Hello -
I took the 9 week in person class and I've been studying on and off for the last 6 months, religiously for the last 6 weeks. I recently took the GMAT a couple weeks ago for the first time and was hoping you could provide some valuable feedback - below are all the details of my progress over the last 6 months and my final results:
1/21/09 560 (57%): 42Q(66%)25V (38%)
2/24/09 590(67%): 43Q(70%) 29V(56%)
3/10/09 560(57%): 40Q(61%) 28V(51%)
6/17/09 560(57%): 33Q(41%) 34V(69%)
7/19/09 640 (80%):43Q (70%) 34V (72%)
7/27/09 670 (89%):43Q (70%) 38V (85%)
NOTE: I did both essay for all the CATS to simulate real test conditions.
8/01/09 640 (75%) 48Q (83%) 29V (52%) - Real GMAT
Although the overall score was not surprising, I'm still quite disappointed in the breakdown of my content areas. Over the last couple months I've really tried to focus on my verbal since I've always known it has been my area of weakness (I was an engineer in college). I progressively raised my score from a 25V all the way to a 38V right before the test, and then during the real test I received a 29V....For the real test, it seemed like I did incredibly well on the first 20 verbal problems, the next 10-15 questions were way above my level in terms of difficulty, and I got most of them wrong, and the last 5 questions were super easy - I also noticed the last 2 reading comprehension passages (both of which were 4 questions each surprisingly - I had never encountered any 4 question passages in the Manhattan GMAT practice CATs, although the study guides refer to them) were way out of my level of comfort and I really just guessed on them, which is an obvious reason why I probably did so poorly.
I'm going to try to take the test in another 6 weeks and I'm hoping that the progress that I made in the last 6 weeks of studying (110 improvement - from 560-670)can be replicated again to improve my real score from 640 to a target score of 700+. Over the last 6 weeks, I really picked up my studying and spent around 3 hours on the weekdays (after work) and 8 hours on the weekend for a total of 30 hours per week on average. After analyzing my CAT history, question bank, and OG problems, it seems like my time management has been decent over the last several tests and my area of weaknesses are the following:
Verbal
Reading Comprehension -
Inferences (25% accuracy over last 3 tests)
Specific Details (60% accuracy over last 3 tests)
Sentence Correction
Modifiers
Concision
Pronouns
Clarity of Meaning
Critical Reasoning
Weaken Conclusion
Quantitative
Word Translations:
Combinatorics
Rate/Work
So far, it's been hard getting back in the hard core study mode without a good strategic plan to follow. My plan is to focus 80% on Verbal and 20% on Quant. until I take my next real GMAT- I've noticed I'm better at SC and CR than RC, so I'll focus on RC the most. I've been using the OG tracker, and have completed all Study Guides and OG problem - I haven't had a chance to do the MGMAT Verbal and Quant books, so that will be new material that I will use, in conjunction with retaking the CAT tests.
Do you have any additional recommendations on ways I can improve my score? If I were to peak by getting a 48Q and a 38V (which is a combo of my two best Quant and Verbal scores) would I be able to get a 700? If not, it seems like a I have a ton of work I need to focus on for my verbal, especially since it's more heavily weighted. Also, do you think that I'm giving myself enough time in 6 weeks to raise my score by 60+ points? I understand that typically you should be scoring your ideal score 2 weeks beforehand, and all people vary in terms of their progress and how quickly they learn, but based on your experience and what you've seen typical amongst students, am I not giving myself enough time to close the gap? I did it before, but I'm not sure if it's possible replicate the improvement again in a different difficulty level - essentially I would have to learn enough and be raising my score from 640 to 700 within a month period, which seems pretty far fetched but doable.
Lastly, since I've already taken all the CAT tests and some of the problems will replicate based on the 1200 questions in the question pool, do you recommend any other resources that I use to take new CAT tests or should I just stick the the Manhattan CAT tests and be realistic with my timing if I face a problem that I already have seen before by not answering it quickly, etc.
Thanks so much for your feedback, I religiously read these forums and they have significantly contributed to my improvement over the last 2 months. Sorry for such a long post, I hope there are others that benefit from it!
GMAT Forum
2 postsPage 1 of 1
- dsayed81
- Posts: 4
- Joined: Tue Nov 04, 2008 8:57 am
- RonPurewal
- Students
- Posts: 19744
- Joined: Tue Aug 14, 2007 8:23 am
Re: 640 on Real GMAT - Shooting for 700+ in 6 Weeks- Need Plan!!
hi - responses inline:
this is actually one mistake.
you should NEVER think about "difficulty level" during an exam.
just don't.
you should just take the questions as given to you, and answer them.
reasons:
* there's no possible benefit from considering the difficulty level of a question, even if you could somehow determine that level with pinpoint accuracy.
* furthermore, if you start thinking about how a question is "hard", then that will actually have a negative aspect on your psyche, by intimidating you as you try to sort through the answer choices. think about the way you'd feel if you were answering these problems while staring down the barrel of a gun; thinking about "difficulty level" is the same sort of thing (albeit admittedly on a somewhat lesser level).
it's not uncommon for LONG passages to have 4 question apiece, and SHORT passages 3 questions apiece.
since these were both long passages, they were probably intricate and riddled with details.
my diagnosis:
you were probably trying too hard to understand the details of the passages.
especially for long passages, you don't have to bother with the details when you first read the passage. instead, you should be investing all of your effort in UNDERSTANDING THE PRINCIPAL POINT OF THE PASSAGE.
for instance, let's say that a passage is using a paragraph to describe the steps of some complicated scientific process (such as, say, the chromatography process that they use to analyze DNA fragments).
MOST students would make the mistake of trying to understand ALL of the steps described in the paragraph, wasting tons of time in reading the details over and over again until they could visualize the process in their heads.
this is a waste of time.
instead, you would just
* note that the paragraph consists entirely of the description of a process;
* double check to make sure there's no transition into anything else later in the passage;
* just write "PROCEDURE" or "METHOD" in your notes, ignore the details for now, and move on.
this is REALLY important. especially on long passages, you should NOT concern yourself AT ALL with the specific details of the passage.
instead, you should just figure out What The Author Is Trying To Do, and ignore details unless you are specifically asked about them in one of the questions.
did you get burnout?
that's a LOT of hours per week, especially the weekend hours.
honestly, for about 99.9% of the population, spending eight hours in a single day trying to learn something is a waste of those hours.
after, say, 3-4 hours (5 hours, if your attention span is absolutely phenomenal), your learning capacity for the day is pretty much exhausted.
you MAY be able to do 5-6 hours in a day, if you do, say, three hours first thing in the morning and 2-3 hours MUCH later in the day. but even that's pushing it.
60% accuracy is actually pretty good, but, yeah, 25% needs work.
remember that, in the RC world, an INFERENCE is something that ABSOLUTELY MUST BE TRUE based on the given information.
this is NOT what "inference" means in normal language.
for instance:
let's say i tell you
jim has eaten spaghetti for dinner 6 out of the last 7 days.[/b]
normal person style inference: [i]jim likes spaghetti.
gmat style inference: there was one day in the past week when jim didn't eat spaghetti for dinner
(notice that this wouldn't even be considered a "real inference" by normal people)
this is what makes inferences hard: our brains are hardwired to generalize and to make assumptions. you have to use every ounce of your mental energy to suppress those two natural instincts during the test.
for sentence correction, as annoying as this is, you will pretty much just have to learn rules one at a time.
in other words, WE have to group the problems somehow - "modifiers", "pronouns", etc. - so that we can have a curriculum that makes some amount of logical sense. but in your case, as a student, you're better off getting TAKEAWAYS from INDIVIDUAL PROBLEMS than you are trying to categorize them.
a TAKEAWAY is something that will fit in the following sentence:
if i see ________ ON ANOTHER PROBLEM, i should _________
in other words, practice problems are absolutely worthless unless you learn things from them that will HELP YOU ON FUTURE PROBLEMS.
don't get so lost in the details of some particular problem that you forget to ask yourself, "what should i bother learning from this problem?"
when you say you've "completed" the o.g. books, does this mean that you've
(a) just gone through them, problem by problem, and solved all the problems - and maybe checked why you got the wrong ones wrong, or
(b) asked yourself, on EVERY SINGLE PROBLEM (whether right or wrong), "what's a TAKEAWAY i can get from this problem? what element(s) of this problem could potentially apply to OTHER problems?"
if the answer is (a), then you haven't really "completed" the books. you should go back and do (b).
you know, there are some schools that will actually consider your score as a composite of your two best (separate) q and v scores. so, since you nailed the q, you're all good at those places if you can nail the v.
i know that dartmouth is one of these schools. i don't remember the others (perhaps you should post in the admissions folder for more info).
hmm.
if your issues are with rc and cr, then you can often get an INSTANT boost just from reframing your understanding of the different question types.
for instance, see my description of the rc inference questions, above. if you've been making "normal person inferences" thus far, you could make your score shoot up drastically just by understanding what you're really supposed to do on inference questions.
etc.
one thing you should do is TAKE A FEW DAYS OFF.
if you've seriously been studying for thirty+ hours per week, then, unless you have an absolutely exceptional brain (i.e., you're one of "those kids" and you've known it since you were five), your mind is going to need some time to recuperate a bit.
seriously.
take about 3-4 days to do NOTHING AT ALL, and then get back on the wagon.
have you taken the OFFICIAL GMATPREP SOFTWARE tests?
if not, then those are available from mba.com (free download). if you're registered for the test, then you should have gotten them on CD also, unless you specifically opted out.
you need a pc (that is, not a mac) to take those tests.
good luck.
dsayed81 Wrote:For the real test, it seemed like I did incredibly well on the first 20 verbal problems, the next 10-15 questions were way above my level in terms of difficulty, and I got most of them wrong, and the last 5 questions were super easy
this is actually one mistake.
you should NEVER think about "difficulty level" during an exam.
just don't.
you should just take the questions as given to you, and answer them.
reasons:
* there's no possible benefit from considering the difficulty level of a question, even if you could somehow determine that level with pinpoint accuracy.
* furthermore, if you start thinking about how a question is "hard", then that will actually have a negative aspect on your psyche, by intimidating you as you try to sort through the answer choices. think about the way you'd feel if you were answering these problems while staring down the barrel of a gun; thinking about "difficulty level" is the same sort of thing (albeit admittedly on a somewhat lesser level).
- I also noticed the last 2 reading comprehension passages (both of which were 4 questions each surprisingly - I had never encountered any 4 question passages in the Manhattan GMAT practice CATs, although the study guides refer to them) were way out of my level of comfort and I really just guessed on them, which is an obvious reason why I probably did so poorly.
it's not uncommon for LONG passages to have 4 question apiece, and SHORT passages 3 questions apiece.
since these were both long passages, they were probably intricate and riddled with details.
my diagnosis:
you were probably trying too hard to understand the details of the passages.
especially for long passages, you don't have to bother with the details when you first read the passage. instead, you should be investing all of your effort in UNDERSTANDING THE PRINCIPAL POINT OF THE PASSAGE.
for instance, let's say that a passage is using a paragraph to describe the steps of some complicated scientific process (such as, say, the chromatography process that they use to analyze DNA fragments).
MOST students would make the mistake of trying to understand ALL of the steps described in the paragraph, wasting tons of time in reading the details over and over again until they could visualize the process in their heads.
this is a waste of time.
instead, you would just
* note that the paragraph consists entirely of the description of a process;
* double check to make sure there's no transition into anything else later in the passage;
* just write "PROCEDURE" or "METHOD" in your notes, ignore the details for now, and move on.
this is REALLY important. especially on long passages, you should NOT concern yourself AT ALL with the specific details of the passage.
instead, you should just figure out What The Author Is Trying To Do, and ignore details unless you are specifically asked about them in one of the questions.
Over the last 6 weeks, I really picked up my studying and spent around 3 hours on the weekdays (after work) and 8 hours on the weekend for a total of 30 hours per week on average.
did you get burnout?
that's a LOT of hours per week, especially the weekend hours.
honestly, for about 99.9% of the population, spending eight hours in a single day trying to learn something is a waste of those hours.
after, say, 3-4 hours (5 hours, if your attention span is absolutely phenomenal), your learning capacity for the day is pretty much exhausted.
you MAY be able to do 5-6 hours in a day, if you do, say, three hours first thing in the morning and 2-3 hours MUCH later in the day. but even that's pushing it.
Verbal
Reading Comprehension -
Inferences (25% accuracy over last 3 tests)
Specific Details (60% accuracy over last 3 tests)
60% accuracy is actually pretty good, but, yeah, 25% needs work.
remember that, in the RC world, an INFERENCE is something that ABSOLUTELY MUST BE TRUE based on the given information.
this is NOT what "inference" means in normal language.
for instance:
let's say i tell you
jim has eaten spaghetti for dinner 6 out of the last 7 days.[/b]
normal person style inference: [i]jim likes spaghetti.
gmat style inference: there was one day in the past week when jim didn't eat spaghetti for dinner
(notice that this wouldn't even be considered a "real inference" by normal people)
this is what makes inferences hard: our brains are hardwired to generalize and to make assumptions. you have to use every ounce of your mental energy to suppress those two natural instincts during the test.
Sentence Correction
Modifiers
Concision
Pronouns
Clarity of Meaning
for sentence correction, as annoying as this is, you will pretty much just have to learn rules one at a time.
in other words, WE have to group the problems somehow - "modifiers", "pronouns", etc. - so that we can have a curriculum that makes some amount of logical sense. but in your case, as a student, you're better off getting TAKEAWAYS from INDIVIDUAL PROBLEMS than you are trying to categorize them.
a TAKEAWAY is something that will fit in the following sentence:
if i see ________ ON ANOTHER PROBLEM, i should _________
in other words, practice problems are absolutely worthless unless you learn things from them that will HELP YOU ON FUTURE PROBLEMS.
don't get so lost in the details of some particular problem that you forget to ask yourself, "what should i bother learning from this problem?"
So far, it's been hard getting back in the hard core study mode without a good strategic plan to follow. My plan is to focus 80% on Verbal and 20% on Quant. until I take my next real GMAT- I've noticed I'm better at SC and CR than RC, so I'll focus on RC the most. I've been using the OG tracker, and have completed all Study Guides and OG problem - I haven't had a chance to do the MGMAT Verbal and Quant books, so that will be new material that I will use, in conjunction with retaking the CAT tests.
when you say you've "completed" the o.g. books, does this mean that you've
(a) just gone through them, problem by problem, and solved all the problems - and maybe checked why you got the wrong ones wrong, or
(b) asked yourself, on EVERY SINGLE PROBLEM (whether right or wrong), "what's a TAKEAWAY i can get from this problem? what element(s) of this problem could potentially apply to OTHER problems?"
if the answer is (a), then you haven't really "completed" the books. you should go back and do (b).
If I were to peak by getting a 48Q and a 38V (which is a combo of my two best Quant and Verbal scores) would I be able to get a 700?
you know, there are some schools that will actually consider your score as a composite of your two best (separate) q and v scores. so, since you nailed the q, you're all good at those places if you can nail the v.
i know that dartmouth is one of these schools. i don't remember the others (perhaps you should post in the admissions folder for more info).
If not, it seems like a I have a ton of work I need to focus on for my verbal, especially since it's more heavily weighted. Also, do you think that I'm giving myself enough time in 6 weeks to raise my score by 60+ points?
hmm.
if your issues are with rc and cr, then you can often get an INSTANT boost just from reframing your understanding of the different question types.
for instance, see my description of the rc inference questions, above. if you've been making "normal person inferences" thus far, you could make your score shoot up drastically just by understanding what you're really supposed to do on inference questions.
etc.
I understand that typically you should be scoring your ideal score 2 weeks beforehand, and all people vary in terms of their progress and how quickly they learn, but based on your experience and what you've seen typical amongst students, am I not giving myself enough time to close the gap?
one thing you should do is TAKE A FEW DAYS OFF.
if you've seriously been studying for thirty+ hours per week, then, unless you have an absolutely exceptional brain (i.e., you're one of "those kids" and you've known it since you were five), your mind is going to need some time to recuperate a bit.
seriously.
take about 3-4 days to do NOTHING AT ALL, and then get back on the wagon.
do you recommend any other resources that I use to take new CAT tests or should I just stick the the Manhattan CAT tests and be realistic with my timing if I face a problem that I already have seen before by not answering it quickly, etc.
have you taken the OFFICIAL GMATPREP SOFTWARE tests?
if not, then those are available from mba.com (free download). if you're registered for the test, then you should have gotten them on CD also, unless you specifically opted out.
you need a pc (that is, not a mac) to take those tests.
good luck.
2 posts Page 1 of 1