Help with verbal Rc and Cr

[bruno_torres_gomez]

Hi,

I'm trying to improve my rc and cr, the problem that I have is timing, if I slow down I do well. I'm 3 weeks away from taking the test, and I don't end on time during my timed sets , unless I rush. If I take 1 min more per question I can get it right. The issue is more visible with Rc detail and inference questions, when I don't find the evidence right away I just rush, stop and choose. I do read to get the structure. Any advice?

I'm not sure how to move forward in my practice.

[DaruiL141]

I'm having similar issue. Are there any tips to improve the timing on the verbal section? Based on OG archer, my average time spent on each verbal question is about 15-20 seconds longer than the benchmark.

[StaceyKoprince]

You can spend extra time on some problems but not on all of them, of course. The test is designed to force you to make some hard choices.

First, you need to make sure that you're using the correct mindset. Your goal is NOT to get everything right. The test will always just keep getting harder until it finds your limit, so if you try to get everything right, you will always run out of time.

Read this:
https://www.manhattangmat.com/blog/inde ... lly-tests/

Now, if you are going over on just a few questions, but that time is actually paying off (and make sure that it is - more often, people do worse on the problems that take too long), then that's okay as long as you do have some problems on which you go faster (so that your time still averages out correctly).

If you are going over on a larger number of problems, you *might* still get away with this if you also identify the 4-5 hardest / longest problems in the section and guess / bail on them almost immediately.

But if you are spending an extra minute on every one of the 41 problems... obviously that's not going to work. :) If that's the case, then you're not actually approaching the test in the way that it needs to be approached. (See that article I linked above.)

I'm going to guess that you aren't literally going over by 1 min on every problem, but mostly on certain ones. So let's do some data analysis and figure out what's going on.

Use the below to analyze your most recent MGMAT CAT (this should take you a minimum of 1 hour):
http://tinyurl.com/analyzeyourcats

In particular, pay attention to the types for which you are going significantly over time and how well you're actually doing on those problems (you may discover that the extra time pays off on some types but not on others). Also pay attention to where you can go faster and still answer correctly.

Figure out your strengths and weaknesses as well as what you think you should do based on that analysis. 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. Part of getting better is developing your ability to analyze your results - figure out what they mean and what you think you should do about them!)

Next, in terms of trying to become more efficient, here are some things you can do.

First, make sure you know the recommended process for each question type.
SC: http://www.manhattangmat.com/blog/index ... orrection/

CR: http://www.manhattangmat.com/blog/index ... g-problem/

RC:
https://www.manhattangmat.com/blog/inde ... rehension/

RC also has reading-time issues; the above link will help with that as well. (And it will help with RC detail and inference. :)

Second, you will never be able to answer every question using all the time you would like to have. That's just how the test works. Part of your task is actually to figure out when to bail (and to have the discipline to do so). Good business people do this all the time! Read the Executive Reasoning article every day for a week or two until your brain has fully internalized this idea.

You mention that you are 3 weeks away from your test date. That may be enough time to address your timing issues, or you may need more time - it's tough for me to have an idea without knowing how severe the timing issues are. Just be aware of that and think about whether you would want to postpone the test date if it looks like extra time would be valuable.

[bruno_torres_gomez]

Thanks Stacy for your reply.

I just took a test, and I was able to improve my CR and RC scores a bit; at the same time my quant score dropped. During the last week i read all your articles on rc and cr, they were super helpful. I think that the biggest issue i have is that i tend to mess up timing, i ve found myselft in the situations where i say "Oh No, i now only have 6 minutes for the last 4 questions" , i got those 4 wrong in a row. It happened again with both Quant and Verbal. I also got rid off the verbal items in the bucket 5 (Wrong but to slow); although, i took to 1:34 to fail a parallelism SC question. What is killing me is that everytime i slack a bit on one topic, i completley mess up on that topic on the next test. I've tried using the benchmarkings and it has helped in the past, it did help today; just not sure how i endeded up taking more than 3:30 minutes on 5 quant questions i know i can do well. FDP has been my okay for me until now, today it showed up as a big weakness. I am doing and reviewing daily sets of 40 questions ( Random quant and verbal) , and i haven't paid atention to FDPs or ratios. And it has happened with other subjects in the past, any suggestions ? Regarding my analysis , here it goes:

raw data: docs.google.com/document/d/1vvFsp3AO4CO1BkirdNSw-wYra4Dh0TIvZv9jtijKd0U/edit

Bucket 1
Quant
> Linear Equations
> Exponents and Roots
> Formulas
> Positives & Negatives
> Algebraic tranlsations
> Polygons
> Roots
> Overlapping sets

Verbal
> CR: Stregnthen , Draw conclusion, Eval Argument
> RC: inference
> SC: Verbs, Pronouns, concision, Meaning


Bucket 2
Quant
>Exponent+Roots
>Coordinate Plane
> Triangle + Diagonals
> Odds and Evens
> Combinatorics (Made a guess)
> Rates and Work
> Ratios
> Digits and Decimals

Verbal
> CR: Eval Argument
> CR : Weaken argument
> CR : Draw a conclusion
> SC : S-V agreement
> SC : punctiation
> SC : comparison

Bucket 3
Quant
> exponents and roots
> Positive - Negative
> Odds and Events
> Ratios
> Digits and Decimals

Verbal
> SC: S-V Agreement

Bucket 4:
Quant
> Formulas
> Overlapping sets
> Consecutive integers

Verbal
>CR: Describe the role
>CR: Find the assumption
>CR: Eval Argument/Strengthen/Weaken
> RC: Detail
> SC: S-V agreement/Modifier/Parallelism/Comparison

Bucket 5:
Quant
>Lines+Angles
>Extra problem types
>Fractions
> Percents

Verbal:
> RC: Specific Detail
> SC: Parallelism

Moving forward, i'm going to Practice FDP. Regarding the rest of the questions, I'll try to get items in bucket 5 to be faster, i think i need to work on my one minute sense, if after one minute i don't have a plan to solve a question, I'll guess and move. Regarding CR and RC, i'll need to read faster to get them faster, i may be taking to long to jot down notes for CR. ( I Dont write a lot but i make sure i understand the prompts carefully) During my practice sets, i will make sure that i dont take more than 2 mins on any question if it's not on bucket 1.

[StaceyKoprince]

Be careful about going too far in the opposite direction and cutting yourself off too quickly - a lot of people do that at this point when dealing with timing issues. It's okay to spend up to 2.5m on some CR and quant; you just need to average 2m on those, and you will answer some in 1.5 min.

Do make sure, of course, that you're spending that time wisely. If your prevailing feeling is "But I studied this! I'm sure I could figure it out with some more time!" then stop immediately. If you actually knew what you were doing, you wouldn't be feeling that. :)

I'm guessing you were focused most heavily on CR and RC, right? So it's not surprising that quant dropped - you were focusing most of your mental energy on other things. As you get better with CR and RC, it won't cost you so much mental energy or study time, and you'll be able to pick quant back up as well. The same is true of the other topics that you ignore for a little while - it's because you're engaging so much of your brain on learning new stuff.

Eventually, you'll get to the point where you've learned what you need to learn and then you can go back and do a lighter, broader review and put it all together without any one area claiming all of your mental energy.

In future, make sure to follow the link to the live blog article to analyze your CATs - I updated the article in June and we're now using just 3 buckets, not 5. (I made the process a bit simpler and we also changed the score reports to incorporate difficulty level in more places, making it easier to analyze the data.)

Start with careless errors and things that you consider your strengths but you got wrong in a normal or fast timeframe.

Then move to easy-to-medium level questions / areas that you got wrong in a normal or fast timeframe.

Then you can actually start to try to lift your levels in other areas!