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Timing advise..

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Timing advise..

by HPengineer » Mon Jul 26, 2010 7:55 am
Ok so i just took my first practice MGMAT test... needless to say it was a disaster 470... I finished the quant section with 23 minutes to spare... and the verbal with almost 26 minutes left. I dont think thats normal??

I think to things came into play... 1 i was really nervous... i have never take the SAT or anything like that cause i went to community college then transfered over to a university. 2nd i grossly over estimated the time factor... i looked at my scratch paper and i had hardly anything written on it when i was done. I tried to do everything in my head cause i felt like i had no time to write anything down..

I missed a lot of questions that i know how to do simply because i just read thru the question to fast... Any advice?? does this mental clock just come with practice?
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by uwhusky » Mon Jul 26, 2010 9:18 am
I suffered the same misconception that I should be doing everything in my head because of time constraint. But after experimenting few methods here and there, I come to realize that writing stuffs down or even drawing complicated chart is actually less time consuming than trying to do it inside my head.

Here's an example on math. For the longest time I refused to draw the chart for calculating overlapping sets. I tried to do the question using algebra formulas and believed that the chart is too time consuming. After multiple failures, I realized that the chart is actually quite useful for complicated questions and the amount of time I spent writing the algebra formulas is actually much longer than the act of drawing the chart.

So my suggestion is to re-evaluate your own approaches and accept the fact that they might not be the best, and adapt the approach of others. Best way to do that? Try them out and mold them to fit your own learning style.
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by HPengineer » Mon Jul 26, 2010 9:25 am
Comforting to know that someone else experinced my pain...

heres the deal when i time myself and do the official guide problems i always do a chart or write down the knowns vs. unknowns... i take my time and still come in under 2 minutes give or take. Not sure why on the test i blanked out... it just seemed like the questions were worded differently then the OG so i started to panic :)

I guess the lesson learned is that I DO HAVE time to write out my fancy lil charts etc and still finish the test. Thanks for the feedback UW
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by uwhusky » Mon Jul 26, 2010 9:30 am
You're welcome. In many ways, we're very much alike.

Keep in mind that one of the main reasons why CATs are important for practice is because they allow you to test different strategies involving timing. It's good that you recognize issues with timing after your first CAT. A lot of people never did, and would actually take GMAT with the same timing issues they had in the practice CATs.

Another observation I like to make is that if you are blanking out during the actual CAT, perhaps it's because you are not as familiar with the concepts as you might think you are.

Good luck on your journey!
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by HPengineer » Mon Jul 26, 2010 9:38 am
There is no doubt i do need alot of work however there were some questions that i missed that i am totally capable of... for example...

The triangle has angles ABC which is the biggest angle??

S1 A+ B = 70

S2 C = 110

I put A only is sufficient.. i mean come on.. i know that triangles have 180 total degrees :)

Anyway i totally learned alot from this exam...I plan to take another in a about 2 weeks.. im expecting a nice increase hopefully 50 points...
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by HPengineer » Sat Sep 18, 2010 10:02 am
Just took my second cat exam much improved on the timing and got a 610... Im very happy with the improvement...

My match score was 40 which is a nice improvement for me... Now i need to work on my verbal which was 33... its nice to see some improvement though.

The good thing is timing was very much improved... I glanced at the clock a few times but other then that i just relaxed and worked the problem. 700 here i come :)
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