Need help to improve

[smkhan]

Hi

I started to follow the 60 Day plan from late August and recently finished the AWA lesson. While the course has been very helpful in guiding and channeling my focus to the concepts and tricks, I failed to see the improvement in my 2nd attempt of Test 1. Although, I did a lot better in Diagnostic test after finishing the lessons in 60 Day guide, it did not translate into major improvement in CAT. My score in the 1st attempt was (Q/V/Total:34/35/500), in the second attempt I did the Quant and the verbal part separately, so I don't have the total score but the score in the Q/V part was 37/31. I also noticed that I got 3-4 answers wrong one after the other, which obviously doesn't help in getting a higher score. Is there a strategy out there that can help in avoiding this situation? Also please suggest possible ways to improve my score further. I am looking to get more than 650 at least and my GMAT is on 29th Nov.

[Brent@GMATPrepNow]

Judging from your post, it's hard to say what your weaknesses are.

I suggest that you keep taking practice tests, and analyze them to help identify your weaknesses. While analyzing these practice tests, there are four main areas of weakness you should watch out for:
1. specific Quant skills/concepts (e.g., algebra, standard deviation, etc.)
2. specific Verbal skills/concepts (e.g., verb tenses, assumption CR questions, etc.)
3. test-taking skills (time management, endurance, etc.)
4. silly mistakes

For the two weaknesses, the fix is pretty straightforward. Learn the concept/skill and find some practice questions to strengthen that weakness. To focus on one topic at a time, you can use BTG's tagging feature to isolate one concept. For example, here are all of the questions tagged as statistics questions: https://www.beatthegmat.com/forums/tags/ ... statistics
See the left side of that linked page for more tag options.

If your test-taking skills are holding you back, then you need to work on these. For example, we have a free GMAT time management video at https://www.gmatprepnow.com/module/gener ... es?id=1244. Then you should hone your test-taking skills by taking more practice tests.

Finally, if silly mistakes are hurting your score, then it's important that you identify and categorize these mistakes during your prep so that, during tests, you can easily spot situations in which you're prone to making errors. I write about this and other strategies in the following article for BTG: https://www.beatthegmat.com/mba/2012/09/ ... n-the-gmat

Cheers,
Brent