I just Beat The GMAT!

Hey! I got a tip from a website that helped me perform better. Maybe it will help you, too.

My first attempt in July gave me a 660 (47Q, 34V).

My next one last week was 730 (50Q, 38V).

The difference was a verbal strategy. My first attempt, I didn't write anything down at all, I just read the answers, sometimes several times, and mentally crossed off unlikely correct choices. Don't do this! You have to think too hard!

The big hint that worked for me is this strategy:

I started each question by quickly drawing a dash for each answer choice.

_ _ _ _ _

Then I would read the question carefully and slowly, and proceed to read each answer carefully. As I read them, I would mark each dash with a symbol.

X - Wrong
? - Maybe Correct
_ - Probably Correct

So now I'd have something like this:

X _ X X ?

Now I could concentrate on the two possible answers, reread them if necessary, refer to the passage if necessary, and spend my time focusing on only what were the most likely answers.

Then I did something different: I would make a choice and move on. Right or wrong. I did my best to deduct and select. After clicking "Confirm," there was no use worrying about if that other answer really was right or trying to gauge the difficulty of the following question to see how I'm doing overall. None of that mattered, only answering questions did.

This simple act of transferring a bit of my short-term memory onto the tablet helped me devote enough more processing power to make better choices. I saw a difference on my practice questions right away. I would answer them correctly more often (75% to 90%) and used less time (1.98min/? to 1.79min/?). More importantly, it led to a 15 percentile Verbal jump on test day.

Try that and see if it works for you.

Congrats on the great score!

Do you plan to start applying to MBA programs this year?

Congrats!!! Even I figured this technique while taking practice tests. I used to keep a check mentally about probable wrong answers, but after like half a minute, I again used to relook at those answers and sometimes selected wrong answers.
This was very confusing and pretty bad technique.
Now, for some questions which are not so straight forward, I write A, B, C, D, E and cross off those which are definitely wrong, put a ? below those which could be right and then finally just look at ? choices

Yeah, exactly. That is the technique. The idea is that you have a written record of your hard work of reading each answer choice and making an initial decision of how likely that it is the correct answer.

I used five dashes _ _ _ _ _ instead of writing A B C D E, just to save the time of physically writing each letter 41 times, but use whatever method you are most comfortable with.

Once you've made your initial decisions, look back at the five choices. For example if you have:

X X X _ X

You can be pretty sure that the answer is the fourth one down, (D), or whatever designation you want to use. Select that as the answer and move on. Save your time for ones that have multiple correct-sounding answers.

But if you have something like:

X ? ? _ X

You have three answers that may be right, and one that is probably right, so reread just those three answers and try to eliminate the least likely ones. Once you have read every answer it is easier to figure out if which ones have gone "too far" outside the scope of the argument (for RC or CR). Eliminate those that seem less correct and make your best guess if there is more than one remaining choice.

This is a really basic technique, and it happened to help me greatly. If you have a brain that doesn't tire or make mistakes after an hour of writing and 75 minutes of weird math problems, you may be just fine keeping track of these things in your head. But I know, for me, it gave me just enough structure and kept my attention focused on evaluating each answer, so that I didn't get bogged down as easily. Essentially, I was able to use my same amount of average grammar and logic intelligence to score higher.

And yes! I am applying this year in Round One (depending on how fast I can compose additional essays). I'm scattering 12 applications across the top and some second-tiers, with the hope that I will have an option or two after the decisions are made.

This is the list in order of priority:

Stanford
Berkeley
UCLA
Kellogg
Booth
NYU
Darden
McCombs
Marshall
UW (Seattle!)
UC-Irvine
Pepperdine

I submitted for Stanford and have four more deadlines next week-but it's mostly just revising and tailoring essays at this point. I'm already anxious for interview invitations. Such fun!

What part of verbal was underperformed? Can you magnify your area of mistakes in verbal?

The whole thing could have been stronger. I had the textbook case of a bad test: losing focus during the passage reading, leading to rereading and time wasting; not being able to locate the error in sentences; misallocating my time so that I had ten minutes for the last ten questions; panicky feeling when I thought I wasn't performing well. It was rough.

The sentence correction was pretty tough in my first test. I found myself guessing between two or even three several times. Fortunately, because there is specific study material available, that is the easiest place to improve.

I just studied the basic 8 or so commonly tested areas that are available in the popular verbal guides. The most common errors on the test I noticed were the idioms. It was nice when you could recognize it right away and could quickly eliminate two or three of the wrong answers! The next most common was subject/verb agreement. My first attempt, I think that I let the test makers distract me by placing wordy modifiers between the subject and the verb so that I'd choose the wrong conjugation (that sounded better to the ear, because of the modifier).

The CR and RC just required practice. I started writing two-three word summaries of each paragraph on the RC to help me keep my focus only. I never referred to those notes, but the exercise alone kept me more engaged.

I would do drills of about 15-20 questions of each type once a day, then review the answers and explanations after a break. After reading "Out of scope" enough times for answers that I selected in RC/CR, I learned that the right answers are usually moderate in language and understated. In other words, they don't make a bold point, so it's difficult for us test takers to call them wrong and that the question is flawed.

Applying these skills learned through answer explanations combined with a better method of keeping track of answers made the difference. I still was guessing on my last test, but it was less often and between fewer answer choices. I finished feeling that I had done better on the verbal, but not a lot better. The four point increase was welcomed.

Thanks for a great writeup. When you did the CR and RC, did you make short summaries for each RC passage or CR question? I'm having similar issues with pacing (running out of time in the end 6-7 Qs with <10 minutes remaining).

I try to diagram the RC passages and CR questions so that the answering the questions would take less time than answering the questions without such diagrams, forcing me to re-read the questions/passages and wasting time.

I'm trying to balance the times between notetaking and re-reading so that I don't waste much time. What is your advice on this issue? Thanks and congratulations!

I used my practice sessions to experiment with the different note-taking strategies, to find which worked best for me.

Some of the guides suggest writing a full outline for each RC question. I tried that, and it helped with total understanding but just took too much time! What I noticed is that I never referred back to the notes once I wrote them, I would just look back at the passage for the actual info I needed to answer a question.

Because I wasn't looking back at what I wrote, I gradually took shorter and shorter notes until it was just 2-4 words that summed up the idea of each paragraph. (e.g. Volcano erupted. Bad.)

I just did it to keep my focus up and to trick my mind into thinking that there was less to do. Instead of having the long task of reading an entire 150-line passage for comprehension, I divided the task into turning each of the 30-or-so-line paragraphs into 2-4 word main ideas. Having an a series of smaller, accomplishable tasks made the readings go faster and I didn't lose focus as much as I would before I started writing things down.

As for the CR, I didn't write anything down for those, I found that they were short enough that I could power through without losing too much steam.

ultraeasy wrote:I used my practice sessions to experiment with the different note-taking strategies, to find which worked best for me.

Some of the guides suggest writing a full outline for each RC question. I tried that, and it helped with total understanding but just took too much time! What I noticed is that I never referred back to the notes once I wrote them, I would just look back at the passage for the actual info I needed to answer a question.

Because I wasn't looking back at what I wrote, I gradually took shorter and shorter notes until it was just 2-4 words that summed up the idea of each paragraph. (e.g. Volcano erupted. Bad.)

I just did it to keep my focus up and to trick my mind into thinking that there was less to do. Instead of having the long task of reading an entire 150-line passage for comprehension, I divided the task into turning each of the 30-or-so-line paragraphs into 2-4 word main ideas. Having an a series of smaller, accomplishable tasks made the readings go faster and I didn't lose focus as much as I would before I started writing things down.

As for the CR, I didn't write anything down for those, I found that they were short enough that I could power through without losing too much steam.

Thanks for the awesome reply. Hmm, it looks like that I need to take less notes from RC as well since my notes for RC aren't used as much as I would like and I am a fast reader so picking up key lines and words isn't that bad for me. Plus I have a messy handwriting so notetaking isn't my forte ;-P

However, for CR, I need to take meticulous notes because I easily miss key words such as most, all, always, none, some, etc., which are instrumental in getting the right answer. Plus sometimes with complicated arguments, I sometimes lose track of the premises, counterpremises, and the conclusion. The notes ensure that and prevents unnecessary re-reading.

What are your recommended times per problem for both verbal and math? How would you revise the my typical timings below?

Math
500-700: 1 to 2 minutes
700-800: 2 to 2.5 minutes

Verbal
RC
500-700: 1 to 1.5 minutes
700-800: 1.25 to 2 minutes

CR
500-700: 1.5 to 2 minutes
700-800: 2 to 3 minutes

SC
500-700: 1 to 1.5 minutes
700-800: 1 to 2 minutes