GMAT Strategy

Hi everyone,

I've lurked on here for quite awhile, and I started studying 6 weeks ago (about to start week 7) following the Magoosh 6 Month-GMAT study guide.

I'm an engineer, but (as funny as this is) I'm not very good at math (though I believe I'm capable, just not experienced yet) because I spent 4 years in the military right out of high school and had taken the easiest math courses in high school. I barely made it through the calculus series without doing much homework, but I did poorly because I was unfamiliar with trigonometry and the majority of the many algebra rules (the ones tested on the GMAT). I did well in engineering courses and computer science courses because the concepts are tested, not necessarily mathematics.

So my first practice test, I scored a 500. I was a little dismayed, but ultimately wasn't very discouraged. I know my second test I'll do better and it was without any studying and I was kind of distracted as well.

But I'm feeling discouraged about my performance on the quantitative section in general from the test questions I've been taking. Through both Magoosh and the 2015 OG Quantitative Review I'm missing a lot of questions. The Magoosh adaptive questions are generally medium-hard (maybe a very hard once in awhile, mostly medium right now), and I'm missing probably 50-60% of the OG2015 Quant Questions. Funny enough, the verbal for me is pretty intuitive and I think I'd do well without studying too much so I'm not worried about it.

What worries me is I feel like I'm not really learning from my mistakes. It seems like each question, I have a "ugh of course" response to the correct answer. I know the first thing that most people will suggest is to do an error log, but I found that most of the time there isn't some underlying thing I don't know, it's just I made some sort of mistake, or set up a word problem wrong. I can study individual subjects, and I have all of the Manhattan prep books (and I've gone through Foundations while studying), but.... idk?

I do know in the back of my mind that I have as much time as I need, and I can purchase whatever materials I need to study, I guess without having other people to speak with or gauge my progress I become stuck in a "why aren't you getting 100% of these questions correct? They're easy?" and it is discouraging.

I'm aiming for a 700-ish. Some of the schools that I am interested in are Michigan, Yale, Dartmouth, Duke, Stanford and Berkeley - so I know my GMAT score must be competitive ( I think the rest of my application will be ok and I'm not too worried).

Alright, thank you for encouragement/advice/etc....

Hi Eric.

First, key, question.

Are you doing practice questions on a timed or untimed basis?

I mean, if even during practice you were seeking to get them done in 2 - 3 minutes, then my first suggestion would be to take as long as it takes to get them right, achieving a hit rate above 85%. Doesn't matter if it takes 20 minutes per question. Get them right. Develop the skills, and emotional temperament, that are necessary for getting them right, and then speed up as you can and still get them right.

Emotions are significant, and keep people from getting right answers. Getting right answers can require feeling emotional pain. That's why some people do better in school when they use medication. They are using the medication to short circuit their systems so that they get things done and get them right without dealing with the emotional aspect of getting them right.

So by slowing down and doing whatever it takes to get right answers, one forces oneself to process emotions and mental issues that get in the way of getting right answers.

Further, one mistake I made, and I am sure many make, is thinking that preparing for the quant section of the GMAT is about learning how to do certain math things. While there is some truth in that, much of what preparing for the quant and verbal sections is about is learning to get right answers.

I read something someone wrote that goes something like, "People who score in the 600's on the GMAT are focused on figuring out how to do the questions, while people who score in the upper percentiles are focused on figuring out how to get the answers."

So I guess your task is all about getting better at getting answers. You might want to do an internet search on "gmat accuracy" or "gmat careless mistakes" and see what you find. One thing you may find is the following blog post.

https://magoosh.com/gmat/2013/careless-m ... gmat-math/

Also, check out how I used meditation to increase my accuracy.

https://www.beatthegmat.com/rocked-the-g ... 82365.html

It sounds as if you will hit your score goal. Just keep at it. Plenty of people start off in the 500's and end up in the 700's. If you need more ideas, just keep asking for them.

Marty Murray wrote:Hi Eric.

First, key, question.

Are you doing practice questions on a timed or untimed basis?

I mean, if even during practice you were seeking to get them done in 2 - 3 minutes, then my first suggestion would be to take as long as it takes to get them right, achieving a hit rate above 85%. Doesn't matter if it takes 20 minutes per question. Get them right. Develop the skills, and emotional temperament, that are necessary for getting them right, and then speed up as you can and still get them right.

Emotions are significant, and keep people from getting right answers. Getting right answers can require feeling emotional pain. That's why some people do better in school when they use medication. They are using the medication to short circuit their systems so that they get things done and get them right without dealing with the emotional aspect of getting them right.

So by slowing down and doing whatever it takes to get right answers, one forces oneself to process emotions and mental issues that get in the way of getting right answers.

Further, one mistake I made, and I am sure many make, is thinking that preparing for the quant section of the GMAT is about learning how to do certain math things. While there is some truth in that, much of what preparing for the quant and verbal sections is about is learning to get right answers.

I read something someone wrote that goes something like, "People who score in the 600's on the GMAT are focused on figuring out how to do the questions, while people who score in the upper percentiles are focused on figuring out how to get the answers."

So I guess your task is all about getting better at getting answers. You might want to do an internet search on "gmat accuracy" or "gmat careless mistakes" and see what you find. One thing you may find is the following blog post.

https://magoosh.com/gmat/2013/careless-m ... gmat-math/

Also, check out how I used meditation to increase my accuracy.

https://www.beatthegmat.com/rocked-the-g ... 82365.html

It sounds as if you will hit your score goal. Just keep at it. Plenty of people start off in the 500's and end up in the 700's. If you need more ideas, just keep asking for them.

Hello Marty,

Thanks for the advice. My approach had been to do the questions in 2 minutes or less, and then if I did them incorrectly, to go back and do the problem (after going through an entire set) again and get the right answer on my own. I know rote memorization will definitely not work for my purposes, and I have to develop a more intuitive understanding of mathematics to do well. For problems that I understand I can recognize and complete in a matter of seconds, but for those that I don't, and I don't know the approach, I'm usually just stuck .

Thanks for the links as well. I'm going to take a look at them. I'm encouraged in that I have had a pretty big increase in performance on both, just by doing practice problems, and I'm going through the Manhattan books right now (the steps 1-9). I'm just hoping that in 4 more months this work will pay off. I know that I can achieve academically at any of the MBA programs anywhere, I've just got to get there first.

eric777 wrote:My approach had been to do the questions in 2 minutes or less, and then if I did them incorrectly, to go back and do the problem (after going through an entire set) again and get the right answer on my own. I know rote memorization will definitely not work for my purposes, and I have to develop a more intuitive understanding of mathematics to do well. For problems that I understand I can recognize and complete in a matter of seconds, but for those that I don't, and I don't know the approach, I'm usually just stuck.

There you have it Eric.

When you seek to do them in two minutes before you are ready to do them in two minutes, you never really learn to get unstuck.

In my own preparation my approach was to fight the questions for however long it took, even overnight. In doing that I learned to get unstuck and figure out how to do SOMETHING to get to the answer.

Obviously that didn't work 100% of the time, but even if I could not figure out an answer after spending an hour on a question, I would go do research to learn how to answer such questions. THEN, armed with information I would go back to that same question and work my way to the answer.

Getting unstuck is a key GMAT rocking skill.

So slow down and learn to get unstuck and get answers, SOMEHOW. Then speed up.

Hi everybody.

Thank you so much for the replies. I don't have a date set for the GMAT. I was planning on (and tell me if this is dumb) going through the 6-Month training guide, and then as I take the practice tests, sign up for the test once I'm able to score close to where I would like to be.

I'm also going to start working on the questions more slowly and methodically to make sure I get them right, and then work on timing later.

I know probably nobody is reading this (and nobody cares since we're all concerned with our own GMAT scores but I wanted to report some progress:

My first Official GMAT CAT score and timing was as follows:

Test 1
480 Total
26 quant (47 minutes/ 75 used)
31 verbal (40 minutes / 75 used)
4 IR (28 minutes / 30 used)

Test 2
570 Total
36 quant (74 minutes / 75 used)
31 verbal (52 minutes / 75 used)
8 IR (27 minutes / 28 used)

So I'm happy about the quantitative improvement. That's where I feel I struggle the most, and that puts my closer to my goal of 40+ for a 700 score. I was quite surprised about the verbal. In most of my practice, I get every single question correct. Obviously I need to go MUCH slower. Fatigue may also be a factor.

Was also happily surprised by the IR. 8 is great. So looks like I need to keep working on the quantitative section. I know my verbal scores weren't that great, but I think I just went way too fast (and I'm sure everybody here will confirm that). But my timing was good on quantl. I was rushing on the last 10 questions and started immediately guessing on a couple I knew would take more than a minute, so I could focus on the ones I might see and could do.

Idk if anybody has any advice or anything, but this score (particularly the quant and IR) is a great improvement after 2 months (in my opinion). I KNOW I should have hit 40 + in verbal. I still feel like I don't know how to do any of the quant problems when they come up, but something must be working.

Go back over those verbal questions and determine what you needed to see more clearly in order to get them right.

Also, next time you take a practice test, slow down when doing the verbal section, and also notice your attitude or what mode you are in when you are doing the verbal questions.

The questions in the GMAT verbal section are designed to trick you. So if you are casual or cocky in answering them or if you just kind of let things slide in any way, you can easily get smoked. Using myself as an example, when I was doing the verbal section sometimes I would have an "Ok, guess that's good enough," type of attitude when I was choosing answers. I drove my verbal section score higher by changing my mode into one characterized by my being much more determined to actually be rather sure that I was choosing the right answers.

Marty Murray wrote:Go back over those verbal questions and determine what you needed to see more clearly in order to get them right.

Also, next time you take a practice test, slow down when doing the verbal section, and also notice your attitude or what mode you are in when you are doing the verbal questions.

The questions in the GMAT verbal section are designed to trick you. So if you are casual or cocky in answering them or if you just kind of let things slide in any way, you can easily get smoked. Using myself as an example, when I was doing the verbal section sometimes I would have an "Ok, guess that's good enough," type of attitude when I was choosing answers. I drove my verbal section score higher by changing my mode into one characterized by my being much more determined to actually be rather sure that I was choosing the right answers.

Marty,

Thanks. I'm planning on reviewing all of the questions and doing as you said.

Reflecting on my mindset during the test:

1. I went in expecting to increase my score, and to not get caught up in how much it increased. I think that allowed me to answer questions a little more loosely, which helped me on the quantitative section, along with practice over the last two months.
2. I felt as though I was missing many of the questions, this definitely hurt.
3. I felt as though I was answering the same way on the data sufficiency. I also psyched myself out on some of the questions because I thought that I got the answer to easily.
4. I felt "relieved" when I got to the verbal section because I'm more confident in my verbal abilities. I think this lead to answering questions more quickly than I should have. I'll be interested to see what I did wrong.

It's quite clear that my mental state affects my performance.

[email protected] wrote:Hi eric777,

You've made some nice improvements between these two performances. As an aside, the IR section actually has a lot in common with CR, so those performances will likely be 'linked' as you continue to study and improve.

1) Can you define WHY you feel compelled to move so quickly through the Verbal section? By slowing down, taking more notes, etc., you should be able to raise that score.

For the Quant section, you likely still need to practice some fundamental content areas (algebra, arithmetic, etc.). You'll also need to spend some focused time on Quant Tactics, pattern-matching, Number Properties, etc. With a score goal of 700+, you'll need to make some significant improvements to BOTH the Quant and Verbal sections. Thankfully, you still have plenty of time to continue studying and honing your skills.

If you haven't planned for it yet, you should plan to take your next CAT in 2-3 weeks. That score result will help to better define how well your studies are going overall and will likely hint at some adjustments that might have to be made.

GMAT assassins aren't born, they're made,
Rich

Hi Rich,

For the verbal section I think it was primarily overconfidence about my abilities. As I was working through practice problems both in the OG and through the hard and very hard problems in Magoosh, I was consistently getting nearly all of them correct. In a set of 11 I would miss 1, or usually get all of them right. I definitely need to slow down. that's plain and simple. I really think that my verbal score, even on the practice test, should have been in the 40+ range. If I had shown down, and I was also likely fatigued, I would have done much better.

For the quant section, I'm actually confident in some of my basic abilities. I have a hard time setting problems up. I don't really know if that does indeed translate simply into needing to be better at fundamentals. I'm going to review the questions today to see what happened, and categorize where things went wrong and I'll probably post my assessment here. I know there's a ton of people asking for help and what not. I'm kind of just interested in logging what's going on <- this gives me an outlet to do so .

Thank you everybody for your words of encouragement and advice. I also know that many of you have businesses to run and your advice isn't free, so I appreciate anything you have to say. If the time comes, I know where to look first for additional help.