GMAT Strategy

The difficulty levels are still changing - you're only seeing 100-point increments on your reports, but the questions are actually rated to within 10 points of a particular difficulty level. You just can't see it.

If your first test result was largely accurate (that is, low to mid 600s) then you have a shot at hitting 700, though it will likely take more like 6-8 weeks, not 4 (that would be meeting once a week with a tutor). If you're lower second test is a more accurate result for you, then it's going to be harder - some people can improve from a 500-something to 700, but not everyone (not even a majority).

Given what you've described of the timing issues, I'd guess that the first test is more reflective of your pure ability right now, even though your pacing is a bit shaky, but you might also want to take a GMATPrep test and see what that tells you.

Sure. FYI - you can do private tutoring with us on any topics you want; you can specify that you want to do only CR and RC and you want someone who is especially comfortable with those topics. We have a sophisticated web conferencing platform designed specifially for teaching, so our instructors can (and do) work with students from all over the world. It's pretty expensive, though.

First, you are going to have to pull the plug on some questions and let them go. You mentioned that you have gotten better at CR but go up to 3 min for the hardest ones - you shouldn't be going that far over consistently. That's okay maybe once on the entire section. You have to let go and just make an educated guess - you should have at least been able to cross off an answer choice or two in the first two minutes - and then move on.

You mentioned that you try "to remember the point in the passage after every 3 sentences." I'm not sure if you're trying to figure out the point of every 3 sentences, or you're reminding yourself what the single, overall point is every 3 sentences, or something else entirely - but if it's either of the first two, don't do that.

You do need to know what the overall point is of the whole passage, but that's not always right at the beginning, so often you don't know until the middle or the end. If it's at the beginning, great. If not, you usually have to wait until the end to ask yourself, "Okay, what's the overall point here?"

For long passages, DON'T read all the detail of the longer paragraphs. Read the 1-2 sentences (enough to know what the point of this paragraph is) and then JUST skim the rest of the paragraph. Look for periods and capital letters and read the first few words of the sentence. If it's just "more of the same" (that is, it is detail or example based upon the first couple of sentences) then look for the next period and capital letter. Only if you see something like "However" (indicating a change in direction) should you read the sentence. Repeat this process when you get to the next paragraph (pay attention to the first 1-2 sentences, then skim and only pay attention if you see a change in direction).

You also say you're struggling on RC with "those that involve choices that are to be concluded from passage" - are you referring to the infer / imply question type? Let me know.

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For the infer / imply / suggest question type, you have to be really careful not to do what we would normally do in the real world: use some assumptions to draw a conclusion. On the GMAT, they want you to just rephrase the information that's already there.

For example, if I tell you that chocolate is my favorite flavor of ice cream, you might (in the real world) infer that I like chocolate, I like ice cream, I like sweets, etc. All of those things are likely, but they are not 100% true. Perhaps I don't really care much for either chocolate or ice cream, but if I have to pick a flavor, that's the one I'll pick.

What you might infer that is 100% true: vanilla is not my favorite flavor of ice cream. Nobody can argue with that - it has to be true that if chocolate is my favorite, then by definition any other flavor is not my favorite. That doesn't seem like an inference does it? (Not the way we talk about inferring things in the real world.) But that is exactly what this test is looking for.

Remember that for these question types, you cannot assume ANYthing. The right answer will be something that nobody can argue with - it is 100% definitely true. Go back and look at some old problems you've done; I bet you'll find that you were consistently choosing answers that might sound good in the real world and they might have even been likely, but you couldn't call them definitely true. You want the answer you can't argue with.

The large majority of the time, this will take the form of the correct answer just "flipping" something that the passage did state - you can typically find one sentence or part of one sentence for which you can give the "opposite" and that will be the answer. You're basically saying the same thing a different way.

Remember that the bulk of your learning does not come from doing problems but from going over the problems after you have done them for the first time.

Also, the single best source of problems is OG. You may have done these already (I assume you have if you aren't listing it in your sources), but if you don't yet have the score you want, then you are not done studying from the OG.

Especially at the 600+ level, you learn only marginally by just doing lots of problems. I would rather see you do one-quarter of the problems, but spend three times as much time going over them. On every question ask yourself:
What's the right way to approach this (and if it's a math or SC question, come up with at least two different ways to approach it)?
Which way do I feel most comfortable with?
Is there a more efficient way to do it?
Is there a more effective way to do it?
What's the wrong way to approach this?
What are the traps?
How is the question trying to trick me?
How are the answer choices trying to trick me?
How would I make an educated guess on this problem?
What from the problem could I use on other similar problems in the future?
How will I recognize those other similar problems in the future? How will I know what to do?
How would I teach this to someone else? The "real" way? The educated guess way? How to avoid traps? Etc.

Until you can answer all of these questions about ANY problem - even one you get right in a minute, one that you totally understand - you haven't finished studying that problem.

For the RC questions, can you actually give me full examples (problem and answer choices) of the kinds of problems you're talking about? I'm not quite sure, especially on the second one - but if you're talking about what I think you're talking about, you shouldn't worry too much about those. The "What if" questions are fairly rare. The vast majority of the questions will be main idea, inference, or specific detail questions.

abhijit_s_2000:

I've moved your RC question to the RC forum area of this website. Please post your subject-matter questions to the appropriate forum areas in the future, and not on the GMAT Strategy section.

Thanks!

Thanks, nislam, glad you're finding the new books helpful.

Abhijit, I usually don't recommend people study more than 2 hours on workdays, anyway. Remember that quality is more important than quantity. Choose your weakest areas and continue to study using the list of questions I posted last time. Take a final practice test about 1 week out and take a few days to go over that test.

As far as postponing the date, I don't know where you're at now compared to where you want to be. Also, I don't remember whether you've already taken the official test before. If you haven't, some people do find it useful to just get in there and take it, even if they're nervous or think they're not quite ready, to get the experience. Then you have a better idea what you need to do before you take the test a second time.

In the final week before taking a test, it is very rare for people to learn a lot of new things or make great improvements in their scores. Generally, the final week is best spent reviewing your plan and high-level strategies so that you can execute at your best level on the actual test (and that best level is likely going to be closely tied to your current level).

If you haven't taken the official test before, just go ahead and take it and see how you do; you can use that data to help you prepare for the second time. If you have taken it before though and are worried about having too many scores on your record, then you may have to consider whether you should postpone, given the distance between your practice test scores and your desired score.