Hi Stacey,
Belated Merry Christmas & Happy New Year. Hope you remember me :)
As said I took a break for a month and I am ready to have a go again, this time with full confidence as at least now I know In & Out of questions and how they look and how to prepare.
I received my official GMAT score and surprisingly I scored 5.5 on AWA(I never expected this as I am a non-english speaker). I have taken positives from my exam, Maths/Essays and also verbal usage from essays(followed SC rules).
From my last post you knew that there was severe timing problem in Verbal and that too was in RC's as I spent most of the time on the 1st two RC's as I kept on reading questions and I could not understand. I am sure this was because of the mental stamina or energy levels.
I analyzed my preparation and found that I am weak in Critical Reasoning and I am purchasing Manhattan guide as last time I followed another book . One more important take away for me this time is to analyze every answer(even though it is right), Why did I choose the right one or Why did I eliminate the wrong one(this approach was missing during my last preparation).
I would be practicing SC rules and use them on OG 12 questions and analyze the answers to the maximum(as I know that most of the questions on real test followed the same pattern of OG 12, just changing the words). I might have got most of RC questions wrong during the exam and I would be practicing the timing again this time.
Mental fatigue during the exam, which I discussed above was because my health screwed 2 weeks before the exam and I feel this was the reason for lower score during the verbal section. I spent about 4 hours a day regularly after office hours and 7-8 hours on a weekend. I followed some of your posts and found that I should not be spending more than 3 hours a day to keep my mental strength intact.
I am planning to take the exam some where in Mid-March(depends on the practice scores and my confidence) and as I have already spent about 6 months earlier, another 2.5 months would be sufficient.
I am planning to start off with CR and then continue with SC rules and spend about 45 minutes on Maths daily. Would this be fine or suggest me what should I concentrate on and how my preparation should be(as you know that I am aware of all the basics and rules, only thing is I need to apply them correctly).
Do I need to take a practice test before I start my preparation or should I go ahead and start off?
I went through this blog from your post in other thread, this is helpful and I hope I already had some takeaways from this :)
http://www.manhattangmat.com/blog/index ... -the-gmat/
Please advice.
Thanks,
Suresh
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- StaceyKoprince
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Re: Improvement in my verbal
Hi, again! That's great on the essay score - now you know you don't need to worry about that. (Though still do the essays on practice tests for the stamina practice.)
I like your ideas about analyzing the verbal answers. Add two more questions:
- why did I eliminate the right answer (or why would someone eliminate the right answer)?
- why would someone pick each wrong answer? (can be limited to the 1 or 2 most tempting wrong answers)
I think you can go ahead and start without taking a practice test right now - you know where you need to concentrate, so go ahead and start practicing with both the question types and the timing for a couple of weeks and then take a practice test to see how things are going.
I don't think you need to spend 45m on quant daily - in general, verbal needs more work, so quant should be just every 2nd or 3rd day. I will say, though, that when you feel burned out on verbal (or just sick of it!), do a little quant just to get yourself back on track, since you like quant and are good at it.
And, yes, as you noted, don't completely cram and spend hours and hours every day - you'll just burn yourself out and then you won't be learning efficiently. 2 hours max in one study session (and only do 1 study session on days that you're working your regular job). On week-ends, you can do more than one study session, but you have to give yourself a 1-2 hour mental break between study sessions.
It sounds like you've got a good plan in general, so good luck and keep me posted!
I like your ideas about analyzing the verbal answers. Add two more questions:
- why did I eliminate the right answer (or why would someone eliminate the right answer)?
- why would someone pick each wrong answer? (can be limited to the 1 or 2 most tempting wrong answers)
I think you can go ahead and start without taking a practice test right now - you know where you need to concentrate, so go ahead and start practicing with both the question types and the timing for a couple of weeks and then take a practice test to see how things are going.
I don't think you need to spend 45m on quant daily - in general, verbal needs more work, so quant should be just every 2nd or 3rd day. I will say, though, that when you feel burned out on verbal (or just sick of it!), do a little quant just to get yourself back on track, since you like quant and are good at it.
And, yes, as you noted, don't completely cram and spend hours and hours every day - you'll just burn yourself out and then you won't be learning efficiently. 2 hours max in one study session (and only do 1 study session on days that you're working your regular job). On week-ends, you can do more than one study session, but you have to give yourself a 1-2 hour mental break between study sessions.
It sounds like you've got a good plan in general, so good luck and keep me posted!
Stacey Koprince
Instructor
Director, Content & Curriculum
ManhattanPrep
Instructor
Director, Content & Curriculum
ManhattanPrep
- sureshreddy003
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Re: Improvement in my verbal
Hi Stacey,
Started off my preparation with revising SC concepts from MGMAT guide, but during my preparation I was confused whether to revise chapter wise or re-read all the concepts and then solve the questions from OG with timing.
For the 1st 5 chapters, I revised each chapter and solved OG question list given at the end of the chapter and analysed the same way as discussed earlier(Good that I am getting most of them right). But then I realized that I am exhausting all the questions as I would remember most of the answers even if I want to practice later and I would not have questions to practice later for timing from OG, which acts as a question bank.
Now I have brought MGMAT CR guide and started noting all the important points given and the ways to solve CR questions(as earlier I did not use this guide). Even for CR, I am stuck as whether to solve the OG questions chapter wise or read the entire book(as I am aware of the question types) and then solve OG questions with timing.
I practiced timing earlier and did not had any issues in all the practice tests until on GMAT test. I wanted to practice the timing again as specified for each category question.
Please advice me which approach is better and helpful, whether to read all the concepts and solve questions(20-30 daily and revise) or go chapter wise and solve the questions given specific to that chapter.
Thanks,
Suresh
Started off my preparation with revising SC concepts from MGMAT guide, but during my preparation I was confused whether to revise chapter wise or re-read all the concepts and then solve the questions from OG with timing.
For the 1st 5 chapters, I revised each chapter and solved OG question list given at the end of the chapter and analysed the same way as discussed earlier(Good that I am getting most of them right). But then I realized that I am exhausting all the questions as I would remember most of the answers even if I want to practice later and I would not have questions to practice later for timing from OG, which acts as a question bank.
Now I have brought MGMAT CR guide and started noting all the important points given and the ways to solve CR questions(as earlier I did not use this guide). Even for CR, I am stuck as whether to solve the OG questions chapter wise or read the entire book(as I am aware of the question types) and then solve OG questions with timing.
I practiced timing earlier and did not had any issues in all the practice tests until on GMAT test. I wanted to practice the timing again as specified for each category question.
Please advice me which approach is better and helpful, whether to read all the concepts and solve questions(20-30 daily and revise) or go chapter wise and solve the questions given specific to that chapter.
Thanks,
Suresh
- sureshreddy003
- Students
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Re: Improvement in my verbal
Sorry forgot to post this one...Just wanted to know the concept of this flash cards..How to make them and how are they useful?
For Quant, may be we would be writing formula on these flash cards, but how do we make this for verbal? What should I be noting on these cards?(Hope cards are just like post-its)
Just wanted to know if this would be helpful for me in improving my verbal skills.
Please advice.
Thanks,
Suresh
For Quant, may be we would be writing formula on these flash cards, but how do we make this for verbal? What should I be noting on these cards?(Hope cards are just like post-its)
Just wanted to know if this would be helpful for me in improving my verbal skills.
Please advice.
Thanks,
Suresh
- StaceyKoprince
- ManhattanGMAT Staff
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- Location: Montreal
Re: Improvement in my verbal
As a general rule for any topic review:
- if you feel that you are still struggling with a large portion of the material, start with the strategy guides, make flash cards, and drill before doing OG questions
- if you feel that you know most of the material and are just struggling with certain things, do OG or other questions first and use those to diagnose your weak areas, then go into the strategy guides to read, review, make flash cards, and drill
- also in general, don't use up all the OG questions doing question-type-by-question-type or chapter-by-chapter drills. You need to be able to do some random drills.
It's great to put certain facts or rules you need to know on flash cards, but that's only the starting point. Flash cards can help with so many more things!
One of my favorites is this:
[one side] If I see ______
[other side] I will think / do ______
For example, if I see a split in the answers that involves a noun switching back and forth from singular to plural, I will check for both verb and pronoun matches.
For example, if I see a split in the answers that involves a large chunk of the sentence being picked up and moved somewhere else, I will check modifier placement - are all of the modifiers in the right places, or are there any that make the meaning either ambiguous or outright incorrect?
Another SC exercise to test yourself. Go and look at some old OG questions - Qs you've done before. Cover up the original sentence (don't read it) and look only at the answers. Find any differences that you can, ask yourself what rules the differences are trying to test and go as far as you can toward answering the question. (You may not be able to answer it all the way because you haven't read the original sentence, so you're missing some information.) Finally, ask yourself what else it would be useful to know in order to be able to finish answering the question. Then go check the nonunderlined portions of the original sentence in order to see whether that can help you finish off the answer.
That exercise is training you to notice things by starting from the clues - the answers.
I just got to your comment where you asked about doing 20 to 30 Qs every day plus review. A set of 20 SC questions should take about 30 minutes to do (a little less, actually) and at least 1.5 hours to review - 2h total (minimum). You're also reading, reviewing, and making flash cards before you do the problems, right? So that's, what, another 1.5 to 2 hours?
How much are you studying every day? It sounds like you may be doing too much - trying to do that much will just tire you out. You'll get to the point where you're just trying to get through lots and lots of material but you're not really learning well from it - we call that quantity over quality.
When you review questions, even when you're getting them right, you're still asking yourself things like: what are the traps? Why would someone pick each wrong answer? Why would someone eliminate the right answer? etc. How do they make this right answer sound not so great? Are there any meaning issues at all? (Meaning can be broadly divided into illogical meaning and ambiguous meaning. Illogical = definitely wrong. Ambiguous = usually wrong, but an outright grammar error or illogical meaning is worse than ambiguity.)
Also, given that you remember most of the OG questions, you may want to get questions from another source - either older OG books (which share about 75% of the questions in the new books, but have about 25% that are different), or get something from another company (I'm assuming you've also done most of our problems). Anything that's not official is not quite as good as official questions, of course, but you can still use them to practice techniques and timing. Just make sure that you do get questions from a reputable company that has researched this stuff and knows how to construct decent test questions. Don't do the random sets of questions floating around for free on the Internet - I've seen a lot of errors and un-GMAT-like constructions in those.
- if you feel that you are still struggling with a large portion of the material, start with the strategy guides, make flash cards, and drill before doing OG questions
- if you feel that you know most of the material and are just struggling with certain things, do OG or other questions first and use those to diagnose your weak areas, then go into the strategy guides to read, review, make flash cards, and drill
- also in general, don't use up all the OG questions doing question-type-by-question-type or chapter-by-chapter drills. You need to be able to do some random drills.
It's great to put certain facts or rules you need to know on flash cards, but that's only the starting point. Flash cards can help with so many more things!
One of my favorites is this:
[one side] If I see ______
[other side] I will think / do ______
For example, if I see a split in the answers that involves a noun switching back and forth from singular to plural, I will check for both verb and pronoun matches.
For example, if I see a split in the answers that involves a large chunk of the sentence being picked up and moved somewhere else, I will check modifier placement - are all of the modifiers in the right places, or are there any that make the meaning either ambiguous or outright incorrect?
Another SC exercise to test yourself. Go and look at some old OG questions - Qs you've done before. Cover up the original sentence (don't read it) and look only at the answers. Find any differences that you can, ask yourself what rules the differences are trying to test and go as far as you can toward answering the question. (You may not be able to answer it all the way because you haven't read the original sentence, so you're missing some information.) Finally, ask yourself what else it would be useful to know in order to be able to finish answering the question. Then go check the nonunderlined portions of the original sentence in order to see whether that can help you finish off the answer.
That exercise is training you to notice things by starting from the clues - the answers.
I just got to your comment where you asked about doing 20 to 30 Qs every day plus review. A set of 20 SC questions should take about 30 minutes to do (a little less, actually) and at least 1.5 hours to review - 2h total (minimum). You're also reading, reviewing, and making flash cards before you do the problems, right? So that's, what, another 1.5 to 2 hours?
How much are you studying every day? It sounds like you may be doing too much - trying to do that much will just tire you out. You'll get to the point where you're just trying to get through lots and lots of material but you're not really learning well from it - we call that quantity over quality.
When you review questions, even when you're getting them right, you're still asking yourself things like: what are the traps? Why would someone pick each wrong answer? Why would someone eliminate the right answer? etc. How do they make this right answer sound not so great? Are there any meaning issues at all? (Meaning can be broadly divided into illogical meaning and ambiguous meaning. Illogical = definitely wrong. Ambiguous = usually wrong, but an outright grammar error or illogical meaning is worse than ambiguity.)
Also, given that you remember most of the OG questions, you may want to get questions from another source - either older OG books (which share about 75% of the questions in the new books, but have about 25% that are different), or get something from another company (I'm assuming you've also done most of our problems). Anything that's not official is not quite as good as official questions, of course, but you can still use them to practice techniques and timing. Just make sure that you do get questions from a reputable company that has researched this stuff and knows how to construct decent test questions. Don't do the random sets of questions floating around for free on the Internet - I've seen a lot of errors and un-GMAT-like constructions in those.
Stacey Koprince
Instructor
Director, Content & Curriculum
ManhattanPrep
Instructor
Director, Content & Curriculum
ManhattanPrep
- sureshreddy003
- Students
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- Joined: Sun Oct 03, 2010 7:28 am
Re: Improvement in my verbal
Hi Stacey,
As I am weak in CR basics, I studied the MGMAT CR guide and took all the notes and practiced diagramming technique. All the techniques given have a good strategy and I feel better now in CR than earlier. Even if I choose a wrong option, I am at least understanding all the options and marking them using SW-Slash chart.
I am not at 90% accuracy, but yes I am at 60+% accuracy as I have done 1st 50 questions from OG & about 20q from other guide. In OG I remember some answers, but while solving them I am using the same process(diag & SW-chart) and checking why that answer is correct. Presently I am taking 2-2.5 minutes per question as I am not used to diagramming earlier, and now I am practicing questions on timing.
I have reviewed the chapters of MGMAT SC and then started doing OG SC questions. Tried the technique of seeing the options 1st and then going through the question, it's pretty good to understand what is missing. Luckily for SC I did not remember any answers, so I had to solve all the questions(did 60 for now) with timing and making notes & flash cards. I am writing down few things which I feel new or which I have to remember on flash cards. Hoping to look at them regularly, so that I remember the rules in a longer version.
What I found during these 60q is that I am making mistakes in Parallelism, Modifiers & checking Meaning for now. Modifiers I am going through the chapter once again and I forgot to concentrate on meaning(also forgot some rules for this). But I am not sure how to improve in Parallelism, it is not that I get wrong in a question which test parallelism straight away, but getting those questions wrong in which parallelism structure hides some where in the sentence.
Eg: The Chemist Humphry presented early experiments in his book, a critique of all chemistry since Robert as well as a vision of a new chemistry that Humprhy hoped to found
In the above underlined part, critique and vision should be in a parallel structure, but I missed identifying that. How to identify that structure and how I can improve in identifying parallelism in tough questions, which do not test a direct structure?(as this topic is favorite for GMAT people and I remember that I saw good number on my screen on the test day). The above one was a example may be which tests X as well as Y, but while solving I could not identify that, also there would be some structures which do not have this forms.
In between I was bored of doing verbal, so I took Advanced Math guide and brushed through the strategies and solved some questions, felt pretty relaxed.I am planning to take a practice test and see where I stand and what my improvements are for now. I am not spending anything between 2-2.5 hours daily and not more than that as I remember my previous experience :)
Please advice.
Thanks,
Suresh
As I am weak in CR basics, I studied the MGMAT CR guide and took all the notes and practiced diagramming technique. All the techniques given have a good strategy and I feel better now in CR than earlier. Even if I choose a wrong option, I am at least understanding all the options and marking them using SW-Slash chart.
I am not at 90% accuracy, but yes I am at 60+% accuracy as I have done 1st 50 questions from OG & about 20q from other guide. In OG I remember some answers, but while solving them I am using the same process(diag & SW-chart) and checking why that answer is correct. Presently I am taking 2-2.5 minutes per question as I am not used to diagramming earlier, and now I am practicing questions on timing.
I have reviewed the chapters of MGMAT SC and then started doing OG SC questions. Tried the technique of seeing the options 1st and then going through the question, it's pretty good to understand what is missing. Luckily for SC I did not remember any answers, so I had to solve all the questions(did 60 for now) with timing and making notes & flash cards. I am writing down few things which I feel new or which I have to remember on flash cards. Hoping to look at them regularly, so that I remember the rules in a longer version.
What I found during these 60q is that I am making mistakes in Parallelism, Modifiers & checking Meaning for now. Modifiers I am going through the chapter once again and I forgot to concentrate on meaning(also forgot some rules for this). But I am not sure how to improve in Parallelism, it is not that I get wrong in a question which test parallelism straight away, but getting those questions wrong in which parallelism structure hides some where in the sentence.
Eg: The Chemist Humphry presented early experiments in his book, a critique of all chemistry since Robert as well as a vision of a new chemistry that Humprhy hoped to found
In the above underlined part, critique and vision should be in a parallel structure, but I missed identifying that. How to identify that structure and how I can improve in identifying parallelism in tough questions, which do not test a direct structure?(as this topic is favorite for GMAT people and I remember that I saw good number on my screen on the test day). The above one was a example may be which tests X as well as Y, but while solving I could not identify that, also there would be some structures which do not have this forms.
In between I was bored of doing verbal, so I took Advanced Math guide and brushed through the strategies and solved some questions, felt pretty relaxed.I am planning to take a practice test and see where I stand and what my improvements are for now. I am not spending anything between 2-2.5 hours daily and not more than that as I remember my previous experience :)
Please advice.
Thanks,
Suresh
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Re: Improvement in my verbal
Hi Stacey,
I just bought Manhattan CAT exams.
I want to ask following questions before taking exam:
1. If I take longer break among each sections , will be score will hurt?
2. If I take longer break among within each section, by clicking exit button, will be score will hurt?
3. Do the answer to above mentioned 2 questions also the applies to the real GMATPrep?
Please reply asap
Thanks
I just bought Manhattan CAT exams.
I want to ask following questions before taking exam:
1. If I take longer break among each sections , will be score will hurt?
2. If I take longer break among within each section, by clicking exit button, will be score will hurt?
3. Do the answer to above mentioned 2 questions also the applies to the real GMATPrep?
Please reply asap
Thanks
- StaceyKoprince
- ManhattanGMAT Staff
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- Joined: Wed Oct 19, 2005 9:05 am
- Location: Montreal
Re: Improvement in my verbal
kamilriz, I'll answer your question here but, in future, please start your own thread for questions. This thread is dedicated to Suresh's case.
Giving yourself longer breaks is problematic, yes. If you're asking whether the test will penalize you, no, the test won't know. BUT giving yourself longer breaks than allowed, pausing the test, skipping the essays, or doing anything else that lets you rest when you wouldn't really get to rest (on the real test) can artificially inflate your score. That means that your test results aren't as valid, and you might think you're performing better than you really are. That could lead to a big disappointment on test day.
Short answer: take practice tests under 100% official conditions, including the essays!
Suresh, it sounds like you're making good progress. One thing that can help you get better at diagramming: when you review a problem, also review the notes that you took and think about how you could have taken better notes. Where could you have abbreviated more heavily? Was there anything you wrote down that you could have written down more quickly (more abbreviations) or even skipped altogether? Could you have known that when you were first reading the argument? If so, how?
Was there anything you didn't write down that you should have? What, and why didn't you, and how should you have known to do so? Was there anything you wrote down and then you got confused later or weren't sure what it meant and you had to look back at the argument or it messed up your comprehension somehow? If so, what, and how could you write it down more clearly? (Actually make yourself write it out.)
If you feel especially dissatisfied with the notes for any problem, write them all out again, start to finish, in what you consider the "ideal" form.
For parallelism, there is ALWAYS a parallelism marker that indicates parallelism is required. "And" is the most common one, but there are many. For the example you gave, you just didn't know that marker - but now you do, so add it to your flashcards and study it. You might also want to go through all the SCs you've already done and just scan for parallelism markers. Then check the explanation afterwards to make sure you did find them all. Make flashcards for any that you didn't know or spot.
Finally, I've got a bunch of articles on meaning. Here are some and you can browse through our blog over the past 6 months or so to find others:
http://www.manhattangmat.com/blog/index ... orrection/
http://www.manhattangmat.com/blog/index ... on-part-2/
http://www.manhattangmat.com/blog/index ... h-meaning/
http://www.manhattangmat.com/blog/index ... problem-2/
You can also search for articles on parallelism on our site or on BTG - I know I've written some on those topics over the past 4 years, but I don't have links handy. The key thing, though, is going to be spotting those parallelism markers, so you need to know what they are in the first place. You can study that by going and looking over old problems you've already done to start a list (and looking in both the parallelism and idiom chapters in our book).
Giving yourself longer breaks is problematic, yes. If you're asking whether the test will penalize you, no, the test won't know. BUT giving yourself longer breaks than allowed, pausing the test, skipping the essays, or doing anything else that lets you rest when you wouldn't really get to rest (on the real test) can artificially inflate your score. That means that your test results aren't as valid, and you might think you're performing better than you really are. That could lead to a big disappointment on test day.
Short answer: take practice tests under 100% official conditions, including the essays!
Suresh, it sounds like you're making good progress. One thing that can help you get better at diagramming: when you review a problem, also review the notes that you took and think about how you could have taken better notes. Where could you have abbreviated more heavily? Was there anything you wrote down that you could have written down more quickly (more abbreviations) or even skipped altogether? Could you have known that when you were first reading the argument? If so, how?
Was there anything you didn't write down that you should have? What, and why didn't you, and how should you have known to do so? Was there anything you wrote down and then you got confused later or weren't sure what it meant and you had to look back at the argument or it messed up your comprehension somehow? If so, what, and how could you write it down more clearly? (Actually make yourself write it out.)
If you feel especially dissatisfied with the notes for any problem, write them all out again, start to finish, in what you consider the "ideal" form.
For parallelism, there is ALWAYS a parallelism marker that indicates parallelism is required. "And" is the most common one, but there are many. For the example you gave, you just didn't know that marker - but now you do, so add it to your flashcards and study it. You might also want to go through all the SCs you've already done and just scan for parallelism markers. Then check the explanation afterwards to make sure you did find them all. Make flashcards for any that you didn't know or spot.
Finally, I've got a bunch of articles on meaning. Here are some and you can browse through our blog over the past 6 months or so to find others:
http://www.manhattangmat.com/blog/index ... orrection/
http://www.manhattangmat.com/blog/index ... on-part-2/
http://www.manhattangmat.com/blog/index ... h-meaning/
http://www.manhattangmat.com/blog/index ... problem-2/
You can also search for articles on parallelism on our site or on BTG - I know I've written some on those topics over the past 4 years, but I don't have links handy. The key thing, though, is going to be spotting those parallelism markers, so you need to know what they are in the first place. You can study that by going and looking over old problems you've already done to start a list (and looking in both the parallelism and idiom chapters in our book).
Stacey Koprince
Instructor
Director, Content & Curriculum
ManhattanPrep
Instructor
Director, Content & Curriculum
ManhattanPrep
- sureshreddy003
- Students
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- Joined: Sun Oct 03, 2010 7:28 am
Re: Improvement in my verbal
Hi Stacey,
It's been a late reply from my side, just my health was not good and so could not do much preparation.
I feel better at CR now and as did not start RC, I have started the same. I went through RC guide and all the basics and other stuff, tried to practice with timing. I am analysing the answers and I found that most of the wrong answers I choose or get tempted are the ONE Word wrong answers, which change the meaning of passage or make the choice out of scope. I am working on it and making a good progress as of now.
I had taken 1 practice test and I felt like kicking myself after seeing the result.
MGMAT1 - 600(Q46,V28)
Maths, I am not worried as I did not practice or prepare much, just went through the basics and could not solve some tough questions. Also, spent time on some questions which made me feel tensed at the end. This week I started doing maths and I am not worried about the Math score as I know what level questions come on main test. I feel 46 without preparation is not a bad one and I am confident I can touch 49 in next tests, at-least my total score would improve with Math score :)
Coming to verbal, during the test I felt i was doing good but after seeing the score and analyzing my mistakes, I slapped myself. There were about 10 silly mistakes which I choose and I don't know why I choose those options. I know that I had to see what tempted me or why did I choose, but because of sheer ignorance I chose those wrong options.
Most of them were SC(8 wrong and I knew answers for 5), ahh I am not understanding how to resolve this issue of me choosing wrong answers.I analyzed & practiced OG answers well and I was confident in SC, but don't know why I choose wrong answers. Just I think too much during the test and feel may be I am choosing wrong answer(which actually would be right) and I end up making mistakes. I am not able to understand how to resolve this and just mark the perfect option.
How would you suggest a student who know the answers and basics but end up choosing wrong answers. Please tell me
I did good in CR section and eliminating options as per understanding. I did mistakes in RC and got most of them wrong, but I had not started RC by that time and I am working on this for now. If not for those silly mistakes(about 11-12 in entire verbal), I would been at a very good score. How to eliminate that issue, while practicing I do well but during the test I end up screwing the answers :(
I would not book a date until I get a score in practice tests which gives me confidence, but I am tensed about the time I have as the test is getting changed in June.
Please advice.
Thanks,
Suresh
It's been a late reply from my side, just my health was not good and so could not do much preparation.
I feel better at CR now and as did not start RC, I have started the same. I went through RC guide and all the basics and other stuff, tried to practice with timing. I am analysing the answers and I found that most of the wrong answers I choose or get tempted are the ONE Word wrong answers, which change the meaning of passage or make the choice out of scope. I am working on it and making a good progress as of now.
I had taken 1 practice test and I felt like kicking myself after seeing the result.
MGMAT1 - 600(Q46,V28)
Maths, I am not worried as I did not practice or prepare much, just went through the basics and could not solve some tough questions. Also, spent time on some questions which made me feel tensed at the end. This week I started doing maths and I am not worried about the Math score as I know what level questions come on main test. I feel 46 without preparation is not a bad one and I am confident I can touch 49 in next tests, at-least my total score would improve with Math score :)
Coming to verbal, during the test I felt i was doing good but after seeing the score and analyzing my mistakes, I slapped myself. There were about 10 silly mistakes which I choose and I don't know why I choose those options. I know that I had to see what tempted me or why did I choose, but because of sheer ignorance I chose those wrong options.
Most of them were SC(8 wrong and I knew answers for 5), ahh I am not understanding how to resolve this issue of me choosing wrong answers.I analyzed & practiced OG answers well and I was confident in SC, but don't know why I choose wrong answers. Just I think too much during the test and feel may be I am choosing wrong answer(which actually would be right) and I end up making mistakes. I am not able to understand how to resolve this and just mark the perfect option.
How would you suggest a student who know the answers and basics but end up choosing wrong answers. Please tell me
I did good in CR section and eliminating options as per understanding. I did mistakes in RC and got most of them wrong, but I had not started RC by that time and I am working on this for now. If not for those silly mistakes(about 11-12 in entire verbal), I would been at a very good score. How to eliminate that issue, while practicing I do well but during the test I end up screwing the answers :(
I would not book a date until I get a score in practice tests which gives me confidence, but I am tensed about the time I have as the test is getting changed in June.
Please advice.
Thanks,
Suresh
- StaceyKoprince
- ManhattanGMAT Staff
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- Joined: Wed Oct 19, 2005 9:05 am
- Location: Montreal
Re: Improvement in my verbal
On verbal, there are two levels to getting something wrong: choosing the wrong answer, of course, but also eliminating the right answer. So when you're trying to figure out why you made a careless mistake, you have to look at both pieces.
A lot of times, people will choose an answer because it sounds better for some reason, or will eliminate an answer because it sounds worse for some reason. Go back and look at those problems again - does that apply for any of them? If so, try to figure out what, specifically, sounded better in the wrong answer than the right one. That's the kind of thing that you often won't articulate to yourself consciously, but it's still there in your brain and it leads you to choose one answer over another. If you can make it conscious / explicit, then you'll be able to compare the two and say to yourself, "Okay, I didn't feel comfortable with this part of the sentence but it turns out that that just *sounds* awkward. It's actually correct. And then this part in the other answer choice sounded better, so I let that override the fact that there was an actual error someplace else in that answer choice."
For RC, of course, you just have to go study. You hadn't started yet, so that's okay.
You may want to book your test date for May sometime - check the testing center in your city. I've heard from a couple of people that the testing center in their city is starting to book up in late May.
A lot of times, people will choose an answer because it sounds better for some reason, or will eliminate an answer because it sounds worse for some reason. Go back and look at those problems again - does that apply for any of them? If so, try to figure out what, specifically, sounded better in the wrong answer than the right one. That's the kind of thing that you often won't articulate to yourself consciously, but it's still there in your brain and it leads you to choose one answer over another. If you can make it conscious / explicit, then you'll be able to compare the two and say to yourself, "Okay, I didn't feel comfortable with this part of the sentence but it turns out that that just *sounds* awkward. It's actually correct. And then this part in the other answer choice sounded better, so I let that override the fact that there was an actual error someplace else in that answer choice."
For RC, of course, you just have to go study. You hadn't started yet, so that's okay.
You may want to book your test date for May sometime - check the testing center in your city. I've heard from a couple of people that the testing center in their city is starting to book up in late May.
Stacey Koprince
Instructor
Director, Content & Curriculum
ManhattanPrep
Instructor
Director, Content & Curriculum
ManhattanPrep
- sureshreddy003
- Students
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- Joined: Sun Oct 03, 2010 7:28 am
Re: Improvement in my verbal
Hi Stacey,
After practicing all the maths skills & strategies and doing some verbal here & there, I took a practice test last week.
MGMAT2A - 640(Q50, V29)
First Maths, I was shocked seeing that score as during the exam I felt that I screwed up my quant totally as there were some timing issues and also very very tough questions, which made my brain heavier. I had to guess few of the toughest questions, which I felt i could not solve. What I found from MGMAT tests is that when we are at 700+ level, we get most questions from Probability/Combinations/Geometry.
However, when I saw the end result,I was surprised as I did quiet well in quant and all the intelligent guesses were correct. Also, other guesses were incorrect and some answers which I marked tentatively came out to be correct. I got about 12 of them wrong, but my % was at a good level and it was about 95%.
Coming to verbal, I am bit happy that I have maintained the score level(last time it was 28) but also unhappy that I am getting half the number of questions wrong. I should have been good at SC, but somehow I am committing mistakes during the test. This time I also committed mistakes in CR, but did well in RC. Overall I was at 50% level in the whole test in all the sections. I could not analyze the verbal section properly, as I did it today because my health went down the entire last week :(
I need to improve to 70%le level in any of the two sections and I am noting down all the explanations which have to be remembered, but I am not sure about how to improve my accuracy in Verbal just like in Maths. A score of 34-35 in verbal with a score of 50 in quant would get the total score I need.
However, as said we need to take positives/negatives even though we win a game, I did the same in quant. Though I got 50, I know that I had some timing problems & I had to guess few questions, which were correct luckily. Also, a positive from my verbal is that I am maintaining same score level from past two tests & this time I had no timing issues at any moment as I was checking my time regularly.
I would practice OG remaining questions from verbal and also go through all the points I made for SC & CR(when reviewing OG & tests) for this week and would go for a practice test next week. If I get a good score and have confidence then I would book a slot in May 1st week. I am going through all your articles once again, to feel better and see if I get any extra point from those suggestions :)
Also, can u please tell me how to practice punctuation's(mainly semi-colon i.e how to identify a independent clause),countable & non-countable quantities(which item is count/non-count) & parallelism errors.
Please advice.
Congratulations, as your article has been published on business-week, you simply rock :)
Thanks,
Suresh
After practicing all the maths skills & strategies and doing some verbal here & there, I took a practice test last week.
MGMAT2A - 640(Q50, V29)
First Maths, I was shocked seeing that score as during the exam I felt that I screwed up my quant totally as there were some timing issues and also very very tough questions, which made my brain heavier. I had to guess few of the toughest questions, which I felt i could not solve. What I found from MGMAT tests is that when we are at 700+ level, we get most questions from Probability/Combinations/Geometry.
However, when I saw the end result,I was surprised as I did quiet well in quant and all the intelligent guesses were correct. Also, other guesses were incorrect and some answers which I marked tentatively came out to be correct. I got about 12 of them wrong, but my % was at a good level and it was about 95%.
Coming to verbal, I am bit happy that I have maintained the score level(last time it was 28) but also unhappy that I am getting half the number of questions wrong. I should have been good at SC, but somehow I am committing mistakes during the test. This time I also committed mistakes in CR, but did well in RC. Overall I was at 50% level in the whole test in all the sections. I could not analyze the verbal section properly, as I did it today because my health went down the entire last week :(
I need to improve to 70%le level in any of the two sections and I am noting down all the explanations which have to be remembered, but I am not sure about how to improve my accuracy in Verbal just like in Maths. A score of 34-35 in verbal with a score of 50 in quant would get the total score I need.
However, as said we need to take positives/negatives even though we win a game, I did the same in quant. Though I got 50, I know that I had some timing problems & I had to guess few questions, which were correct luckily. Also, a positive from my verbal is that I am maintaining same score level from past two tests & this time I had no timing issues at any moment as I was checking my time regularly.
I would practice OG remaining questions from verbal and also go through all the points I made for SC & CR(when reviewing OG & tests) for this week and would go for a practice test next week. If I get a good score and have confidence then I would book a slot in May 1st week. I am going through all your articles once again, to feel better and see if I get any extra point from those suggestions :)
Also, can u please tell me how to practice punctuation's(mainly semi-colon i.e how to identify a independent clause),countable & non-countable quantities(which item is count/non-count) & parallelism errors.
Please advice.
Congratulations, as your article has been published on business-week, you simply rock :)
Thanks,
Suresh
- StaceyKoprince
- ManhattanGMAT Staff
- Posts: 9360
- Joined: Wed Oct 19, 2005 9:05 am
- Location: Montreal
Re: Improvement in my verbal
What I found from MGMAT tests is that when we are at 700+ level, we get most questions from Probability/Combinations/Geometry.
We don't actually set any such parameters based on your scoring level. There is a minimum and maximum number of questions you can get in any one category and that's the same for every single test and every single test-taker. :)
You talk a lot in your post about improving accuracy in terms of percentage correct - but that's not how this test works. Unless you're scoring above the 90th percentile, your percentage correct is going to be in the 50-60% range regardless of your scoring level. The key is learning how to answer some of the harder-for-you questions correctly (that you're currently answering incorrectly). When that happens, though, that will lift the overall mix of difficulty levels you receive, and you'll still get about the same percentage of questions wrong.
I recommend reading the Scoring section of our free e-book The GMAT Uncovered Guide so that you understand better how the scoring works.
Okay, so what do we do about verbal? How was your timing overall and between questions? Use the below to analyze your verbal section and then come back and tell us what you found out:
http://www.manhattangmat.com/blog/index ... ice-tests/
Also, go back over the verbal Qs you missed and ask yourself exactly WHY you missed each one. Some will just have been too hard and your only goal there is to make sure you didn't spend too much time getting them wrong. On others, you'll feel that you could or should have been able to answer, and then you have to ask yourself what caused the errors. Why did you think the right answer was wrong? Why did you think the wrong answer was right? Was there a grammar rule you didn't know or you messed up in some way? Did you overlook some important word? Did you misunderstand an argument, the conclusion, etc?
Independent clause is just a fancy phrase for "complete sentence." Can it be a sentence all by itself? Then it's an independent clause.
eg:
I ate the pizza. (independent)
I ate the pizza; she ate the hamburger. (both independent)
I ate the pizza; and she ate the hamburger. (first is independent, second is not - we can't say: And she ate the hamburger.)
Do you have our sentence correction guide? Countable / non-countable and parallelism are large topics - I can't summarize them in a few sentences in a blog post (especially parallelism).
In general, punctuation and countable / non-countable are not as commonly tested. Parallelism is very commonly tested. (I'm telling you this just to help you set priorities.)
Thanks for the congrats - I was very excited to have my article picked. (I submitted it and then actually forgot about it - and then they selected it and published it a month later!)
Stacey Koprince
Instructor
Director, Content & Curriculum
ManhattanPrep
Instructor
Director, Content & Curriculum
ManhattanPrep
- sureshreddy003
- Students
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- Joined: Sun Oct 03, 2010 7:28 am
Re: Improvement in my verbal
Hi Stacey,
I see your reply saying about percentage correct,but most of the times I was talking about %le correct and seeing main GMAT & GMAT prep tests, I felt that %le level increases when you get a bit better accuracy.
I wanted to improve accuracy as I would get confused during the tests or commit simple mistakes and I did not want them to happen in the main test. If I improve my accuracy to an extent, then I can obviously improve my %le level. I am aware about the scoring pattern, as I took the exam already and took all the practice tests earlier,and did go through the e-book, may be you forgot that I already attended the GMAT test :)
I took GMATPREP yesterday and got a better score, which is the highest until now compared to all my scores last time.
GMATPREP1 - 680 (Q49, V34)
Q - 10q wrong & V - 15q wrong
Maths, I am facing some timing issues in between questions, and I am trying to resolve this by guessing some questions(Intelligent guess though). The problem I am facing this timing problem now is because now I am improved in Maths(as I did Advanced guide twice) and I am getting most of the questions, which I could solve and which is why I am facing this timing problem as I could not guess the problems for which I know the solution. Ya, there would be 3-4 questions, which I would know right away that I cannot solve or would take time and I would guess these questions.
I am pretty much aware that we are not here to answer every question correctly and we should be accepting few good questions from the CAT(tennis match, as said by you). If we do not get the solution or the path to solve the problem within 60seconds, then we have to guess and move on, but sometimes I get the path after 1 minute(either due to confusion, or some mistake at the beginning or stamina). During my earlier preparation, I did not had any timing issues as I was not completely aware of all the areas in maths, but now its a different case. During the exam I will be knowing if there is a timing problem, and as I guess few questions and move on or get tensed, then I would think I screwed my maths section(happened in last 2 tests), but either luckily or because I make intelligent guesses, I end up with a score of 49-50. I am trying to resolve this in the next test, and I hope to resolve this.
Coming to verbal, I am analyzing the wrong answers in the same way as said by you, why did I choose or why did I get tempted and so on....but as said either those wrong answers would be because of confusion or fear of getting question wrong, or my mind would become completely blank. When I analyze later, I am not knowing why did I choose that wrong answer, if it is a silly mistake then fine, but I am still not getting how to analyze wrong answers. However, asking these questions while analyzing, I resolved most of the issues in SC & CR and which is why I am getting a score at least in 30's and I am happy about this.
Score in gmatprep is good, but I feel that score is some what inflated(as I took gmatprep 3times during my last time preparation, before 5months). Though I don't remember most of the answers, I did remember 3-4 answers. On seeing some questions, I felt that I have seen this question before, but as I did not remember answers I solved them with all the rules and got most of them correct. But, few questions I felt, ahh last time when I selected this answer, may be it went wrong, so I have to choose some other answer this time and as a result, went wrong with such questions. So overall, my score may have been leveled with this selections. I am happy though that I am maintaining score of 30 level as last 2 times I got 28/29 and this time I got a good score of 680 in GMATPREP and this is boosting my confidence.
I hope to continue this score even in MGMAT tests and also try to improve my timing issues here and there and also my total score. Also, in last 2 tests I did not had any timing issues in Verbal, but now in GMATPREP I had few and as a result had to rush through my last RC(in which I got 2 ques wrong out of 3). I thought I would be lagging, so I rushed through this RC, and after I have done this RC, I surprisingly found that I still had 11 minutes and was left with only 5 questions, ahh may be miscalculated my time :(
Please advice.
Thanks,
Suresh
I see your reply saying about percentage correct,but most of the times I was talking about %le correct and seeing main GMAT & GMAT prep tests, I felt that %le level increases when you get a bit better accuracy.
I wanted to improve accuracy as I would get confused during the tests or commit simple mistakes and I did not want them to happen in the main test. If I improve my accuracy to an extent, then I can obviously improve my %le level. I am aware about the scoring pattern, as I took the exam already and took all the practice tests earlier,and did go through the e-book, may be you forgot that I already attended the GMAT test :)
I took GMATPREP yesterday and got a better score, which is the highest until now compared to all my scores last time.
GMATPREP1 - 680 (Q49, V34)
Q - 10q wrong & V - 15q wrong
Maths, I am facing some timing issues in between questions, and I am trying to resolve this by guessing some questions(Intelligent guess though). The problem I am facing this timing problem now is because now I am improved in Maths(as I did Advanced guide twice) and I am getting most of the questions, which I could solve and which is why I am facing this timing problem as I could not guess the problems for which I know the solution. Ya, there would be 3-4 questions, which I would know right away that I cannot solve or would take time and I would guess these questions.
I am pretty much aware that we are not here to answer every question correctly and we should be accepting few good questions from the CAT(tennis match, as said by you). If we do not get the solution or the path to solve the problem within 60seconds, then we have to guess and move on, but sometimes I get the path after 1 minute(either due to confusion, or some mistake at the beginning or stamina). During my earlier preparation, I did not had any timing issues as I was not completely aware of all the areas in maths, but now its a different case. During the exam I will be knowing if there is a timing problem, and as I guess few questions and move on or get tensed, then I would think I screwed my maths section(happened in last 2 tests), but either luckily or because I make intelligent guesses, I end up with a score of 49-50. I am trying to resolve this in the next test, and I hope to resolve this.
Coming to verbal, I am analyzing the wrong answers in the same way as said by you, why did I choose or why did I get tempted and so on....but as said either those wrong answers would be because of confusion or fear of getting question wrong, or my mind would become completely blank. When I analyze later, I am not knowing why did I choose that wrong answer, if it is a silly mistake then fine, but I am still not getting how to analyze wrong answers. However, asking these questions while analyzing, I resolved most of the issues in SC & CR and which is why I am getting a score at least in 30's and I am happy about this.
Score in gmatprep is good, but I feel that score is some what inflated(as I took gmatprep 3times during my last time preparation, before 5months). Though I don't remember most of the answers, I did remember 3-4 answers. On seeing some questions, I felt that I have seen this question before, but as I did not remember answers I solved them with all the rules and got most of them correct. But, few questions I felt, ahh last time when I selected this answer, may be it went wrong, so I have to choose some other answer this time and as a result, went wrong with such questions. So overall, my score may have been leveled with this selections. I am happy though that I am maintaining score of 30 level as last 2 times I got 28/29 and this time I got a good score of 680 in GMATPREP and this is boosting my confidence.
I hope to continue this score even in MGMAT tests and also try to improve my timing issues here and there and also my total score. Also, in last 2 tests I did not had any timing issues in Verbal, but now in GMATPREP I had few and as a result had to rush through my last RC(in which I got 2 ques wrong out of 3). I thought I would be lagging, so I rushed through this RC, and after I have done this RC, I surprisingly found that I still had 11 minutes and was left with only 5 questions, ahh may be miscalculated my time :(
Please advice.
Thanks,
Suresh
- StaceyKoprince
- ManhattanGMAT Staff
- Posts: 9360
- Joined: Wed Oct 19, 2005 9:05 am
- Location: Montreal
Re: Improvement in my verbal
GMAT & GMAT prep tests, I felt that %le level increases when you get a bit better accuracy.
In theory yes - if you could get everything right, of course your percentile would increae. :) The problem is that we can't think about accuracy without also thinking about time. There's a tug of war between the two, and going towards any one extreme will bring your score down - so your real task is to find the right balance between accuracy and efficiency.
No, I didn't forget that you've already taken the real test. But I talk to people every day who have been studying for a long time, who have taken the real test, who even know a lot about how the scoring works... and yet they still focus too much on accuracy at the expense of timing and then they don't do as well as they otherwise might. :)
now I am improved in Maths(as I did Advanced guide twice) and I am getting most of the questions, which I could solve and which is why I am facing this timing problem as I could not guess the problems for which I know the solution.
The question to ask yourself is NOT "can I get this right?"
The question to ask yourself is "Can I get this right in 2 minutes?" You cannot just ask yourself whether you can get it right in a vacuum without taking timing into account. You can imagine that you might give two different answers to those two questions: yes, I can answer this one, but not in anywhere close to 2 minutes.
(And remember that all problems have a 2-minutes-or-faster solution. So if a problem takes you 3+ minutes, even if you get it right or know how to get it right, you're a lot more likely to make a mistake - because it you don't actually know the 2-min-or-faster solution, then this is not one of your strengths and you could easily make a mistake or mess up.)
sometimes I get the path after 1 minute(either due to confusion, or some mistake at the beginning or stamina)
Great. Can you finish off the problem in the remaining 1 minute? If so, go for it. Sometimes, if you think you can do it in 1.5 min (total time 2.5m) go for it. Otherwise, let it go! Save your time for problems in which you don't struggle so much just to get yourself set up.
Okay, good, you deliberately got some wrong that you remembered - that probably offset the advantages you had on others that you remembered. They just launched a new version of GMATPrep, so you may want to download that. It will likely contain many of the same questions, but there should also be some new ones - so you'll be a little bit less likely to see repeated questions.
You're making progress on the timing. Note what went wrong this time around. (How did you get behind on verbal? Or maybe you weren't really behind and you just miscalculated? Figure out what happened so that you can learn from it for next time.) And keep going - you're on the right track!
Stacey Koprince
Instructor
Director, Content & Curriculum
ManhattanPrep
Instructor
Director, Content & Curriculum
ManhattanPrep
- sureshreddy003
- Students
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- Joined: Sun Oct 03, 2010 7:28 am
Re: Improvement in my verbal
Hi Stacey,
I practiced few RC/CR/SC questions from OG, which are pending and then few maths questions until Wednesday and then I could not practice much last week as I was not well.
I took a MGMAT3 test this Sunday and for the 1st time I was confident during verbal, as I was able to use all the rules and solve questions. Below is the score and I hope it is not a fluke :)
MGMAT3 - 700 (Q48,V37).
Last time my MGMAT score was 640 & then GMATPREP was 680 and for the first time I touched a score of 700, I hope this is a real improvement from my side(or this sudden jump has any issues?). I always felt that I could do better in Verbal and in this second schedule of my preparation I was confident that I can maintain 30 level, but I did not expect a score of 37 in verbal even in my good dreams :)
Maths, I repeated the same timing problem again during the test as I spent (>3 min) on 5 questions & (2.5 Min) on 6 questions, ahh I might be doing something wrong. I cannot face this at least in Maths, which is my stronger point. I had done few intelligent guesses and had to blindly guess few questions, as on the first look, I knew I cannot solve these questions.
I made about 10 guesses which had both intelligent & blind guesses and I got 5R/5W. During maths, I felt that I did not do well in this section, but I knew that a score of 46-47 would populate as I had solved half of the questions perfectly. As I was lagging on time, I had to guess last 2 of the 3 questions and got those 2 wrong and as a result my %le level fell from 91 to 82, if not for this I may have touched 50 again. During my earlier preparation, I did not had any timing issues, but don't know why this time I am facing this issue.
I do practice OG questions by setting a time and I mostly solve them withing 1.5 min or 2min max. But during the exam I am spending time on few questions, which is giving me real timing issues. In this test, I guessed few questions after trying to solve them for 2 minutes, I shouldn't have done that.
Coming to verbal, I have done really well on CR & SC this time, but screwed up my RC completely. I analyzed answers and found that most of the wrong answers were "One Word" category and some of them I had changed the answer for some reason during the test.
RC - 4R/9W ; CR - 10R/4W ; SC - 13R/2W
In the 1st 16 questions, I got 9 wrong and I had got 3 RC passages( I hope this is not the case in real test) and in next 25 questions I got only 5 wrong. I was shocked to see 2 passages continuously and 3rd passage just after answering 2 questions, may be this is one reason me not adjusting to the immediate passages and other reason is that I have not practiced RC's much in recent times.
For the first time, I was very confident while solving SC & CR, and I maintained my calm and slowly applied all the known rules and started eliminating answers within time. In these two sections, I stuck to the answer which I got at 1st attempt and did not try to change it(just reminded myself, let it go wrong but I am not going to change the answer). In verbal, I maintained timing very well and kept a note of time after every 10 questions. I may have guessed 2-3 questions in verbal, that too when I felt that I am spending more time on this question.
I never thought that I could reach 700 as earlier I felt verbal as a demon to solve, but this time I decided to kill that demon and attack it. I am happy with this score, but also cautious that I have to maintain this score in next few tests and improve if there are any chances. After analysis, I felt that if not for timing problem in Maths and so may wrong answers in RC, I would have reached a fairly good score.
I did not study for the last 2 days before the test and had partied previous night with my friends and had a pretty good sleep. So, should I follow the same before the real test, not studying much or thinking about GMAT much(of-course not partying though ). I had taken this test after 12PM and even other tests at the same time. I am planning to book a slot during this time frame as I am used to this timing and may feel uncomfortable if I have to write at 9AM.
Please suggest me any improvements(timing is one) and how to maintain the same level in coming tests.Also, I found from many people here that RON's videos are very helpful, do u suggest me to see few of them as per topic.
Please advice.
Thanks,
Suresh
I practiced few RC/CR/SC questions from OG, which are pending and then few maths questions until Wednesday and then I could not practice much last week as I was not well.
I took a MGMAT3 test this Sunday and for the 1st time I was confident during verbal, as I was able to use all the rules and solve questions. Below is the score and I hope it is not a fluke :)
MGMAT3 - 700 (Q48,V37).
Last time my MGMAT score was 640 & then GMATPREP was 680 and for the first time I touched a score of 700, I hope this is a real improvement from my side(or this sudden jump has any issues?). I always felt that I could do better in Verbal and in this second schedule of my preparation I was confident that I can maintain 30 level, but I did not expect a score of 37 in verbal even in my good dreams :)
Maths, I repeated the same timing problem again during the test as I spent (>3 min) on 5 questions & (2.5 Min) on 6 questions, ahh I might be doing something wrong. I cannot face this at least in Maths, which is my stronger point. I had done few intelligent guesses and had to blindly guess few questions, as on the first look, I knew I cannot solve these questions.
I made about 10 guesses which had both intelligent & blind guesses and I got 5R/5W. During maths, I felt that I did not do well in this section, but I knew that a score of 46-47 would populate as I had solved half of the questions perfectly. As I was lagging on time, I had to guess last 2 of the 3 questions and got those 2 wrong and as a result my %le level fell from 91 to 82, if not for this I may have touched 50 again. During my earlier preparation, I did not had any timing issues, but don't know why this time I am facing this issue.
I do practice OG questions by setting a time and I mostly solve them withing 1.5 min or 2min max. But during the exam I am spending time on few questions, which is giving me real timing issues. In this test, I guessed few questions after trying to solve them for 2 minutes, I shouldn't have done that.
Coming to verbal, I have done really well on CR & SC this time, but screwed up my RC completely. I analyzed answers and found that most of the wrong answers were "One Word" category and some of them I had changed the answer for some reason during the test.
RC - 4R/9W ; CR - 10R/4W ; SC - 13R/2W
In the 1st 16 questions, I got 9 wrong and I had got 3 RC passages( I hope this is not the case in real test) and in next 25 questions I got only 5 wrong. I was shocked to see 2 passages continuously and 3rd passage just after answering 2 questions, may be this is one reason me not adjusting to the immediate passages and other reason is that I have not practiced RC's much in recent times.
For the first time, I was very confident while solving SC & CR, and I maintained my calm and slowly applied all the known rules and started eliminating answers within time. In these two sections, I stuck to the answer which I got at 1st attempt and did not try to change it(just reminded myself, let it go wrong but I am not going to change the answer). In verbal, I maintained timing very well and kept a note of time after every 10 questions. I may have guessed 2-3 questions in verbal, that too when I felt that I am spending more time on this question.
I never thought that I could reach 700 as earlier I felt verbal as a demon to solve, but this time I decided to kill that demon and attack it. I am happy with this score, but also cautious that I have to maintain this score in next few tests and improve if there are any chances. After analysis, I felt that if not for timing problem in Maths and so may wrong answers in RC, I would have reached a fairly good score.
I did not study for the last 2 days before the test and had partied previous night with my friends and had a pretty good sleep. So, should I follow the same before the real test, not studying much or thinking about GMAT much(of-course not partying though ). I had taken this test after 12PM and even other tests at the same time. I am planning to book a slot during this time frame as I am used to this timing and may feel uncomfortable if I have to write at 9AM.
Please suggest me any improvements(timing is one) and how to maintain the same level in coming tests.Also, I found from many people here that RON's videos are very helpful, do u suggest me to see few of them as per topic.
Please advice.
Thanks,
Suresh