Recommended courses for 750+

[rijul007]

I have given the GMAT and scored 720.
And I intend to retake the GMAT and score 750+. Kindly suggest courses appropriate for the desired result.
Thanks

[tutorphd]

I am a math tutor so I will only offer suggestions for the quant section.

At that score, probably you covered the basics. For math, I would suggest redoing the advanced sections in Manhattan GMAT guides.

You can also find a good tutor to improve your understanding of the tougher topics: number properties, inequalities, combinatorics, probability, statistics. A good tutor should be able to give you a focused homework of 100+ problems per topic from lowest to highest difficulty.

For additional problems, get the Princeton Review books: 1037 GMAT problems and 1014 GRE problems.

The rest is to practice tough CATs under timed conditions: GMATClub, MGMAT, GMATPrep, GMATFocus.

These could reveal the following problems:

(1) Too slow performance, running out of time at the end of quant.
Solution: take stimulant of your choice that will increase your mental speed and concentration.

(2) Falling into traps.
Solution: study the traps you fall into and start expecting and recognizing them in the problems.

(3) Making mistakes for not reading the question correctly.
Solution: get used to mentally marking key words in the problem. Before selecting an answer, re-read the question slowly.

(4) Getting the right answer but marking a wrong one. That usually happens in data sufficiency problems.
Solution: use the AD/BCE system to select the right answer in data sufficiency.

(5) Not plugging numbers for tough problems.
Solution: do not try to derive a complex algebraic theory for 2 mins in a tough problem. Many tough problems can be simply tested with plugging in numbers. The Princeton Review book will exercise you in that approach. If your algebra gets too complicated, resort to plugging numbers.

(6) Not being comfortable with more complex algebra manipulations.
Solution: either try to plug in numbers in such problems, or find an algebra book and exercise in factoring/foiling/simplifying symbolic expressions.

[David@VeritasPrep]

The difference between a 720 and a 750 is not that large. Most admissions committees would think that a 720 is excellent!

Even the people at GMAC admit to a possible variation of 30 points in test scores. So if you take the test tomorrow you might get a 750 without any additional work.

If you want to improve your odds, take a look at your scoring breakdown to decide where you can improve - Verbal, Quant, or both. Figure out what you need to work on for each section. It is likely that if you had gotten two or three additional questions right for each section - ones that you missed on test day - you would have gotten your 750.

Please post any specific questions that you come up with...

[rijul007]

Thanks tutorphd and David for your prompt replies

Well, when I was preparing for GMAT the last time, my score in Quant ranged from 50-51. In the real GMAT my score was 50. I feel i need to practice advance questions more. One of the books that is suggested to me is Manhattan Advanced GMAT Quant. Is this book good enough? Are there any other books available that focus on 700+ level questions only.

My verbal score in GMAT was 36. In the earlier stages of my preparation my verbal score was in the range of 25-28. I worked a lot on sentence correction type questions, and gradually improved on my score. But, I feel i didn't put in enough effort on RC and CR question types. Can you suggest me some books where I can prepare for CR and RC from the scratch?
Also, are there any advance level GMAT prep courses available on the internet that you could recommend.

Thanks

[tutorphd]

I have the advanced MGMAT book but haven't really read it so I can't comment how helpful it is. I think you should focus more on the verbal because it can be improved way easier and more reliably than jumping from 50 to 51 in quant.

If you insist you want 51 on quant, I suggest doing GMATPrep and GMATFocus tests and analyzing your errors. Most probably it is one of the scenarios I posted above. The most important ones are: speed, falling into traps, solving extremely tough problems with plugging in numbers.

Improving your verbal will help you avoid the verbal traps GMAT sets up in math problems - you will be able to disect the problem verbiage easier and make fewer errors due to not reading the question correctly and not marking key words that modify its meaning.

[AbhiJ]

I have the advanced MGMAT book but haven't really read it so I can't comment how helpful it is. I think you should focus more on the verbal because it can be improved way easier and more reliably than jumping from 50 to 51 in quant.

If you insist you want 51 on quant, I suggest doing GMATPrep and GMATFocus tests and analyzing your errors. Most probably it is one of the scenarios I posted above. The most important ones are: speed, falling into traps, solving extremely tough problems with plugging in numbers.

Improving your verbal will help you avoid the verbal traps GMAT sets up in math problems - you will be able to disect the problem verbiage easier and make fewer errors due to not reading the question correctly and not marking key words that modify its meaning.

Is GMAT Focus worth 65$ for three tests if someone is looking to push quant from 50-51. Has it got sufficient questions in that level, won't the questions in that level run out by test number 2. AFAIK, it has got questions of all levels.

[tutorphd]

I have repeated GMATPrep tests about 10 times, by reinstalling the program, and still see some new tough problems. If you get GMATFocus get the single test. I think you can repeat it several times. More is not worth it, becaue it repeats questions from the OG anyways.

The difference between quant scores 50 and 51 is not so much answering the super-tough questions but not making silly mistakes on ones below level 50. Especially try to avoid mistakes in the begining of the test where the scoring algorithm is 'making its mind' about your level, avoid mistakes on easy questions (which tend to happen in the begining), avoid mistakes in a row. All these scenarios are penalized more than making mistakes on tough questions, not in a row.

Very soon I am going to make another experiment with GMATPrep to see how many of the super-tough questions in quant you can answer wrong and still get a 51 score. My current guess is about 4-5, not in a row.

The purpose of playing wiht GMATFocus and GMATPrep is not so much to give you tough questions but to analyze why you are making mistakes on easy quesions which damages your score more.

For practicing tough questions, I have seen real toughies in the Question Pack I for GMATPrep. You can also go to gmatclub.com and select questions above 700 level by clicking on the tag. You should solve those under timed conditions to really expose yourself to their 'toughness' and learn coping strategies like plugging numbers "to feel" what is going on in the problem, answer elimination, spotting more probable and trap answers, and guessing.

[AbhiJ]

The difference between quant scores 50 and 51 is not so much answering the super-tough questions but not making silly mistakes on ones below level 50. Especially try to avoid mistakes in the begining of the test where the scoring algorithm is 'making its mind' about your level, avoid mistakes on easy questions (which tend to happen in the begining), avoid mistakes in a row. All these scenarios are penalized more than making mistakes on tough questions, not in a row.

Very soon I am going to make another experiment with GMATPrep to see how many of the super-tough questions in quant you can answer wrong and still get a 51 score. My current guess is about 4-5, not in a row.

That is pretty sound advice.

[tutorphd]

Keep in mind also that the difference between quant percentiles 92% and 99% is to be able to solve correctly problems with loopholes, typically in data sufficiency problems. These problems are not not hard and are easily solvable in relaxed atmosphere but if you miss the loophole in the rushed environment of GMAT, your percentile will suffer.

Some typical loopholes are:

- problems which imply the solution should be only integers because they are counting objects, people, tickets, animals etc. Integer-only solutions of the same problem are much more restricted than real number solutions and often lead to sufficiency when you don't expect it like a single equation may be sufficient to determine the values of two variables.

- problems in which you have a system of two equations with two unknows but it turns out the equations are proportional, i.e. they are the same equation. Then you can't solve for one of the unknowns and the information is insufficient.

You must practice with GMATPrep and other CAT's, categorize the types of loopholes/traps you encounter and learn to recognize the red flags indicating that there may be such a loophole in the problem.