Got 650. Need advice on Retake

[gmatbond007]

Hi Folks,

I need some piece of advice .

I gave my GMAT last week, and scored 650(49Q,31V), which I feel, can be improved to 700+ atleast.. I had prepared for Gmat for close to 3 weeks and studied the following materials:

a. OG 11
b. Verbal Preview
c. OG 10
d. Manhattan SC
e Notes of rajat ,spidey and others.


During the preparation, My GMAT prep scores were 690(Q49,V37) and 640(Q49,V31).

During the tests, for my quant , I got around 85% questions from DS.All of them, i felt was a bit tuff. I think, I was able to solve most of the tuff DS questions. and completed the section in time. My GMAT prep results showed that, I was getting around 5 questions wrong in 0-25 and around 4-5 questions wrong in 26-37.

On real GMAT test, I experienced eexactly the same.almost 80% DS questions. All kind of tuff.

I am assuming the same thing ( which happened during the GMATPrep) happened to me on actual test.Other thing I observed on actual GMAT test was, I got around 5-7 questions around sequences and progressions, all of them revolving around the same fundamentals.

I had only studied questions 50-150 of OG11 maths section (DS) one day prior to the test. I was aiming to score around 50/51 in this section. Please provide some advice on this.


Now for the verbal section:

I admit that I am weak at the CR section. I would narrow the question down to 2 options but unfortunately ,still wont get the CR right. My OG CR hit rate was around 60%. However, The timing would range from 2-4 mins.
I had practiced questions from OG CRs and VerbaL preview. I would not get most of the questions right in the first place, inspite of narrowing down the options to 2.On revising the same questions from OG, I knew what the answer would be, as I had read the explanation earlier. So this would not help.

My RC and SC hit rate was much better at 75%-85%. SC timing was less than 1min 45 sec. Timing for RC passages were around 8-9 mins/passage

During the GMAT Prep tests, I found :

Between questions 1-25 , I would get around 5-6 questions wrong, which I would complete by 45-55min. Most of the wrong questions were the CR . I would get 3 RC by this time.

Between questions 25-41, I would get 8-9 questions wrong which would be clusters of 3-4 questions.I was kind of short of time for last 3 questions. Most of the time, the fourth RC comes between 32-37q, which kind of eats of majority of the time of last 25 mins. So after I finish off this RC, I am generally left with less than 10 mins for remaining 4-5 questions.

Of these 5 (37-41)questions, I tend to get my CR q wrongs and SCs most of the time correct.

I feel, I am not managing my time effectively and correctly, and am getting my most wrongs in the last 15-20 questions.

The same thing was reflected in one Manhattan test 680(Q48,V37).

I had given all the 3 tests in last week before my GMAT.

I am looking forward to score of 720+.

I am planning to retake the test in another 6 weeks from now.

I plan to revise OG 11 once agian.For CR I need to focus more on analysing line of reasoning why a certain option is right or wrong, buut doing questions from OG for CR maynot help.

what other material can I refer to .

Please provide me suggestions on how I could improve

a. Quant score to 50/51 levels

b. Verbal section score to atleast 40+ levels.
Esp with respect to CR: how i can cut down on time to narrow down the option and get it right, in less than 2 mins.I know practise is the key. What materials can I refer on this.

With regards to tests, what are the other tests I can take to judge my score.

-Any help is appreciated.
-Thanks

[Gmatbond007]

It would be great if somebody can provide any insight on this.

-Thanks

[StaceyKoprince]

Right now, there's a big discrepancy in your quant and verbal scores - you need to worry more about verbal than quant. (That's not to say you shouldn't be studying quant - but you're already at the 90th percentile there. Keep those skills up, but focus more on improving verbal.)

I'd say about 70% of your time should be spent on verbal, 30% on quant.

You mentioned that you remember the CR answers in OG, so you think that studying OG won't help much. The point is not that you remember, "Oh, C is the answer on this one." The point is that you don't really know WHY C is a better answer than B (the one you picked the first time around), why B is so tempting, and why B is wrong anyway, even though it is so tempting. You've done the problem, sure, but you haven't actually learned what you need to learn from it. :)

So, you aren't done with OG. Most of your learning comes from the 5-10 minutes you spend examining a question after you have done it the first time. On every CR question from now on, pick out which wrong answer you think is the most tempting. Be able to articulate both why it is so tempting and why it is wrong anyway - and be able to articulate that well enough that you could convince someone else who doesn't understand and believes that the tempting, but wrong, answer is actually the right one. (You can do that with RC too.)

Also, as you noted, you have a pacing problem. You're not going to hit 700 unless you can fix this problem. You mentioned that you both take the most amount of time on CR and CR is your weakest area. Think about that - is it really a good idea to spend extra time on the things that are your weaknesses? No! Any extra time you do have (and you shouldn't have much) should be spent on especially hard problems in your areas of strength, not your areas of weakness - you actually have a shot at getting very hard questions right if they are in your area of strength!

Acknowledge that, at times, you are going to have to let a problem go. It's not worth it to spend 3 or 4 minutes on this CR, knowing that you're pretty likely to get it wrong anyway, and then get another question wrong towards the end because you're rushing and don't have enough time!

Finally, next time around, don't take 3 practice tests in one week. Never more than one test in one week (and, really, more like one test every 2-3 weeks). Simply taking a test doesn't do a ton for you - you have to analyze your results and use them to set up a study plan based on your strengths and weaknesses as identified by the test. And you should easily be able to come up with 2-3 weeks' worth of things to do from a single test. Only then do you take a test again to see where you have made progress and where you haven't. If you're planning to take the test again in 6 weeks, you only need maybe another 3 tests, so if you already have access to our tests (and it sounds like you do) then you're fine.

You may also need to get a book that helps you specifically with CR. Take a look at the books on the market, ask around to see what other people have liked, and decide which one would be the best for you.

[Guest]

Thanks Stacey for the great insights. Yes, you are very much true in that one should concentrate more on the strengths and try to avoid spending extra time on weakness. After all, it is all the score which matters, and not the time I take to solve a question in which one is weak.

As for the pacing problem, I am trying to see your suggestion of " how long one min is" and I think it looks like it is really helpful. I am moving on to revise OG once again, this time,, using the methods you have mentioned. This would definitely help me in bumping up my acuracy in CR, and solving a 600-700 level CRs correctly.

I would also be refering to a few more books like Kaplan, to increase my understanding better.

-Thanks a bunch.
Appreciate your help.
Bond.

[StaceyKoprince]

You're welcome! Good luck - let us know how it goes!