Getting Past 40 in Verbal, 44 in Quant - pls help! - The Beat The GMAT Forum

Getting Past 40 in Verbal, 44 in Quant - pls help!

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12345: Junior | Next Rank: 30 Posts; Posts: 19; Joined: Wed May 27, 2009 3:52 pm

Getting Past 40 in Verbal, 44 in Quant - pls help!

by 12345 » Mon Jul 06, 2009 4:29 am

Hi,

I am new to this forum and had a few questions.

I have taken the GMAT before and my highest score was 640. While in my practice tests, I would on average score get around 720 (Q45, V44) for both Manhattan and Kaplan tests, I have been unable to replicate this in the real exam. On my second try I attributed this to the pressure I put on myself, as I got no sleep the night before my test. I have found sleep or lack thereof, has up to a -100 point impact even when taking a practice test at home.

To make matters worse, I was waitlisted at a top 5 school and told I did not get in due to my low GMAT score. I am currently working on this through relaxation techniques, yoga but am facing new challenges.

I plan to write the test the end of this month (I am aiming for 720+) and would appreciate your advice on the following:

Materials:
With regards to past materials I have studied them all (Official (including the tests), Veritas, Princeton, Manhattan GMAT, Kaplan 800 and I took the Kaplan course). I also have had a private tutor for some time.

I have read a lot on quality vs quantity so this time around I am studying the official guide, coupled with the Manhattan GMAT books, Powerscore Critical Reasoning and the OG Companion. I also am making a log of incorrect answers with regards to both speed and accuracy, and spending a lot more time to review both my correct and incorrect answer choices.

Any additional materials to add or thoughts on the material I am working with?

Timing:
Timing was slightly a problem for me in the quant section, but never in the verbal. Thoughts on how to pick up the speed with regards to this would be appreciated. I do, do the questions under timed conditions but for some reason have become a a lot slower, especially in verbal.

Getting Past 40 in Verbal
While in the past I would on avg get a 45 in Verbal, when I went to the actual exam I got a 37. I find the official exam for verbal questions quite different from the prep guide sources. To be honest, I was quite surprised with my actual score and even felt confident in the exam. Any thoughts on this? Also, this time around I am having a hard time getting past the 40-42 mark so any thoughts on strategies/materials would be greatly appreciated.

Getting past 44 in Math
I also on avg use to be around 44 in Math, thus am looking on strategies/materials advice to move into the 90-99 percentile. I have only sporadically been able to get 45-49 in Quant. This is important as I am told I need 80%+ in Quant.

Motivation:
For those of you retaking, where there any specific steps/tools to motivate yourself again?

Thanks in advance

Last edited by 12345 on Sun Jul 12, 2009 4:53 am, edited 1 time in total.

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Source: Beat The GMAT — GMAT Strategy | Mon Jul 06, 2009 4:29 am

DanaJ: Site Admin; Posts: 2567; Joined: Thu Jan 01, 2009 10:05 am; Thanked: 712 times; Followed by:550 members; GMAT Score:770

by DanaJ » Mon Jul 06, 2009 6:09 am

Here's what advice I can offer:

There are several ways you can improve on timing. Firstly, avoid taking lengthy notes, since it takes up a lot of time and you might get confused "navigating" around the scribbling. I know this might sound pretty tough to do, but practice making a few steps (in solving problems) mentally rather than writing everything down.

Secondly, try to memorize a few important details that always show up on the GMAT: squares up to 15, cubes up to 5, essential powers of 2 and 3, sum of an arithmetic progression, (a + b)^2, a^2 - b^2... These are just a few examples of essential stuff that you will most likely encounter on test day. There are others, but I'll have to think it through at least a day before compiling a full list.

Thirdly, use mental math. It takes up a lot of time to make multiplications if you do it the "second grade" way. For instance (even though you won't see this on the GMAT, it's just an examplee of how mental math works):
What is 33*24?

33*24 = 30*24 + 3*24 = 30*20 + 30*4 + 3*24 = 600 + 120 + 72 = 792. Took me just a few seconds to write, took me even less to calculate mentally. I'd only write down 600, 120 and 72 of the whole thing, so as to avoid long notes.

About verbal and quant: you haven't mentioned your weak areas. Provide your sensitive spots and maybe we can help you.

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12345: Junior | Next Rank: 30 Posts; Posts: 19; Joined: Wed May 27, 2009 3:52 pm

by 12345 » Tue Jul 07, 2009 4:15 am

Hi DanaJ,

Timing:
Thanks for the note and your advice regarding timing. I am working on taking less notes in Verbal (particularly RC) but find lack of note making/writing my steps down leads me to many more careless mistakes in Quant...

Materials:
Any thoughts on materials from my post above?

Pressure/Motivation:
Also any specific strategies that worked well for you with regards to nerves/pressure? This continues to be my biggest issue the night before the test in terms of sleep and on test day

Getting past 44 in Math:
I fair worst in DS than in PS. I don’t really have a consistent weak area in terms of topic; it highly varies exam to exam...
I look forward as well to your shortcut list as per your post above...

Getting Past 40 in Verbal:
CR – My strongest area in Verbal. I usually get around 1-2 incorrect on an average exam
RC – I also tend to do okay in this questions getting around 2-3 incorrect on the exam. I would say this area is the most inconsistent for me in Verbal and also my slowest area. There are times I can get 3/5 wrong a particular passage if I just don’t get it. To help with my timing I am trying to find the right balance between minimal note taking and comprehension
SC – This remains my weakest area. I have done the Manhattan GMAT book, Official and have Spidey and Sahil’s notes. On average I still get 5-9 wrong on a given exam. I keep getting told this is the easiest area to improve but SC still remains the most problematic for me in Verbal.
I also find the official exam for verbal questions quite different from the prep guide sources...

Thank you.....

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zuleron: Master | Next Rank: 500 Posts; Posts: 223; Joined: Fri Apr 17, 2009 3:50 pm; Location: Philly, USA; Thanked: 76 times; Followed by:4 members; GMAT Score:750

by zuleron » Tue Jul 07, 2009 4:58 am

DanaJ wrote:Here's what advice I can offer:

Secondly, try to memorize a few important details that always show up on the GMAT: squares up to 15, cubes up to 5, essential powers of 2 and 3, sum of an arithmetic progression, (a + b)^2, a^2 - b^2... These are just a few examples of essential stuff that you will most likely encounter on test day. There are others, but I'll have to think it through at least a day before compiling a full list.

Hey DanaJ

Could you compile the full list you describe above? Thanks!

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DanaJ: Site Admin; Posts: 2567; Joined: Thu Jan 01, 2009 10:05 am; Thanked: 712 times; Followed by:550 members; GMAT Score:770

by DanaJ » Tue Jul 07, 2009 6:23 am

I hate IE... This is the fourth time I'm trying to write this reply...

@12345: The materials you've used are pretty much everything there is out there. I myself used the following:
- Kaplan Premier - good general book
- Kaplan 800 - not really 800, IMO
- the OGs - a must
- PowerScore CR Bible - great for CR and RC
There might be some value out of reviewing stuff out of the OG, but if you feel there's not much else to be done, then think about buying the most recent edition or the GMATFocus sets (see Ian's take on those here: https://www.beatthegmat.com/opinion-on-g ... 39619.html) . It's got about 300 new questions. I can't say anything about MGMAT and the OG Companion, I haven't used those.

Anxiety has never been my issue, but here's some advice:
- don't study on the day before the test; cramming is no good!
- relax and do stuff that you like to do: I played on my PSP all day and ate chocolate before D-day...
- try to get some sleep, so avoid coffee and Coke

Since you don't have a particular weak area in quant, here's some general advice. Focus on the stuff that you'll surely see on the GMAT: number properties, inequalities, modulus... Avoid spending too much time on permutations or hard statistics. There's no point in moving up to the hard stuff unless you've got the easy bits all cleared up. Also, maybe you should ask your tutor to help you assess your weak spots and then the two of you can figure out a targeted study plan. A second opinion is always welcome!

Verbal is really hard to improve upon, IMO, especially if you're not a native speaker. If this is the case, try reading stuff in English every day, like a good book or online newspapers (the Economist, WSJ). This will not only improve your general knowledge of the language, but will also boost your reading speed.
For SC, if you've exhausted all GMAT-style material, then try buying a good grammar book, from a reputed publisher (Oxford, Longman come to mind). Maybe there's something about the basics that doesn't quite "click".
For RC: what I usually do when reading a GMAT passage is note the connectors, like "moreover", "however", "in addition". These words provide the backbone of your text and provide its flow. You'll notice that RC from the OG are really well-written: there's no abrupt ending and the ideas all link together nicely. If you get in the mindset of "interesting and well-written text" instead of "crappy questions standing between me and my MBA", you'll definitely see some good results.

@zuleron: will try to do that in the next couple of days.

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12345: Junior | Next Rank: 30 Posts; Posts: 19; Joined: Wed May 27, 2009 3:52 pm

by 12345 » Tue Jul 07, 2009 7:01 am

Hi DanaJ,
Just to clarify a couple of things if that helps.
I used a tutor in the past but am currently studying on my own.
I am a native English speaker. With regards to Quant, DS is problematic for me in terms of both accuracy and speed.
Thx

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DanaJ: Site Admin; Posts: 2567; Joined: Thu Jan 01, 2009 10:05 am; Thanked: 712 times; Followed by:550 members; GMAT Score:770

by DanaJ » Tue Jul 07, 2009 1:15 pm

Hmm... Well, about the SC issue: even though you're a native speaker, that doesn't mean you're automatically supposed to ace this section. Especially when scoring higher, the GMAT will throw some pretty unusual phrasing your way. I don't know if this applies exactly to English as well, but for my native tongue (Romanian), there have been studies that prove the fact that we normally use only about 500 words or so in our day-to-day conversations. Note that dictionaries usually provide explanations for 100 000+ words! The same can be said about grammatical constructions: we don't really use that many every day. This is why it's perfectly understandable if you're having some issues with this section. I too had some problems with it, so I'll tell you what I did:
- used Kaplan Premier for frequently tested errors
- practiced using the OG and the OG verbal book (the purple one)
- tried to find hard material in English - a book could be the answer here

I understand you've already used the MGMAT SC guide... I personally haven't touched that one, but I hear only positive stuff about it. If you don't feel like reviewing it, then your best bet would be a grammar book, as mentioned above (IMHO, of course), coupled with more practice. On a very personal note, it's practice that really helped me with SC, so if you don't have the purple OG, then I suggest you buy it.

DS is problematic for many because of three reasons:
- it's not something you're used to, since you don't get such problems in high school or college
- it's asking you to completely detach yourself from one statement when analyzing the other and that's pretty hard to do
- sometimes we waste our time trying to solve the problem instead of just figuring out if the "data is sufficient" or not

Can you really ignore the first statement when analyzing the second? Can you think independently? Do you often find yourself solving the actual problem instead of figuring out if there is enough info?

These are some questions you need to ask yourself. Address the issue accordingly:
- independent thinking is a MUST, so make sure you know the algorithm really well (I wrote something about this a while back: https://www.beatthegmat.com/having-major ... 39588.html)
- thou shall not solve the problem, just answer the question!

I guess it's all down to self-control here...

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mayonnai5e: Legendary Member; Posts: 1018; Joined: Tue Dec 12, 2006 7:19 pm; Thanked: 86 times; Followed by:6 members

by mayonnai5e » Wed Jul 08, 2009 1:18 am

Hi. I wanted to reply to address one specific topic - getting from 40 to 45-49 on quant. I strongly believe that you cannot break past the low 40s into the high 40s without figuring out your weaknesses and taking serious steps to attack them. Why? Because if you doing well on quant on a cat, say 40ish, and then you run into a weakness problem your score will most likely go down - that's the nature of the algorithm and since it's a weakness you stand a good chance of getting it wrong. Weaknesses will always anchor your score.. unless by some miracle you manage to get quant questions only for your strengths.

During the course of the many cats I did, I noticed patterns of questions that I was getting wrong over and over again even if they were easy/medium questions and what kind of surprised me was that these questions often came in the middle or late into the quant section, which means I was well on my way to doing well then got hammered by these.

My strategy? Focus on the fundamentals of the areas that I was weak in (rate problems, for example), create "fundamentals" log for those areas and study them. I did a blitz on this in my last two weeks of study. Prior to the real gmat I had never gotten higher than 45 on quant, but on the real thing I got a 49.

Please see my "Quant Complexity" blog on the last page of my blog (found in my signature).

https://www.beatthegmat.com/my-blog-erro ... t4899.html
550 =\ ...560 =\... 650 =) ...570 =( ...540 =*( ...680 =P ... 670 =T ...=T... 650 =T ...700 =) ..690 =) ...710 =D ...GMAT 720 DING!! ;D

Learn more about me

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12345: Junior | Next Rank: 30 Posts; Posts: 19; Joined: Wed May 27, 2009 3:52 pm

by 12345 » Wed Jul 08, 2009 5:22 pm

Thank you both for sharing your thoughts! I appreciate the prompt replies! :)

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GMAT/MBA Expert

Stacey Koprince: GMAT Instructor; Posts: 2228; Joined: Wed Dec 27, 2006 3:28 pm; Location: Montreal, Canada; Thanked: 639 times; Followed by:694 members; GMAT Score:780

by Stacey Koprince » Thu Jul 09, 2009 10:17 am

Received a PM asking me to respond.

First, I have some questions. What was your quant and verbal breakdown on your official test? Did both drop significantly from your practice tests? Or was one more responsible for the drop?

Did you take practice tests under full official conditions? (30m each for two essays, 10m break, 75m quant, 10m break, 75m verbal) Did you take them at about the same time of day as you took the official test? Did you NOT take practice tests / do hours and hours of studying in the 3 days before the exam? I'm asking all of this because I'm wondering whether your verbal drop was at least partially due to stamina.

On DS vs PS - how much time are you spending, on average, on each? I ask because when I hear one of my students complaining about a quant timing problem and also that they think DS is a weakness, the first place I check is how much time they're spending on each type. For whatever reason, people are a lot more likely to go over time on PS questions than DS questions. The logical result to that is: less time to spend on DS. Then, people will only look at % correct when determining a strengths vs. a weakness and will tell me - oh, I don't get as many DS right. Then I'll look at their test results and notice that they're getting harder DS questions right and they're working more quickly than they should. In other words, they're not so bad at DS; they're just not spending adequate time.

The short remedy to this: get those really hard questions wrong faster. If you go look at the stats, you'll realize that when you go way over, you're getting a lot more of those wrong anyway. The trick is to recognize when you really can't do the question in 2 minutes and move on at or before that 2-min limit. Get it wrong faster and then you have a much better shot at getting right the things that you should be getting right.

Dana gives a lot of great advice about but I do have to disagree about one thing: writing stuff down on quant. I write almost everything down - my pen doesn't stop moving. If I write as I think, it doesn't take extra time. And I'm a lot less likely to make a careless mistake than if I'm trying to do things in my head.

On the verbal side - yes. I do take notes, but they are seriously abbreviated, to the point that if I read the notes again the next day without the problem, I'd only be able to tell you vaguely what the problem was about, and 3 days later, I'd have no idea what the notes meant anymore. I only need CR notes for 2 min and RC notes for 6-8 min, so it's okay to abbreviate heavily, because my short-term memory will be able to remember what I meant when I wrote C --> A. For the next few minutes, anyway.

Re: nerves, here are some articles on stress management:
https://www.manhattangmat.com/stress-tips.cfm
https://www.manhattangmat.com/strategy-series-stress.cfm

There are some other interesting strategy articles in that area of the website as well (https://www.manhattangmat.com/freegmatlearningforum.cfm); check it out.

I'm not going to respond yet on what to do going forward because I want to hear what you have to say re: my above questions.

Please note: I do not use the Private Messaging system! I will not see any PMs that you send to me!!

Stacey Koprince
GMAT Instructor
Director of Online Community
Manhattan GMAT

Contributor to Beat The GMAT!

Learn more about me

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DanaJ: Site Admin; Posts: 2567; Joined: Thu Jan 01, 2009 10:05 am; Thanked: 712 times; Followed by:550 members; GMAT Score:770

by DanaJ » Fri Jul 10, 2009 7:56 am

zuleron wrote:
DanaJ wrote:Here's what advice I can offer:

Secondly, try to memorize a few important details that always show up on the GMAT: squares up to 15, cubes up to 5, essential powers of 2 and 3, sum of an arithmetic progression, (a + b)^2, a^2 - b^2... These are just a few examples of essential stuff that you will most likely encounter on test day. There are others, but I'll have to think it through at least a day before compiling a full list.

Hey DanaJ

Could you compile the full list you describe above? Thanks!

Posted an initial draft of the list here:

https://www.beatthegmat.com/dana-s-quant ... 37055.html

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12345: Junior | Next Rank: 30 Posts; Posts: 19; Joined: Wed May 27, 2009 3:52 pm

by 12345 » Sun Jul 12, 2009 4:44 am

Hi Stacey,
Thanks for the prompt reply. Pls find my answers below:

What was your quant and verbal breakdown on your official test?
Verbal 37 (81%) Quant 42 (63%) AWA 6.0 (87%) Overall GMAT score: 640 (76%)

Did both drop significantly from your practice tests? Or was one more responsible for the drop?
Both did drop, my verbal dropped significantly. I find the official exam for verbal questions quite different from the prep guide sources. I can’t seem to put a finger on how though. To be honest, I was quite surprised with my actual score and even felt confident about my verbal score in the exam. My quant score dropped but not to the same magnitude, but this is also major as I am told I need at least 80% in Quant. Below is a summary of a usual score in practice tests from my last studying attempt

CAT Exam #2 (Manhattan)
SCORE & OVERVIEW OF RESULTS
TYPE SCORE ESTIMATED PERCENTILE RANK
Quantitative 44 73 %
Verbal 45 99 %
Total 720 96 %

Did you take practice tests under full official conditions?
Yes

Did you take them at about the same time of day as you took the official test?
Yes

Did you NOT take practice tests / do hours and hours of studying in the 3 days before the exam?
No, I was studying/doing practice exams up until 2 days before the exam. I took the day before to relax, hang out. On a side note, I find for some reason if I leave my studying for 3-4 days straight I feel a bit rusty

On DS vs PS - how much time are you spending, on average, on each?
I did an avg of the above test and my average for DS is 1:25, PS 2:18. I do see what you are saying (great tip) – on one PS question I spent 4 min and did get it right on another PS question I spent 6 min and still got it wrong! Then there were others I spent 36 seconds on in PS, I assume to make up for lost time (one I got right, the other I got wrong). In DS, there was only one question I spent 3 min on, the others were between 50 sec and 90 sec. My success rate for both DS and PS was about the same

Cheers

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GMAT/MBA Expert

Stacey Koprince: GMAT Instructor; Posts: 2228; Joined: Wed Dec 27, 2006 3:28 pm; Location: Montreal, Canada; Thanked: 639 times; Followed by:694 members; GMAT Score:780

by Stacey Koprince » Mon Jul 13, 2009 10:06 am

Okay, there may have been some element of brain fatigue in there if you were taking practice tests until two days before. Think of this thing as a mental marathon. You're not going to run a practice marathon 2 days before the real thing, right? That doesn't mean you have to abandon your studies two days before. It just means that, instead of simulating the whole thing, you should be stretching, doing light exercise, resting - in other words, reviewing your major strategies and pacing plans, but not actually trying to simulate the whole thing.

On verbal, if I were to show you a set of answer choices but NOT show you the full problem, would you be able to tell me which rule is probably being tested on SC or what is likely not a right answer on CR / RC? You can probably do this for some things right now (eg, "has" and "have" would be a pretty straightforward split on SC; an extreme word such as "never" is often wrong on RC), but you can also probably get better at this. "This" = identifying the wrong answers.

Whether you get a verbal question right or wrong, answer these questions when studying it:
- why was the wrong answer so tempting? why did it look like it might be right? (be as explicit as possible) [Note: if you got it right, pick what you think is the most tempting wrong answer and analyze that]
- why was it actually wrong? what specific words indicate that it is wrong and how did I overlook those clues the first time?
- why did the right answer seem wrong? what made it so tempting to cross off the right answer? why were those things actually okay - what was my error in thinking that they were wrong?
- why was it actually right?

The difference between an 80th percentile question / right answer and a 99th percentile question / right answer, is that the right answer on the 99th percentile question actually has to feel / seem wrong to the vast majority of testers. Do you know how they do that? Well enough that you could articulate: well, they're getting most people to eliminate B because of XYZ, but I actually know that's exactly what we want here because blah blah blah...

If you can articulate that, you have a good shot of avoiding the traps on the test. If you can't articulate that, you're a lot more likely to fall into those traps during the stress of the test. That might be the subtlety that surprised you on the real test (vs. practice tests) - the ability to distinguish between the most tempting wrong answers and the right ones.

In DS, there was only one question I spent 3 min on, the others were between 50 sec and 90 sec. My success rate for both DS and PS was about the same

In other words, you're actually really good at DS. Think about it - you're getting about the same number right, yet spending only 50 to 90sec on problems that are supposed to take 2m!! Think what your percentages could be if you actually spent normal time on these!

And you actually do have the time to spend normal time. Remember that one on which you spend 6m and got it wrong anyway? And even that 4m one that you got right - think about how you would've used that extra 2m. You wouldn't have used the whole 2m on a single problem. You would've used a min each on 2 problems, or another 30sec each on 4 problems... in other words, you cost yourself multiple problems, potentially, not just one, by spending that extra 2m on the 4m problem.

Any time you choose to spend extra time on a problem, that time is coming from somewhere - it is not free. Whenever you choose to spend >30sec over, two things are happening:
(1) the odds that you'll get this one wrong start to increase (the farther over you go, the more likely you are to get it wrong)
(2) the odds that you'll get one or more other problems wrong as a result of spending extra time on this one start to increase (the farther over you go, the more likely you are to get other things, plural, wrong as a result)

When you go to 4m, you're basically guaranteeing yourself at least one other question wrong, and probably multiple. So is that worth getting that one question right?

Especially if I tell you that, if you get a question wrong that's below your level, that will hurt your chances of achieving your desired score, but if you get a question wrong that's above your desired level, that won't hurt your chances of achieving your desired score? What are the chances that the question that takes 4m is above your desired level? (Very high.) What are the chances that the question on which you choose to spend only 1m to make up the missing time is below your desired level? (You're choosing to speed up because you think it's easy - you think you can do it!)

So, on quant, one major issue is making better decisions about how you're spending your time. I'm willing to bet that your actual ability is a bit higher already than what you've been scoring, but your time mis-management is costing you points.

On verbal, a major issue is really digging into the nitty-gritty of how to recognize wrong answers - articulating not just why they're wrong but why they're so tempting / look so right.

Did you feel any kind of mental fatigue or stamina / concentration issues? As you noted, your verbal dropped the most; if there was a fatigue or concentration issue, we need to figure out how to deal with that now.

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12345: Junior | Next Rank: 30 Posts; Posts: 19; Joined: Wed May 27, 2009 3:52 pm

by 12345 » Tue Jul 14, 2009 8:40 am

Hi Stacey,

Thank you for the very insightful advice. I have already started to incorporate your advice in analyzing both my correct and incorrect answers.

“If you can articulate that, you have a good shot of avoiding the traps on the test. If you can't articulate that, you're a lot more likely to fall into those traps during the stress of the test. That might be the subtlety that surprised you on the real test (vs. practice tests) - the ability to distinguish between the most tempting wrong answers and the right ones.”
1. I totally agree this may be the case for me, but is it not fair to assume practice tests by Manhattan, Kaplan etc would also do the same?
2. As you can see my verbal had a huge drop (from ~45 to 37). I feel the official exam verbal is very different from the prep guide resources but I can’t put my finger on how. Do you have any thoughts on this?

“Did you feel any kind of mental fatigue or stamina / concentration issues? As you noted, your verbal dropped the most; if there was a fatigue or concentration issue, we need to figure out how to deal with that now.”
Yes, wholeheartedly. I find myself re-reading questions a lot more this attempt, especially in verbal (particularly SC – I have become quite slow in SC), thus losing a lot of valuable time. Also, I find my stamina is not as high as it used to be. (I am doing questions under timed conditions, eating right, exercising, getting enough sleep). I don’t know if it is just that I am tired of doing this AGAIN, but whatever it is I need to get over it and re-gain my ‘edge’
3. Any thoughts on dealing with the above would be great.

Timing/Pacing:
4. Can you pls provide the average time one should be spending on the each of the question types? (PS, DS, SC, CR, RC)
5. Is there a pacing chart you can share for both verbal and quant? (for e.g., at 55 min, you should be at question 31 etc down to 0 min for both sections). There are a lot of mixed thoughts on this, just wanted to get your advice
6. After how many min(s) do you move on and guess? For quant it seems to be the 2 min mark (does this apply to both PS and DS?) Is it also 2 min for each verbal question and type?

Next Steps:
In the orange book I have only 50 DS Questions and 50 CR questions left. I have completed the Official Quant Guide, 4 Math Manhattan books, 3 Manhattan Verbal Books, and am currently half way through PowerScore Critical Reasoning Bible that I plan to finish by Fri. In terms of tests I have taken GMAT Prep 1 4x, was planning on starting the Manhattan tests this week (I have six in total) and then near the end of my studying doing GMAT Prep Test#2 3-4x.
7. What should be my next steps in terms of a study plan? Buy OG 12 and analyze answer choices according to your feedback, focus on the official verbal guide as I am currently slow, some other math resource to increase my score, take a test or two and move straight to my weaknesses? (I would like to write the exam in the next 3 weeks).

Thanks in advance Stacey – much appreciated

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12345: Junior | Next Rank: 30 Posts; Posts: 19; Joined: Wed May 27, 2009 3:52 pm

by 12345 » Tue Jul 14, 2009 8:51 am

Below, is amazing advice courtesy of Stacey Koprince that I have copied and pasted below from the various blogs she has contributed to. I know many of you are following this thread so wanted to share, plus it helps me to have everything in one place.

Some of the questions to ask yourself when analyzing:
If I got it right, did I get it right for the right reasons? Is there a better way to do it than the way I did it?
If I got it wrong, why (as specifically as possible) did I get it wrong? What could I do to minimize the chances of making the same error for the same reason in the future?
Was I able to CATEGORIZE this question by topic and subtopic? By process / technique?
Did I make a CONNECTION to previous experience? Or did I have to do it all from scratch?
Did I COMPREHEND the symbols, text, questions, statements, and answer choices?
Did I understand the CONTENT being tested?
Did I choose the best APPROACH?
Did I have the SKILLS to follow through?
Am I comfortable with OTHER STRATEGIES that would have worked, at least partially? How should I have made an educated guess?
Do I understand every TRAP & TRICK that the writer built into the question, including wrong answers?
Have I MASTERED this problem? Could I explain every aspect, fully, to someone else?
How will I RECOGNIZE similar problems in the future?

Your strategies generally seem okay, although timing is obviously a factor for you, so you're going to have to figure out how to be more efficient with your strategies. Go look at some recent problems you've done and do this analysis:
- if you got it wrong, why? what tempted you to pick the wrong answer? why is it wrong anyway? what tempted you to eliminate the right answer? why is it right anyway?
- if you spent too much time, why? specifically, which part of the problem and what caused you to spend the extra time? did that extra time help? did that extra time hurt on a later problem? (if you spent more than 30sec over, the answer is yes, even if you got this problem right) how did that extra time hurt? specifically, where did you then not have enough time?
- if you spent too little time, why? were you rushing b/c you were behind? why were you behind; on which ones did you spend too much time? or did you think the problem was easy and you didn't need that much time? how often did you make mistakes on those "easy" problems on which you felt you didn't need full time? (On problems like that, you should make almost no mistakes - 95%+ accuracy. So if it's anything lower than that, you're hurting yourself by choosing to go fast when you think a problem is really easy.)

When you're practicing you must ALWAYS hold yourself to your time constraints. If you're doing an individual problem, pick an answer by the end of the given timeframe for a problem of that type. EVERY time. Spend all the time you want afterwards analyzing the problem and what you did (this is where most of your learning comes from) - put pick an answer within the expected timeframe. Basically, make the strategies / approaches so habitual that you know how to follow them even within the tight timeframe.

Until you get the score you want, you haven't learned what you need to learn and the OG questions are much better study tools. Your task is not merely to do a bunch of problems. Your task is to study those problems, to analyze the structure, to spot the traps, to understand how wrong answers are constructed in a tempting way, to know how to make an educated guess, to apply the relevant rules or concepts, to eliminate wrong answers for concrete reasons, to work as efficiently as possible without sacrificing accuracy too much, etc. That all comes from intensive study of problems, not just from doing problem after problem.

You should have a lot of data now about your strengths and weaknesses and that data should drive how you study. Start with a problem from a recent practice test or problem set. Ask yourself these questions (and do whatever research or work is necessary to answer them):
(1) Was I able to CATEGORIZE this question by topic and subtopic? By process / technique?
(2) Did I make a CONNECTION to previous experience? Or did I have to do it all from scratch?
(3) Did I COMPREHEND the symbols, text, questions, statements, and answer choices?
(4) Did I understand the CONTENT being tested?
(5) Did I choose the best APPROACH? Is there a better approach? What is it? Why is it better?
(6) Did I have the SKILLS to follow through?
(7) Am I comfortable with OTHER STRATEGIES that would have worked, at least partially? How should I have made an educated guess?
(8) Do I understand every TRAP & TRICK that the writer built into the question, including wrong answers?
(9) Have I MASTERED this problem? Could I explain every aspect, fully, to someone else?
(10) How will I RECOGNIZE similar problems in the future? "Recognize" means that I recognize a new problem that tests the same concept, and I am then able to apply all of the above lessons to this new problem: the content being tested, the best approach to use, the traps / tricks to avoid, etc.

"Do and Don't" list:

- Don't take practice tests so frequently and don't take a practice test within 5 days of the real tests. Practice tests are used to assess your progress from your last practice test, but the actual act of taking a practice test doesn't teach you a whole lot (in the moment). Practicing to run a marathon and actually running a practice marathon are two totally different things - during the former, you're learning discrete, useful pieces of information and during the latter, you're trying to use everything you learned to date (and not collapse!).

- Do concentrate on analyzing test problems (OG = best). Don't just do problems, check the answers, correct your errors, and move on. Analyze how you should know what the problem is testing, the most efficient and effective way for you to do the problem, how you can recognize that most efficient and effective way (so that you don't have to figure everything out from scratch), how to spot and avoid traps, how to minimize careless mistakes, how to make an educated guess, how well (or poorly) you spent your time, etc. On EVERY problem, even the ones you get right. (It's often easier to learn from the problems you do get right!)

- Do, as you noted, fix your timing. Keep these stats in mind. For every problem left blank at the end, the official test penalty is -3 percentile points. For strings of problems wrong in a row (4+), the penalty averages about -2 to -2.5 percentile points per question. So if you have to guess on the last few, you're opening yourself up to a serious score drop at the end of the test.

- Do guess. You're going to have to - everybody does! But CHOOSE the problems on which you guess. Choose the hardest ones as you see them throughout the section. That way you're not forced to guess on a bunch in a row at the end (some of which you could do - because anytime you look at a string of questions in a row, you can do some of them!)

- Do practice using timed, random sets of questions. For example, pick 10 DS questions and 10 PS questions at random out of OG (make sure to vary the difficulty level - don't choose all very easy or all very hard questions - the higher the question number, the harder the problem, in general). Give yourself 40 minutes for those 20 problems and FINISH in that 40 minutes. Keep track of your time per problem (buy a stopwatch if you don't have one) and don't forget to analyze how you spent your time.

- Do the essays on practice tests, every time. This will help with your endurance during the verbal section.

- Don't worry about probability. Typically, people get 0 or 1 per test. Not worth spending a ton of time on.

- Do, however, worry about Number Properties (if that's what you meant by Numbers). These are quite common. Identify a resource (typically a GMAT preparation book) that will teach you what you need to know for GMAT NP.

- Same thing with SC - identify a resource, typically a prep book, that will teach you what you need to know for those. The OG explanations are not the best.

- Don't stress over a 10-30 point different in test scores, even if it's a drop. Standardized tests have standard deviations; the official test's SD is 30 points and our test's is 50 points. Do take a look at the test problems and statistics to see if you can identify any problem areas for you (in terms of content, timing, stamina, etc.), but 700 to 670 is not a big deal.

- Don't burn yourself out in the last few days before the test. Remember: you're getting ready to run a marathon. You actually need to rest in the last couple of days; don't tire yourself out right before the marathon!

Some really great advice Stacey! Thank you!