Gmat focus score from 475 Official CAT to 565+ possible?

[BilalU54]

I scored 360 on my first official GMAT focus practice exam then after a week of overview of MPREP All the GMAT I scored 475 but i am unable to improve more since then. I have gone through ALL QUANT book but didn’t improve much and I am starting again with self study tool kit.

Can I score 565+ in a month ? I have my exam on 6th of April.

Kindly guide me. I need to score this in a month and half as my dream program requires this score.

How many hours do I need to put in?

I have taken the math diagnostic too and got 11 questions right out of 16. Will be focusing on missed topics also.

Is it possible? To get that score ?

[StaceyKoprince]

First, congratulations on raising your initial score to 475! (Was it 365 to start? You said 360—but a number ending in 0 is for the old GMAT, not the new one.)

Your score is comprised of three sections—Quant, DI, and Verbal. What were your scores on the individual sections? (Tell me both your initial scores on your first test and your scores on your second test.)

Also, in your Self-Study Toolkit syllabus, your second practice test is assigned in Week 6. Just after that assignment, there's another assignment with a detailed spreadsheet to plug your official practice test data into—it'll help you analyze your performance. If you haven't already done that, go find that now and start in on that analysis (it will take you several hours).

A jump from 475 to 565 is a decent-sized jump. It's attainable, but 6 weeks is a pretty tight timeframe. I don't know for sure whether that will be enough time—but the best option is just to go for it and see what happens! You'll definitely need to study a lot—6* days a week, probably for 10 to 20 hours a week total. (*6 days a week, not 7, because you do need to give yourself a break periodically so that you don't burn out. And I don't want you studying like 30-40 hours a week—again, you'll just burn out and then you won't remember anything very well.)

First, yes, to score 565+, you can't afford to have holes in your math foundations. You mentioned that you have Self-Study Toolkit, so do go through any Foundations of Math material that you need. Pay attention not just to whether you get something right but also how much time it takes. You could be getting something right but still need to learn how to do it more efficiently in future.

Note: Your syllabus includes video recordings of our two Foundations of Math workshops. The workshops are also held live at least once a month. If you're interested in attending live—which can be a lot more engaging than watching a video—just check our website for the upcoming schedules. (Note to others reading this: As of right now when I'm writing this, our live FoM workshops are completely free / open to anyone, so please feel free to sign up!)

In terms of where to focus from there, it will depend on your scores in each section and any conclusions you come to from your analysis (the spreadsheet that I mentioned earlier—which you can find in Week 6 of your study syllabus). Give me the stats and tell me any takeaways from your analysis and we'll figure out the best plan from now until your next practice test (and then we'll repeat the process every time you take another practice test).

Finally: What I'm describing above is something you could also do with a private tutor—a private tutor can be really efficient in helping you to improve, but the drawback is that a private tutor is very expensive. We can help you with this kind of advice here for free, so you certainly don't have to use a private tutor. I just wanted to mention it because you have such a short timeframe for a ~100-point increase...the efficiency of a tutor would be particularly helpful in this case.

Let me know when you have that data!

[BilalU54]

Hi Stacey,

Thank you so much for your reply.

Yes, you are right my score was 365, (Q-68), (V-74) and (DI-62) in the first Practice exam. And on the second in which I scored 475, (Q-73), (V-74) and (DI-73).

Sure, I will do the analysis and I am studying on average 2-3 hours a day. I think I can do great in verbal by familiarizing myself with the questions and strategies in the book All the verbal also in Data insights. But Quant is always challenging for me just because I have hated math since high school but studying from All the Quant, it is making things look easy and doable with the explanations and strategies.

What do you think can I achieve the 565+ If I go for the Exam end of March or early April.

And yes I did consider private tutoring but they are way out of my budget as I am currently a working student in Pakistan and my budget does not allow me to opt for private tutoring.

Thank you again for your prompt reply.

[StaceyKoprince]

Wow, those are really nice increases already on Q and DI. Did you prioritize those two areas first, given that those were your lower scores on the first test?

Your three section scores are roughly similar now, so you can pick up points in any section to help your total score. It's best to try to lift each section about equally from here.

In general, because you are working with a very short timeframe, I would give yourself as much time as you can before you take the test. So I would schedule for early April rather than late March—every extra day will help.

After you've done your test review / analysis, let us know what you find and we'll help you figure out how to prioritize from there!

[BilalU54]

Hi Stacey,

I took the Official Practice exam 3 and scored 455. I am just depressed and demotivated. Don't know what do to at this point.

[StaceyKoprince]

I'm sorry that you had a disappointing practice test. Progress on the test isn't linear—it isn't the case that people see an increase each time. And there is some really good news: 475 and 455 are basically the same score (statistically speaking), so you've just shown that you really have improved your baseline to that level. The first time wasn't just luck; you really have improved.

The important thing now is to learn from this test experience to figure out how to improve.

Analyze your test results and use that to figure out what you need to prioritize for the next couple of weeks. Use the "full test analysis" tracker linked in Atlas, either in Session 6 or Session 9 (it's the same tracker in both places). When you're done with your analysis, share your conclusions here, along with what you're planning to prioritize / do. We'll tell you where we think you've drawn the right conclusions and we'll tell you if we think you should tweak or change anything in your plan.

This whole process isn't easy. Grad school isn't easy either! All you can do is keep figuring out how to move forward and do your best. If you're stressing out because you're thinking about the deadline...again, you're going to try your very best. If you can get there in time for your deadline, that's fantastic. If not, then your plans may need to change somewhat, yes, but it won't mean that you can't ever go to business school. Life doesn't always happen exactly the way we plan it—but human beings are actually really good at adapting to whatever happens and figuring out a different way forward. (If we weren't, we wouldn't have basically taken over the planet... which is creating other problems, but anyway, that's a different conversation... )

So when you feel that stress creeping up on you, take a deep breath. Do what you can right now, today. In the future, you will be able to adapt for whatever happens.

[BilalU54]

Thank you Stacey,

I will surely have to focus on Value/order/factors, Ratios/Percents and Equal/Unequal ALG.

In verbal i was having hard time understanding the arguments or passages, not that my English is bad but it was weird I cant explain. I couldn't focus enough.

In data Insights MSR and math related Data sufficiency giving me a problem.

And overall in my opinion, I lack practice of the concepts in the GMAT context. I also was fatigued and stressed during the test. I took verbal first and just between the verbal I was so stressed and tired just by looking at the questions. And in Quant many of my mistakes were because of not giving enough attention to the question stem.

Can you tell me what my path forward should be ? Should I start focusing solely on OG problems and also what should I do for RC? That if I see a RC passage I do not get stressed.

And thanks for the advice on not giving up.

Would appreciate your reply

Thanks,

[BilalU54]

Additionally, I got 3 questions from count/sets/series/prob and got 1 of them right.
5 from Equal/Unequal/ALG and got 2 right.
5 from percents/rates/ratios and got 2 right.
8 from Value/Order/Factor and got 1 rght.

Verbal:

13 CR questions and got 5 right.
10 RC questions and got 3 right

Data Insights:

7 DS questions and got 1 right.
6 Graphs and got 3 of them.
4 Two part and got 1 of them right.
3 MSR and got 1 right.

[BilalU54]

And I rushed the last 4 CR questions where I was just guessing and got all of em wrong.

[StaceyKoprince]

Hi, I'm sorry I'm just getting back to you now—I've been out sick.

In verbal i was having hard time understanding the arguments or passages, not that my English is bad but it was weird I cant explain. I couldn't focus enough.

When you went back afterwards to review, did you find it easier to understand at least some of it? If so, this is a really clear / common sign of stress and mental fatigue. When we're stressed out, we just don't process things as well as we normally do—and the more stressed out we are, the worse it is. Another really common sign is reading something and realizing that you have no idea what you just read and you have to read it again—reading it over and over.

Part of this is going to be giving yourself a *lot* of practice under test-like conditions. I *don't* want you taking full practice tests every day (or even every week), but you do need to practice the time pressure and decision-making, so that means doing small sets of questions under timed conditions. Do sets of 8 for Quant or DI and sets of 6 for Verbal (one RC passage with 3-4 questions and then 2-3 CR).

For RC, go back both to that test and any other recent RC you've done to see whether there are any common trends. Certain topics areas? (biological science? physics-y science? social science? business? historical / academic?) The style of writing (more abstract / big ideas vs. more concrete / lots of specific details to keep track of?) Anything else?

Then, go look for things you can read that are in that same style or topic area and are academic-level writing. Scientific American, Harvard Business Review, University of Chicago Magazine, MIT's OpenCourseWork (OCW) site. The first three sites can often be too high-level (pop-culture writing rather than academic), so look for things that are "meatier" / heavier. The final site (MIT) can range too light to too heavy, so just look for "mid-range" there. Find things that remind you of the GMAT in style and tone and then just read for 5 minutes. Then summarize out loud what you read—pretend you're having coffee with a friend and trying to give them a high-level summary of the main points made in whatever you just read. Then, do it again for another 5 minutes (more of the same article or a different article entirely). You're just getting your brain back into the habit of reading university-level / academic writing and engaging with the content in a critical way (that's a fancy way of saying: Make your brain think about and process what it's reading).

In terms of the problems you got right or wrong, what's even more important is *why* you got something wrong. The "why" tells you what you need to do in order to get better.

For example, you missed (at least) four CRs simply because you were rushing and had to guess. Try them again now—maybe you can actually do some or all of them if you have adequate time and aren't stressed? If so, the remedy isn't to try to get better at those four problems. It's to adjust things elsewhere in the section so that you're not rushing so much by the time you get to the end.

Ditto, on those math and DI problems. Were there others you missed due to careless mistakes, stress, rushing, etc?
Were there some you legitimately missed, but when you review them, you realize you can do them now?
Which ones are still baffling even when you look at them afterwards / don't have any time pressure?

How you treat those problems depends on that analysis. If something was due to a careless mistake, you need to figure out what the mistake was, why you made it, and what new habit you can implement to prevent that type of mistake in future. (And then you need to go practice that new habit until it's a habit!)

If you really don't know something but you think it makes sense now, you know you need to go study that area and practice more problems of the same type to help solidify what you just learned.

If something is still baffling even with review, that question goes on your "bail fast" list until the next practice test. Focus your time and energy on the things that are easier to learn first. After your next practice test, you can decide whether this thing is something you want to learn at that point.

Given that, go look at those questions again and tell me what you think your best opportunities are for improvement based on *why* you missed certain questions.