GMAT Strategy

I received a PM asking me to comment.

The very hardest questions on the test are, of course, harder than most of the questions we see elsewhere, including OG, GMATPrep, and other sources that we see here on BTG. Some questions from these sources are as difficult as the hardest questions on the official test, but most (by definition) are not at the 99th percentile level.

I did not keep track of my accuracy level when preparing for the test the first time, so I can't actually answer that part of your question. I didn't worry so much when I got a question wrong - instead, I concentrated on learning what I needed to learn in order to get similar questions right in the future.

I spend a lot more time going over problems I'd already done than I spend doing new problems. So I might spend 5-10 minutes going over a problem that I spent 2 minutes doing. (And I do this whether I get it right or wrong.)

Of course, if there was anything I didn't understand in terms of the fundamental concepts being tested, I go back to my source books. Everybody does this, but this is only the beginning of effective study! Some of the other things I'm looking for as I analyze the problem:

- What was this problem really testing? (in terms of both concepts - eg, math or grammar rules - and process - eg, overall question type, question sub-type, test-taking techniques, etc.)

- Did I recognize right away that this is what the problem was testing? If not, how will I recognize it right away when I see another problem that's testing the same thing in the future? What are the clues - keywords, problem set-up, whatever? (And, if keywords, what are other synonyms that could work just as well? eg, "factor" and "product of two integers" often indicate the same thing)

- Did I do the problem in the best way it could have been done? (Most of the time, if it's something I didn't recognize / haven't seen before, then I did NOT do it the best way it could be done, because I had to figure out what to do from scratch.) What are some better ways to approach it? How will I recognize in future that I should approach a similar problem in this same way?

- How would I make an educated guess on this problem? (educated guess = eliminate some wrong answers) It's easier to figure out HOW to do this on problems I got right b/c I understand how they work; then I apply that same process to problems of the same type that are too hard for me to do the regular way.

- What traps / tricks are built into the answer choices? On quant, what is the most common math mistake and which answer does that lead to? (See if you can figure out how they got to at least two of the wrong answers - those wrong answers aren't just random numbers or expressions!) On verbal, what is the most tempting wrong answer, why is it tempting, and why is it wrong anyway? Why would someone be tempted to cross off the right answer?

My ultimate goal is to understand any concepts / logical thinking being tested, devise the best way for me to think through and answer the question, and figure out how I'm going to recognize a similar problem in the future, so that I can go use the "best way" again on that new problem. If I can recognize what to do, then I both save myself time (because I don't have to spend a minute or so figuring out what's being asked) and increase my accuracy (because the method I use to solve is something I've tried before and I know that it works on a problem of this type). That's the "holy grail" of doing well on these kinds of tests!

Very hard verbal questions: the highest-numbered SC and CR questions in OG. Unfortunately, RC questions are grouped by passage, so you don't know which are the hardest. For RC, inference and specific detail questions tend to be harder than main idea questions. "Minor" question types tend to be harder than inference and specific detail questions.

Some of the questions in our online questions banks are very difficult. You have access to those question banks if you are either one of our students or if you've bought our verbal books. We also have a workshop targeted at the hardest SC questions; they are not all 99th percentile, but they are all 90+ percentile.

I'm sure other companies also have collections of very hard questions, so you may want to ask the experts who represent those companies.

Inequalities + DS
Go back and look at some of these again. Figure out: what are these inequalities really telling me and what are they really asking me? For example, if I see something just with variables, I know that they're probably testing some number property theory. If I see <0 or >0 at any point, I'm pretty sure that the issue is a positive / negative issue. Same if I see absolute value with inequalities. If I see a DS yes/no question with just variables, I know that I'm probably going to need to try some different numbers to see what's going on. And so on.

So see if you can start to categorize certain types of inequalities + DS set-ups (eg, value vs. yes/no questions, or pure theory questions with no real numbers, etc) and what they should trigger you to do (in terms of setting up the problem). Literally make a list - if I see A, it probably means B, and I should try doing C.

Then start trying some new problems to see if you can execute on your new plans.

The 4th RC can certainly make a difference, just as any other RCs can. RCs typically mean 3 or 4 questions in a row, and we can't afford to make mistakes or give up on 3-4 questions in a row anywhere on the test.

So, one of the things you need to do is change your mindset. This test does not work in the way we'd expect things in the real world to work. In the real world, you'd have a lot more time to thoroughly examine some piece of writing, and then you'd probably be asked to write something yourself, or discuss the writing, not just answer a bunch of artificial, multiple-choice questions. So don't get sucked into thinking that just because they call it "reading comprehension," you have to read and comprehend it in the same way you would something you need to comprehend in the real world.

Have you seen this post before?
https://www.beatthegmat.com/verbal-strategy-t14035.html

It contains some detailed notes about how to approach RC passages and questions. Also know this: the notes you take should be specific enough for you to be able to answer any main ideas from your notes, but the notes should NOT be specific enough to be able to answer any inference or specific detail questions from your notes. Instead, for those, you should just be able to use your notes to figure out (quickly!) which paragraph is most likely to contain the information you need to answer the question. Then you go to that paragraph and learn what you need to learn to answer the question.

Finally, something that may help you with changing the "I must read this very carefully" mindset. For any given passage, about twice as many questions are written as are actually given to any one person. So, they may write 7 or 8 questions for a passage, but you'll only see 3 or 4 of them. This means that you are guaranteed not to get asked about all of the detail in the passage. Why learn it if you aren't going to get asked about it?

And you can actually get better by going back to RCs you've already done. Go look at your notes. Did you write down too much or too little on the first read-through? If you wrote down too much, what could you get rid of, in hindsight? If you didn't write down enough or didn't write down the right things, what should you have written down, in hindsight? (Again, remember: high level stuff should be written down; details should not be.)

Did what you wrote down actually match the points being made, or did you misunderstand anything on the first read-through? If you misunderstood something, why? What can you do next time to avoid that?

Could the stuff you wrote down actually be used as a credible outline for the passage - what someone would have written before they wrote a first draft?

Also, when we do stuff in OG, we see ALL of the questions - but that's not what we'd see on the test. Pick three or four of the questions randomly. How much of the total passage is covered by just those 3 or 4 questions? Prove to yourself that you won't get asked about everything!