my score dropped

Hi Priya!

A couple of questions stick out to me when I read your story:

(1) You didn't provide your score breakdown for your second CAT - did the verbal drop, the quant, both?

(2) You mention that you know the CR strategies but you don't use them during the test - what strategies are you trying to apply, and what about the test is making it hard (time, forget, stress, etc.)

(3) You said that your RC was poor on your second exam, how about on the first? What was different in your experience if you did better on the RC before? Did you find the passages harder or the questions themselves?

(4) You said that to attack your quant weaknesses you have been solving lots of questions. When you solve questions do you quickly check the answers when you don't know? How much time do you spend working on questions in content sets (groups of questions testing the same issue), and how much time do you spend reviewing the questions you are working on? Are you using a timer for these questions?

(5) You said you have been studying for only 15 days and have done quite a bit of studying and have already taken 2 practice exams. What is your daily study schedule like - how much are you trying to do in one study session (how many chapters, questions, etc)?

If you can provide some answers I can certainly give you much better feedback, but for now let me offer a few suggestions:

Verbal Prep:
Here is one place where I will actually refer to one of my own books (Manhattan GMAT - I don't normally try to plug the products, but they are that good)

- I would work with the Foundations of Verbal book (RC, CR and SC sections) and once you feel solid on the SC there, work with the Sentence Correction Strategy guide. For RC and CR these will help you better understand how to dig through dense passages/arguments and then give you the tools to develop your own strategy. You're more likely to stick to a strategy if you helped develop it! For SC, these texts will provide you with the essential grammar rules you MUST know to do well with SC, particularly if "American" Engligh is not your first language.

Verbal Review/Practice:
The secret to doing well on the GMAT verbal is actually a solid plan for review/practice. Try these tips to start improving today:

(a) Read EVERY DAY for RC - there are plenty of fantastic FREE online journals and magazines whose articles are the same level of difficulty as RC passages (scientificamerican.com, smithsonianmag.com, Harvard Mag, UChicago Magazine, and any top school's alumni magazine are great examples. You should read for 20 minutes a day, 6 days a week, and in 4 weeks you will see a HUGE difference in your ability to read and understand RC passages QUICKLY.

(b) Practice Idioms for SC - in the MGMAT SC book there is an entire chapter devoted to idioms. While the GMAT has said they will be putting less emphasis here, there will still be idioms on the test. So if you aren't a native speaker, take 1 new idiom every day and practice writing 5-10 easy sentences using the idiom correctly. Do this throughout the day: a couple in the morning, a couple more at lunch, try to use the idiom in a conversation, and then a few more in the evening. Do this every day and in 4 weeks you will have mastered close to 30 idioms. Do 2 a day and now you're up to 30 idioms (and it only took you 5-10 minutes of work spread out throughout the day).

(c) Review your Verbal Qs the Right Way - when you work a GMAT verbal question, NEVER simply go to the back and check the answer when you are done; if you do you are throwing away the best learning opportunity out there (you just need some self-control). Use the following steps to get the most out of your Verbal Review
- 1. Answer the question (set) using standard timing benchmarks (I suggest doing short sets of the same type of question (ie. 5 SC, 5 CR, or 1 RC passage with its attached questions). DO NOT CHECK THE ANSWERS
  
  2. Go back through each question and re-teach/re-justify your answers
  - - for SC say what you noticed in the original sentence and then explain why you eliminated each choice
    - for CR/RC go back over the argument/passage and re-tell yourself what it was talking about, what it meant and what was important (conclusion, premises, counterpoints, etc). Then make sure you understand what each question was asking you to do (re-word your mission), and finally go through every answer choice and justify why you eliminated it or why you chose it.
  3. NOW you can check your Answer, but ONLY THE LETTER (no explanations yet!!)
  - - if RIGHT: go to step 4.
    - if WRONG: go back to the question. Now that you know what the right answer was supposed to be, can you figure out why? what did you miss, did you misunderstand the passage/argument, the question or the choice itself, did you miss a grammar rule or make the wrong decision on a split, were you down to 2 choices and this was the one you decided against - why?? Can you newly justify the entire problem to get the correct answer. Once you have done so, you may NOW you can move to step 4.
  4. Finally compare your answer explanations with those in the book or on the website/forum/etc, and see how you did - were your explanations and grammar spot-on or sloppy, did you actually get it right, OR did you get it right by accident (wrong justification).
  
  5. Now sit down and think about what you've learned - see any bad habits emerge? find any specific question types that tend to trip you up, tempting wrong answer, confusing arguments/passages, weird grammar rules that you keep getting wrong, or grammar issues that you totally missed?
NOW you've learned what you really need to work on for Verbal, and more importantly you've learned an essential test-taking skill.

If you can read an answer explanation and understand it, that just means that you can understand that someone else knows how to solve the problem. You're just sitting passively by letting them do so and you're just lucky enough to understand well enough to watch. Is this what you'll be doing on test day?? I think not!

By pushing yourself to actually figure out what makes a problem right/wrong and only then using the explanations as a reinforcement or solidification of knowledge, now you're showing your brain that you know how to puzzle, problem solve and think analytically - the skills you absolutely MUST have to do well on the GMAT!

Quant Prep:
- The only thing to prep here is to make sure that you've had a thorough review of the content on the exam, you can scan through the material at the start of the OG, you can download Math Review from the GMAT Prep software, and there are TONS of books on the market that can give you a crash course review of the topics covered (in one book or in a set of books, however much focus you would like). It doesn't really help doing 100s of questions if you're just plain rusty and out of touch with the material. Launch a review FIRST (with practice drills and simple exercises) and THEN start applying it in focused GMAT questions.

Quant Review/Practice:

- Once you've finished your review, try building randomized sets of anywhere from 10-20 questions. Mix difficulty and type (DS/PS). Then set a timer for an average of 2 minutes each (so for 10 questions, set it to 20 minutes, 15 questions to 30 minutes, etc.) During the course of 1 week, work on 1 set every other day, and THOROUGHLY review the set immediately after or on the next day. Again, check the letter answer ONLY and if you were Right, see if you solved it correctly. If you were WRONG, back to the drawing board. Try to solve it again and see if you can figure it out. Try anything, just TRY to avoid looking at the explanation right away (it kills creativity and problem-solving skills faster than any other practice!!).

- Now review all of the sets you did over the course of the week and look for patterns in content errors (what types of problems keep killing you?). With this knowledge in hand, review all of the questions you did of that type in a set together (ie. look at all the Fraction problems together), and start to identify the mistakes you're making - sloppy work, didn't understand the wording, didn't know the concept or what strategy to apply.) Now use your strategy guide, math review books and the internet to fill in holes. Work on basic drills if your math is sloppy or you're making careless errors. Work on short, concentrated sets (3-5 questions MAX), of problems within these content areas and review them COMPLETELY. Then after you've done this for a week, start the randomized sets again.

- If you need to find more sources for random sets (you get tired of building them yourself from the OG12/OG13 and the supplements, think about ordering a set of GMAT Focus packs (from www.mba.com), or take a practice CAT that week instead of 3 practice sets (then do a COMPLETE review of the CAT - will probably end up taking you several days to review and analyze.

If you do all of this, systematically solving and then reviewing completely...you WILL see a CONSISTENT improvement in your score. Just working lots of problems with no direction is definitely the reason why you haven't seen consistent results (that and the fact that it has only been 2 weeks and you're likely over-studying given the work you said you've been doing). Doing too much is WORSE than doing too little - you'll over-tax your brain and then when it comes time for it to compute quickly, it will lock up and shut down on you!!

Good luck and let me know if you have any other questions!!