Erika here with PrepScholar GMAT 28 percent of all students who take the
GMAT will retake the test at least once however many of these students don't
know what to do leading up to and on their retake test day and they end up
with a smaller score improvement than they wanted the average score
improvement on a second try is only about 30 points in this video we'll go
over 7 tips for retaking the GMAT to ensure you get the score you're aiming
for as always if you like this video please hit the button to subscribe and
feel free to head over to our blog for even more great GMAT content the links
are in the description tip number 1 figure out if you really need to retake
the GMAT look at the average scores for the schools you're applying to if your
score is at least average for all of the schools your time is likely better spent
somewhere other than improving your GMAT score like writing your essays or
ensuring that your recommendation letters are top-notch similarly if your
score is far below average for the schools you're interested in you may be
better served by reevaluating your goals than retaking the test tip number 2 give
yourself enough time to study while you're allowed to retake the GMAT only
31 days after your last test day if you can take more time to study definitely
do it at PrepScholar we recommend that to improve up to 50 points you should plan
to study 50 hours for 50 to 100 points you should plan to study 100 hours and
so on make sure you can fit in enough hours of
study before test day to improve your score the amount that you want
additionally make sure those study hours are reasonably spread out even if you
can study 10 hours in one day it's not going to be very effective cramming is
bad so give yourself a wide window tip number three make a complete study plan
leading up to your test date so questions to consider what days will you
study how long will you study on each day what will you study on each day what
materials will you use when will you take practice tests etc having a plan
laid out will ensure that you don't somehow end up behind schedule and
needing to cram or having focused on the wrong things which brings me to tip
number four get your enhanced score report or ESR
from your last test date the ESR breaks down your GMAT scores further than your
official score report showing how you performed on different question types on
different question difficulties at different times on the tests and more
this allows you to see where you struggled on test day and build your
study plan around mastering those weaknesses for example if you have lower
subsection rankings for reading comprehension and critical reasoning
than for sentence correction you should likely focus your attention on improving
your passage analysis if you spend more time on questions you get wrong than on
questions you get right you likely need to work on your process of elimination
and guessing strategy if you miss more and more questions over the course of
each section you likely need to improve your test-taking stamina by doing more
long duration practice and so on the ESR is available for purchase on the mba.com
website it cost twenty-five dollars but in the face of wasting a $250 test
date it's definitely worth the cost tip number five consider personalized prep
even with the ESR it can be hard to plan around your strengths and weaknesses for
example maybe you need to work on your data sufficiency sub score well what is
it about data sufficiency questions that you're struggling with is it how you're
approaching the question stem is it how you're interpreting the statements is it
wasting time doing unnecessary work then once you figure out what specifically
you're struggling with how do you master the weaknesses that you've discovered
and how does that fit into your study plan this is where bringing in an expert
can really help options like PrepScholar's online program which creates a
study schedule specifically for you based on your performance on a
diagnostic or one-on-one tutoring with highly qualified instructors like me or
the other GMAT experts at PrepScholar ensure that
your study leading up to test day will be as effective as possible at
improving your scores like the ESR these options typically cost money however
many programs like PrepScholar have a money-back guarantee if you don't see
the score you're looking for if you're interested in how personalized prep at
PrepScholar can help you improve your GMAT score go ahead and check out the
links in the description but for now on to tip number 6 take test day seriously
many test takers put a lot of effort into months of preparation for test day
to skip breakfast the morning of the test stay out late the night before the
test or stand too close to a co-worker with the flu the week before
the test don't let the last few days or hours
before your retake ruin your second chance strive to be in your best
possible condition on retake day which leads us to tip number 7 use your
previous testing experience to build your confidence many people do poorly
their first time taking the test because it's a new experience they don't know
what to expect from test day which can create a lot of anxiety this means that
having gone through test day before you have an advantage you know exactly what
to expect from the palm vein scan to the workstations at the testing center to
requesting a new scratch pad in the weeks leading up to the test you can
use this experience to realistically visualize what success will look and
feel like on test day this will help you mentally and emotionally prepare
yourself so you can be as confident as possible going into your retake and
those are 7 tips for making the most of your GMAT retake if you have any
questions or what we talked about today or suggestions for future videos please
leave a comment below thanks for watching good luck on your retake and
happy GMAT studies