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help with strategy for the last week

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help with strategy for the last week

by drgmatIL » Tue Aug 12, 2008 4:01 am
Hi Stacey,
How are you?
I intend to take my GMAT test on 20th of August. So far i'm practicing a lot (6 hours) the quan and verbal sections. I'm doing sets of 37 question in quantitative which seem very good so far
for the verbal sections, my weaknesses are the CR and RC and i'm working hard to improve both sections.

until know I took the GMATPrep twice and got 600 (47q, 24v)
how I can improve my Verbal section? I'm doing Offical guide (11th) question while learning from my erros.
I really want to improve my score toward 660+, is it possible ?...

moreover, I will be happy to get a link to Time Strategy post (I'm sure you already wrote about it in the past)

Thank you in advance,
D
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by Stacey Koprince » Tue Aug 12, 2008 9:26 am
I apologize again for not seeing your PM until yesterday - as I mentioned, for some reason the system wasn't notifying me that I had new PMs.

In general, it's tough to improve by 60 points in a week. For the last week, time is actually best spent reviewing everything you do know, not trying to learn new stuff at the last minute. I know that's not so great to hear right now, but trying to cram for the test means that (a) you won't know very well the new stuff you're trying to learn right now and (b) you won't have time to review all of the other stuff you have learned well so far, and that means you might forget some of it.

At this point, I'd say to do just high level review of quant, because your quant score is very good. You don't want to overstudy during the week before your test because you risk just tiring yourself out (it's the same as: you don't run a practice marathon right before you run the real marathon).

For verbal, you mentioned that RC and CR are your weaknesses. I have written about these areas before, so I'm going to link to some posts that I think will help you.

This one has both RC strategy and stuff about wrong answer choices:
https://www.beatthegmat.com/verbal-strategy-t14035.html

The wrong answer choices can also apply to CR, with the major exception of Extreme answers - correct answers to CR can actually have extreme words in them (as long as the extreme words are supported by the text of the argument).

For CR, make sure you know how to handle the four main question types:
Find The Assumption
Draw A Conclusion
Strengthen The Conclusion
Weaken The Conclusion

There are a bunch of minor types, but let those go now. Have you been studying from some kind of source that teaches you how to identify these and what to do when you see them? And can you identify which types specifically you're struggling with? They're all a bit different, so I'd actually need to know which type(s) are giving you trouble in order to talk about the ones that are relevant to you.
Please note: I do not use the Private Messaging system! I will not see any PMs that you send to me!!

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Master | Next Rank: 500 Posts
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by drgmatIL » Tue Aug 12, 2008 11:33 am
Hi Stacey,
thank you for the answer.
I learned in the "Weaken The Conclusion" type to look for 3 types of conclusion: 1. casual A->B 2.analogy C.statistical
in order to find the answer that weaken :
for 1. I need to look for A not B or C -> B
for 2. find reason why A and B are not analogous.
for 3. find some statistical information that weaken the conclusion

I think I have no problem with this type but with other types I a lot...
in most of the question I stay with 2 answers and always select the wrong one between the 2 option (the second option is ALWAYS the right question)

for RC, what technique to use?

thank you!
all the best
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by Stacey Koprince » Tue Aug 12, 2008 2:33 pm
For RC, follow that link in my previous post.

For Draw a Conclusion, the correct answer has to be something that must be true according to the given premises (and it doesn't even need to use ALL of the given premises). Anything that doesn't HAVE to be true according to those premises is wrong.

For both Strengthen and Weaken, you have to find something that specifically strengthens or weakens the conclusion, not some other part of the argument. In addition, on this test, that usually means that you need to either strengthen some connection between one of the premises and the conclusion or you need to weaken that connection. Most of the time for strengthen, the right answer will appear as a new premise (new piece of information) that does actually make some positive connection between a premise and the conclusion. Most of the time for weaken, the right answer will appear as a new premise (new piece of information) that also serves to undermine some assumption that lies between the premise and the conclusion.

For Find The Assumption, the right answer is something that is necessary to assume in order to provide a valid link between the author's premises and the author's conclusion. If you negate the right answer, then one or some of the author's premises no longer validate the given conclusion. So if I say:

Amy is less than 6 feet tall. Therefore, Amy cannot have a successful career as a basketball player.

The right answer might say: One must be at least six feet tall in order to have a successful basketball career.

If you negate that, you'd get: One does not have to be at least six feet tall in order to have a successful basketball career.

Well - the author's sole premise for his conclusion was that Amy is less than 6 feet tall. If that doesn't actually prevent her from being successful, then that premise no longer supports the given conclusion.

There's additional detail on all of the above in our CR strategy guide. You don't have to buy it if you don't want to - I just wanted to let you know where to get more detail if you think that the above approaches might work for you.
Please note: I do not use the Private Messaging system! I will not see any PMs that you send to me!!

Stacey Koprince
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Manhattan GMAT

Contributor to Beat The GMAT!

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