650 Q49/V28-should have been better than that, any advices ?

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by amaterasu » Wed Oct 19, 2011 7:06 am
Thanks mate,
Are you from Azerbaycan ?
Also thank you for your empathy. I agree with all what you have said

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by amaterasu » Wed Oct 19, 2011 7:11 am
lunarpower wrote:some quick comments:
amaterasu wrote:Man, I am stuck here.
Only one point improvement in quant--> 49 before, and now 50.
the highest possible quant score is 51.
the difference between 50 and 51 is statistically insignificant, so i'm not sure what you are getting at here. are you upset because you got a 50 rather than a 51?
A 700-800 level SC question on Mgmat is not same as the one in actual GMAT
we determine our difficulty levels the same way gmac determines the official ones: we aggregate the data from thousands of students' attempts at each question.
by contrast, when forum posters talk about the difficulty levels of problems on the official test, they are using a different method, also known as "making things up at random".

the former of these methods is, of course, more trustworthy than the latter.
Same thing with quant.. U can get close to 12 questions wrong and still have a score of 48.. This is not possible on actual GMAT...
says who?

in my own experimentation with GMAT PREP -- which uses the same scoring algorithm as the real test -- i have scored Q48-Q49 with as many as 18 problems wrong. it is definitely possible.
as for the people who claim that it's not possible... they are once again using that extremely popular method known as "making things up at random".

--

But I have seen my scores in mgmat not getting translated to real ones.
if a student studies by memorizing everything they've ever seen in the official problems and strategy guides (probably the worst way you could possibly study, by the way), then his/her scores are going to be higher on our test than on the official exam. the same will be true for any prep company's exams; ours are not unique in this sense.

the reason is simple: we can't put a concept on our test until it has shown up on some official problem, somewhere (otherwise we'd just be making up random stuff).
so ... if you've memorized most of what is out there, then you're going to see many of the same things on our (or anybody else's) exams, and so your scores will be artificially inflated.
gmac, by contrast, puts new stuff on the official exam all the time. the new stuff will be related to the existing material, but the specifics won't be the same; therefore, people who've gotten artificially high practice-test scores through lots and lots of memorization are generally going to bomb the real test, especially on verbal.
Ron I shared below my analysis in verbal, I can really appreciate if you share your first impressionImage
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by pemdas » Wed Oct 19, 2011 7:45 am
yes you are right. As far as MGMAT tests are concerned I score like you do in high 600-s and err on half of 700-800 score questions in their CATs. I have noticed that MGMAT RC passages are less dense but the questions following are tricky, and it's opposite of OG's RC passages. For example take the first ever passage in OG 11 - very dense and dry, but questions are medium level (not very tricky)

you may want to practice with Kaplan verbal workbook for RC, and then switch to OG again.
CR can be approached in many ways - I've chosen to learn and sort take-aways from BTG experts as Ron P. of MGMAT and Brian, David of Veritas. They help a lot in selecting off wrong choices. Search for "wrong answer" in CR and you will find amazing posts by these tutors.

for SC - it's obviously MGMAT SC's strategic guide. I am trying to sift every word in this book, as the verbiage has been eliminated there (unlike that present in almost all other prep books). So MGMAT's SC guide is like practical handbook for all cases.

sorry to interrupt your query addressed to Ron.
amaterasu wrote:Thanks mate,
Are you from Azerbaycan ?
Also thank you for your empathy. I agree with all what you have said
Success doesn't come overnight!

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by cgoyal.gmat » Thu Oct 20, 2011 9:48 am
I happened to take the GMAT in August and can understand the challenge you are facing in Verbal. I must say that the SC piece was totally out of whack and it was tough to identify the "category" being tested, which makes me now think a majority of it was "idioms". Also in my case I got way more SC than RC... did you experience issues like the ones mentioned above? Where were you least confident of your answers during the actual test?

Somehow I managed to get a V42, so I may be able to help you out through this forum.

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by amaterasu » Thu Oct 20, 2011 10:04 am
cgoyal.gmat wrote:I happened to take the GMAT in August and can understand the challenge you are facing in Verbal. I must say that the SC piece was totally out of whack and it was tough to identify the "category" being tested, which makes me now think a majority of it was "idioms". Also in my case I got way more SC than RC... did you experience issues like the ones mentioned above? Where were you least confident of your answers during the actual test?

Somehow I managed to get a V42, so I may be able to help you out through this forum.
Cgoyal

thanks a lot. I shared my results from MGMAT CATs. As you will see there, my verbal is such that:
SC>CR>RC
Somehow I feel that I could not manage RC passages, they were tough to read and the answers of the questions are trickier a lot.
I feel that if I manage more 5-6 questions in verbal, I can touch the 700+, what do you think ?

I really appreciate if you could provide some asistance to me through this forum

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by cgoyal.gmat » Fri Oct 21, 2011 5:03 pm
Okay, so let me start off by asking you about your attack strategy for RC questions?

- How much time do you spend reading
a)short passage
b)long passage
- Do you read them word by word or skim through?
- Do you pay more attention to the first paragraph?
- Do you take notes? If yes what kind and how detailed?
- Are you aware of the different question types in RC?
- Is there a particular one bothering you more than the other?

Secondly the CR issue:
- Once again, are you aware of the different types of CR?
- Which ones bother you in particular?

Lastly,
- How much of the OG12 have you practiced?
- What is your success rate on the OG12 RCs & CRs? Those are pretty close to the actual ones.
- Are their any timing issues:
a) how long do you take for SC and CR questions?
b) are you able to complete the Verbal Section in time?
c) are you taking longer to answer one type of question?
- Have you listened to "Thursdays with Ron" videos for CR, RC and SC on MGMAT website. I am a big advocate of that and IMO there is no better free resource out there than these lectures.

Maybe you have already answered these questions but if not then answering some of these questions will create more awareness and help you identify the shortcomings.

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by amaterasu » Fri Oct 21, 2011 11:41 pm
cgoyal.gmat wrote:Okay, so let me start off by asking you about your attack strategy for RC questions?

- How much time do you spend reading
a)short passage: I read them also as long passages because when I do not do this, I could not manage the time. b)long passage: Amaterasu: long passages, I read them as Ron said. Intro and topics sentences, Concentrating on 2 focus Qs and looking for logical transitionsI must also say that I took my two exams within a month, as per me, the passages were more convoluted than passages in OG and the answer choices were trickier. - Do you read them word by word or skim through?--> Amaterasu: No, as I said above, word by word reading causes me to panic for other questions and I end up with guessing last questions or solving them in 45 secs- Do you pay more attention to the first paragraph?-->Yes
- Do you take notes? If yes what kind and how detailed?--> No, I do not take notes, as a non-native, If I take notes I could not manage the time
- Are you aware of the different question types in RC?--> Yes general, specific, inference questions - Is there a particular one bothering you more than the other?--> Amaterasu: No, but the answer choıces are a lot trickier and as Ron said some require real-world thinking even 100% prove questions are a lot trickySecondly the CR issue:
- Once again, are you aware of the different types of CR? --> Yeah, I read Bible CR and MGMAT CR- Which ones bother you in particular?--> For Prove family, I am OK. I think S/W questions turn out to be sometimes harder, because of their convoluted argumentsLastly,
- How much of the OG12 have you practiced?-->I finished Verbal supplement with reviews and error logs I made. My success rate was higher in that than that in OG12. By OG12 I finished SC with Diagnostic but for CR there are last 30 questions+diagnostic. For CR there 80 questions left+diagnostic. Maybe I should have finished all OG12. What do you think ? But for the parts I finished, I reviewed them and made error logs. - What is your success rate on the OG12 RCs & CRs? Those are pretty close to the actual ones.--> For CR:
for the fist 20 questions my success rate was 80% and managed to finish them in 40 minutes. For the second 20 Qs,I was at 86.4% but 10 minutes behind if I were to solve them in 2 minutes if in 2:30 minutes I was just in time. For the questions 43-77, I waas at 74.3%, if in two minutes I was 25 minutes behind, if in 2:30 minutes upper limit, I was 9 minutes behind. I consider upper limits because when I move on OG, I felt that the questions become more convoluted,I did not understand some of them at first rading, maybe because I am a non-native, I do not know. For CR questions 78-112,I was at 66%, but i finished these 35 questions in 110 minutes !!! These arguments were too complex for me.
For RC, as I said I only finished first 46 questions in OG12, but finished the verbal supplement. For OG12:
First 25 questions, it must completed in 50 minutes but I finished in 67 minutes at a rate of 84%.Then I adjusted for the questions 26-46, I finished 21 Qs (42 minutes requirement), in 34 minutes at a rate 86%.
- Are their any timing issues: --> As I look closely, I figure out that there is a huge timing problem for me in verbal, but how come I managed to overcome these at CAT practices, maybe there are less # of diffucult questions. In OG, the diffuculties of the questions are getting harder when you move, and I could not manage to finish some of them in 1:45 actually in 2 minutes. Sometimes even 3 minutes are not enough, as can be indicated above.
a) how long do you take for SC and CR questions? --> Timing and accuracy in SC is not a problem for me, I generally was on time in 1:45, I finish them. Foe exapmle my accuracy was for diagnostic 72.22% (after coming home from job so fatigue is a factor here)in 39 minutes 45 secs, for 18 questions. b) are you able to complete the Verbal Section in time?--> I cannot say on time,OK I finish it but with rushing and guessing to take my time to the end. Because when I guess at the end, I figure out that my score would be lower, I figured this by practice tests. c) are you taking longer to answer one type of question?--> I shared them above. RC and CR are revealed as big problems. did you look my results I attached above ?- Have you listened to "Thursdays with Ron" videos for CR, RC and SC on MGMAT website. I am a big advocate of that and IMO there is no better free resource out there than these lectures.--> Ron is great. I only watched it for RC not for CR and SC. But for CR and SC GMATPrep problems compilations, OG and Verbal Supplement problems and two GMATPrep tests I refer to MGMAT forum and BTG to see Ron's explanations. I thought that I saw his answers so I do not need to watch videos. What do you think maybe I should watch them ?Maybe you have already answered these questions but if not then answering some of these questions will create more awareness and help you identify the shortcomings.
Really really thank you a lot, I think it is a lot easier now to figure out what went wrong in exam. You helped me to find out what was wrong. TIMING in CR and RC which leads to wrong answers !!! At least I think so now, what do you think

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by amaterasu » Fri Oct 21, 2011 11:58 pm
In addition, I do not know but is it OK to solve-say the last CR questions 80-124 in two minutes ? Because when I move on in OG, the questions become harder to solve in two minutes ? And they come consecutively, after a hard question comes another hard, and another...
The difficulty level is high and I try to solve them after by after...So, I could not finish them when 45 difficult CRs come consecutively ?
What do you think

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by amaterasu » Sat Oct 22, 2011 12:00 am
Also, I found that I lost to much on time on strategy guides, I fnisihed all verbal guides of MGMAT and PowerScore. But I could not finish the OG as I wrote above

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by cgoyal.gmat » Sat Oct 22, 2011 8:19 pm
amaterasu wrote:In addition, I do not know but is it OK to solve-say the last CR questions 80-124 in two minutes ? Because when I move on in OG, the questions become harder to solve in two minutes ? And they come consecutively, after a hard question comes another hard, and another...
The difficulty level is high and I try to solve them after by after...So, I could not finish them when 45 difficult CRs come consecutively ?
What do you think
Hi,
Yes, the difficulty of questions increases as you progress down the OG. But that being said there are a certain type of questions (say S/W) questions which may be bothering you more than the others. How I approached it was to know which of the categories of CR questions were giving me more problem and attack only those problems one after the other to train the mind. Of course none of the tips and tricks from the CR Bible or anywhere helped me whenever I was under the stress, but the practice and ruling out "trap" answers helps.
You should be able to find the OG12 Grid to know which problems to solve for a particular category.

And yes, timing was an issue for me as well in difficult CR questions, but you have to develop a strategy of skipping some questions (again Th w. Ron has a lecture on this). But I realized if you have a good strategy for RC, you may be able to manage time better.

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by cgoyal.gmat » Sat Oct 22, 2011 8:40 pm
It may be worthwhile to change your strategy for Long RC vs Short RC passage. Your Long RC strategy seems fine but shorter needs to be more thorough I would say. Time yourself for reading a long RC and do 4 questions in 8-9 min (roughly 3 min to read the passage and 1 min to answer each question on avg). Are you able to do this?

Taking just shorthand note or mentally understanding the main point(maybe in your language)goes long way in helping you answer the RC questions. I am not saying re-write sentences from RC, but just a few symbols or partial words about the main idea. If you dont get the main idea, you will miss almost all the questions (as you will fall for the traps). Once the main idea is clear, it becomes very easy to rule out the traps.

Reviewing incorrect responses in CR and RC may not work as you tend to remember the correct answer. "Takeaways" from each question are important. I also skipped certain OG questions but those were the easier ones. I dont suggest skipping tough OG questions if you are aiming for a high verbal score.
Once you solve OG questions you will be able to understand the way GMAT makes questions. I dont think anyone (including MGMAT) comes with questions as clear as OG on CR.

Practice RC's everyday. It's only a matter of perfecting the timing while extracting the main ideas and logical shifts.

My timing wasn't perfect either but I had a strategy to skip some questions need be. Tough CR's do that longer to get them right (But not too long - anything over 2:30 was mostly incorrect for me, but between 1:30 - 2:20 was common).

Usually you would be left with 2 good choices? or do you have more?

How about SC? are you able to do them in 1 min or 1:20? We may not realize but sometimes SC does eat away a lot of time. Being a non-native I am surprised that SC is your strongest, but ofcouse, if it is than that's great!

I am glad I was able to help. Keep practicing smartly and victory shall be yours!!
amaterasu wrote:
cgoyal.gmat wrote:Okay, so let me start off by asking you about your attack strategy for RC questions?

- How much time do you spend reading
a)short passage: I read them also as long passages because when I do not do this, I could not manage the time. b)long passage: Amaterasu: long passages, I read them as Ron said. Intro and topics sentences, Concentrating on 2 focus Qs and looking for logical transitionsI must also say that I took my two exams within a month, as per me, the passages were more convoluted than passages in OG and the answer choices were trickier. - Do you read them word by word or skim through?--> Amaterasu: No, as I said above, word by word reading causes me to panic for other questions and I end up with guessing last questions or solving them in 45 secs- Do you pay more attention to the first paragraph?-->Yes
- Do you take notes? If yes what kind and how detailed?--> No, I do not take notes, as a non-native, If I take notes I could not manage the time
- Are you aware of the different question types in RC?--> Yes general, specific, inference questions - Is there a particular one bothering you more than the other?--> Amaterasu: No, but the answer choıces are a lot trickier and as Ron said some require real-world thinking even 100% prove questions are a lot trickySecondly the CR issue:
- Once again, are you aware of the different types of CR? --> Yeah, I read Bible CR and MGMAT CR- Which ones bother you in particular?--> For Prove family, I am OK. I think S/W questions turn out to be sometimes harder, because of their convoluted argumentsLastly,
- How much of the OG12 have you practiced?-->I finished Verbal supplement with reviews and error logs I made. My success rate was higher in that than that in OG12. By OG12 I finished SC with Diagnostic but for CR there are last 30 questions+diagnostic. For CR there 80 questions left+diagnostic. Maybe I should have finished all OG12. What do you think ? But for the parts I finished, I reviewed them and made error logs. - What is your success rate on the OG12 RCs & CRs? Those are pretty close to the actual ones.--> For CR:
for the fist 20 questions my success rate was 80% and managed to finish them in 40 minutes. For the second 20 Qs,I was at 86.4% but 10 minutes behind if I were to solve them in 2 minutes if in 2:30 minutes I was just in time. For the questions 43-77, I waas at 74.3%, if in two minutes I was 25 minutes behind, if in 2:30 minutes upper limit, I was 9 minutes behind. I consider upper limits because when I move on OG, I felt that the questions become more convoluted,I did not understand some of them at first rading, maybe because I am a non-native, I do not know. For CR questions 78-112,I was at 66%, but i finished these 35 questions in 110 minutes !!! These arguments were too complex for me.
For RC, as I said I only finished first 46 questions in OG12, but finished the verbal supplement. For OG12:
First 25 questions, it must completed in 50 minutes but I finished in 67 minutes at a rate of 84%.Then I adjusted for the questions 26-46, I finished 21 Qs (42 minutes requirement), in 34 minutes at a rate 86%.
- Are their any timing issues: --> As I look closely, I figure out that there is a huge timing problem for me in verbal, but how come I managed to overcome these at CAT practices, maybe there are less # of diffucult questions. In OG, the diffuculties of the questions are getting harder when you move, and I could not manage to finish some of them in 1:45 actually in 2 minutes. Sometimes even 3 minutes are not enough, as can be indicated above.
a) how long do you take for SC and CR questions? --> Timing and accuracy in SC is not a problem for me, I generally was on time in 1:45, I finish them. Foe exapmle my accuracy was for diagnostic 72.22% (after coming home from job so fatigue is a factor here)in 39 minutes 45 secs, for 18 questions. b) are you able to complete the Verbal Section in time?--> I cannot say on time,OK I finish it but with rushing and guessing to take my time to the end. Because when I guess at the end, I figure out that my score would be lower, I figured this by practice tests. c) are you taking longer to answer one type of question?--> I shared them above. RC and CR are revealed as big problems. did you look my results I attached above ?- Have you listened to "Thursdays with Ron" videos for CR, RC and SC on MGMAT website. I am a big advocate of that and IMO there is no better free resource out there than these lectures.--> Ron is great. I only watched it for RC not for CR and SC. But for CR and SC GMATPrep problems compilations, OG and Verbal Supplement problems and two GMATPrep tests I refer to MGMAT forum and BTG to see Ron's explanations. I thought that I saw his answers so I do not need to watch videos. What do you think maybe I should watch them ?Maybe you have already answered these questions but if not then answering some of these questions will create more awareness and help you identify the shortcomings.
Really really thank you a lot, I think it is a lot easier now to figure out what went wrong in exam. You helped me to find out what was wrong. TIMING in CR and RC which leads to wrong answers !!! At least I think so now, what do you think

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by amaterasu » Sat Oct 22, 2011 11:36 pm
cgoyal.gmat wrote:
amaterasu wrote:In addition, I do not know but is it OK to solve-say the last CR questions 80-124 in two minutes ? Because when I move on in OG, the questions become harder to solve in two minutes ? And they come consecutively, after a hard question comes another hard, and another...
The difficulty level is high and I try to solve them after by after...So, I could not finish them when 45 difficult CRs come consecutively ?
What do you think
Hi,
Yes, the difficulty of questions increases as you progress down the OG. But that being said there are a certain type of questions (say S/W) questions which may be bothering you more than the others. How I approached it was to know which of the categories of CR questions were giving me more problem and attack only those problems one after the other to train the mind. Of course none of the tips and tricks from the CR Bible or anywhere helped me whenever I was under the stress, but the practice and ruling out "trap" answers helps.
You should be able to find the OG12 Grid to know which problems to solve for a particular category.

And yes, timing was an issue for me as well in difficult CR questions, but you have to develop a strategy of skipping some questions (again Th w. Ron has a lecture on this). But I realized if you have a good strategy for RC, you may be able to manage time better.
Yeah, I know that Grid for OG12. Which video was it, do you remember that, august 5 2010 or any other ?
Thanks a lot cgoyal, you were of much help

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by amaterasu » Sat Oct 22, 2011 11:48 pm
cgoyal.gmat wrote:It may be worthwhile to change your strategy for Long RC vs Short RC passage. Your Long RC strategy seems fine but shorter needs to be more thorough I would say. Time yourself for reading a long RC and do 4 questions in 8-9 min (roughly 3 min to read the passage and 1 min to answer each question on avg). Are you able to do this?--> Yeah,because Long has a more solid strategy I were able to do this, but as you say it is difficult in short passages.

Taking just shorthand note or mentally understanding the main point(maybe in your language)goes long way in helping you answer the RC questions. I am not saying re-write sentences from RC, but just a few symbols or partial words about the main idea. If you dont get the main idea, you will miss almost all the questions (as you will fall for the traps). Once the main idea is clear, it becomes very easy to rule out the traps.--> I thought that I were able to draw main idea but apparently, I were not.

Reviewing incorrect responses in CR and RC may not work as you tend to remember the correct answer. "Takeaways" from each question are important. I also skipped certain OG questions but those were the easier ones. I dont suggest skipping tough OG questions if you are aiming for a high verbal score.--> Yeah,as I said there were approx. 90 RC questions and 50 CR questions left in OG, for me.What do you think, maybe I was not so prepared when I did the actual exam because of this ?

Once you solve OG questions you will be able to understand the way GMAT makes beca questions. I dont think anyone (including MGMAT) comes with questions as clear as OG on CR.

Practice RC's everyday. It's only a matter of perfecting the timing while extracting the main ideas and logical shifts.

My timing wasn't perfect either but I had a strategy to skip some questions need be. Tough CR's do that longer to get them right (But not too long - anything over 2:30 was mostly incorrect for me, but between 1:30 - 2:20 was common). --> How do you measure that time, can you perfectly manage Rpn's technique called internal stop watch, I never tried that maybe I should ? Do you develop this tech as Ron said, question by question you use stopwatch and make adjustments, am I right, is there a something I am missing here

Usually you would be left with 2 good choices? or do you have more?--> Yeah generally, I am left between the right and the most attractive trap answer, sometimes I can handle it and sometimes not.

How about SC? are you able to do them in 1 min or 1:20? We may not realize but sometimes SC does eat away a lot of time. Being a non-native I am surprised that SC is your strongest, but ofcouse, if it is than that's great!-->I can handle SCs because they are shorter and basing mostly on grammer and main concepts such as parallelism, modifier, s-v agreement, pronoun etc. I am an engineer, perhaps that helps me, I am good at mechanic things.

I am glad I was able to help. Keep practicing smartly and victory shall be yours!!
amaterasu wrote:
cgoyal.gmat wrote:Okay, so let me start off by asking you about your attack strategy for RC questions?

- How much time do you spend reading
a)short passage: I read them also as long passages because when I do not do this, I could not manage the time. b)long passage: Amaterasu: long passages, I read them as Ron said. Intro and topics sentences, Concentrating on 2 focus Qs and looking for logical transitionsI must also say that I took my two exams within a month, as per me, the passages were more convoluted than passages in OG and the answer choices were trickier. - Do you read them word by word or skim through?--> Amaterasu: No, as I said above, word by word reading causes me to panic for other questions and I end up with guessing last questions or solving them in 45 secs- Do you pay more attention to the first paragraph?-->Yes
- Do you take notes? If yes what kind and how detailed?--> No, I do not take notes, as a non-native, If I take notes I could not manage the time
- Are you aware of the different question types in RC?--> Yes general, specific, inference questions - Is there a particular one bothering you more than the other?--> Amaterasu: No, but the answer choıces are a lot trickier and as Ron said some require real-world thinking even 100% prove questions are a lot trickySecondly the CR issue:
- Once again, are you aware of the different types of CR? --> Yeah, I read Bible CR and MGMAT CR- Which ones bother you in particular?--> For Prove family, I am OK. I think S/W questions turn out to be sometimes harder, because of their convoluted argumentsLastly,
- How much of the OG12 have you practiced?-->I finished Verbal supplement with reviews and error logs I made. My success rate was higher in that than that in OG12. By OG12 I finished SC with Diagnostic but for CR there are last 30 questions+diagnostic. For CR there 80 questions left+diagnostic. Maybe I should have finished all OG12. What do you think ? But for the parts I finished, I reviewed them and made error logs. - What is your success rate on the OG12 RCs & CRs? Those are pretty close to the actual ones.--> For CR:
for the fist 20 questions my success rate was 80% and managed to finish them in 40 minutes. For the second 20 Qs,I was at 86.4% but 10 minutes behind if I were to solve them in 2 minutes if in 2:30 minutes I was just in time. For the questions 43-77, I waas at 74.3%, if in two minutes I was 25 minutes behind, if in 2:30 minutes upper limit, I was 9 minutes behind. I consider upper limits because when I move on OG, I felt that the questions become more convoluted,I did not understand some of them at first rading, maybe because I am a non-native, I do not know. For CR questions 78-112,I was at 66%, but i finished these 35 questions in 110 minutes !!! These arguments were too complex for me.
For RC, as I said I only finished first 46 questions in OG12, but finished the verbal supplement. For OG12:
First 25 questions, it must completed in 50 minutes but I finished in 67 minutes at a rate of 84%.Then I adjusted for the questions 26-46, I finished 21 Qs (42 minutes requirement), in 34 minutes at a rate 86%.
- Are their any timing issues: --> As I look closely, I figure out that there is a huge timing problem for me in verbal, but how come I managed to overcome these at CAT practices, maybe there are less # of diffucult questions. In OG, the diffuculties of the questions are getting harder when you move, and I could not manage to finish some of them in 1:45 actually in 2 minutes. Sometimes even 3 minutes are not enough, as can be indicated above.
a) how long do you take for SC and CR questions? --> Timing and accuracy in SC is not a problem for me, I generally was on time in 1:45, I finish them. Foe exapmle my accuracy was for diagnostic 72.22% (after coming home from job so fatigue is a factor here)in 39 minutes 45 secs, for 18 questions. b) are you able to complete the Verbal Section in time?--> I cannot say on time,OK I finish it but with rushing and guessing to take my time to the end. Because when I guess at the end, I figure out that my score would be lower, I figured this by practice tests. c) are you taking longer to answer one type of question?--> I shared them above. RC and CR are revealed as big problems. did you look my results I attached above ?- Have you listened to "Thursdays with Ron" videos for CR, RC and SC on MGMAT website. I am a big advocate of that and IMO there is no better free resource out there than these lectures.--> Ron is great. I only watched it for RC not for CR and SC. But for CR and SC GMATPrep problems compilations, OG and Verbal Supplement problems and two GMATPrep tests I refer to MGMAT forum and BTG to see Ron's explanations. I thought that I saw his answers so I do not need to watch videos. What do you think maybe I should watch them ?Maybe you have already answered these questions but if not then answering some of these questions will create more awareness and help you identify the shortcomings.
Really really thank you a lot, I think it is a lot easier now to figure out what went wrong in exam. You helped me to find out what was wrong. TIMING in CR and RC which leads to wrong answers !!! At least I think so now, what do you think

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by cgoyal.gmat » Sun Oct 23, 2011 12:24 pm
Hi,
Just not doing 90 RC and 50 CR questions may not mean that you were unprepared. As people say it's not the quantity but the quality that matters. These remaining questions (especially the tough ones) will help you think like GMAT.

No, neither did I have the "internal stop watch" as I came across that concept pretty close to my exam. But it is important to have the realization that you have exceeded the allocated time/question and move on.. but of course that takes a lot of practice, but the approach of checking time after every 5-10 questions is good.

I strongly disagree that SC is mechanical process and maybe GMAT is catching you off guard on the SC section. Can you please do try any 5 questions from last 10 OG12 SC questions and see what is your success rate?

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by lunarpower » Sun Oct 23, 2011 9:18 pm
Taking just shorthand note or mentally understanding the main point(maybe in your language)goes long way in helping you answer the RC questions. I am not saying re-write sentences from RC, but just a few symbols or partial words about the main idea. If you dont get the main idea, you will miss almost all the questions (as you will fall for the traps). Once the main idea is clear, it becomes very easy to rule out the traps.--> I thought that I were able to draw main idea but apparently, I were not.
if you have trouble pulling out the main idea of a passage, you may not be thinking enough about the relationships between/among the different things described in the passage.
remember, you can't read these passages the way you'd read some kind of technical manual, in which each paragraph is a self-contained unit that usually doesn't reference other paragraphs. in rc passages, EVERYTHING should relate to EVERYTHING ELSE -- most notably to whatever main themes are introduced relatively early in the passage.

for instance, let's say the first paragraph of a passage describes some scientific theory.
if the next paragraph begins to describe an experiment, then you should be thinking to yourself, What does this experiment have to do with the theory i just read about? in other words, there MUST be some relationship there. maybe the experiment will refute the theory. maybe the experiment will confirm the theory. maybe the experiment is what led to the suggestion of the theory in the first place. but there has to be some relationship!
a surprisingly large number of people will just read the two paragraphs and think, "ok, the first paragraph talks about a theory, and the second paragraph talks about an experiment," with absolutely no thought as to how those two things might be related to each other.
those kinds of relationships are the things that will tell you the main idea of the passage.
Reviewing incorrect responses in CR and RC may not work as you tend to remember the correct answer. "Takeaways" from each question are important. I also skipped certain OG questions but those were the easier ones. I dont suggest skipping tough OG questions if you are aiming for a high verbal score.--> Yeah,as I said there were approx. 90 RC questions and 50 CR questions left in OG, for me.What do you think, maybe I was not so prepared when I did the actual exam because of this ?

rc and cr are not areas on which you need a lot of practice. for these two areas, the problems in the official guide should be more than enough practice for any one student; if you are fervently searching for tons and tons of additional cr and rc resources, then you are not thinking about those two areas in a productive way. what's more, studying too much in these areas (especially cr) will actually have a net negative effect on your performance.
read more about this here:
https://www.beatthegmat.com/how-to-impro ... tml#405217
Once you solve OG questions you will be able to understand the way GMAT makes questions. I dont think anyone (including MGMAT) comes with questions as clear as OG on CR.
one important reason why official guide cr explanations seem so clear is that the o.g. makes no attempt to pretend that there are "rules" by which critical reasoning problems may be solved. there are no such rules -- in fact, literally no one in the world knows how to reduce human intuition and problem-solving ability to such rules -- so, any resource that tries to make "rules" for cr is literally attempting the impossible.

for more on this, see here:
https://www.beatthegmat.com/what-is-reco ... tml#416810
Practice RC's everyday. It's only a matter of perfecting the timing while extracting the main ideas and logical shifts.
you shouldn't have to practice rc every day (or even close, for that matter). if you are actually at a point where you feel that daily practice is necessary, what this actually means is that you should improve your general ability to read and comprehend professionally written english.

remember that there are two main kinds of reasons why people have trouble with rc: (1) because they find the questions themselves difficult, (2) because they still have difficulty with reading and comprehending the passages.
if your reason falls into category #2 here, then there's no reason to waste the og rc passages (a precious resource) at the present time -- if that's the case, you should back off for a little while and get better at reading and understanding professionally written english. then, once you've improved that skill set, return to the rc questions and actually focus on understanding how the questions themselves work. if you are still having trouble with the passages themselves, you're not going to be able to master the problems.
My timing wasn't perfect either but I had a strategy to skip some questions need be. Tough CR's do that longer to get them right (But not too long - anything over 2:30 was mostly incorrect for me, but between 1:30 - 2:20 was common). --> How do you measure that time, can you perfectly manage Rpn's technique called internal stop watch, I never tried that maybe I should ? Do you develop this tech as Ron said, question by question you use stopwatch and make adjustments, am I right, is there a something I am missing here
when i say "internal stopwatch", i don't mean that you need to have an exact timepiece in your head (!!) i just mean that you should have a decently good sense of what 1 minute feels like, what 2 minutes feels like, etc. in short, i just mean that you should be able to tell the difference between "i still have time to work on this" and "it's time to quit" without having to look at the timer.

even better is to develop a mentality that allows you to quit immediately, whenever you are genuinely stuck and simply deliberating between options. most people are not very good at this -- i.e., most people sit there and stare at things for a long time before they are willing to let go and guess. if you can get to a point where you're willing to let go immediately, whenever you're stuck, then you should not really have any timing issues at all.
Ron is great.
thanks.
I only watched it for RC not for CR and SC. But for CR and SC GMATPrep problems compilations, OG and Verbal Supplement problems and two GMATPrep tests I refer to MGMAT forum and BTG to see Ron's explanations. I thought that I saw his answers so I do not need to watch videos.
one major advantage of the videos is that they are theme-based, so there is enough time to discuss the overarching mentality and strategy of each problem type. on the forum, where every problem is an island, there's no opportunity for that sort of "meta" discussion.
Ron has been teaching various standardized tests for 20 years.

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