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I stopped reading question first, scores improved!

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I stopped reading question first, scores improved!

by anniev2 » Wed Feb 25, 2009 11:41 am
I was following a strategy that some of the prep course suggested where the question stem should be read before the stimulus. Well, even with this strategy I had been having a difficult time with CR so I decided to try another strategy. I read about the other strategy on the boards here (I'll try to find the original post) This strategy just suggests to read the stimulus and then the question stem, the traditional way...and it works! I did not, for the first time, get any CR questions wrong. This has consistently been the area where I struggled.

I found that reading the question stem was distracting and prevented me from actively reading and fully understanding the information because I was trying to look for the answer as I read.

Something else I did...
I stopped worrying about the clock. In practice, I use the timed GMAT Test grid found in the resource section of this website and I constantly thought about how much time I had left or how far behind I was on time, etc. I don't see a problem with forgetting about the time on CR (my weak point) because I am fairly quick on the SC questions and the time I make up there can be better utilized in my weak point of CR. This gives me time to work slowly and make sure my answers are correct.

I hope this info encourages someone else to try approaching CR questions this way and i hope it works for you too!!!!!

:D
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by awesomeusername » Wed Feb 25, 2009 2:06 pm
I also read the stimulus first. It's best to do what works best for you. Before you time yourself in your weaknesses, be sure to know for certain that you understand the basics. Thus, master the basics and then time yourself. Without a foundation, you're ability to answer questions in an acceptable amount of time will be useless.
Constant dripping hollows out a stone.
-Lucretius
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by Karen » Wed Feb 25, 2009 2:23 pm
I'm glad to see your "testimony" that this method works. This is the same method I teach my students. I never read the question stem first -- I've never found it the slightest bit helpful when I'm solving them, and I've never seen it help my students either.

What I think is most important when you're doing CRs is to engage with the stimulus -- to understand what it's saying, get the point (even visualize the situation a bit -- not in great detail, but just enough so that you have a clear sense of what the argument is talking about), and take just a moment to notice whether you have a "Hey, what about this..." reaction. Often you'll notice the hidden assumption that is the key to weakening or strengthening the argument, even before you look at the answer choices. If you clutter your mind by thinking "OK, I have to be looking for a way to weaken this..." it just makes it that much harder to quickly get a solid grip on the stimulus.

Congratulations on making a big breakthrough. It's a very good strategy to follow your own instincts about what will work for you -- even if you get outside help, it should help you to find out what will work for *you*, rather than just lay out a standard set of steps you have to follow. It's good you're willing to try things and see what raises your score.
Karen van Hoek, PhD
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by Karen » Wed Feb 25, 2009 2:33 pm
p.s. I just noticed what you said about time. I think your instincts are dead-on there, too. I always advise people to get faster at SCs so they have more time to grapple with CRs and RCs. You can train yourself to solve some SCs in far less than a minute, and then you have all that time left over to think through the CRs and RCs. And you're right that obsessing about time when you're on a CR isn't a good strategy -- in fact, people shouldn't think about time at all if they're still at the stage where they're getting a lot of them wrong. You need to unclutter your mind so you can get more of them right, and then you begin to get a deep-down sense of the patterns -- you develop an instinct for how the questions work and what kinds of answers the GMAT is going to be looking for. At Test Prep New York we're constantly having to tell students "Forget about timing for now! Focus on the questions and deal with timing issues once you're better at solving these."
Karen van Hoek, PhD
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by VP_Jim » Wed Feb 25, 2009 2:34 pm
Not much to add, but this is the method that I use, too. I find that reading the question stem first focuses me on what I really should be looking for in the stimulus. I'm glad it works for you!
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by Karen » Wed Feb 25, 2009 2:41 pm
VP_Jim, isn't that the opposite of what the poster said? She said now she's reading the stimulus first and not the question stem.

It's interesting to me -- it works better for you to read the question stem first? I've never had that experience. But it proves the point that every technique that's out there works well for someone, just not everyone. My students so far have all found that they do better if they don't read the question stem first, too. But then, a lot of the students we get have already been through a different test prep course and didn't get the improvement they needed -- so we're dealing with a self-selected population of people who *didn't* benefit from the techniques that are commonly taught in some courses.
Karen van Hoek, PhD
Verbal Specialist

Test Prep New York
maximize your score, minimize your stress
www.testprepny.com
[email protected]
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