll have learn a lot by the end. Fortunately, this has been proven correct as I have more confidence in my writing, reading, critical reasoning and math skills. The question that remains for me to answer is this: was studying for the GMAT the most beneficial way to spend my time? considering that I could have spent that time on other things. that remains for me to answer.
2) I come from an entrepreneurial family, and my brother owns a successful company that he said he'll be happy to see me expand it. He and I felt that if I get an MBA, I'll have solid knowledge to take on such venture in the future.
3) and even if I choose to work fulltime for a company, I feel that the MBA will allow me to have the core business knowledge necessary to look at things from more than one perspective and be able to do more with the information that I have at hand.
This is not specific by any means; but thanks to you, I am now thinking more about why I want an MBA!!!


forgive me for writing too long Ron!! I owe you so much believe me!!!!

[lunarpower]

you should not be studying more than 5 hours in any one single day -- according to much research, this is the effective limit of the amount that normal adult human brains can learn in one day.

I have to admit that this is something that I did not know before Ron. Though I put lots of hours and perhaps more than I should, I think that I should change my approach so that I allow for proper break time in between studying sessions

yep -- it's important. it's one of those "moderation in all things" type of deals.

if your education has traditionally depended on (a) memorization/recitation and (b) extremely linear thinking, then these things are simply less important in that kind of scheme, since that sort of thing doesn't require much (if any) lateral thinking, association-making, or synthesis.
on this test, though, it's crucial.

2) bought the official guides and went through them once -- the main focus was more on the questions that I got wrong. Timing was not of a main focus to me -- that was back in april/may. Long study hours as I had 3 weeks off switching between two jobs.

you should *never* solve gmat-style problems untimed. never.
the time restriction is an integral part of the problem -- it changes everything about the way in which you have to process the problem statement & answer choices, and it also alters the set of techniques that do and don't work (since you can't do anything that will take too much time -- e.g., you can't walk through a sentence correction problem and attempt to diagram the entire sentence, trying to classify all the grammatical structures)

if you don't have a stopwatch / timer handy, don't do gmat problems.

4) I bought all the MGMAT guides. went through them once and noted down all the concepts learned on my log file.

how did you go about reviewing such an extensive log file?
and, how often?

6) my strategy in analyzing questions evolved to include questions that I got right and the ones that I got wrong -- regardless. Generally, I'd revisit the question after the test, try to solve it one more time -- under time constraints -- and then analyze each of the choices given -- tricks/traps.

this is better. (especially when it comes to finding things that work -- there's no better place to find such things than on problems you actually got correct.)

one thing that should be written here, but isn't, is "i also tried to find OTHER WAYS to solve the SAME problems."
i.e., even if you find a problem very easy, you should still try to find other means by which to solve it -- for instance, if you easily solve a math problem by a "textbook" method, you should still try to solve it using plug-in / backup methods, etc.

9) registered another MGMAT exam and reinstalled GMATPrep..all subsequent practice tests had a score no less than 700 -- I know that you said score does not matter.

yep
in fact -- if you repeat GMATPrep, it's probably a good idea just to skip right through the score screen without even looking at it. since it's not possible to see your scores on gmat prep after you've passed through that screen, this is just a one-time exercise of self-control.
once you've done that, you can review the problems to your heart's content, without having a distorted picture of your score(s).

sure; below are a few examples
"¢ consecutive sets have three properties: 1) avg=median. 2) the number of elements is equal to (range/difference between elemens )+1 3) avg=first+last/2. Notice that you cannot calculate the average of an evenly spaced set using first+last/2
"¢ 1 is not considered a prime factor when factoring a number. However, it's one of the NON prime factors.
"¢ Similar triangles are triangles that have the same angle size and proportional sides lengths. Two triangles are similar if they have two corresponding angles of the same measure, if they have two proportional sides with an angle in between them. The similarity ratio is ½, then area ratio is square of 1/2
"¢ In a two train questions that are traveling against each other, when both trains meet, then they have traveled the total distance between them, and the speed at which they traveled the total distance is equal to the combined speed of both trains D = (r1+r2)T
"¢ You can remove a negative or positive number from both side of an inequality without affecting the inequality
"¢ half of a 1/3 is NOT 1/9. It's 1/6
"¢ |a|-|b|=|a-b| as long as both a and b have the same sign.
"¢ In RC answers, justify every word of the answer that you choose.
"¢ If A can finish job in X hours, B in Y hours, then the amount of work that B does NOT have to do is y/x+y.
"¢ z-y=y-x, then that means that the three numbers are evenly spaced
"¢ my log also includes lots of your takeaways that you have posted posted here on the forums -- rules on when GMAT tolerates pronoun ambiguity, when it's permissible to change original meaning of SC,
"¢ approx 10% of my log includes questions for which I could not come up with general takeaways

these are good.

notice that they are ALL *small* sub-components of problems -- none of them are even close to being whole problems. this is a good way to study (memorizing whole problems is useless).

thanks to you, I am now thinking more about why I want an MBA!!!

that's good. an mba is not cheap -- whether in terms of money, time, or opportunity cost -- so this is definitely something you need to hash out ahead of time.