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Need expert advice

by bblast » Sun Dec 19, 2010 10:35 am
I seem to have got good command over RC and SC with over 90% hit rates in RC's and 70% hit rates in SC's in any practice material under timed conditions(official material/MGMAT tests etc).

However my CR hit rate is still around 50% on an average. I started prep on 1st Nov2010, and my appointment is on 20th Jan 2011.
I even read the power score CR bible.(read briskly taking down important notes and solving its super tough problems with an accuracy of 30%)

Sometimes I do get more than 50% correct in a CR random set but somehow I am not happy with my armory to destroy the CR questions.

30 days to go. Any expert advices ? Any additional practice material that i can use ? (besides OG's)
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by VivianKerr » Sun Dec 19, 2010 8:03 pm
Hey bblast,

First of all, congrats on your 90% hit rate in RC and 70% in SC! That's no mean feat! :)

It seems to me that if you are still around 50% on CR, then you need to spend much more time breaking down the logic of each argument and predicting an answer first, before reading through the answer choices. Obviously GMAT is a timed test, but too often students are racing through their practice sections. Now is the time to ssssllllooooooowwww down and really put the time into each individual question.

I would practice CR online as much as possible, so you can work on using your scratch paper for every single question. Make sure to find the conclusion, evidence, and assumptions for each question.

Also, practice these questions untimed for awhile and force yourself to spend at least 2 minutes on each short CR passage BEFORE looking at the answer choices. It will be frustrating at first, but I think your accuracy will improve rapidly.

Create an CR "error log" and try to articulate the reason you are getting each question wrong. Look for patterns in your logic - are you missing the assumptions? are you getting absorbed in minor non-essential details? Are you rushing through the passage?

For practice Q's, I'd recommend Grockit (of course), but any CR book should be fine. You might even want to check out some LSAT CR, since it's the same format and they can be quite challenging as well!

Hope this helps - don't give up - you've obviously got what it takes! :)
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by bblast » Mon Dec 20, 2010 1:35 am
Thanks a lot for the reply and motivating suggestions Vivian. I have LSAT practice questions, will take em up.
I am currently weak on the Q section as well, because I ignored it in my 1st month of prep. So I am catching up now to make up for the mistake.
The better accuracy at RC and SC has come at the cost of ignoring Q for the entire month of November :(
So from December 1, I am dedicating 80% of my time to maths(Mostly MGMAT guides)

I am skeptical about practicing CR online as the explanations by individuals and the answers given are often ambiguous.
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by Ravish » Wed Dec 22, 2010 4:46 am
Post a couple of questions that you recently did (Powerscore or GMAC books) along with the answer that you selected, that may give some of us a good idea of where you might be going wrong when studying an argument.
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by bblast » Thu Dec 23, 2010 4:20 am
Ravish wrote:Post a couple of questions that you recently did (Powerscore or GMAC books) along with the answer that you selected, that may give some of us a good idea of where you might be going wrong when studying an argument.
1. French divers recently found a large cave along the
coast of the Mediterranean Sea. The cave is accessible
only through an underwater tunnel. The interior of the
cave is completely filled with seawater and contains
numerous large stalagmites, which are stony pillars
that form when drops of water fall repeatedly on a
single spot on a cave floor, leaving behind mineral
deposits that accumulate over time.
The information above most strongly supports
which one of the following?
(A) The Mediterranean Sea was at a higher level in
the past than it is now.
(B) The water level within the cave is higher now
than it once was.
(C) The French divers were the first people who knew
that the tunnel leading to the cave existed.
(D) There was once an entrance to the cave besides
the underwater tunnel.
(E) Seawater in the Mediterranean has a lower
mineral content now than it had when the
stalagmites were being formed.

This is an LSAT question.
I erred in above. Kindly suggest an answer with reasoning. I will post the answer later as I do not know how to post the answer in the special hidden format.
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by bblast » Thu Dec 23, 2010 4:22 am
another question :

2. Adirector of the Rexx Pharmaceutical Company argued
that the development costs for new vaccines that the
health department has requested should be subsidized by
the government, since the marketing of vaccines
promised to be less profitable than the marketing of any
other pharmaceutical product. In support of this claim
the director argued that sales of vaccines are likely to be
lower since each vaccine is administered to a patient
only once, whereas medicines that combat diseases and
chronic illnesses are administered many times to each
patient.
Which one of the following, if true, most weakens the
support offered by the company director for the claim
concerning the marketing of vaccines?
(A) Vaccines are administered to many more people
than are most other pharmaceutical products.
(B) Many of the diseases that vaccines are designed
to prevent can be successfully treated by
medicines.
(C) Pharmaceutical companies occasionally market
products that are neither medicines nor vaccines.
(D) Pharmaceutical companies other than the Rexx
Pharmaceutical Company produce vaccines.
(E) The cost of administering a vaccine is rarely
borne by the pharmaceutical company that
manufactures that vaccine.
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by Ravish » Thu Dec 23, 2010 5:12 am
Did you by any chance pick D for 1) and E for 2) ? Just wondering as those, in my opinion, are the trap answers. I'l give my breakdown of the answers below but it would be better if you give the answer choices you picked along with the reasoning you used so we can determine where you may be going wrong with your reasoning.

Anyhow, the first one was a tough one and , by process of elimination, i picked B. Here is my breakdown:

The question asks , which of the following is most strongly supported by the argument. When you get such a question, DO NOT try going outside the scope of the argument and picking answers that the argument does not hint towards. Now let's look at the choices:

A) The argument is not concerned with the Mediterranean sea and does not give any indication about it's current water levels.

B) Correct. The argument states that 'drops of water REPEATEDLY fall on single spot in the cave floor' ; as the drops of water were continuously falling, it can only mean that the water level of the cave grew with time and is higher now than it was in the past.

C) Classic example of going outside the scope of the argument. The argument gives no indication that the French divers were the first ones to discover the entrance to the cave.

D) Again, no indication is given that there was once an entrance to the cave.

E) Nope. Argument states that the mineral contents increased over time so this cannot be true.



2) was much easier. Here is the breakdown:

The director states that the government should subsidize the costs for vaccines since each vaccine is only administered to a patient only once whereas medications are taken by patients several times.

Since the question asks us to weaken the argument , it means there is an obvious flaw in the reasoning the director used to arrive to the conclusion that vaccines will not be profitable as they are administered only once. What you are looking for here is an answer that will highlight the flaw by showing that the vaccines will make just as much , or close to the money that other products manufactured by pharmaceutical companies make. If one were to guess, the 2 most obvious choices would be either that the patient to whom the vaccine is being administered are being charged several times more than the manufacturing costs of the vaccine or that a very large majority of people take the vaccine

Looking at the answer choices:

A) Clearly points out one of the assumptions we made when thinking about the possible answers. If more people take the vaccine than they take other pharma products, the directors reasoning is flawed because the number of people taking the vaccine offset the fact that they have to take it only once. Think of it this way:

Vaccine: More people Less dose Medicine: Less people more dose. Hence the balance.

B) Irrelevant. The argument asks us to find a weakness in the reasoning of the director that the vaccines are administered only once and hence will not be as profitable. That many diseases can be treated by medicines does nothing to weaken the same.

C) Irrelevant. Again does not talk about conclusion.

D) Irrelevant.

E) This may be a trap answer. The argument talks about revenue generated from the SALE of the vaccines and not about revenue generated from the ADMINISTRATION of the vaccine. Moreover, we do not know what the cost of administering a vaccine is. For all you know, it may be a small fraction of the manufacturing cost.

Let us know the choices you picked and the reasoning you used to arrive to them.
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by bblast » Thu Dec 23, 2010 9:59 am
both ur answers are extremely well formulated and to the point, (u even got it correct that i had gone for E in the latter question)

I went for C in the 1st question as I inferred that "French divers recently found "- means French divers recently discovered.

I would rate this mistake as silly. Perhaps I am stretching myself too much these days to cover as many questions as possible in little time and not reading such complex stems properly.



I went for E(as u guessed) in the second question simply because I did not plain and simple understand the in depth tone of the passage. Reading it again now with a fresh mind drilled the logic in my coconut shell covered brain :/

Thanks for the extremely precise explanations though.
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by mundasingh123 » Mon Jan 10, 2011 12:30 am
Hi Ravish, I chose C.I agree on C.But D also struck me as a strong contender because
1)Stalagmites could have formed earlier.So that means the Cabe was above the water surface.
2)If the Cave was above the water surface , Couldnt it have been reached by Boat .

bblast Wheres the second question from ? I hope its not gmatprep
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