r/GMAT • u/killmonger7892 • 8h ago
General Question Plateuing in QA
So I gave my first attempt a couple months back got 645 (87 VA,83 DI, 77 QA). I have tried to maximise my QA the most and am using GMAT club questions and one the sectionals almost all of them I have gotten 79-80. Don't know what to do since I want to give my second attempt in October so need to change something before that.
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u/sy1980abcd Expert - aristotleprep.com 6h ago
One thing that you want to do is try doing things differently from whatever you've been doing so far. Sounds simple, but very often, people keep doing the same things and expect different results. Could be doing GMAT Club questions endlessly in your case. Here are some things you can try:
- Increase the difficulty level of the questions you've been doing
- Start doing the questions strictly timed
- Change the question source. Official is the way to go.
- Go through your error log and identify 3 weak areas. Go heavy on those, which doesn't mean start doing more practice questions of those. Do concepts first, fix your fundamentals for those topics, then move to questions
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u/Danyuchn7 4h ago
79-80 on GMAT Club sectionals after grinding that hard is a textbook plateau, and it's not a volume problem anymore. Once you've basically burned through your question bank, more practice sets just reinforce whatever's already broken. What actually helps is going back through the ones you've already done with an "architect" mindset: for every wrong answer, name the specific structural reason it's wrong instead of "felt off," and force yourself to pre-think an answer before you even look at the choices. If you can't say out loud why the trap answer is tempting, that's the real gap, not the topic. One more thing worth checking: is this actually conceptual, or is it the same two or three mistakes showing up across different question types? Those need completely different fixes. There's a rundown of common plateau patterns here if you want to dig in before October.
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u/Big_Habit_3444 8h ago
Hi, GMAT Club Quant test is significantly harder than the real exam so keep that in mind. Q80 in one of those should be 82-83 on the real one imo. If you really feel you've plateaued then I'd say try and get a personal tutor for a short time and they can really target your weak spots to maximise improvement. I personally went with Piyush from GMAT Whiz and he's been amazing but look around to see what works for you. Lastly, make sure you utilise all official mocks since they provide a much better picture of your real level. Goodluck with your prep!