Thanks! My response inline:
Spiritus wrote:
1) Following colleges + courses I plan to apply-
Mannheim (Masters in management)-- deadline --March 15 - may 31 (no toefel)
RSM (Msc. Strategic Management) -- deadline --May 15 (require toefel/ielts)
WHU (MIM) -- deadline --May 5th, 2014 (require toefl/ielts)
I have not given any toefl/ielts test for which i am keeping March & April
GMAT score target-670+
Cool! For these schools actually a mid-600s should be doable. A split of Q46 V31 should give you a 670. Not too hard. Your goal now is to:
Step 1: Reach Q44 V30
Step 2: Reach Q46 V31
Take it one step at a time.
Spiritus wrote:
2)a)SC-1)generally take 2 min+ 2)modifiers is a weak area
b) CR-1) Again take more time to solve the questions
c) RC-RC is the main problem in my verbal section. I generally take too much time in this section.
Problems-1) In long passages I am not able to grasp the required detail. Sometimes in pressure I tend to go blank after reading long complicated paragraphs.
Btw I try to follow Manhattan's strategy for reading comprehensions.
Again - the focus is on WHAT i.e. you take more time. But why do you take more time
Esp for RC you should not at all spend time trying to "grasp the required detail". If you are not able to understand - just gloss over it. You will ALWAYS come back to the passage when you solve the question. This is the biggest mistake people make on the RC i.e. try to read the passage as they would read in normal life. I never read RC passages the way I read my Sunday morning newspaper. You will have to just skim through. This is an art you will pick up through practice.
For SC why are you taking more time? If you use the vertical scan then you should be able to solve the question in under 90seconds. In fact with SC - you either solve it under time or you don't. Maybe you need to get better at managing the overall timing:
https://www.crackverbal.com/time-management-on-the-gmat/
Here are some general suggestion posted by my colleague Gowri:
https://www.beatthegmat.com/stuck-at-28- ... 72946.html
Spiritus wrote:
d) I don't have any fixed strategy. But many times when I take too much time in one question and then move too quickly in the next few questions to make my time.
e) While solving questions tend to make many silly erors despite knowing the correct answers. Sometimes I also rely on guesses incase of less time
Thanks!!
So if you look at it there are a few reasons you make mistakes:
1) You didn't know the concept tested or were not able to identify the concept tested. This should be easy for you since you need to just go ahead and make an educated guess.
2) You understood the underlying concept but misunderstood it so picked the wrong answer/took more time identifying the right answer. This is the one that usually takes more time. identify such rogue questions which can suck up your time. It follows the pareto principle i.e. 20% of the questions will take 89% of the extra time. With practice you need to get better at identifying such questions.
3) You understood everything but did not consider a corner case (not really a silly mistake but looks like one). In such cases you just have to see what you missed out and remember to consider it the next time you encounter a similar situation.
That's about it. Keep practicing and you will see your scores go up!
Happy new year 2014
Arun
