From 600 to 750 to 670! (SOS!)

[BradleyE446]

My first try on the GMAT was disappointing, and I am running out of study time, so I want to make sure I spend my final precious weeks of study wisely.

Background
I am a native English speaker (American) and am working full time. I travel internationally for work, which has been a detriment to my studies ("Should I check out the Great Wall of China or do a MGMAT CAT?"). This has led to a painfully long GMAT journey as the quality of my study time drops significantly when I am abroad. I have been studying with the MGMAT books/OG explanations as well as Magoosh. In general, I am happy with both sets of materials.

Score History
10/24/2015 MGMAT 1 600 (Q35, V36)
11/2/2015 MGMAT 2 640 (Q42, V36)
11/22/2015 MGMAT 3 650 (Q40, V38)
4/10/2016 GMATPrep 750 (Q48, V44)
4/23/2016 MGMAT 4 680 (Q44, V38)
5/22/2016 GMATPrep2 730 (Q47, V44)
6/4/2016 GMAT 670 (Q44, V38)

I also took the GMAT during my senior year of college and got a 690 (5 years ago). I basically got this score cold (when I compare my study efforts then to my study efforts now).

Test Day Diagnosis
From, "My Score Dropped! Figuring Out What Went Wrong"

1: Official Test Conditions - Yellow
I take practice tests in mostly exam like conditions. In the future, I will make sure my breaks never exceed 8 minutes.

2: Stamina - Green
No doubt the test is long, but Stamina is at the bottom of my list of concerns.

3: Timing - Red
This is my biggest area for improvement. The following excerpt sums up my issue quite nicely:

"The vast majority of students who mismanage time badly enough to experience a big score drop will do so by going too slowly at some point on the test and, consequently, either running out of time with questions left or being forced to move too quickly at other points, thereby increasing the error rate."

I started quant 2 minutes behind because the administrator forgot the login information to my computer, and I remained behind for the remainder of the section. This has always been a struggle for me. I "accidentally" spend 4 to 5 minutes on a tough question, and rush through questions looking for a good opportunity to "burn" a question to get back on time. Sometimes I feel like I can't get the high level questions correct unless I spend an extra 30 seconds on them. In fact, I got the 750 practice score by getting the first half of the quant questions correct (taking too much time on them) and the second half incorrect by rushing through them (the score report was really funny/tragic - I accept that this performance was probably an anomaly).

My plan for improvement in timing:
1. More CATS/Practice Exams under true exam conditions
2. Create a list of "autoskip" question types (e.g. Work and Distance Qs!). After 7 months of study, I can figure out just about every quant question, but there are definitely questions that take me more than 2.5 minutes to complete on average. It's hard to burn a question before giving it a fair chance, but I'll remind myself it is for the greater good.
3. Continue to write and study "When I see.. I will think.." notecards.
4. Continue to read blog posts and other "help me!" forum posts on timing to get more timing improvement ideas!

I could log time to help hone in my 1-minute sense, but I've already worked through all of the OG quant Qs multiple times and the Magoosh question bank. This has made "honest" studying tough. Many of the GMATClub questions are open for me, so I can use their timer to help with timing.

4: Anxiety - Yellow
I am hoping more CAT practice under true exam conditions will help with this.

A note on Verbal: I have only studied for SC. RC and CR are a blessing for me - even though the harder questions seem like complete gibberish.

How is my plan? Is there anything else I should consider? If I wanted to retake in 5 weeks, what would be the biggest bang for my buck? Any/all thoughts are welcome!

Thanks for the support!!

[BradleyE446]

After my post yesterday, I have read the following posts to unearth some additional area's of improvement. The challenge will be balancing these ideas in the most time effective way (sounds like I need a Business Mindset!)

Business Mindset - http://www.beatthegmat.com/mba/2015/08/ ... r-the-gmat
Take Away - Bail as quickly as possible on problems you will get wrong or that will take too long (3+ minutes)
Action Item - Create a list of problem types that cause the most problems (errors/time). Utilize the bucket method.
Action Item - Practice bailing on these questions during drills and CATs (in a smart way!)

Second Level of Learning - http://www.manhattanprep.com/gmat/blog/ ... -the-gmat/
Take Away - Even though I have studied so much already, there is still plenty of different opportunities/methods that could lead to improvement.

Analyzing Practice Problems - http://www.manhattanprep.com/gmat/artic ... roblem.cfm
Take Away - Recognition is key. Smashing through a bunch of problems won't get you there, instead you must look deeper.
Action Item - Use the Deep Analysis approach on difficult OG questions. Set up a log and literally answer the questions asked in this article.
Caveat: This is time consuming, so I will balance this against timing exercises (what I consider my biggest area of weakness).
Action Item - Create flash cards for the really juicy takeaways uncovered in the Deep Analysis of questions.

Decoding Problems - http://www.manhattanprep.com/gmat/blog/ ... -problems/
Take Away - Difficult problems are often easy problems in disguise.
Action Item - Practice rephrasing, include an attribute for rephrasing in the practice problem analysis exercise.

Minimize Careless Errors http://www.manhattanprep.com/gmat/blog/ ... -the-gmat/
Take Away - Careless errors can be reduced!
Action Item - Log careless errors, the actual reasons, and create flashcards or implement new techniques to minimize them.
Action Item - Document list of GMAT techniques as if I were an instructor.

Anthony's Story - https://www.manhattanprep.com/gmat/foru ... 32365.html
Take Away - I'm not alone, GMAT isn't everything, stay diligent, lots of good links from Stacy.
Action Item - Continue to read "Help Me!" posts; they are a wealth of information!

[StaceyKoprince]

Definitely the Great Wall of China.

Okay, moving on to other topics!

I

started quant 2 minutes behind because the administrator forgot the login information to my computer, and I remained behind for the remainder of the section.

That merits raised eyebrows. Did you report this? If I were you, I would ask for a free re-take. (They probably won't give you a 100% free re-take for only 2 minutes...but I'd ask for that and then be happy with any kind of discount on the re-take.)

It's totally fine to spend 30 seconds extra on a harder question. You'll have other questions that you answer 30 sec faster than average. What's not fine is spending 2 min extra because now you're forcing yourself into not-good decisions later on.

In general, 30 seconds over the average is totally fine on any question type. 30 to 60 seconds over the average is okay on a few occasions, but NEVER on an occasion when what you're really thinking is, "If I just had some more time, I'm sure I could figure this out." Extra time in general is reserved for "I know exactly what I'm doing / I'm not confused about anything; the problem is just a bit longer / harder than usual, so I have to take a few more steps than usual to get to the answer."

It's hard to burn a question before giving it a fair chance, but I'll remind myself it is for the greater good.

Mindset: you are an investor with $10 million to invest. People keep knocking on your door with their business ideas. Do you say "it's hard to say no to someone before giving him/her a $50,000 check to give the business a fair chance?"

Of course not. You say, I need to set priorities and I just don't think this one is worth my limited and precious money. Sorry. Get into the investment mindset: you don't hand someone money just because they asked. (And that's not for the greater good. It's for YOUR good. )

You don't mention a goal score, but I'll assume you're aiming for 700+. Yes? If so, then you need your stronger area (verbal) to be higher - at least 40+.

Good stuff in your second post. Two comments.

More on business mindset:
http://www.beatthegmat.com/mba/2016/02/ ... n-the-gmat
Nutshell: yes you need to learn how to bail on some questions right away. You also need to learn how to pull yourself out of a question that has stalled out - you'll need to do that just as much.

http://tinyurl.com/2ndlevelofgmat

Use the Deep Analysis approach on difficult OG questions.

Not just the hard ones. In fact,

learn how to learn

on more medium-level ones (medium for you). That'll make it easier for you to apply these principles to the harder ones. Often, you learn some aspect on a medium-level one that then gives you an angle into that harder-level problem. (eg, what I discussed in that disguise-and-decode article that you linked.)

Those two things are going to be the heart of your improvement.

Two more things:
(1) Anxiety / stress. See here:
https://www.manhattanprep.com/gmat/blog ... mat-score/

(2) For RC and CR, add this to the 2nd Level analysis of questions:
1) why was the wrong answer so tempting? why did it look like it might be right? (be as explicit as possible; also, now you know this is not a good reason to pick an answer)
2) why was it actually wrong? what specific words indicate that it is wrong and how did I overlook those clues the first time?
3) why did the right answer seem wrong? what made it so tempting to cross off the right answer? why were those things actually okay; what was my error in thinking that they were wrong? (also, now you know that this is not a good reason to eliminate an answer)
4) why was it actually right?

You can do that for SC, too - I only call it out specifically for CR/RC because you said those come easily to you until the questions get super hard.

What do you think about all of that?

[BradleyE446]

After taking an extended break from studying and then restarting and following Stacey's suggestions, I just retook the gmat and received:

Q: 49
V: 44
Overall: 750

I'm ecstatic! Thanks Stacey and MGMAT!

I do have a concern though. My IR was 6 and I expect my AWA will be similar. Should this discourage me from applying to top programs? (Let's assume the rest of my profile is good)

Thanks again!
Brad

[StaceyKoprince]

Wow! Congratulations—I'm really happy for you! (And glad that we could help. )

An IR of 6 (out of 8) is totally fine. At this point, anything above 5 on IR is a good score. (That could change in future as IR becomes more important and people spend more time studying for it.)

Ditto for the essay. 4.5 or higher (out of 6) on the essay is totally fine. 4 is borderline—probably fine, but might get noticed. Below 4 could be concerning—if that happens, let me know.

Hope you celebrated! And are still celebrating!