Scored just 470! Need Advice on how to tackle GMAT.

[Hollywood]

Hi,

I recently wrote the GMAT and scored a terrible 470! Verbal was the worst.

I prepared for the GMAT for 4 months and while I was preparing, I was pretty good with the verbal part. I have no idea how I got a huge dent in my score in verbal on the test day. I was very weak in maths that's why I had to spent a lot of time refreshing maths skills. I took the help of OG 10 and 11 and also KAPLAN books for studying. I gave only 3 GMAT mock tests in which I scored 600, 640, 580 (gmat prep.). I have to score good in GMAT and I am afraid I have very little time left.

Please experts, please help me out and let me know my next course of action. How should I get ready for GMAT in 1 month? Any piece of advice will be very very valuable to me. I need to score as much as I can. Please advice me.

Thanks,
Holly

[Jim@StratusPrep]

First thing is to consider if you want to take more than 1 month. What is your target score?

Really what you want to do is thoroughly read the correct and incorrect answer explanations in the OG

[Hollywood]

First thing is to consider if you want to take more than 1 month. What is your target score?

Really what you want to do is thoroughly read the correct and incorrect answer explanations in the OG

hi Jim.

Thanks for your reply.

Time is not a problem for me. The most important thing for me right now is to score good. My target score is 700 and above. I am nowhere looking below 700 now!

When I was preparing for GMAT, I completely dedicated my time into it. I was very good CR and SC. But something happened on the test day and everything got jeopardized. I score extremely low on verbal and I was dead shocked! In mock tests, I was scoring 40 and above in verbal but on test day, it was -not even 20! I never-ever expected that my verbal score can dip that much. I really don't know how to analyse myself now.

I saw your time-management chart on Beatthegmat.com in some previous post and I was able to follow that very well on the test day.

Apart from going through all the questions from the OGs, what else can I do? Please advice me, because as of now, I am running out of prep material.

Thanks,
Holly.

[lunarpower]

hi,

for me. The most important thing for me right now is to score good. My target score is 700 and above. I am nowhere looking below 700 now!

this, here, is almost certainly the biggest source of the trouble you've been having -- because, basically, you're not there yet.

while a long-term goal may provide general motivation or inspiration, it's an absolutely terrible source of short-term planning.
if you are currently at 470, the first step is to get to a point where you are consistently scoring around 500. then, 550. then... etc.

this is true for just about every skill gradient in the entire world, but it's especially true on this exam -- because the same basic principles are tested at all levels of difficulty.
it's very important that you master the more basic problems before moving on to more challenging ones. otherwise, you'll be stuck trying to build a house without a foundation.

When I was preparing for GMAT, I completely dedicated my time into it.

depending on what this means, it may actually be a bad thing.
this is not the kind of test on which you should "work, work, work". in fact, with only 2 exceptions**, this is specifically the kind of test on which a limited (though targeted) amount of preparation is optimal.

remember, this is not a test of memorization or "cramming". (for math, only concepts up to first-year high-school algebra and geometry are tested. for sentence correction, a few major themes dominate the problems once you have learned the basic structure of written english. and, for CR and RC, there is no necessary knowledge at all.) therefore, endless hours of preparation will not do much for you.

worse, too much studying will actually impede the mental processes that are most important on this exam -- specifically, (1) mental flexibility and (2) the ability to think intuitively about what you read.
if you study so much that your brain can't do anything except go through memorized routines, you will have little hope on the verbal section of this exam.

[lunarpower]

Apart from going through all the questions from the OGs, what else can I do? Please advice me, because as of now, I am running out of prep material.

the good news here is that you shouldn't really need a source of questions other than the OG and GMATPrep.

if you think that you have "exhausted" those, then you are probably missing out on much of what you can do with them. here's a post i wrote about that:
https://www.beatthegmat.com/retaking-gma ... tml#464164

[lunarpower]

ah, dang it, i realized i forgot to explain the footnote (**) in my first post here.

--

(**) there are really only two circumstances under which you might feasibly need large amounts of prep time:
1/ you don't remember your high-school math
2/ you aren't very familiar or comfortable with the essential structure of the written english language

if either of these two things is true, then you may need a decent amount of "baseline" work before you can really get going on understanding what this test is all about.

a good yardstick for measuring whether you have the appropriate math foundation (#1) is MGMAT's Foundations of Math book. basically, try to do a decent selection of the end-of-chapter problems for each chapter. if you fly through those, great; if you don't, go back and review the actual chapter. once you get to the point where you know the stuff in that book fairly cold, you will basically know all the objective mathematics you will need on this exam.

as far as #2, this is more of an honest self-assessment type of thing.
* can you read through written english texts at a decently scholarly level (say, at the level of business journals), with good comprehension, without having to re-read or slow down too much?
* do you know how to structure a decently complex sentence in written english? do you understand the basic pieces from which written english sentences are constructed?
if the answers to these questions are "yes", then you should be ready to go on the verbal section. if any of these answers are "no", then the best advice is to set aside your MBA plans for a year (it won't kill you) and just get better at the written language in general, mostly by reading a lot and actively familiarizing yourself with the way the language works and flows.