Quant 46 ; Verbal 25. Please help.

[miss.jain.09]

Hi
I gave my Gmat practise test today(GMAC s/w) and got 25 on verbal .I have been preparing by myself for 1 month.
I got 12 incorrect(mostly silly mistakes.did not even read the question properly ) and attempted 33 qns.

Could anyone please suggest that such a low score is because of incorrect ones or not attempted ones?

Also,please suggest if it is possible to improve score in verbal w/o any external help.Please reply

Thanks

[StaceyKoprince]

The biggest problem is that you were only able to answer 33 out of 41 questions. The largest penalty is reserved for unanswered questions.

The fact that you didn't answer those means that you have a time management problem. Read these and start doing what they say:
http://www.manhattangmat.com/blog/index ... to-win-it/
http://www.manhattangmat.com/blog/index ... -to-do-it/
http://www.manhattangmat.com/blog/index ... nt-part-1/

Timing problems are very common; it will take a lot of work to fix them, but you can do it. :)

In terms of whether you can improve without "external help" - what do you consider external help? Do you mean without a class or tutor? Do you mean without books to teach you what to do? You will need some kind of external help, yes, but you don't necessarily need to take a class or work with a tutor. You will need books, at the least, that teach you how to do SC, CR, and RC.

Every test prep company offers these kinds of books, so do some research and see what you think would work best for you. (Since I work for a test prep company, I'm biased, which is why I'm not recommending specific books to you. :)

What materials have you been using so far to prepare?

Also, why do you think you made the careless mistakes that you made? What did you overlook? Why weren't you reading carefully? Were you getting mentally tired? Were you distracted?

[miss.jain.09]

Thanks Stacey for replying!

Your articles are so helpful!!!!
I have started working on 'time sense' . I will be giving a free MGMAT test to gauge performance in 2-3 days.

By external help,I meant classes.I am referring to Manhattan guides for SC & CR ,Powerscore CR , OG RC .

When I re-solved the questions ,I found out that 11/13 ,I could have easily solved right had I read more closely.
I am assuming since it was the first time I gave practise test,I might have got nervous , mentally tired or concentration issues.I was also nervous about the timer and did silly mistakes.

I will try to be conscious of all these in next test.Hey,does it really matter if one applies in round 2 and not in round 1?

Thanks a lot!
miss.jain

[StaceyKoprince]

Glad you find them helpful. :)

You mention "OG RC." OG materials are practice materials, but not study materials - they will not actually help you learn how to get better. There are no strategies for how to read, how to prioritize kinds of information, how to answer the different question types, what the trap answers tend to be like, etc. So it sounds like you do need to identify some study materials that will help you with RC.

Here are some to get you started:
http://www.manhattangmat.com/blog/index ... p-passage/
http://www.manhattangmat.com/blog/index ... -passages/
http://www.manhattangmat.com/blog/index ... -passages/

3-part series on one passage (with 2 questions):
https://www.manhattangmat.com/blog/inde ... -passages/
https://www.manhattangmat.com/blog/inde ... m-passage/
https://www.manhattangmat.com/blog/inde ... m-passage/

Yes, I'm sure you were mentally fatigued and nervous - we all are when we take a test! :) That'll be one of the things you practice to overcome.

Re: your question about taking a class, there are plenty of people who succeed studying on their own and there are also plenty who are very happy they took a class. It really depends upon your personal circumstances, level of motivation, and ability to push forward yourself (vs. with the help of an expert).

As a general rule, it is less expensive to work on your own but that can also take longer, because you don't have the same level of structure and expertise from an instructor. For many people, this trade-off is worth the savings.

It is more expensive to take a class but, if you identify a good program with a teacher who communicates well and knows his/her stuff, then your study will often be more efficient.

Taking a class / doing something more structured is also a good idea for someone who is very busy with work or who is worried about losing motivation or slacking off.

Good luck - let us know how it goes!

[miss.jain.09]

Thanks a lot Stacey !

[StaceyKoprince]

you're welcome!

[miss.jain.09]

Hi Stacey

Hope you are doing great !

So..I gave Manhattan GMAT 1 paper and got 650(Q 44, V 35 ) ;
Could you please suggest me what should be my strategy for preparation now.My GMAT is in end week of September .

What should be I focusing at in next 4-5 weeks? I am done with OG 13 for SC and CR and practising from OG VR.

Please suggest what should be the review method before every test?If there are any other tips that you can give,it would be great :)

Thanks!

[StaceyKoprince]

I am done with OG 13 for SC and CR and practising from OG VR.

Not necessarily. There's a big difference between "I've done these problems" and "I'm done with these problems." :)

I'd like to get some more detailed data on your strengths and weaknesses in order to advise you. Use the below to analyze your most recent MGMAT CAT(s):
http://www.manhattangmat.com/blog/index ... ice-tests/

Then come back here and tell us the results of your analysis and what you think you should do based on that analysis. 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!)

In general, the "review method" before a practice test is to work on the things that you identified as problematic during your previous practice test. (The above article tells you how to do that.)

For the last 2 weeks before the real test, do this:
http://www.manhattangmat.com/blog/index ... an-part-1/
http://www.manhattangmat.com/blog/index ... ew-part-2/

[miss.jain.09]

Hi Stacey

I gave GMAT prep 1 and got Q - 49 , V - 34 .

The biggest problem I am facing is that of 'timing'.In Quant,I guessed last 7-8 questions.Blind guess.Did not have time to even read once.
I have no idea why this happens in test because while preparing,I am able to do a question in less than 1:15 secs,generally Problem Solving.
In Verbal,I had to guess last 4-5 questions,again blindly and got all wrong :(

While practising verbal,I am able to get SC on time.With CR,it is 2:30 mins/question.In RC,I am trying to improve on my reading time and diagramming less but efficiently.

In Verbal,I got total 17 Incorrect.8 SC and 5 CR.From Q. 38 to 41,all are wrong due to blind guessing.
Post test,I tried SC qns and got 3 correct.In CR,I got 2 out of 5 right.
In CR,I think calculation based CR seems to be getting wrong .

Could you please suggest something?Thanks a ton in advance!!!

[StaceyKoprince]

I have no idea why this happens in test

Because the test is adaptive - you keep getting harder questions as you do well, so you can't answer them all in 1m15s! Plus, you get mentally fatigued, and it's also way harder to manage 75 min for a whole block of questions than to mention time for just one or a few questions at a time.

The short answer: it's happening because you're letting yourself spend way too much time on things that you can't actually answer in a reasonable amount of time. :)

Did you read the timing materials that I gave you way back when? You need to start doing what they said. (I know you're not entirely doing what they said, because if you were, you'd never run out of time with 7-8 questions left. You'd catch yourself when the problem was still smaller - that's the "benchmarking" section 5 of the time management article.)

So. Go back and read all of that timing material again (there are 3 articles posted upthread!). And start doing what they say, to the letter!

[miss.jain.09]

Thanks Stacey.I have read those articles and implemented them but while doing the test,I tend to get stuck.It is very difficult to guess.I will re-read and start implementing.

Thanks again.

[miss.jain.09]

Hi Stacey

Firstly,Thank you so much for taking out your time and providing feedback to strangers on internet.I think this is one awesome thing!!!

I consciously kept track of time and guessed whenever I was behind time and I was able to finish my GMAT prep paper 2.

My concern is this(I really want to understand the logic behind this,please help) :
I got a Verbal score of 35 with 10 incorrect answers spread out as ( q no. 2,10,11,16,19,23,33,37,38,41).Is it because of consecutive wrong answers.

How does one increase score in Verbal?Did I get 35 because all these questions were of the level I couldn't solve,then computer gave me questions at my level or did I get 2 & 10 incorrect in the starting,is it because of that?

I got 1 RC ; 5 SC ; 2 CR wrong.What should be my approach now? Exam is after 2 weeks :) Please reply asap if you can .

Much Much Thanks in advance :))

[StaceyKoprince]

The questions are all ultimately worth about the same, so the fact that you got #2 wrong didn't have a bigger impact than getting others wrong.

You did have a bit of a score dip at the end: you missed 3 out of the last 5 questions. This test works on the principle of "where you end is what you get" so your score would have dipped a little bit there.

You might have been at 36 or 37 before that dip - and you were at that level because of the difficulty levels of the questions you were able to answer correctly vs. incorrectly earlier in that section. You will not get a better score by answering more questions correctly - you'll still have a similar # wrong. Instead, you'll answer harder questions correctly (and get still harder ones wrong).

Your approach now is to go and analyze those questions (correct AND incorrect, not just incorrect), using the "how to analyze" materials that I've linked in earlier posts. That analysis will tell you why you missed the questions you missed or how to answer some questions more efficiently or how to guess or... etc.

That will also tell you what you need to go back to review - maybe you missed an SC because you didn't know a grammar rule well enough. Or maybe you let yourself fall into a trap - you picked something that sounded good on SC, or you picked an answer that used lots of the same words as in the CR argument, but the meaning of the answer choice was not right. And maybe you eliminated the right answer because it used synonyms instead of using the exact same keywords... but synonyms are acceptable. And so on. In other words, go dive in and figure out why things went the way they went and what you need to learn to do things differently / better the next time!