[720 Q49 V40] My Blog: Errors and lessons learned

mayonnai5e · Posted: Mon Oct 08, 2007 1:02 am Post subject:

My veritas experience:

I'll say it up front - Veritas is not worth the money. If you want a course to take, take MGMAT.

I scheduled myself for the live class in July and paid for the course upfront online. Two days before my class was due to begin (and after informing my boss that I would be leaving early on Tuesdays and Thursdays for a class I'm taking to prepare myself for business school), I received an email stating that there were not enough people interested in the course and that the class had been canceled. In lieu of this, I was offered the opportunity to take the online course, which are a series of recorded PowerPoint-like slideshows, and/or get a private tutor. I decided to swing for both.

My tutor was fine for helping me improve my verbal, but she did not provide me with solid study plan. Essentially every meeting involved going over issues that I had on the previous week (missed problems etc). In the math department, she did not seem all that strong so I didn't ask many Q related questions. I asked her when we first met how she got the job as a Veritas tutor. Basically, she said they interviewed her, verified her scores and that was it. No training required. In addition, she did not score in the 99% as Veritas claims ALL their instructors score. False advertising indeed.

The online material was sufficient, but nothing new compared to the information available in other books. The main benefit is that the information is better organized. As far as the material provided goes, it is mostly material licensed (and/or stolen) from other material (lots of OG11, OG10, PowerPrep questions included). The CATs are just CATs they bought from other companies (arco, 800score) and one they created themselves although it is supposed to be bad.

Overall, Veritas is terrible. The course got canceled, the tutor lessons began nearly 4 weeks after I had planned to start my live class, the tutor was mediocre at best, and the material they provide is available elsewhere.

In other words, I just wasted $1500.

[edit: Extra info I forgot to mention - I am very impressed with the commitment of the MGMAT tutors with the GMAT community online (e.g. Stacy here on btw.com). This goes to show how far MGMAT goes to stay up to date with the latest trends, latest materials and latest concerns of students.]

beatthegmat · Posted: Mon Oct 08, 2007 9:36 pm Post subject:

WOW. I'm really sorry to hear about your experiences. Sad

mayonnai5e · Posted: Thu Oct 11, 2007 2:48 pm Post subject:

It's strange how my strength is opposite of what I thought it would be. My verbal seems to be very strong, while my math is in doubt. On practice CATs, I am usually very nervous in the Q section and make careless mistakes due to the pressure and anxiety. In addition, I spend so much time doing grunt work while trying to solve the problem quickly that I forget to take a step back and calmly evaluate the question. I noticed I make the same mistake while doing timed practice so the past few nights I've been practicing the art of staying calm on Q while spending some upfront time evaluating the question. This usually takes about 15 seconds and involves various things, but after the 15 seconds if I cannot come up with a quick solution path, I just start with whatever comes to mind. If at the 1 minute or 1.5 minute mark, I'm no closer to the solution than I was during the first 15 seconds, I guess and move on. It's worked well in my timed practice, but I really need to perform on the real deal. I only have 3 days left and that's not much time.

On the other hand, when I reach the Verbal section, I'm usually calm and collected. The problems are often difficult, but I can elminate down to two usually and even on guesses I have a pretty good hit rate. I did 20 problems from the OG Verbal review tonight - the last 10 on RC and last 10 on CR. The last 10 on RC were from a repeat passage that I think I saw in OG11, but the first time I did that passage, I got several wrong. Tonight I got them all right, which is a good sign (at least I'm not making the same mistakes again). On CR, almost every question was new and some seemed even harder than the OG11. The very last question was of the bold-faced type. Those take forever, but I think if you see one, it's a pretty good sign. I saw two of them on GMATPrep 2 (got them both right) and scored 45 on V. I got all 10 of the CR questions right. The answers just clicked. The wrong answers were just obviously wrong. The key, I still believe, is careful analysis of the keywords in the passage and; in particular, how those keywords are related to one another in the context of the CR stimulus. I'm not going to go into detail now because I'm trying to avoid posting in the last three days, but after I'm done with my GMAT, I"ll provide more details on my approach for the verbal section. Hopefully, I can maintain my verbal pace and score another 45V on the big day.

For all the readers of this blog, I want to say thank you for tagging along on my ride. If I do not break the 700 mark, you'll be seeing more of me. If I do break it, I'll still post my final ideas on verbal so you'll still be seeing more of me. HA!

beatthegmat · Posted: Thu Oct 11, 2007 6:49 pm Post subject:

Thank you for taking us along for the ride. Smile

Your blog here will definitely inspire many future GMAT test takers.

Good luck!

mayonnai5e · Posted: Sun Oct 14, 2007 10:23 am Post subject:

Tomorrow's the big day and the anxiety is already hitting me. My heart rate has not come down from an elevated state all day. The only time it went down a little was when I lifted some weights, but that was temporary. I've already studied about 5 hours today and I need a quick break so I decided to write a little bit. Things I've done in the past two days:

1) Gone over my lessons learned logs for DS, RC, CR, SC
2) Created an Quant error log on the hardest problems that I missed with lessons learned for each problem and reviewed them. One of the lessons learned on a difficult geometry problem reads: "give up and give up fast on a problem like this." =P
3) Briefly looked over the first few pages of Arco's Real Essays book
4) Went over all missed Verbal questions in OG11
5) Worked the SC and CR practice sets in GMATPrep.

Things left to do:
1) Look at some of the real questions for AWA and brainstorm how I would write the essays as well as read some sample essays from the Arco book.
2) Go over my lessons learned log for PS
3) Go over my errors from GMAC CATS (powerprep and GMATPrep)

Things to do tomorrow morning before exam:
0) Eat a good breakfast.
1) Do 5 questions from each section timed to get my mind going
2) Exercise to get the blood flowing.
3) Study some quant notes an hour before exam (I always feel more confident going into the exam after I've studied my Q lessons learned).

I'm not confident that I can break 700 on the real deal even though I scored 710 on GMATPrep 2 last week. However, I feel like I am more prepared this week than last week because I've really focused on learning my Q mistakes and Verbal just seems to click for me now.

beatthegmat · Posted: Sun Oct 14, 2007 11:58 pm Post subject:

GOOD LUCK ON YOUR TEST!

It's been wonderful following your story over the last few weeks! I'm really pulling for your success--please let us know how it goes!

mayonnai5e · Posted: Mon Oct 15, 2007 8:03 am Post subject:

After months of perpetual seclusion, I've done it - 720 Q49 V40

achandwa · Posted: Mon Oct 15, 2007 8:20 am Post subject:

Congratulations mayonnai5e! I wish I can break the 700 barrier myself. Scored 660 on my MGMAT last night after 7 weeks of study. Still got atleast a month of prep time. Good luck in your applications!

achandwa · Posted: Mon Oct 15, 2007 8:23 am Post subject:

When you get a chance could you please brief us about your overall experience on the test - difficulty level on each section, how many guesses you made etc.
Thanks, Ashish

mayonnai5e · Posted: Mon Oct 15, 2007 9:37 am Post subject:

Here is a quick debrief about my actual testing experience. I will be providing several more posts with a careful analysis of what I did right and what I did wrong in my studying.

I am based in Paris right now so my testing center may not be like others around the world. Paris apartments have double glass windows to lock out as much noise as possible and during my test I was really glad about that. There was virtually no noise aside from the keyboard noises from other test takers.

Going into the AWA, which I only studied for the last two nights before my exam, I was a little bit nervous. The argument question read like a critical reasoning question and I got off on the wrong foot. Only after ten minutes into it did I realize I was on the wrong path. All in all, the AWA portion went fine after I started to relax.

After the AWA, I took a 5 minute break (10 minutes max allowed) and did some pushups and jumping jacks. Yes, I was in the testing center doing jumping jacks. Each break, I did some exercise activity, drank some water, and used the restroom. It really did help.

Next up came the Q section. I started off slow on purpose because I realized from the last few CATs that when I put too much pressure on myself to answer quickly, I made too many careless mistakes and gave up too easily on questions that I should not have missed. Also, three nights before, I did a set of the hardest Q in the OG Q book and I tried to stay absolutely as relaxed as possible and it worked out great. The problem was that whenever I felt too much time pressure I would skip the "thinking" portion of the Q question (where I would normally look at the question and absorb the info and make a decision on how I would attack the problem) and immediately go into "grunt work" mode (where I would just choose the first thing that came to mind). Spending the extra time up front to "think" about the problem (even with the time pressure mounting) helped me stay calm and confident about each question.

Now, for the actual material, I did not see anything even remotely as difficult as the hardest MGMAT CAT questions. The questions I saw were very much in line with the OG11 Q questions in the last 50 problems or so and at the end of the OG Q. In fact, there were several questions that were exactly the same as the OG11 hard questions except that the numbers were changed. Because of that I actually thought I was doing terribly. I was under the impression that all these questions were too easy and could not be the upper bin questions. But I focused and concentrated on each question carefully even though I knew I would have to guess on the last 4-7 questions. There was no way I could catch up enough to complete the entire Q portion so I stuck with what I was doing and worked each question out methodically. As far as how many I had to guess, there were many. On almost every PS problem, I was confident on my response, but on the DS, I wasn't so sure. Most DS questions I answered with about 60-70% confidence with some in the 80% range, but for the most part I felt like most DS questions were just guesses. I answer many with E so I thought that was a bad sign. What really scared me was that at the very end of the exam, where I was guessing randomly, I saw one geometry PS problem that I solved in my head in 10 seconds - I thought for sure I must have been in the 30's range of Q. I had to randomly guess on the last 6 or 7 questions. In addition, I left the very last problem completely blank - the Q portion ended just as I was about to select next and the thought of an unanswered question hung over me.

During the second break, I was very seriously demoralized. The Q section just did not seem right. The questions were just seemed too easy and I left one completely blank. I went into the verbal thinking that I scored no higher than 39 on Q so even if I scored 45 on V I would not break 700. As a result, I did not go into verbal with much pressure hanging on my shoulders. On one hand, this could be considered good because stress, anxiety and pressure are often what makes me do poorly; on the other hand, not caring anymore is not good either. But I went on, trying my best to stay focused. I thought, hey if I did that bad in Q, the least I can do is get a 45 on V and boost my score a little. The questions were hard across the board. SC was hard. CR was hard and RC was hard. It did not feel like the verbal from my last GMATPrep at all. On several CR questions I was unsure and guess whereas I am normally confident in CR. On SC, there were just a few very difficult ones, but I definitely noticed where the errors were and in one case I thought to myself, "oh man the test writers are tricky - that one could have gotten me." On RC, I quickly saw some very hard passages. I think I spent at least 5-7 minutes reading the scientific passage, but I stuck with it knowing that if I answered the questions on that passage correctly it would definitey boost my score. The reason why I focus on RC and am willing to give up minutes on it is because if I cannot understand the passage I will very likely miss every single question asked on that passage and that is not acceptable (imagine missing 4-5 questions in a row). Near the end, I saw at least 1 CR of almost every type including a boldfaced question, a "which question will help evaluate..." question, and a "which of the following completes the passage below" question. I guessed on the last 3 verbal questions.

When my score popped up, I was SHOCKED. ABSOLUTELY SHOCKED. Not only did I NOT do terrible in the Q, I actually scored higher in Q than any other practice CAT. I was disappointed in my 40 on V, but I didn't care because I scored 720, higher than any practice CAT.

Here is a complete list of all practice CATs I've taken:
PR GMAT 1 550 Q32, V34
PowerPrep1 560 Q35, V31
GMATPrep1 650 Q45, V34
PR GMAT 2 570 Q35, V33
PowerPrep 2 540 Q39, V25
Paper test 14 680 Q42, V42
Paper test 58 670 Q42, V40
PR GMAT 3 660 Q42, V40
MGMAT 1 650 Q40, V38
MGMAT 2 700 Q42, V42
MGMAT 3 690 Q45, V39
GMATPrep 2 710 Q42, V45
GMAT 720 Q49, V40

Note that I did a lot of practice CATs because timing was a serious, serious challenge for me. I do not believe everyone needs to do as many practice CATs as I did, particularly those that do not have timing issues. Even after all those CATs I still did not complete the real GMAT on time. PR GMAT 3 was the only CAT where I finished both sections on time.

achandwa · Posted: Mon Oct 15, 2007 12:15 pm Post subject:

Thanks a lot mayonnai5e! What an improvement you have had! Reading your posts, I think you thoroughly deserved it due to your methodical study! Your experience will certainly inspire a lot of us!
-Ashish

gowani · Posted: Mon Oct 15, 2007 12:30 pm Post subject:

congrats on your great score!

Smile

Stacey Koprince · Posted: Mon Oct 15, 2007 2:11 pm Post subject:

Fantastic - I'm really happy for you! I also wanted to mention that the kind of analysis you did on your strengths and weaknesses, as chronicled here, should serve as guidance for others. You did exactly what someone needs to do to truly understand the way the test is written and how your own strengths and weaknesses play into that.

Also, just want to point out to others - don't play the "guessing game" during the test (trying to analyze how well you're doing). I've assessed thousands and thousands of questions over more than a decade and I can still debate difficulty levels with my fellow teachers. You might think you're seeing an easy question but it might just be easy for you b/c it's a strength of yours. Or it might be deceptively tricky - it might look simple but be quite hard. Or it might be an experimental, in which case who cares how easy or hard it is?

There isn't even any upside to playing the "guessing game" because we disproportionately notice the negative during such times - what don't I know? what might I have missed? why does that question seem so easy? why am I always stuck in the slowest lane when there's lots of traffic and I'm in a hurry? (When's the last time you thought - wow, there's tons of traffic but, on average, my lane is moving faster than the other ones, even though sometimes we're slower!) Smile

All you'll do is psych yourself out. So don't go there.

Finally, mayonnai5e's experience is further proof that you can think you're not doing well and still do very well. That feeling is a lot more common than we're used to on a paper-and-pencil test - it's more common specifically because of the adaptive structure of this test. So expect it because it may happen to you!

Thanks again for sharing everything, mayonnai5e, and good luck with apps!

mayonnai5e · Posted: Mon Oct 15, 2007 2:18 pm Post subject:

Stacy, you've made an excellent point here. I honestly believed I had failed miserably especially coming to the end of the Q section, but obviously what I felt was not how I performed. So to the readers out there, even if you feel like you've done terribly on a section, don't fret and stay focused!

mayonnai5e · Posted: Mon Oct 15, 2007 4:08 pm Post subject:

Before I forget, I'll discuss the kinds of questions I saw:

Quant -
Mostly basics with different levels of difficulty:
* 3 or 4 rate problems in PS format
* 2 or 3 overlapping set problems in both DS and PS format
* MANY number property problems in DS and PS format
* Several exponent problems in both PS and DS format
* 1 or 2 quadratic equation problems
* 0 yes 0 probability/combination problems even at Q49 level

I am very lucky that the last few days of my prep I focused on studying the basics and by this I mean the questions that you will DEFINITELY see in the mid 40s instead of focusing on the super hard problems that you will probably not even see (consider that I spent about 1.5 weeks studying difficult probability, combination and permutation problems and saw 0 problems of that type - what a horrible return on my investment). By this I mean rates, mixtures, sets, averages, percentages, exponents, number properties, geometry, etc. A large majority of questions I saw were of these types.

For verbal, I saw what you would expect to see. A social passage, a science passage, etc etc. The SCs were in line with the OG SCs and the CRs were also quite similar. Not much to say here except focus verbal studies on the OG material as I feel most 3rd party verbal material is not quite up to the task.

As far as similarity goes, I think Kaplan 800 had problems that were pretty close to the difficulty I saw. PR material is too easy compared to what you would see in the high levels of Q on the GMAT. PowerPrep, as many other have noted, contains rather simple problems. MGMAT is a whole other story. I personally feel the MGMAT math is way too complex, long-winded and relies on too many obscure rules/techniques to truly reflect the GMAT material. With that said, I do believe you can benefit from MGMAT quant by studying the material that you get wrong and making conscious decisions about which questions are unlikely to appear on a real GMAT cat. For those questions, throw them out. I have a print out of about 30 pages of MGMAT CAT questions that I got wrong and on some of them, my notes simply say "too long, too complex - won't be on GMAT." Basically, for any given "hard" problem consider whether learning how to solve that hard problem is really going to be worth the effort. You could instead spend that time working on another area of math. For MGMAT problems, consider whether you have seen something similar to that problem in OG11 - that is the criteria I used when deciding whether to really try to learn/memorize how to solve a MGMAT problem. As I noted earlier today, many of the Q problems I saw were very much in line with those presented in OG11.

I'll talk more about my lessons learned in math prep in another post.