Mock CAT exams

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by DavidG@VeritasPrep » Sat Feb 06, 2016 10:10 am
One thing I have to admit is that I got so accustomed to casually answering the questions that I forgot the stress a ticking clock can induce. I remember saying to myself "gosh 2 mins in and I don know how to tackle this question what do I do what do I do" and that added more stress and well I probably not only got that wrong but I just forbade myself the luxury of time on other questions too! So I think that that too is part of what you call the game and like I said I ended all my exams literally just guessing the last 3-4 questions and also doing 2-3 before those under lots of pressure so Im sure that hurt my score a lot.
You're seeing that the test has an enormous psychological component. It's one thing to know how to solve a question. It's quite another to be sufficiently clear-headed for a good approach to occur to you under pressure. If you haven't tried it yet, I'd give mindfulness meditation a whirl to help address this: https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archi ... on/275564/

(Also, it's not a terrible idea to continually remind yourself that the questions on the GMAT are engineered precisely to appear more challenging than they are. In order to be a valid question, it has to be solvable in a short amount of time. Put another way, if you don't see a good approach right away, there's no need to panic, because once a good approach does occur to you, it's unlikely that the question will take more than 30-45 seconds to solve. So rather than rush, it's better to take a breath and methodically consider another strategy if your first one doesn't appear to be working.)
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by prada » Sat Feb 06, 2016 3:37 pm
I just re-did the same CAT exam from last week, I redid all the wrong mistakes. As far as the V section I pretty much got most of the answers I got wrong, right. Often I made stupid oversights and I noticed with no time pressure I was understanding the question easier and noticing things/points I hadn't noticed. So Im a little relieved that it was not lack of knowledge or skills. I did find this question special

Life in an urban center, with daily experiences of subways, crowded sidewalks and dense living, provides countless opportunities for social contact and connection. Exurban life, by contrast, exists in the openness of freeways and one-acre lots, exhibiting little that would suggest social commonality. Yet studies show that people who live in exurbia consistently rate their feeling of connectedness to their community as strong whereas urban dwellers more frequently express feelings of isolation.

Which of the following, if true, contributes most to an explanation of the difference in the reported feelings of connectedness between urban and exurban dwellers?

A The cost of living in exurbia is significantly lower than that in urban areas.

B Rates of attendance at houses of worship are much higher in exurban areas than in urban ones.

C Exurban school districts often spend more per capita on their students than do those in urban areas.

D The rate of violent crime is much lower in exurban areas than in urban ones.

E Many people who live in exurbia moved there from urban areas.

I was a little stumped on this one, I selected D going with the logic that well maybe due to violence people are scared of each other and feel isolated.
Turns out the answer was B. With the following explanation

The correct answer is B. Despite the fact that urban dwellers live close together and exurban dwellers live farther apart, the exurban dwellers report feelings of connectedness while urban dwellers report feelings of isolation. The question then asks which choice best accounts for this discrepancy.

Choice B is the only choice that provides a potential reason for the relative connectedness of exurban dwellers. It offers the possibility that because rates of attendance at houses of worship is higher in exurban areas, perhaps exurban dwellers find through these organizations a sense of community lacking in urban areas, where people perhaps do not have ongoing social contacts despite their physical proximity.

I don't know if the person who wrote that is pious or what but how am I to assume that going to a place of worship is going to make you feel connected? Am I to assume that all religions' place of worship = connectedness? Im not religious myself what do I know? All I know is many people commit horrific things in the name of religion. Are often times bigoted and intolerant. Anyways maybe Im getting carried away but I still find it was a poor choice unless Im missing the point.

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by prada » Sat Feb 06, 2016 3:48 pm
DavidG@VeritasPrep wrote:
One thing I have to admit is that I got so accustomed to casually answering the questions that I forgot the stress a ticking clock can induce. I remember saying to myself "gosh 2 mins in and I don know how to tackle this question what do I do what do I do" and that added more stress and well I probably not only got that wrong but I just forbade myself the luxury of time on other questions too! So I think that that too is part of what you call the game and like I said I ended all my exams literally just guessing the last 3-4 questions and also doing 2-3 before those under lots of pressure so Im sure that hurt my score a lot.
You're seeing that the test has an enormous psychological component. It's one thing to know how to solve a question. It's quite another to be sufficiently clear-headed for a good approach to occur to you under pressure. If you haven't tried it yet, I'd give mindfulness meditation a whirl to help address this: https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archi ... on/275564/

(Also, it's not a terrible idea to continually remind yourself that the questions on the GMAT are engineered precisely to appear more challenging than they are. In order to be a valid question, it has to be solvable in a short amount of time. Put another way, if you don't see a good approach right away, there's no need to panic, because once a good approach does occur to you, it's unlikely that the question will take more than 30-45 seconds to solve. So rather than rush, it's better to take a breath and methodically consider another strategy if your first one doesn't appear to be working.)
Ohh yeah I fully agree. I actually do meditate but I should do it more diligently and with more an effort. I just redid my mistakes and I found I was thinking much clearer this time around. Probably because there was no time pressure. The link with mindfulness and meditation with this would be that I would be better able to remain calm and zone out the time component while zoning into the question. Perhaps even better able to utilize my brain as in retrieving information. Under pressure you panic and definitely will not retrieve or resolve perplexing questions with ease. Finally for me I wold say I suffer from a mild form of ADD, I get bored easily and my mind is constantly thinking and wandering off. In the case of the GMAT I definitely think it would calm me down, put me in a zen like state and just do the exam like a well tuned machine in a systematic way. Finally I think it would help with stamina. I would even go one step further and say maybe doing a quickie meditation between Q and V sections to clear your mind completely of the previous Q section would yield great benefits. Kinda like clearing the chalkboard before the next section. Also it would help stamina. I remember when I did my real GMAT towards the middle of the last V section I was brain dead. I was reading the question but my brain couldn't think clearly anymore. So it would help in this case too IMO

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by MartyMurray » Sat Feb 06, 2016 4:32 pm
prada wrote:I actually do meditate but I should do it more diligently and with more an effort. I just redid my mistakes and I found I was thinking much clearer this time around. Probably because there was no time pressure. The link with mindfulness and meditation with this would be that I would be better able to remain calm and zone out the time component while zoning into the question. Perhaps even better able to utilize my brain as in retrieving information.
In that case, you might get some insight or inspiration from these posts and from the conversation that follows the first one.

https://www.beatthegmat.com/rocked-the-g ... 82365.html

https://www.beatthegmat.com/mba/2015/05/ ... rty-murray
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by prada » Sat Feb 06, 2016 5:09 pm
Hey Marty,
I recall reading your post and it was inspirational. It one of the rare ones I recall due to the mentioning of meditation. I think a lot of people downplay it as some new age or that it will emasculate you but I see much value in it. What is your school of thought? There seems to be a lot of types of meditation and recommendations. I read you do it for hours, I do it or try to do it for 10-15 mins a day. I recall a friend saying "if you don't have time to meditate for 10 mins then you need to start meditating for 15 mins".

I also agree with visualization and it could be a powerful tool, albeit I never really used it for the GMAT. I've used it a few times for weight training and there is a distinguishable difference when I visualize pre-set and focus intra-set. Its like you are possessed and aren't aware of whats going around you you are so zoned in.

I also agree, and I have to start doing this more, when you say to tackle Quant topic by topic and weakness by weakness. I firmly believe that there is an art to learning and not everyone knows their own art. Everyone learns differently and what works for you may not work for another. But Im very similar to you. I need concepts to sink in via repetition. I think the bell curves link you provided will be useful for me to tackle subject by subject.

It was an interesting read.

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by MartyMurray » Sat Feb 06, 2016 7:35 pm
prada wrote:Hey Marty,
I recall reading your post and it was inspirational. It one of the rare ones I recall due to the mentioning of meditation. I think a lot of people downplay it as some new age or that it will emasculate you but I see much value in it. What is your school of thought? There seems to be a lot of types of meditation and recommendations.
Hmm. I tend to wonder whether if someone is worried about being emasculated he already has been. LOL The fact of the matter is, though, that meditation can make one more effective in any endeavor, and I have use meditation to, among other things, bike faster, solve health problems and score higher on the GMAT.

As you said, there are many related activities that are called meditation. I find that what's said in the following excerpt from an MBA application essay captures many aspects of meditation.

"At the tender age of eight, I was fortunate to meet a teacher who introduced me to the practice of meditation. Meditation has empowered me to dive into depths of my mind and find surprisingly new aspects of my personality. While effective, meditation was a long learning process that involved failure and frustration. After struggling for a long time to completely clear my mind, I learned to relax by allowing my thoughts to appear without liking or disliking them. Meditation is a dispassionate observation of thought, a realization that allows me to understand the true source of my thoughts and helps me to analyze my behavior and control my actions.

Observing my thoughts made me realize that the world we see is an impression of our mental frame of reference, and changing this frame can alter our perspective. Life is filled with problems and the world may sometimes appear ruthless. But changing the frame of reference has changed the world for me from being a multitude of problems to a plentitude of opportunities that I must realize to make it a better place."


My own personal meditation style involves going into an aware state in order to find what is going on within me and adjust the code of my mind, emotions and spirit. That's why I meditate for hours. I am spending hours adjusting that code. As I do that, everything about me and around me changes. Everything in the universe is directed by intelligence and underlied by spirit, and so via meditation and conflict resolution, and in general by adjusting emotions, mind and spirit, one can change anything, and wow have I seen changes happen. Also, in the process of doing that, I tend to get the benefits of other types of meditation, the relaxation and stress reduction types of benefits.

In this post, I describe one method I use in order to accomplish particular things. The post is focused on healing, but really the approach can be applied to accomplishing anything. https://healingchronicles.com/2014/01/06 ... n-to-heal/
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by prada » Sun Feb 07, 2016 3:12 pm
Marty Murray wrote:
prada wrote:Hey Marty,
I recall reading your post and it was inspirational. It one of the rare ones I recall due to the mentioning of meditation. I think a lot of people downplay it as some new age or that it will emasculate you but I see much value in it. What is your school of thought? There seems to be a lot of types of meditation and recommendations.
Hmm. I tend to wonder whether if someone is worried about being emasculated he already has been. LOL The fact of the matter is, though, that meditation can make one more effective in any endeavor, and I have use meditation to, among other things, bike faster, solve health problems and score higher on the GMAT.

As you said, there are many related activities that are called meditation. I find that what's said in the following excerpt from an MBA application essay captures many aspects of meditation.

"At the tender age of eight, I was fortunate to meet a teacher who introduced me to the practice of meditation. Meditation has empowered me to dive into depths of my mind and find surprisingly new aspects of my personality. While effective, meditation was a long learning process that involved failure and frustration. After struggling for a long time to completely clear my mind, I learned to relax by allowing my thoughts to appear without liking or disliking them. Meditation is a dispassionate observation of thought, a realization that allows me to understand the true source of my thoughts and helps me to analyze my behavior and control my actions.

Observing my thoughts made me realize that the world we see is an impression of our mental frame of reference, and changing this frame can alter our perspective. Life is filled with problems and the world may sometimes appear ruthless. But changing the frame of reference has changed the world for me from being a multitude of problems to a plentitude of opportunities that I must realize to make it a better place."


My own personal meditation style involves going into an aware state in order to find what is going on within me and adjust the code of my mind, emotions and spirit. That's why I meditate for hours. I am spending hours adjusting that code. As I do that, everything about me and around me changes. Everything in the universe is directed by intelligence and underlied by spirit, and so via meditation and conflict resolution, and in general by adjusting emotions, mind and spirit, one can change anything, and wow have I seen changes happen. Also, in the process of doing that, I tend to get the benefits of other types of meditation, the relaxation and stress reduction types of benefits.

In this post, I describe one method I use in order to accomplish particular things. The post is focused on healing, but really the approach can be applied to accomplishing anything. https://healingchronicles.com/2014/01/06 ... n-to-heal/
Yeah I would agree. I think its even more beneficial for me. For instance when I was in university unless I had to I would attend class if not I wouldn't because I wouldn't absorb much in class. My mmd would just wander. Especially if the prof was monotonous. Same thing as far as studying was concerned. Same thing at a new job. I just get bored easily and start thinking of other things. Of course this hurts me because I would not retain things. So its kinda cool if you can zone in and absorb everything a prof is saying and being focused.

I reckon that we live at a time when meditation is even more important they any other era of humanity. What I mean is that our society and daily lives is analogous to what I call Times Square. There is so much noise and clutter as well as distractions. Everyone, just everyone wants our attention whether it be your boss, media, marketers, your wife, your children, everyone. Add email, SMS, cell phones and you have just created more channels for that noise to enter your realm. Thus thats why I've just cut my time with FB, I refuse to start having instagram and twitter and linkdin etc. Its just a waste of time. There is one caveat and that is unless you yourself are a marketer trying to promote yourself. Hence Ive cut the noise and clutter and Im going to put in more of an effort in meditating, Incidentally today is the Super Bowl, can you imagine how much money and effort is put into trying to figure out how to get our attention and using psychologists and neuroscientists to see how our behaviour can be altered or influenced into something tangible and positive. Incidentally Im being tangential but the BBC documentary on Edward Bernays, "The Age of the Self" is one I enjoyed.

Regarding the link and article, t reminded me of two things. For one in his famous book by Napoleon Hill, Think and Grow Rich. He prescribes as one of his tenants to Think of Riches, to dream so, to even act as though you are already rich. Absurd it may sound but it has the same underlying reasoning. That part of the road to becoming rich is to have a psychological component. In other words to visualize riches. Of course the definition of riches can be subjective. Secondly it also reminds me of the infamous placebo effect. Many studies where just the mere fact that you MAY be on a drug has significant positive effects. Perhaps not so far as curing an illness but at least easing the symptoms and pain. Finally I would say that I agree with visualizing and find that doing a meta-analysis or self-analysis is helpful. For example I like to sometimes take a walk in a forest or sit down at a bench over there and just think. Sometimes I ask myself profound questions and I find that I just think more clearly in that atmosphere and that I am more "honest" and open with myself. So if I wanted to know whether I want to do a PhD or an MBA or whatever and Im not sure. I would take a stroll and just kinda talk to myself. I say this because in that process I visualize why I want to do things. The truth of the matter is that deep down inside Id prefer doing a PhD rather then an MBA albeit I enjoy doing consulting and MBA could get me that too but a PhD takes me away for corporate life and leads me to academia which I prefer. In either case I need a strong GMAT. So its kinda relates to when you say "unconscious" and "hidden stuff". That sometimes your conscious mind is not being honest with yourself. I wouldn't be surprised that that would be applicable to many here as in are you doing an MBA for the right reasons and is that really something you want to do which aligns with goals in your life? Its as though some do it for prestige or something. But I need to do that and visualizing more often. :)