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Sentence Correction Issue... Advice sought!

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by icareon » Mon May 05, 2014 5:36 pm
Hello,

I am having a weird issue with SC questions and maybe some of the experts can help me out here identify a strategy to tackle this: I signed up for a Manhattan GMAT course (self prep) and am now working through the Manhattan answer explanations for SC. My problem is that I barely understand the grammatical rules they are referring to. Here comes the funny part: without paying too much attention to the rules, I have been scoring between 680 and 720 in SC (according to the Manhattan exam analysis tool). Can this be right? Is my intuition/ear in these problems more accurate than a more analytic rule based approach? I am considering to just wrap this up asap and not spend too much time on it anymore, as I think the effort to really understand any rules is not worth gaining a few points on this end. Any help is much appreciated.

Thanks,

Icareon
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by [email protected] » Mon May 05, 2014 10:53 pm
Hi Icareon,

Some Test Takers have a naturally strong sense of grammar, even if they can't define the exact rules that are involved. The ultimate measure of this ability is how you perform on a full-length CAT. Is your ability with SC still strong during the last 75 minutes of the GMAT (when you're tired)?

How have you been scoring on your practice CATs? Assuming that you took the entire CAT in a realistic fashion, how do your SC skills hold up? If you're performing at a high level doing things "your way", then perhaps you don't have to study SCs at all. However, if there is any inconsistency or you're not performing well under test-like conditions, then you'll have to learn some new tactics and practice accordingly.

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by icareon » Tue May 06, 2014 4:56 am
Difficult to say but these numbers are from my last three full length CATs combined and derived from the Manhattan GMAT exam analyzer. There were some outliers in parts of SC (such as Verbs, Meaning,and Pronouns) but jotted those down and am working on improving them. However, the rest appeared to look fine with much studying. I suppose my question is rather about the accuracy of the MGMAT exam analyzer tool, can it be trusted? When I study with the OG, I get 90% of the easy questions right, and I'd say 75% of the moderate questions and maybe 50% of the harder ones (SC only now).

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Icareon
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by [email protected] » Tue May 06, 2014 11:37 am
Hi Icareon,

The statistics that you listed show that you're clearly strong in SCs. The MGMAT CATs are pretty good indicators of one's GMAT ability, but if you're concerned with the accuracy of those results, then you might consider taking a different brand of CAT.

Have you taken either of the two free CATs that are available from www.mba.com? While those CATs do not provide as much information about the individual questions that the MGMAT CATs provide, those CATs are built from Official (retired) GMAT questions, so they're the most realistic CATs available.

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by icareon » Tue May 06, 2014 4:23 pm
Not yet, I have been saving those for after my first full review and practice cycle. I should be done by this weekend and will take the first of those two in full length mode.

However, one other thing I noticed in my MGMAT practice tests is that I generally feel absolutely overwhelmed by the time I am at the 10th + question in Verbal. that's usually when I start to work purely off of intuition.. it's like everything I studied goes out the door right then.

Thanks,

Icareon
Last edited by icareon on Tue May 06, 2014 4:25 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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by icareon » Tue May 06, 2014 4:25 pm
Should I keep studying this way (i.e. take CATs, analyze, practice) or do you recommend taking one of the Empower subscriptions? How much are the score boosters each?

Thanks,

Icareon
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