GMAT Retake: Need help

[abhinavp311]

Hey!

I gave my GMAT on 31st August,16 and got a score 660 (Q-50 V-30), which is far less than my target score of 720 and above. Though my scores in MCAT were in 600s - CAT1 690 Q-46 V-38 & CAT2 670 Q-48 V-33- my scores in GMAT Prep were mainly in 700 (1- 690, 2-710, 2-720, 1-740).

I am planning to give gmat exam again within 1-1.5 months. As I have a decent command over quant (51/50 in all 6 GMAT prep tests), I will try to get 51. I am unable to get consistent good score in verbal.

Please find below enhanced score report details for verbal section -

1. CR- 42 pecentile
RC - 73 percentile
SC - 46 percentile

2. The number of incorrect questions increased as the exam moved forward -
First Part - 25%
Second Part - 29%
Third Part - 43%
Fourth Part - 62%

Time Management: Average per question
First Part - 1:58
Second Part - 2:07
Third Part - 1:52
Fourth Part - 1:13


3. Mean time in sub sections
CR - 2:01
RC - 1:44
SC- 1:40

Recently I gave economist GMAT practice test and got 700 (Q-49 V-33).

Right now I need help to figure out the following -
1. What further steps to be taken in order to achieve my goal?
2. I have exhausted almost all my official resources. Can you suggest from where can I get more questions to practice.
3. As you can see in enhanced report, the number of incorrect questions increases as the time goes on in exam. In practicing a set of 20 questions, I usually get 2-3 wrong. But thats not the case in full test. How can I improve in this aspect?

I am pretty confident that I will be able to get the target score with a bit of hard work and proper guidance.

Regards
Abhinav

[StaceyKoprince]

I know you want a higher score, but first: great work to get to 660! And to Q50! Great score.

Here's what jumps out at me from the ESR data:

(1) Timing problems go along with accuracy problems. The fourth quadrant was both your lowest in terms of % correct AND your fastest. You were rushing, likely because you'd spent too much time on some earlier questions in the section. (It's also possible that you were artificially rushing due to mental fatigue. A common outcome of mental fatigue is the feeling that you just want the test to be over, and so you unconsciously speed up.)

Speed generally results in careless errors. This is problematic any time, but it's especially problematic in clumps of questions, and it's especially problematic in quadrant 4 because the GMAT is known as a "where you end is what you get" test. If your score drops a great deal at the end...where you end is what you get.

The good news: you scored V30. We can't know exactly what you were scoring before you got to that last quadrant, but it was higher than V30. It might have been something like V32 to V35. So that means you have the potential capability to score in that range without too much more content work—if we can fix your timing problems (and mental fatigue problems, if applicable).

A combination of Q50 / V35 would put your score in the the 700 range.

(2) Your RC percentile was very strong (great work!), but CR and SC were lower—so there's where to focus your attention for your re-take. (Make sure you still practice RC enough that you don't lose those skills).

So, what to study. You gave me a lot of practice test data. What are you using to study? (Taking tests is practicing. It's important to practice, of course, but practicing is not the same thing as studying how to get better.)

I'm specifically not going to answer your question about where to get more practice problems—at least, not yet. At this point, you need to learn how to study better, not just do more practice problems.

Read this:
http://tinyurl.com/executivereasoning
And then this:
http://tinyurl.com/2ndlevelofgmat

Think about how what you've been doing does and doesn't match up with that and how you may need to change your approach accordingly. Tell us what you think.

Then, use the below to analyze your most recent MPrep CATs (this should take you a minimum of 1 hour):
http://tinyurl.com/analyzeyourcats

Based on all of that, figure out your strengths and weaknesses as well as any ideas you have for what you think you should do. Then come back here and tell us; we'll tell you whether we agree and advise you further. (Note: do share an analysis with us, not just the raw data. Your analysis should include a discussion of your buckets—you'll understand what that means when you read the last article. Part of getting better is developing your ability to analyze your result—figure out what they mean and what you think you should do about them!)

I recommend that you do the analysis for quant, too. I know your score is already about as high as you can get, but it may be the case that you are using a decent amount of mental energy to get that score—which can then hurt you on verbal, since that section comes after. You may need to spend some time studying how to get the same quant score using more efficient / effective solution processes—ones that don't tire your brain out so much before you get to verbal. So do the analysis and see whether you think that could be an issue for you on quant.

[abhinavp311]

Thanks a lot!
Would get back to you with the analysis.

[abhinavp311]

Gave yesterday CAT 4 -

IR - 2.89
Quant - 47
Verbal - 35
Total - 680

Quant - Incorrect - 11
Correct - 26

Verbal -
CR - 8/14 correct (Average right time- 2m; Average wrong time - 1m 30s)
RC - 6/12 correct (Average right time- 2m 10s; Average wrong time - 2m 06s)
SC - 12/15 correct (Average right time- 1m 35s; Average wrong time - 1m 46s)

Please find below key takeaways from the mock analysis

QUANT

1. Only till Q12, the cumulative time within +3min of target cumulative. Later on the gap was slowly increasing or stagnant. Had to guess some questions without reading.
In total guessed 6 Quant questions
No. of questions I did fast (<1m 15s) - 9. Out of them 6 guessed and 3 properly done.


No. of questions I did slow (>3m) - 6. 5 right 1 wrong
4 DS and 2 PS


2. Data sufficiency is taking too much time and thats why I had to skip some easy problem solving questions.
Right answer avg time - 2:21
Wrong answer avg time - 2:53

Problem solving average time - 0:56 (as I skipped 6 questions)

3. In topics - geometry I am taking too much time
Right - 2:32
Wrong 2:58

Fractions, decimals & Percent -
Right time - 0:30 (only 1 ques)
Wrong time - 1:34 (7 Nos.)
In this topic I mainly skipped the questions. If I had time, I would have been able to do most of the questions.

VERBAL

1. At Ques 8, cumulative time more than +3m of target cumulative. Then was rushing till the end of the section. Mainly because took too much time in reading the RC. As RC was long and difficult, did first RC question (inc. reading) in 6m 30 s. Other 1st question of RC took 5m 32s

2. By Ques 31, was 10 min off the cumulative time target.

3. Again in this had to guess >5 questions (including 1 complete RC).
Too slow (>2m) in 3 SC questions

4. 700-800 level SC questions (9 Nos) average time for right answer - 1m 42s (slow)

5. CR no too slow (>3m) but 2 too fast (as I guessed due to lack of time)

6. CR average wrong time (6 Nos) - 1m 30s (even after guessing without reading 2 questions)
SC average wrong time (3Nos.) - 1m 45s (in 1 question even took 2m 24s)

Please find my bucket below -

I. STRENGTHS
1. Quant - Linear equations, exponents & roots, quadratic, formulas, lines & angles and extra problem types.
2. Verbal - SC Verbs, Connecting Punctuations

II. Prioritize This
1. Quant - triangle, circle, co-ordinate, odds & evens, positives & negatives, combinatories, probability, algebric word problems (all correct but took too much time), work rate ( too much time), consecutive integers, overlapping sets, fractions, percent and ratios
2. Verbal - SC (modifier, meaning, parallelism)

III. Ugh. Just get these wrong faster

1. Quant - Inequalities (all correct but avg time >3min), polygon (all correct but avg time >3min), Divisibility & Primes, statistics, digits & decimals.

Note: Not enough questions in verbal to put them in different buckets.

My takeway -
Quant -
1. I am taking too much time in data sufficiency (esp. inequalities) and thats why I am not getting enough time at later stages to solve easier problems.

Verbal -
1. Taking more time (1m 45s) in SC questions of 700-800 difficulty.
2. Taking too much time to read the passage.
3. Similar to the real GMAT, was rushing till the end.

Personally I find manhattan tests far difficult and more time consuming (mainly quant and RC) than real GMAT tests. But would like to know how to proceed with my preparation to improve on the basis of above takeaways.

My plan on how to proceed -
1. Analyse the mistakes and recall the process of solving each question. If taken more time then why and is there any better method.
2. For quant topics of bucket "Ugh. Just get these wrong faster", I will study for faster steps as I know I dont want to skip and question or keep any weakness as I am aiming for 51 in quant.
3. Try to solve DS faster.

I am unable to get how to proceed for verbal section as I am getting little bit more comfortable in SC but taking more time than required time (1m 42s for 700-800 level questions - 9 Nos.). Also I am taking too much time to read the passage.

[StaceyKoprince]

Going in order through your analysis.

First, # correct / incorrect means nothing at all unless you get almost everything of a type right or almost everything of a type wrong—and, even then, it might not matter if you happened to get only really hard questions in that category. So don't pay attention to # correct / incorrect.

What does matter: Did you miss lower-level questions? If you have any holes in your foundation, those holes need to be plugged. Did you miss questions that you knew how to do in reasonable time (but made a careless mistake or rushed or whatever)? How do you need to make decisions differently next time so that you can get the questions that you know how to do in reasonable time while bailing on the ones that are too hard or will take too long?

Had to guess some questions without reading.

Expect to have to do this. Always and at every scoring level—that's how the test works. The question is just when you choose to guess—do you know how to recognize the worst questions (hardest for you) quickly, so that you can guess and move on quickly?

Everyone should guess on 4 to 7 questions in each section (Q and V). Since you are going for a 51 on quant, you will want to guess on 4 questions in that section. (I have had students do this in the past and still score 51 on quant.)

These guesses are random and immediate—spend less than 30s per problem (I call this "immediate bail" problems). This group does not include questions that you try but later decide you need to give up on, nor does it include any questions on which you are able to make an educated guess.
https://www.manhattanprep.com/gmat/blog ... -the-gmat/

What are you planning to do to get better at DS? What about those >3m questions that you got right—how are you going to learn to do them more efficiently? Or were some SO long that you actually would rather get them wrong fast next time?

How are you going to get faster at Geo?

FDP:

In this topic I mainly skipped the questions. If I had time, I would have been able to do most of the questions.

(1) Would you have been able to do them in reasonable time?
(2) If so, why did you skip these? Were they at the end and you were forced to? Or did you choose to skip? If you chose to skip, but they are questions that you can do in reasonable time, then what other ones should you have chosen to skip instead so that you would have had time to do these? (Don't just look at questions that you got wrong. If you took 3.5m to answer one question and that decision caused you to skip another question you could have gotten right in 2m...then the better decision would have been to skip the 3.5m one. Then you'd have gotten the 2m one right AND had another 1.5m to spend elsewhere.)

As RC was long and difficult, did first RC question (inc. reading) in 6m 30 s.

Overall, this is normal time for RC, not too slow. You'd aim to spend 2-3m reading and then 1m per big picture question and 1.5m per detail question. If you had a passage with 3 questions, 1 big picture and 2 detail, that would come out to 6 to 7m for that passage. Are you spending much more than 2-3m reading and then rushing the questions?

How much time are you averaging on SC and CR?

For verbal, plan to quickly random-guess on 6 to 7 questions in the section. The skill to learn here is how to quickly recognize questions that are likely to be bad opportunities / bad ROI for you.

Quant buckets:

These categories are not frequently tested, so aren't necessarily worth prioritizing; typically you will see only 1 of each of these on the test:
Combinatorics, probability, coordinate plane, consec integers
You may want to move those from bucket 2 to bucket 3.

These categories are more frequently tested, so may warrant moving from bucket 3 to bucket 2:
Divis and prime, statistics


For your verbal buckets, run your assessment reports on your last 2 tests to get enough data.

I'm going to re-paste a question that I asked you last time:

What are you using to study? (Taking tests is practicing. It's important to practice, of course, but practicing is not the same thing as studying how to get better.)

What books, lessons, and/or other materials are you using to learn how to work through DS efficiently, how to approach the different kinds of CR and RC questions, how to tackle the different grammar rules, etc? I need to know that in order to advise you about how to study. (If you aren't using any—if you're just practicing problems and tests—then you're going to need to identify some study material to help you, not just practice material.)

And how do you think you need to approach your study and problem analysis differently than you have been doing it in the past? What did you learn from the 2nd Level of GMAT study article? And what about the Maximize your ROI article that I linked earlier in this post?

You might find this useful too:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ziyp_Xon-UE