Got same score of 480 for the second time, Need help !!!

[saadsaab_19]

Hi,

First Attempt:
I recently took my first GMAT exam on December 3, 2015 and my score was 480 (Q35,V21). I was feeling shattered with my score and I thought may be I did not study well or something. I studied from Kaplan resources. My study pattern was like 16 hours/week and I felt I am doing well.
Kaplan CAT scores:
CAT 1: 510
CAT 2: 480
CAT 3 580
CAT 4: 530
CAT 5: 540


Second Attempt:
So, I took 3 weeks off from everything else and started studying and rescheduled GMAT for January 21, 2015. I have been studying 6 hours a day during those 3 weeks and tried to do the best I could by studying all the Veritas books. Surprisingly I got the same score this time 480 (Q37,V19). This time I studied using Veritas prep resources, thinking that I have already exhausted Kaplan material so I should go for Veritas Prep resources for studying as I heard it is good material to study from. This time I took GMAT Prep as I heard that it is the most accurate score measure for the exam.
GMAT Prep 1: 480
GMAT Prep 2: 540

I am already admitted in MBA program that I want to pursue, but I need to submit a GMAT score of 600+ to go to school. I have not given up on my goal to pursue education just because of an exam. I have decided to retake it for the third time. I do not want to repeat the history by making the same mistakes again. This is my last chance to get the GMAT score for my school before April, which means I have like 2 months to take the exam again and score a 600+. Please help me guys with your experience and expertise so that I can achieve my goal and beat the gmat with help of a strategic approach, because I have realized that number of hours of study and cramming the books does not help to beat this test. I heard that this forum is a really good platform for those who seek guidance and it really helps to ace the gmat. Thanks.

[Brent@GMATPrepNow]

Hi saadsaab_19,

Sorry to hear about your experience.

I know this advice is too late to heed, but I typically suggest that students achieve their target score on at least 2 practices tests before they take the official test.

So, where to go from here....

I suggest a systematic (even methodical) approach, in which you take the time to master each topic/concept (e.g., percents, ratios, assumption questions in critical reasoning, comparison questions in sentence correction, etc).

So, for each topic/concept, you should:
1) Learn the underlying concepts (rules, attributes, notation, etc.)
2) Learn GMAT-specific strategies related to that topic
3) Practice dozens of questions all related to that one topic.
4) Don't stop working on that topic until you have mastered it

Then, and only then, move on to the next topic.

To help you focus on one topic at a time, you can use BTG's tagging feature. 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.

While completing questions from the Official Guide (OG), you should you use an Error Log (aka Improvement Chart). You can find a free downloadable Improvement Chart here: https://www.gmatprepnow.com/sites/all/th ... G2016.xlsx. This will help you identify and strengthen your weak areas.

You should also spend a lot of time reviewing the responses from the Experts on this site. They model the steps one should take when tackling math problems.

In addition to learning the core concepts and GMAT-specific strategies, be sure to work on your endurance and test-taking skills (e.g., time management) by taking several practice tests. If you're interested, we have a free GMAT time management video at https://www.gmatprepnow.com/module/gener ... es?id=1244

Finally, you might consider signing up for Beat The GMAT's free 60-Day Study Guide (https://www.beatthegmat.com/mba/gmat-guide).
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

[[email protected]]

Hi saadsaab_19,

Your two Official GMAT Scores are essentially the same performance - you did certain things consistently well, but you made the same consistent mistakes. Many Test Takers who use a 'book-heavy' study approach tend to get 'stuck' at a particular scoring level; that's likely a part of what's happened to you. In addition, since you've been studying a certain way for so long, you've likely developed some 'bad habits' that will take some time to 'fix' (and replace with new 'good habits').

Thankfully, your score goal is modest and 2 months is still plenty of time to make the necessary adjustments to how you study and improve. Given what you've described, you might want to invest in a GMAT Course of some type (either Guided Self-Study or instructor-led).

1) Have you scheduled your next Official GMAT yet?

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

[GMATinsight]

Hi,

First Attempt:
I recently took my first GMAT exam on December 3, 2015 and my score was 480 (Q35,V21). I was feeling shattered with my score and I thought may be I did not study well or something. I studied from Kaplan resources. My study pattern was like 16 hours/week and I felt I am doing well.
Kaplan CAT scores:
CAT 1: 510
CAT 2: 480
CAT 3 580
CAT 4: 530
CAT 5: 540


Second Attempt:
So, I took 3 weeks off from everything else and started studying and rescheduled GMAT for January 21, 2015. I have been studying 6 hours a day during those 3 weeks and tried to do the best I could by studying all the Veritas books. Surprisingly I got the same score this time 480 (Q37,V19). This time I studied using Veritas prep resources, thinking that I have already exhausted Kaplan material so I should go for Veritas Prep resources for studying as I heard it is good material to study from. This time I took GMAT Prep as I heard that it is the most accurate score measure for the exam.
GMAT Prep 1: 480
GMAT Prep 2: 540

I am already admitted in MBA program that I want to pursue, but I need to submit a GMAT score of 600+ to go to school. I have not given up on my goal to pursue education just because of an exam. I have decided to retake it for the third time. I do not want to repeat the history by making the same mistakes again. This is my last chance to get the GMAT score for my school before April, which means I have like 2 months to take the exam again and score a 600+. Please help me guys with your experience and expertise so that I can achieve my goal and beat the gmat with help of a strategic approach, because I have realized that number of hours of study and cramming the books does not help to beat this test. I heard that this forum is a really good platform for those who seek guidance and it really helps to ace the gmat. Thanks.

Looking at your score tells us the pattern that you have been doing consistently doing as good/bad as you you got in GMAT.

The reason that are quite evident are that your fundamentals to deal with quant and verbal both are not as appropriate and sound as they they should be so I highly recommend taht you get expert help in identification of loopholes in your understanding of concepts and then work on them to get a better score that probably you deserve.

You can see your score in percentiles to get the real idea of where you stand vis-a-vis other test takers across the world.

For assessment with help of a free consultation, feel free to connect with us.

I hope this helps!

[ceilidh.erickson]

As others have noted, your scores have been roughly consistent. So, here are the things you need to master in the next few months, beyond the content studying you've been doing:

- Timing. Low scores are often indicative of poor time management. If you ran out of time at the end of a section, that would hurt your score much more than if you skipped (guessed quickly on) difficult questions throughout the section. Make sure you're practicing efficient time management in your practice tests, and don't be afraid to guess and move on.

- Careless errors. You can learn all of the content perfectly, but if you're still making simple mistakes in computation or algebra, your score will not improve. Learn how to track your mistakes here: https://www.manhattanprep.com/gmat/blog ... -studying/

[saadsaab_19]

Hi saadsaab_19,

Your two Official GMAT Scores are essentially the same performance - you did certain things consistently well, but you made the same consistent mistakes. Many Test Takers who use a 'book-heavy' study approach tend to get 'stuck' at a particular scoring level; that's likely a part of what's happened to you. In addition, since you've been studying a certain way for so long, you've likely developed some 'bad habits' that will take some time to 'fix' (and replace with new 'good habits').

Thankfully, your score goal is modest and 2 months is still plenty of time to make the necessary adjustments to how you study and improve. Given what you've described, you might want to invest in a GMAT Course of some type (either Guided Self-Study or instructor-led).

1) Have you scheduled your next Official GMAT yet?

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

Hi rich thank you for replying, I have not scheduled my GMAT yet

[MartyMurray]

Hi saadsaab_19.

Here's what it sounds as if you have been doing, going through books and other materials, learning a bunch of stuff, and hoping that all that stuff that you are cramming into your mind is going to somehow translate into the GMAT score that you want.

Here's what you need to do going forward, see the GMAT as a GAME that you need to learn how to play well and see all those materials as merely things that you could USE or NOT USE in order to play the game well.

Yes those materials are full of possibly useful ideas, but some of those ideas you don't need in order to score high on the GMAT, and the use of others may make sense for some people but not for you, and overall, cramming your mind full of stuff is not really the best way to prepare for the GMAT.

Here's is the BEST resource that you have available at this point, all of those practice tests that you have already taken. You can go through those tests to see what you needed to be more effective at in order to hit your score goal, and then DIRECTLY address what you find.

A good rough approximation is that each right answer is worth about ten GMAT score points. So you can look back over your practice tests and see what you could have done to get about a dozen more right answers. Ok, yes the test is adaptive. So because of that and for other reasons, this approximation is not exact. Still, the point stands. You will do much better and be more efficient in your preparation if rather than learning all kinds of random stuff you just do exactly what your test results indicate that you need to do in order to hit your score goal.

For instance, if you missed 3 geometry questions, then work on geometry until you are good enough that you would get most 600 level geometry questions right. If you missed 7 sentence correction questions, then work on SC until your hit rate is maybe around 75 percent rather than around 50 percent. Probably also you could get more right answers just by being more accurate when you are working your way to answers. Pick up a right answer here, and one there, and you get to 12 to 15 more right answers and break that 600 level, and you don't need to learn EVERY GMAT related thing, by the way. You need to learn only what YOU need to learn in order to achieve your goal.

Once you have decided what quant categories to work on, you could sign up for a practice account in the GMAT area here, https://bellcurves.com, go to the quant part of the question bank, and work on one category at a time.

To get some more insight into the score increasing approach I am discussing here, you could read this blog post.

https://infinitemindprep.com/raising-you ... the-board/

[[email protected]]

Hi saadsaab_19,

To properly plan out the next couple of months of activities, we need to know two things:

1) What is the deadline to submit an acceptable score to this School?
2) Working backwards from THAT date, how much time do you have (be exact) to study and take the GMAT (and possibly take it again, if needed)?

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