GMAT Strategy

Bond777 wrote:Quitting has to be one of the GMAT strategies to succeed, but how do you truly implement the strategy? Do you quit when you hit 3 minutes? In that case you wasted 3 minutes.

Wouldn't it be nicer if you had known in the first 30 seconds of reading the problem that you will have to quit on the problem end of the day? If you had figured this out in the first 30 seconds and quitted the problem, you would have saved 2.5 minutes.

If I read a question and find that it is talking about completely unknown concept, then quitting in first 30 seconds is very easy. But that never happens to high scorers; they are more or less familiar with almost every concept that is being tested.

Then, do you quit in first 30 seconds/1 minute when you can't come up with a real plan to solve the particular question even if you know the overarching concept being tested?

But, weren't you in the situation numerous time in which you did not really have clear way to solve the problem in the beginning, but once you started moving things around (even without any clear plan for the particular problem) in the beginning and suddenly you got that "Ah" moment and solved the problem.

Now if you quit every time when you don't have a clear idea in the first minute about your plan to solve the question, you might be quitting too many problems that you could have gotten correct had you stayed with them for another 30 seconds. I don't want to quit every problem that looks unsolvable in the first 30 seconds and have lots of extra time remaining at the last as well. But, if you spend minute or two moving variables around and mixing and matching waiting for that "Ah" moment, you might be spending your precious time for the "Ah" moment that might never come. How do you balance that? Quitting a problem helps, but I don't think quitting a problem at 3 minutes mark when you are stuck provides much advantage on timing.

Bond777 wrote:Now, when does "quit" actually means "leave the problem"?

Considering the time constraint, you cannot really try multiple alternative ways but just couple, right?

On the question of having a clear path of what you are doing and why you are doing, doesn't the second post more closely correspond to #1 (having a clear path) in the 1st post rather than #2? For me "real plan" in 2nd post means you exactly know your steps; you exactly know what you are doing first, second, third, fourth and so on...

If you are observing a problem and forming an intuition as you go, how do you know when to quit (go for alternative route or just leave)?

When do you know that the intuition that you are forming from the information provided is not taking you towards solving the problem?

Bond777 wrote:I really wanted to get to 50/51 in quant and I am confident that I have the capacity. Now, from your experience what is the difference between a Q49 test taker and Q50/Q51 test taker?

In the test in which I received 49, I don't remember leaving a question (other than two) in which I was not confident about my answer. I thought I got 35 out of 37 questions correct. I still ended up with 49 and that means I missed a ton. What's my prep strategy should be now to get to that coveted Q50/Q51 level?

After reading your posts multiple times, I exactly knew what to do in Quant. Such as this:

here's a test: imagine that someone came up behind you, tapped you on the shoulder, and asked you, "what's the PURPOSE of the step you're doing?"
if you have a concrete answer to this question, then you should keep working.
if not, you should quit.

This was so helpful that I start asking myself the question "Do I know what I am doing?" to myself at around 1 minute mark. It sound so simple but it can make a day and night difference on your timing.

Now I need similar thing for verbal. I really need to get this verbal timing under my control. What kind of strategy would you suggest that would help me to quit the problem in time? As you said in your post "quitting means quit what you are doing and try alternate approach," is there similar statement you can make for verbal?

Quitting in Verbal: When do I tell myself "you should quit on this problem now?" Just like your example of "somebody tapping the shoulder and asking question," can I have something like "if you found yourself reading three answer choices more two times without having any clue of what could be the ans "its time to quit that SC"?" Or can I say "even after reading multiple times for a minute, if you could not follow the logic in the CR, you should just quit the question"?

I know you don't want us to make rules on these kinds of things, but I found myself going in circle again and again with few ans choices wasting my time; sometime, even after spending 2 minutes into the question, I become more clueless than I was when I first saw the question (especially in SC and sometime in CR). I need some kind of loop breaker to apply to myself so I can come out of that loop and not waste time and still get the wrong answer.

I know some of your posts below are applicable for the whole test, but I think those are mostly appropriate for Quant. Would you please share some of your teachings similar to the below posts that are more applicable to verbal? Is there something we can formulate for verbal similar to the very last post listed?

This bolded part helped me so much that in my last real test I never had to worry about the time for a second (in quant). I was just following these two so good that my timing was perfectly in line with what was expected; I know it does not have to this way, but every time I looked at the clock (such as after 10th or 20th or 25th questions) I was not more than a minute off from the numerical time guideline.

In the test in which I received 49, I don't remember leaving a question (other than two) in which I was not confident about my answer.

bellcurve wrote:Ron,

My greatest gratitude to you; I was finally be able to make a 99%ile score in the real GMAT. Your teachings and your immense wisdom is making a big difference in the GMAT world.

...
I think two things came into play here.

1. The power of a well-rested brain
2. The value of the common and intuitive sense in the test

I had this personal rivalry with the GMAT and I conquered with your help. I owe you big time; thank you for everything. I hope everybody who wanted to do well read this thread from beginning to the end.

(All except one score mentioned above are real GMAT scores and not practice ones.)

By the way, Bond777, to whom you answered every little question of his, is also my Avatar.

cd86 wrote:For me this lightbulb turns on after staring at the question for a while, does that mean one has 'concept' issues? If the solution to a problem does occur to the mind doesnt it mean you know the concept but somehow werent able to recollect it at that moment? Maybe the brain wasnt agile enough?

Most of the time while practicing (hence relaxed) I get all sorts of tough questions correct..but during the exam I simply hit a wall, especially in the verbal section. I am confused as to what is there to 'learn' any longer.I really dont feel there is anything new to learn.