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shocked to see a drop in quant from 47 to 43

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shocked to see a drop in quant from 47 to 43

by sachindia » Fri Feb 01, 2013 3:38 am
Dear Folks,

I am out of my mind since yesterday when I took my GMAT.

I don't know how and why my quant score dropped to 43.

15 days ago, when I took the GMATPrep, I scored 47 in Quant in both the tests.. On Manhattan tests, I was always at 44.

Except for 4 questions, I don't think I had problems with any of the questions on the test. I was nervous and slightly unsettled initially when quant began but all was well after that.

I am planning for a re-take in a month.

I realize that the only thing I did not do for Quant is trying to know different methods to reach an answer. I have always tried to learn new concepts that were missing from my kitty; have 100+ notes(quant +verbal) that I have made.
I have always had problems with tough questions on Quant but I was expecting atleast a 47/48.

Talked to my friend who experienced a similar thing. He was scoring a 48/49 consistently on Mocks but on the real deal, he scored a 42.

Kindly advice on the next steps.
Regards,
Sach
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by ceilidh.erickson » Fri Feb 01, 2013 2:56 pm
Hi Sach,

Unfortunately, it's quite common to score lower on the real test than on practice test. The real thing adds a level of anxiety that's simply not there with practice tests, and it sounds like that may have happened with you. You say that you were "nervous and slightly unsettled" - that can make a huge difference in your score! It might have caused you to make a few careless mistakes that you wouldn't have in a less stressful setting. Here's what I'd recommend - make sure all of your practice test experiences are as similar as possible to the real test experience. Don't take the test at your own home; go to a library or testing center, and take all tests timed, without any extra breaks.

I also think it's really telling that you said that you didn't try to find different approaches to each answer. This probably had a big negative impact on your score. When the pressure is on, we tend to feel like "ah, I have to do this perfectly and quickly!" versus when we're studying comfortably at home, and can look at a problem from several different angles. You need to force yourself to have that same mentality on game day - don't dive right in, but step back from each problem, and ask yourself how many different ways there are to approach it.

Don't aim to solve every question "correctly." Do some sets - or perhaps even a whole practice test - where you just practice the art of good guessing. An educated guess that you feel 80% confident about after 1:30 min is better than the algebraically "correct" solution and 100% confidence after 3:00 min.

If you've gotten the 47 before, you can get it on the real thing! Good luck.
Ceilidh Erickson
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Harvard Graduate School of Education
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by sachindia » Fri Feb 01, 2013 6:39 pm
Yes, I have always been making a few careless mistakes even while I was practicing. To counter the careless mistakes, I tried to inculcate good habits but it seems nervousness got the better of me and I ended up committing careless mistakes.
Trust me when I say that SCs were very very strange compared to what I have seen in OGs and GMATPrep Questions compilations. I guess being strong in SC is the only reason why I have got 34. I do have problems in reading skills. Nervousness again caused me to read the prompt once, twice , thrice.. I ended up throwing 3 questions (not consecutively) to get back on track.

I will try to get a 49 in Quant on the real deal in a month or 45 days from now and I guess reading Economist thinking of it's articles as RC passages will help in bolstering my reading abilities.

Major problem is that I come from the IIM pool of candidates: IIM-Indian IT Male and even a 670 won't probably help me get into Tier 1 schools.

Also, what is your opinion about the Aristotle DS Booster?

Thanks again, Ceilidh for your time.
Regards,
Sach
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by brianlange77 » Sat Feb 02, 2013 7:07 pm
sachindia wrote:Yes, I have always been making a few careless mistakes even while I was practicing. To counter the careless mistakes, I tried to inculcate good habits but it seems nervousness got the better of me and I ended up committing careless mistakes.
Trust me when I say that SCs were very very strange compared to what I have seen in OGs and GMATPrep Questions compilations. I guess being strong in SC is the only reason why I have got 34. I do have problems in reading skills. Nervousness again caused me to read the prompt once, twice , thrice.. I ended up throwing 3 questions (not consecutively) to get back on track.

I will try to get a 49 in Quant on the real deal in a month or 45 days from now and I guess reading Economist thinking of it's articles as RC passages will help in bolstering my reading abilities.

Major problem is that I come from the IIM pool of candidates: IIM-Indian IT Male and even a 670 won't probably help me get into Tier 1 schools.

Also, what is your opinion about the Aristotle DS Booster?

Thanks again, Ceilidh for your time.
Sachindia:

One more thought for you here --- I'd suggest taking a look at this link to have some better ideas/process in mind to ensure you are minimizing those careless errors. Candidly, careless errors are no different than lighting points on fire.

https://www.manhattangmat.com/blog/index ... -the-gmat/

Hope this helps. Good luck!!

-Brian
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by sachindia » Sat Feb 02, 2013 8:01 pm
Thanks Brian. I read that article around a month ago and since then have been making efforts to reduce careless mistakes. Seems nervousness got the better of me, screwing my quant section.
Regards,
Sach
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by lunarpower » Tue Feb 12, 2013 3:41 am
i received a private message about this thread. i see that a couple of my colleagues have already made it here, so i'll keep my comments brief.
sachindia wrote:I realize that the only thing I did not do for Quant is trying to know different methods to reach an answer.
the problem is, that should be the main thing that you do -- perhaps even the only thing you do -- if you are already scoring in the 40's on the quant section.

one thing a lot of posters here don't seem to realize, even though it's clear from a few minutes of looking through the math problems, is this: the math CONCEPTS on this exam are quite basic.
unless you've forgotten your first-year high-school algebra or geometry, the math part of this exam boils down to strategy (along with understanding the data sufficiency format, of course).

if you are going to keep studying gmat math, you should focus your studying almost exclusively on the following:
backsolving (for multiple-choice problems)
plugging in your own values for undetermined quantities (for multiple-choice problems)
estimation (for multiple-choice problems)
testing cases on DS
I have always tried to learn new concepts that were missing from my kitty
see, if you're scoring where you are, then i can pretty much guarantee you that you aren't missing any mathematical concepts from your "kitty". the concepts are, after all, basic -- that's not really what is being tested here, except at lower levels. at higher levels, the test is all about how well you can manipulate basic concepts, with a flexible strategy.

if you think that you are missing "concepts", then you are probably not thinking in the right way about what "concepts" even are in the first place. instead, you may be trying to memorize every possible individual fact about the behavior of these mathematical concepts -- which is a fool's game in general, not to mention underestimating your own brainpower and ability to recognize patterns.
here's a post (and following discussion) i wrote in response to someone asking about such a generally wrongheaded approach:
https://www.beatthegmat.com/my-gmat-new- ... tml#538786
Ron has been teaching various standardized tests for 20 years.

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by shreerajp99 » Tue Feb 12, 2013 9:38 pm
Hi Ron,
Can u share with us the top3 reasons that u believe because of which u scored a 800 on the GMAT :)

Thanks,
Shreeraj
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by brianlange77 » Thu Feb 14, 2013 8:42 pm
shreerajp99 wrote:Hi Ron,
Can u share with us the top3 reasons that u believe because of which u scored a 800 on the GMAT :)

Thanks,
Shreeraj
I'll do my best to answer for Ron here...

1. Comfort with breaking social clothing trends;
2. Transparency around his personal protein sourcing; and,
3. His belief in the potential power sources that exist off of the Earth.

:-)
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by sachindia » Thu Feb 14, 2013 11:13 pm
brianlange77 wrote:
shreerajp99 wrote:Hi Ron,
Can u share with us the top3 reasons that u believe because of which u scored a 800 on the GMAT :)

Thanks,
Shreeraj
I'll do my best to answer for Ron here...

1. Comfort with breaking social clothing trends;
2. Transparency around his personal protein sourcing; and,
3. His belief in the potential power sources that exist off of the Earth.

:-)
lol..
Frankly, Ron's the best and we all know that :)
Regards,
Sach
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by lunarpower » Fri Feb 15, 2013 4:29 am
sachindia wrote:Frankly, Ron's the best and we all know that :)
... then maybe your standards aren't high enough.
|:

but srsly, thanks for the kind words all!
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by ngalinh » Fri Feb 15, 2013 5:59 am
lunarpower wrote:
sachindia wrote:Frankly, Ron's the best and we all know that :)
... then maybe your standards aren't high enough.
|:

but srsly, thanks for the kind words all!
Ron doesn't like "the best" idea because the best = stop thinking (assumption)

In my case, my RC had been very bad for long time (my English isn't good). But after I discovered him (about 1 month ago) and watched 4 videos of his RC explanations, I tried 3 OG RC passages. I couldn't believe in my eyes when I checked answers "What happened?" 9 answers of 9 questions were correct! But still have to practice more to see what happens next :)
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by lunarpower » Sat Feb 16, 2013 2:42 am
ngalinh wrote:In my case, my RC had been very bad for long time (my English isn't good). But after I discovered him (about 1 month ago) and watched 4 videos of his RC explanations, I tried 3 OG RC passages. I couldn't believe in my eyes when I checked answers "What happened?" 9 answers of 9 questions were correct! But still have to practice more to see what happens next :)
RC in particular is completely a matter of strategy -- you don't have to know stuff; you just have to approach the task in a way that's appropriate (and, well, not in a way that's inappropriate).

it takes many people a rather long time to realize that this is the case. apparently, you've learned more quickly than many others -- congratulations.
Ron has been teaching various standardized tests for 20 years.

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by tanviet » Sat Feb 16, 2013 5:58 am
I experience the similar thing

many times I get 48 on math with only a few week of learning math in og before the test. last time with much practice on the internet, my quan score is 44. I am supprized too.

then I realize that I do not focus on og math. the math question, specifically the hard questions from prep companies harm us more then help. my experience is to focus on og questions. even we do not need to focus on gmatprep questions. gmatprep contain many hard questions which we can ignore and still get 48. but we have to do and redo the og questions very well. last time I get 44 I see that I can not do some easy questions similar to og questions

the only extra thing we , non native , have to do is to read a lot. we need to read a lot before we can read gmat passage. we do not need to study sc cr and math questions outside gmat og books. sc questions in og book is terriblly nice but we normally underestimate it. there are many question in og 10, 11, 12 and 13. some sc in og 10 focus only on grammar and idiom and so we should ignore.

a little change make an easy question a hard one in math. gmat test the difficulty by offering the experimental question. How prep companies can have enough resourse to do this testing even if they have excellent persons . So if you want to study hard questions , study questions from gmatprep first. gmatprep contain many very hard questions at 51 level.

that is my thinking
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by sachindia » Sat Feb 16, 2013 9:03 am
I think , as Ron mentioned, above a 44 in Quant, its all about strategies ( number plugging/algebra/plugging answer choices in question, strategic guessing) , sticking to what IS GIVEN and not assuming viz knowing the scope of the variables, recognizing patterns, thinking out of the box, thinking in all directions, looking beyond the horizon, etc..

I have been solving GMAT Club CAT Questions and those helped me realize the above.

Keeping an error log helps a lot; I did not do this earlier. It helps you know where you are going wrong. GMAT is 50% practice and 50% analysis in my opinion.

Ron,
Please add anything you feel that I might have missed and will help us know and better ourselves on the GMAT.
Regards,
Sach
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by ngalinh » Sat Feb 16, 2013 9:45 am
lunar power wrote:

RC in particular is completely a matter of strategy -- you don't have to know stuff; you just have to approach the task in a way that's appropriate (and, well, not in a way that's inappropriate).

it takes many people a rather long time to realize that this is the case. apparently, you've learned more quickly than many others -- congratulations.

thank you. It just likes I'm lucky enough to find the right medicine. (well, I shouldn't think my Master likes medicine). I had never used logic to understand RC, now I do. Or, in thousands definitions of a thing, I suddenly found the one that make me understand what the thing is. That opens new chapter of perception.

oh I realize that I go off of the topic. Sorry Sach, I should't bring my own food to eat in your "restaurant". But I haven't eaten alone though :) :)
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