Hi Guru-G,
I went thru what you had written and then Stacy's response. She seems to have provided you with a very thorough list of how you can better your skills going forward. I probably wont have too much to add - she's been very patient with her time and advice!
The one thing that popped out to me was - it seemed like you are putting in a lot of effort, but no making any improvement in the verbal side at all. Which leads me to ask you, have you tried and figured out what your weaknesses are and why? (Very similar to what stacy was asking you to do...)? Have you seen what is your problem with critical reasoning? What are you getting wrong and why? The RC - what is your problem - do you not remember the paragraph after reading it? What about SC.
If you keep doing questions, without understanding your problem and what is causing you to fumble - then it really is a waste of time. Doing lots of questiosn won thelp you. You need to work on your problem area...
I've copied over a snippet of some helpful tips I had given a few people, when they cited similar problem in verbal - I found it to be ungodly tough, and it took me 6 months to understand my weakness, and beat it. I constantly kept trying to figure out what was I finding touch in each of those sections, and how could I fix it.....
Hope fully this will help you too. also remember, timing is the name of the game. While trying to figure my weakness out, I timed every single thing I did. Anything I did was always always timed. This helped me quite a bit.
Hope the below helps you as well - all the best,
-ngufo
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You make me remember the same pain I went thru when studying for the GMAT. It was excruciating (RC, CR as well as SC) . Let me first start with a very small thing I did which helped me save crazy amount of time - took me some time to figure it out.
Before every question in verbal or quant that I answered I would the following before even reading the question.
7.35
1. A B C D E
7.39
2. A B C D E
The 7.35, 7.39 is the time when I start to answer each question. It would give me a very good idea of how much time I had spent on each question. ( above it shows me that I had spent 4 minutes on question 1). I would know that I had spent a lot of time, and need to pace myself better. The only area I know I could save time was SC, would try to do that, plus it also helped because if I came across a particularly hard question that I knew would take me time, instead of spending another 4 minutes on it (given taht I knew I was running out of time), i would make a best guess on it sooner.
Based on what you have written, it sounds like you are already doing a good job of timing yourself - trust me that is the MOST IMPORTANT THING. Once you get your timing good, I fervently believe that half of the problem for preparing for GMAT is gone. So that is a good first step. The 1 is the question number, and The A B C D E written is the answer choices. Before even reading the question I would write the above down, (it had become a reflex with me). What I would do is that for each answer choice that I was sure is wrong, I would cross the alphabet out (THAT MEANS NO RE-READING THAT ANSWER CHOICE AGAIN). I saved precious time. The ones that had a circle on it, were the ones that could be the potential choices. Wahtever back and forth I did would be between those choices. Once I decided one was out, I would cut that out, adn continue the same process. It really helped me (because beofre, I would end up re-reading all the questions and getting confused
which was better than the other). Writing the time and the alphabets should be come a part of you, before even reading writing it on paper, and then starting!!
Now coming to the CR portion. I tried 300 different techniques . I was so screwed up - nothing seemed to work for me . I tried reading the passage, summarizing it and writing the premise and the conclusion. First reading the question then the passage -EVERYTHING. Just like you I kept asking, trying new things, NEVER GAVE UP. Finally what worked for me literally was PRACTISE. After a lot of practice I realized that "when I read the question, and then read the passage, for some reason after reading the passage I felt the need to re-read the question being asked again". I noticed that consistently at least in me. So I stopped reading the question first. I would read the passage, and keep track of the main flow. Then read teh question - based on that, it was easy to cut out 1-2 straight off the bat (on the alphabets - as I did that it saved me a lot of time). After that yes for the remaining choices, its re-reading the passage and going back and forth. The
funny thing is that over time, when you TIME EVERY CR passage that you do (I timed every question that I did in the Official Maths guide, offical verbal workbook, as well as the Official guide 10th edition). i didnt do a single question without timing it, write the alphabet, and practise cutting things off, and re-reading the remaining options) over time, I just felt I got the hang of it. It was like one day - CR questions didnt feel so painful anymore. I was able to go thru them relatively painlessly - I had my pattern built. "Immediately write the time, write the question number, write the alphabets, Read the passage well (very very focused), read the question - immediately cut the ones that dont make sense), and then go thru the process of re-reading the passage and making decisions. Once you feel comfortable with what you are diong, stick with it. If you are taking 3 minutes, but comfortable with your technique, and getting it right that is GREAT.
Just keep practising and timing. I am very sure, with enough practise, over time, it will get better. In case you are not timing every question in OG make sure you do.
SC: Dude dont try to figure out the solution before reading the answers . That will kill you - I know because that k!IIed me too . I did the exact same for the first 3 months of practise. I HATED SC. i couldnt for the love of god figure out how the hell to get them right. Every damn answer looked good to me!!!!. princeton gave a good technique. See the underlined portion, and then immediately look at the answers (dont even TRY to figure out what should be right). When you see the choices use the 3/2 technique. Based on the answers you will see that 3 questions have similar usage, like " The children have had their dinner and gone to bed". Three choices will show you have and 2 will shwo you has. You immediately no that has is wrong. Cut your alphabets - great now you just have to figure out the remaining three. Now instead of you trying to figure out what is write, compare teh differences between the three ansewrs. Try to see what the author has done
different in those three choices. Often times that helped me figure out what was right (most times what I thought should be there never was - not sure if my english is that bad, or GMAT just sucks ).
finally make a flash card for EVERY sentence correction question you get wrong... I know that sounds crazy, but trust me, that alone helped me get very very good at SC. It was hard to remember all the idioms, all the patterns. I also have a problem of basic informatin retention. I forget things very quickly (had this problem since I was small). Read something then forget . So by making flash cards and swriting it down (I have explained how I made the flash cards), and practising the questions reguarly, I would remember how the sentence patterns were. In 6 months I had 4 big business card boxes of flash cards (used my official business cards as flash cards). I would practise them regularly. Keep in min dthe usage (try to answer without looking at th eanswer. Not by memorizing the anser, but by memorizing what was wroing - like oh there is a parallelis error here, there isan applies and oranges error here so on so forth (I used princeton verbal to learn
the fundamentals. It explains that very easily). By doing that after 6 months of lots of flash cards and lots of revising I started seeing patterns - it became much more easier. It was only then that I got the Manhattan SC book (it would have been too complicated for me earlier). Later on I was able to add on to my base with the book. (I made flash cards, of important concepts from the book too)
RC: Another painful portion for me. Probably the worst. Given my retention problem by the time I would finish reading the passage, I had completely forgotton what the hell the author was talking about . If you talk about crazy frustration and depression - this area k!IIed me. I remember thinking of buying some mental ability tests, to help me fix my retrention issue, to help me focus. I practiced with soem tools on the web -all it helped was giving me a big headache . I tried everything possible - reading all blogs, asking for help, trying to emulate the techniques people mentioned - nothing worked. Finally with a lot of practise and trying new technique I found a way that worked for me. I realized that the first para and the last para, basically control the entire flow of the passage (introduction and summary para). The paras in middle were like e.gs, or details of some specific thing. If I could keep track of what the first and secon para was talking
about, and have a basic understanding of what was in the middle paras, I was able to do a better job of answering my RC. So when I would read, I would read the 1st and last para very carefully. The middle paras, I would skim thru. When flow/passage structure questions were asked (previously I would get them wrong, as I would be reading everything in detail, and forgetting the same after completing the passage). After my new technique I got those questions right. For questions in which they asked a specific question about the passage, it was easy enough to go and re-read a few lines to get the exact answer - BINGO. I was just so excited the day it started working for me. It happened out of the blue - one day nothing was happening the next day it just happend....
People Never Fail ... They just Give Up
