GMAT Strategy

Hi everybody,

I'm just one week ahead of my GMAT exam and I still don't reach a score of 600 because my verbal part is too bad.
I've been studying basically math and SC the last couple of weeks that's probably why I still struggle with CR and RC.

So how can I make fast improvements in these question types? I've read the Mannhattan CR and RC preparation books so I roughly know the basic concepts but I still have to guess too many answers - unfortunately they're often wrong though.

Below are my last three Manhattan CAT results:

#1 - Q: 41 (49%) - V: 28 (51%) - 570
#2 - Q: 38 (41%) - V: 29 (56%) - 560
#3 - Q: 42 (51%) - V: 28 (51%) - 580

Thanks a lot for any help!

Cheers,
bs8

Thank you for fast response, Richard;)

Some math questions went wrong because I did some stupid calculation mistakes, some others went wrong because I just didn't know how to solve them (primarily those confusing Word Problem questions). Even though I know the math required to solve most question types, some questions were/are just too hard for me. I also ran out of time so I had to guess the last couple of questions.

I've to guess most RC questions, I don't know why but I'm just not good at that. I greatly improved my SC skills but I still often choose the wrong answer when I'm left with two answer choices. It's the same with CR, some questions went wrong because I had no clue, some other questions went wrong because I chose the wrong answer when I was left with two answer choices.

I'm exactly one week ahead of the GMAT. I planned to do three more practice tests and to review my results to see what I did wrong and why.

Do you think that's the best way to prepare?

The last CAT was two days back and I'll do another one today.

Cheers,
bs8

bs8 wrote:I've to guess most RC questions, I don't know why but I'm just not good at that. I greatly improved my SC skills but I still often choose the wrong answer when I'm left with two answer choices. It's the same with CR, some questions went wrong because I had no clue, some other questions went wrong because I chose the wrong answer when I was left with two answer choices.

I'm exactly one week ahead of the GMAT. I planned to do three more practice tests and to review my results to see what I did wrong and why.

Do you think that's the best way to prepare?

Hi bs8.

Not really.

You have a lot to work on, and taking three practice tests will not be a good way to directly address things you could improve.

For instance, to get more CR and RC questions right, you have to get better at seeing what's going on in the questions and answer choices.

If you are getting CR answers down to two choices and then picking the wrong one, you aren't really seeing what's going on, and so you are getting sucked in by trap answers that seem to make sense by don't really.

You won't really change that by just taking more tests. You would be better off doing many CR questions UNTIMED, and learning to see what you have to see in order to see the difference between the trap answers and the correct answers. I mean you could spend a half hour or more per question, pondering each until you see the key details and the logic of what's going on in it. In doing that you would be training yourself to see what you need to see in order to get them right more consistently.

To increase your quant score, you could find three topics areas that you are kind of competent in but not great in and focus on those three, better learning how the moving parts of the questions work, and doing dozens of questions of a particular type until you are way better at handling that type. Then when you are doing the quant section of the test, you should be able to get more right answers AND spend less time doing questions of at least those three types, leaving yourself more time to handle the other types.

Overall, taking practice tests can certainly be useful, but while taking one or two more MIGHT make sense, taking three this week would not be as useful as doing untimed work to develop key skills.