I just took my first practice exam (Princeton Review) and got 580 (Math 42, Verbal 28).
The difficulty I encounter in Math and Verbal was very different and here's why.
For Math, in fact I was quite confident that I could achieve a good score. Yet, I guess my confidence gave me extra pressure to make sure that I had to get every question correct, and I ended up spending more than two mintues per question on the first 10 or so questions. Worse, when I saw a very difficult probability question, I spend roughly 5 minutes on it. Eventually, I was left with very few time to finish the final 5-6 questions. That probably lowered my score a lot.
For verbal, the whole situation with different. As I realized that time was such an issue for me, I forced myself not to spend too much time on each question. ,At the end when I finished the verbal session, surprisingly, I had 15 MINUTES LEFT! Then I found out from the result that I got half of the reading comprehension questions wrong. I guess this was really due to the fact that I was just too cautious of time and just skimmed through the passage and didn't understand the passage to well.
Apprently, time management is really an issue for me. Can anyone offer advice to me on how to improve time management?
Moreover, after finishing the AWA and the math session, I felt my level of concentration got lower as I was getting tired. This probably affected my ability to understand the comprehension thoroughly. Did anyone of you encounter the same fatigue issue? If so, how did you overcome it? A 3.5 hour exam is chllenging to me, espcially that I only have so little to answer each question in the multiple choice session.
Sorry for this long description on my first exam. I hope I am clear on letting you know my challenges and can get some valuable advice from you. My D-date is on 10/17 and I am targeting 700!
The difficulty I encounter in Math and Verbal was very different and here's why.
For Math, in fact I was quite confident that I could achieve a good score. Yet, I guess my confidence gave me extra pressure to make sure that I had to get every question correct, and I ended up spending more than two mintues per question on the first 10 or so questions. Worse, when I saw a very difficult probability question, I spend roughly 5 minutes on it. Eventually, I was left with very few time to finish the final 5-6 questions. That probably lowered my score a lot.
For verbal, the whole situation with different. As I realized that time was such an issue for me, I forced myself not to spend too much time on each question. ,At the end when I finished the verbal session, surprisingly, I had 15 MINUTES LEFT! Then I found out from the result that I got half of the reading comprehension questions wrong. I guess this was really due to the fact that I was just too cautious of time and just skimmed through the passage and didn't understand the passage to well.
Apprently, time management is really an issue for me. Can anyone offer advice to me on how to improve time management?
Moreover, after finishing the AWA and the math session, I felt my level of concentration got lower as I was getting tired. This probably affected my ability to understand the comprehension thoroughly. Did anyone of you encounter the same fatigue issue? If so, how did you overcome it? A 3.5 hour exam is chllenging to me, espcially that I only have so little to answer each question in the multiple choice session.
Sorry for this long description on my first exam. I hope I am clear on letting you know my challenges and can get some valuable advice from you. My D-date is on 10/17 and I am targeting 700!
