Best Study Plan to go from 580-750 (Goal Score)

[BrettB750]

Hi there,

First off, I am new here so if his is not the right place for my thread, I apologize and would be happy to move it wherever is proper.

Summary: I just took the Veritas in person 6 week (36 hour) course and then about a month after completion of that I just took the GMAT. I'll admit that I was a bit more anxious than I thought I would be but that's no excuse. Prior to taking the actual exam I've taken tons of practice tests. On the Veritas Tests I was getting anywhere from 630-720 but when it came to test day I got a 580 that I was very unhappy with. I think the nerves got to me a little bit and I most likely would have scored in the low 600's if I was more relaxed but, who knows. I decided to cancel my scores rather than have them sent to my desired schools because all of them average at 650 or higher (USC, UCLA, UCI, Stanford (reach school), and Berkeley. I realize that wanting to jump to a 750 from a 580 will be extremely difficult but I consider myself very intelligent and extremely driven. Even if I don't get a 750, a score towards the high 600's/low 700's would not be dissatisfying.

I spent about 3 months before the exam attending the Veritas in person instruction and almost non-stop went through the Veritas books and focusing on my main areas of concern in quant: (number properties, factors and multiples, data sufficiency in general, and word problems) and for verbal (both sentence correction and RC, although more SC than RC). My Critical reasoning no doubt can improve but it is not a weak point, such as the points I just mentioned.

I'm taking the Veritas Prep course instruction over again (online w/ Ravi starting early April) and plan to take the test about 8 weeks later (or 2 weeks after the Veritas course ends).

I've been reading about how some people that have dramatically increased their scores from their first to second test did so by getting study materials from multiple sources (i.e. Official GMAT Review, Manhattan SC, etc.) so I am planning on doing that. I currently have:

All of the Veritas books, Princeton Review GMAT Premium 2015 Edition, and just ordered the Manhattan SC guide.

In addition I will be using the friendly error log to keep track of my progress and what I need to improve on.

I'd like some help on a couple of things if possible:

1. What have you found as the most effective way to make sure to master each type of question one might see on the GMAT?

2. Does anyone have a recommended 60 day study schedule they would be willing to share that did score really well?

3. Are the any other books or study materials that I should purchase in addition to those listed above?

4. Besides buying more practice exams for GMAC are there any other free ones out there?

5. Any additional advice is highly appreciated.

Thank you!

[MartyMurray]

1. You posted in the correct place.

2. Am I right in thinking that you took two official practice tests?

3. Have you used the Official Guides at all? If not I don't recommend buying ANY paper books. Do the planet and your karma big favor and use only ebooks.

4. Going from around 600 to around 750 is not such a big deal. People do it all the time. It will take some work though.

5. From what you said, it sounds as if you got the impression that a book or a course could teach you how to take the GMAT. That impression is not really correct. While you can learn lots of great things, and by the way, lots of not so great things, from books and courses, you probably will not learn what you need to learn in order to score 750 by reading about all kinds of stuff in books.

The GMAT is basically a logic game, and for most people learning to score really high at the game takes playing the game.

Those weaker areas you mentioned, yup you could research them more, but really you need to find a set of questions, such as the quant questions you can access by going to the GMAT area and setting up a practice account here, https://bellcurves.com, and deep dive into topic after topic, learning all about the concepts and techniques related to a particular type of question and then doing dozen of such questions, slowly and carefully, learning to get RIGHT answers.

In other words, at this point, probably nobody's 60 day study plan or book is really what you need. You already know aalll about the GMAT. Now you have to work on your own weaker areas and figure out what you need to do in order to make them strong areas. So don't make the mistake of just going over everything again. Hit those weaker areas one by one. If you make a weaker area stronger, you KNOW that your expected score has increased.

Let's say that your theoretical score is about 620. So to get to 750 you need to get, very roughly, 12 - 16 more right answers than you have been. That will take getting better at DS and SC and getting stronger in maybe 5 to 10 other ways.

Here is how I scored high. https://www.beatthegmat.com/mba/2015/05/ ... rty-murray

Regarding free tests, Manhattan Prep offers one, 800Score offers a free quant CAT, and there are some others out there. I think with that Manhattan guide you get access to all of the Manhattan tests anyway, six of them.

Having said that, be sure to use some official tests going forward, as test prep company tests tend to be a little different from the real thing, and so sometimes people who have used test prep company tests exclusively get thrown off by the feel of the actual test.

[[email protected]]

Hi BrettB750,

To start, what were your Quant and Verbal Scaled Scores on Test Day?

I'm sorry to hear that Test Day didn't go as well as planned. When these types of score drops occur, the two likely "causes" involve either something that was unrealistic during practice or something that was surprising (or not accounted for) on Test Day.

If you can answer a few questions, then we should be able to figure this out:

When you took your CATs:
1) Did you take the ENTIRE CAT (including the Essay and IR sections)?
2) Did you take them at home?
3) Did you take them at the same time of day as your Official GMAT?
4) Did you ever do ANYTHING during your CATs that you couldn't do on Test Day (pause the CAT, skip sections, take longer breaks, etc.)?
5) Did you ever take a CAT more than once?

Unfortunately, working through the same practice materials in the same general way will likely not yield the huge score increase that you're looking for. As such, you might need to invest in some new non-book resources and commit to learning the necessary Tactics to score higher on Test Day.

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

[BrettB750]

1. You posted in the correct place.

2. Am I right in thinking that you took two official practice tests?

3. Have you used the Official Guides at all? If not I don't recommend buying ANY paper books. Do the planet and your karma big favor and use only ebooks.

4. Going from around 600 to around 750 is not such a big deal. People do it all the time. It will take some work though.

5. From what you said, it sounds as if you got the impression that a book or a course could teach you how to take the GMAT. That impression is not really correct. While you can learn lots of great things, and by the way, lots of not so great things, from books and courses, you probably will not learn what you need to learn in order to score 750 by reading about all kinds of stuff in books.

The GMAT is basically a logic game, and for most people learning to score really high at the game takes playing the game.

Those weaker areas you mentioned, yup you could research them more, but really you need to find a set of questions, such as the quant questions you can access by going to the GMAT area and setting up a practice account here, https://bellcurves.com, and deep dive into topic after topic, learning all about the concepts and techniques related to a particular type of question and then doing dozen of such questions, slowly and carefully, learning to get RIGHT answers.

In other words, at this point, probably nobody's 60 day study plan or book is really what you need. You already know aalll about the GMAT. Now you have to work on your own weaker areas and figure out what you need to do in order to make them strong areas. So don't make the mistake of just going over everything again. Hit those weaker areas one by one. If you make a weaker area stronger, you KNOW that your expected score has increased.

Let's say that your theoretical score is about 620. So to get to 750 you need to get, very roughly, 12 - 16 more right answers than you have been. That will take getting better at DS and SC and getting stronger in maybe 5 to 10 other ways.

Here is how I scored high. https://www.beatthegmat.com/mba/2015/05/ ... rty-murray

Regarding free tests, Manhattan Prep offers one, 800Score offers a free quant CAT, and there are some others out there. I think with that Manhattan guide you get access to all of the Manhattan tests anyway, six of them.

Having said that, be sure to use some official tests going forward, as test prep company tests tend to be a little different from the real thing, and so sometimes people who have used test prep company tests exclusively get thrown off by the feel of the actual test.

Marty,

Thanks for the reply. to answer you questions:

2. I took about 14 different practice tests (12 from Veritas and 2 from GMAC).

3. I have the 2016 GMAT Official Review Guide via e-book. Just digging into that. Planning to do the diagnostics first then go over individual subjects.

Thank you

[BrettB750]

[email protected],

To answer your questions:

1. I did take entire exams
2. Some of them I took at home and other at libraries.
3. I did take the exams at a time within about 30 minutes from when I took the actual exam.
4. No, I did the exams with proper time restrictions
5. I took some of the CATs more than once but spaced out by about 2 weeks or more so I would not memorize answers.

I'll post my study plan on here soon once I get it completed.

[ceilidh.erickson]

A few things to add...

1. NEVER CANCEL YOUR SCORES!!! Schools only look at your top score. There is absolutely no difference in the way schools evaluate a student who got a 580 then a 720 versus the student who got a 700 then a 720. It can only be to your benefit to show that you took it a few times and demonstrated major progress.

2. You said that you were getting "anywhere from 630-720" on your CATs. That's quite a wide range, with apparently little consistency. Lack of consistency usually indicates a lot of careless errors in your technique (sometimes you get lucky, sometimes you don't). I think that keeping an Error Log is going to make a tremendous difference in your process.

Here is some advice for what to do to improve your score...

https://www.manhattanprep.com/gmat/blog ... take-gmat/
https://www.manhattanprep.com/gmat/blog ... t-wrong-2/
https://www.manhattanprep.com/gmat/blog ... -the-gmat/
https://www.manhattanprep.com/gmat/blog ... game-plan/
https://www.manhattanprep.com/gmat/blog ... -2-review/

[ceilidh.erickson]

A few things to add...

1. NEVER CANCEL YOUR SCORES!!! Schools only look at your top score. There is absolutely no difference in the way schools evaluate a student who got a 580 then a 720 versus the student who got a 700 then a 720. It can only be to your benefit to show that you took it a few times and demonstrated major progress.

2. You said that you were getting "anywhere from 630-720" on your CATs. That's quite a wide range, with apparently little consistency. Lack of consistency usually indicates a lot of careless errors in your technique (sometimes you get lucky, sometimes you don't). I think that keeping an Error Log is going to make a tremendous difference in your process.

Here is some advice for what to do to improve your score...

https://www.manhattanprep.com/gmat/blog ... take-gmat/
https://www.manhattanprep.com/gmat/blog ... t-wrong-2/
https://www.manhattanprep.com/gmat/blog ... -the-gmat/
https://www.manhattanprep.com/gmat/blog ... game-plan/
https://www.manhattanprep.com/gmat/blog ... -2-review/

[MartyMurray]

Retaking practice tests tends to result in inflated scores. Even if you don't recall the exact answers, you still have already been exposed to the pattern of the questions.

In fact, in retaking practice tests you can develop some really be habits.

Compare the GMAT with a typical calculus exam. If you do the homework before the calculus exam, probably you will see almost the exact questions that you will see on the exam. Knowing the patterns makes sense. The GMAT is different from the calculus exam in that knowing the patterns of a bunch of questions is not really sufficient for scoring high. Actually the point of GMAT questions is to challenge you with new patterns and see how good you are at arriving at answers.

When you retake practice tests, you don't see new patterns. You see repeats of patterns that you have already seen. So you aren't really practicing what you need to practice, which is dealing with new challenges.

Here is a post about the consequences of doing too many retakes.

https://infinitemindprep.com/resetting-a ... et-smoked/

[[email protected]]

Hi BrettB750,

I think you missed one of my questions in my initial post:

1) What were your Quant and Verbal Scaled Scores on Test Day?

Test Day is a rather specific 'event' - the details are specific and they matter, so you have to train as best as you can for all of them. The more realistic you can make your CATs, the more likely the score results are to be accurate. The more you deviate, the more "inflated" your scores can become - and that's likely what happened here. By taking the CATs at home and retaking CATs that you had already taken, you weren't properly training for the FULL GMAT 'experience.'

Thankfully, this is a relatively easy set of problems to fix. The big question now is "how long will it take you to properly get 'used to' taking the full GMAT in a way that mirrors what you'll face on Test Day?" It's also likely that you might also need to invest in some new GMAT training materials.

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