Next steps esp for verbal: help needed

[ankurkapur_cfa]

Hi Stacey,

For the last few months, I have been preparing for GMAT. Although I have improved a lot on Quant and SC but I still struggle with RC and CR.

Below mentioned are the scores in mock cat over the last 6 weeks:

MGMAT CAT 1 - 640 (Q47 V31)
MGMAT CAT 2 - 640 (Q46 V32)
MGMAT CAT 3 - 660 (Q47 V33)
MGMAT CAT 4 - 580 (Q48 V23)

Although my last score is lot lesser than previous tests, I still feel my performance was not that bad. I reviewed the CAT and figured out that last 6-7 questions in a row were incorrect. Till middle of verbal section, I was facing questions in the range of 700+ but gradually declined and at the end a string of 6-7 incorrect questions. There were issues around fatigue and time management which kind of distracted me from answering even the easy questions, hence a very low score.

I have identified few issues on which I would need your guidance:
1. Is integrated reasoning session really critical for which I need to spend lot of time. I usually get a very low score, however I have not at all prepared for it but still I dont want to be in the danger zone.
2. I am scoring on an average 46-48 in quant which I think should be fine. Currently, I am focusing on OG guides and not focusing on anything else. I started doing MGMAT Adv quant but thought its difficult and my time would be wisely spend if I focus on verbal more and keep on doing OG guides for quant. However, please advice me what else I could do so that I score around 50 in quant.
3. I was not at all good in SC but have been working on it quite a lot over the last few weeks. In my last CAT I was satisfied with my SC performance with respect to answering all 700+ questions correctly however last string of 6 incorrect questions had 4 questions of SC wrong which were in the range of 300-500. I attributed this to time management because during the review I figured out that all of them were careless mistakes. My average category of SC questions which were correct was 680 and incorrect was 590. This is primarily because of last few questions which I got wrong. I normally pick up few topics where I see a major hole and work on them. This time I figured out pronoun usage and will plan it accordingly. Is this approach fine or should I do anything else.
4. I apply RC techniques on every RC passage and get all the questions right which are till 500-600 range. However I usually get confused with tricky questions in the range exceeding 600. I see that all my tone and main point questions are correct but major problem in specific detail and inference questions.
5. CR is a main concern across all categories. If I spend more than 2.5 min usually the answers are correct but the moment I try to do it little faster, I am not able to get to the right answer. Should I review the guides again or do more practice to improve my accuracy and meet the time line of 2 min.
6. I am able to assess 1 min check point but its very difficult to think of time and have high level of concentration on each and every question. I usually break the CAT as per different check point wrt to time but usually towards the end of exam last 5-10 questions, I land up looking at the clock on every question which impacts my concentration level. What can I do to manage my time well and yet not be anxious about it.
7. Is there any way to reduce fatigue which kills my focus especially during the second half of verbal section.
8. I am aspiring for a score of 700+. Based on your experience how many more weeks this might take given that I scored 670 in GMATPrep when I started 2 months back.

Looking forward to hear from you soon.

Regards
aks

[StaceyKoprince]

Did you take those practice tests under 100% official conditions, including essay and IR, as well as length of breaks, etc?

Okay, so you have timing issues on the verbal at least (and possibly on quant as well - the vast majority of people have timing problems, so you probably do too!).

Read these and start doing what they say:
http://www.manhattangmat.com/blog/index ... to-win-it/
http://www.manhattangmat.com/blog/index ... nt-part-1/

If you are applying this year, then you almost certainly don't have to worry about IR. Most schools are ignoring IR this year. (I haven't heard one school say that they *are* using IR, but I'm saying "most schools" rather than "all schools" because it's certainly possible that there's one school out there that does want to use IR this year. :)

The important thing about IR is making sure that you're prepared enough that you can get some of the questions right without getting really mentally fatigued. You're going to skip / guess on others, so you need to know what your strengths and weaknesses are (in order to make good decisions about where to spend your time) and you should know what the basic strategies are for the 4 main question types.

If you want to jump from 46-48 Q to 50Q, then your best bet is the more advanced material in the Strategy Guides possibly coupled with the Advanced Quant book. Note that some of the content in Adv Q might be too hard for you, but the general process described in that book (how to think through a problem, how to learn from your work and mistakes, how to think flexibly, spot shortcuts, etc) is exactly what you need to go from 70s-ish to 90s-ish. Learn the process, then apply to OG or other Qs, if you find the actual Qs in Adv Q too hard.

You ask some questions about what to do with SC, but it seems like the only real problem was that you ran out of time which led to careless mistakes at the end. If that's really the only problem, then your task is to figure out how not to run out of time next time - which means figuring out where you spent too much time earlier and why, and then doing something to combat that.

For 600+ RC specific detail and inference: are you able to get rid of some of the wrong answers, but then not able to choose correctly between the last 2 or 3? Are you not able to confidently eliminate any answers? Are you eliminating the right answers? What's actually going on with these? That helps us to figure out what steps to take.

For CR: Are you spending 2.5m on ALL Q types? Or just some? Which ones tend to take longer? How much time do you generally spend reading vs. addressing the answer choices?

On all verbal in general: go through the answers twice.
On the 1st pass through answers: place answers into 1 of 2 categories, definitely wrong or maybe. DO NOT decide whether something is right at this stage. (This is a huge "time waster" area.)

On 2nd pass through: look only at the "maybe" answers, compare, choose one

When you are down to two answers on verbal, look at each answer ONCE more, then pick one and move on. (Do not go back and forth multiple times - another huge time waster!)

It's possible that you are doing one or both of the "time waster" activities above and that, if you kill those habits, you'll get closer to the time you need!

its very difficult to think of time and have high level of concentration on each and every question.

Yes, everybody struggles with this. Don't expect to be able to maintain the same level of performance throughout. The test lasts 3.5 hours - you're going to have ups and downs. You're also going to get nervous, feel some stress, etc. We all do.

Are you generally able to make good decisions about when to keep going on a problem and when to give up? When you look back over the questions in a section afterwards, do you have zero or very few "too long" questions (more than 30 seconds above the average expected timeframe)? How many incorrect questions are there on which you spent more than the average expected timeframe? (It's okay to have a few, but if most of the quant questions above 2m, for example, are also wrong - then you need to learn to cut yourself off faster.)

How many too-fast questions are there? (Less than about half the expected time for that question type.) Why are they too fast? How many are incorrect but you thought you'd gotten them right? If you thought, "I have no idea" and just guessed quickly, was that a good decision? (Try it again now - can you do it in the expected timeframe? If so, why did you cut yourself off so quickly before?)

Etc. See what I'm getting at? Pick apart your performance to figure out where you did make good decisions and where you didn't. Then you can figure out what to do about those specific things (or ask here when you're not sure what to do). That'll ultimately help you to manage your time well enough that you won't be quite so stressed (though you'll still look at the clock more frequently as you get closer to the end of the section - that's normal).

There are things that you can do to help reduce mental fatigue, yes, though you'll still always feel it to some extent - again, the test is 3.5 hours and everyone gets fatigued as the test goes on.

Look here:
http://www.manhattangmat.com/blog/index ... you-crazy/

Unfortunately, I can't tell you (or anyone) how long it will take to go from one score to another. There are too many variables involved - a 30+ point improvement could be weeks, it could be months. The key is figuring out what the problem areas are as specifically as possible and WHY they are problems - the Why tells you what to do about them.