500 with 1 month Preparation

[rohitgmat]

Hi GMAT gurus,

I just took GMAT today with a 1 month preparation. Although I am not new to the GMAT prep but this was my first attempt. I only took 1 GMATprep practice test scored the same score (500), My target score is 500+ to get admitted to any good b School in INDIA or Singapore by next year for that I have to finish my gmat exam by august. I am expecting some guidance here to achieve to my target score.

GMAT first attempt: 500(Q 41, V 19)

Books I am following:- Manhattan strategy guides, OG 13.

Thanks

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Hi rohitgmat,

First off, it sounds like your goal score and goal school are a bit vague: do you have a "dream" school? If so, then you should be able to research it and figure out what GMAT score you would need to earn to have a chance at admission. Having that information can also help you to determine admission deadlines, among other things.

Your first GMAT score is just below the average, so you did not do badly considering that you studied for just 1 month (and took just 1 practice CAT).

Was there anything about Test Day that caused you any particular problems? Was there anything surprising? Did you run into pacing problems or questions that you didn't know how to answer?

GMAT assassins aren't born, they're made,
Rich

[Brent@GMATPrepNow]

Hi rohitgmat,

You might consider signing up for Beat The GMAT's free 60-Day Study Guide (https://www.beatthegmat.com/mba/gmat-guide). Over 25,000 Beat The GMAT students have already done so.

Each day, you'll receive an email with a series of learning activities that guide you, step-by-step, from Day 1 to test day. This will ensure that you will cover everything that the GMAT tests.

Here's an outline of all 60 emails: https://www.beatthegmat.com/mba/gmat-guide-outline

Cheers,
Brent

[rohitgmat]

Hi Brent and Rich, Thanks for the reply.

@Rich,

I am planning to apply for some indian B - SCHOOLS(XLRI,ISB,IIMs) which require scores above 700 and i want to get admitted by next year march/april. Since 500 score in the first GMAT was expected by me as i lost the rythym of studying due to some issues going on my side . Now without causing any further delay i want to start the preparation to attempt for next gmat in july exactly after 2 months by taking all the practice tests and following some best practices.

Here is the experience of my offical GMAT(First attempt),

I was not recollecting many of the concepts that i mastered in the quant section during my course of study. Probability,SET theory were the pain areas. Another problem was the lack of concentration which was hitting me during the entire test .

In the verbal section, Critical reasoning was the pain area which i could not master well even during the preparation.

I will summarise it by saying that I was poor with the time management on the test day and the lack of concentration was the another killer.

[Brent@GMATPrepNow]

I will summarise it by saying that I was poor with the time management on the test day and the lack of concentration was the another killer.

For this reason, it's very important that you take and analyze several practice tests before test day. This will help identify weaknesses and, more importantly, help build your test-taking skills (endurance, time-management, etc).

While analyzing your practice tests, there are four main types of weakness to 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, anxiety etc.)
4. silly mistakes

For the first 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.

Finally, if silly mistakes are hurting your score, then it's important that you identify and categorize these mistakes 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