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Test Day : September 24th. I need some advice

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Test Day : September 24th. I need some advice

by emrahercan » Sun Aug 31, 2008 12:31 am
I completed my Manhatttan Online Course recently and followed the whole program. I completed the OG 11 questions and reviewed all my questions and revisited them couple of times. I have just started to work on the Verbal and Quant review books. Last week I took my first Gmat Prep and scored 700 ( Q:51, V:35)

My hit rates for both PS and DS are 95+ % and I usually solve the quant questions around 90 seconds.

My hit rates for the verbal section are as below:

RC

General 83%
Main Idea 81%

Structure 100%

Tone 4 67%

Specific 71%
Detail 75%

Inference 67%

CR


Assumption 81%
Draw Conclusion 74%
Strengthen 82%
Weaken 93%
Analyze Structure 100%
Explain Event 92%
Make Inference 100%
Evaluate Conclusion 100%
Resolve Problem 75%
Provide Example 50%
Restate Conclusion 100%
Mimic Argument 100%


SC

3 C's 100%
Sub/Verb Agreement 95%
Verbs 83%
Pronouns 71%
Modifiers 85%
Parallelism 81%
Comparisons 79%
Idioms 69%
Odds & Ends 75%


So my major weaknesses are:

RC Inference questions and RC Idioms. I am working on my pacing and I got Quant under control but RC takes forever for me.

I am comfortable with CR after reading the CR bible and working on OG problems and my timing is around 105 seconds.

My SC skills are getting better. After completing the Manhattan SC guide and reading all of the OG explanations and taking notes + flash cards, I am more confident in this section but still my hit rate is not above 90 %. I need to study more idioms.

I also practice with old paper tests and they have pretty good questions. I am done with the quant questions in Kaplan 800 and found them useful. I will continue with the verbal part of it.

I will take Manhattan # 3, 4, 5 and 6 tests and also will take GMAT Prep two rounds.

What would you recommend ? Should I just practice GMAT Prep or practice Manhattan GMAT as well ?

What do you guys think about GmatClub tests ?

I will post a very comprehensive GMAT after my test.

Thanks!
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by emrahercan » Mon Sep 01, 2008 9:28 pm
Nobody loves me! :cry:

:D
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by VP_Jim » Tue Sep 02, 2008 11:22 am
I have found that higher-scoring (e.g., 600s) students who finish with tons of time left are often really good at easy and medium questions but not so good at hard questions. Such students breeze through the easy and medium questions, but then fly through the hard questions, too, and get them wrong. A big reason people go quickly on hard questions is because they are "missing something" and think the question is easier than it really is.

So, what am I getting at? Practice doing harder problems and spotting those pieces that average test-takers miss.

And looking at the clock is good advice, too. :)
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by emrahercan » Tue Sep 02, 2008 1:38 pm
Thanks Jim. I will do that.

What do you think taking the last practice exam couple of days before the test day. Let's say..2 days before..
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by VP_Jim » Tue Sep 02, 2008 1:44 pm
I usually recommend that students take the final practice exam 3 days or so before the test, just as a final run-through to get your pacing down and to see if there's any last minute weaknesses you should check out. Don't forget to do the essays when doing practice exams to simulate the actual test.

After you've taken and analyzed that final practice exam, take a day or two away from studying to let your brain rest, confident in the knowledge that you've done your best.
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by emrahercan » Wed Sep 03, 2008 6:18 pm
Thanks Jim. so I am done with all the OG quant problems and I have no problem with them. ( 98 % hit rate - 1:15 min average ) I am only going to review my quant answers in my CAT tests from now on.

My strategy for the verbal is:

Buy time from SC and use it in RC. I am still spending around 1.5-2 minutes on CR.

For my verbal pacing, I am using the method I came across here:

5 67 min
10 58 min
15 49 min
20 40 min
25 31 min
30 22 min
35 13 min
40 4 min

I am planning to spend enough time to get the first 2 RC passages out of my way. I will always look at my pacing using the numbers above and try to get most of the SC and CR correct especially in the first half of the test.

3rd passage is usually the longest one and most probably the one that is not going to be tested ( I will gamble a little bit and try to read the passage under 3 minutes and answer the questions around 45 seconds )

Depending on when I will get the 4th passage, I will either apply this technique again or skim through by educating guessing and get the CR and SC correct before the test is over!!

WOW!! :D

How does this plan sound to you jim ?
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by VP_Jim » Wed Sep 03, 2008 8:04 pm
I'm not sure how you can tell that the 3rd passage will be the longest and the one most likely to be experimental - but I agree that your pacing strategy looks good.

In particular, I like that you plan to skim over the 4th passage if need be. I recommend this to lots of students who struggle to finish the verbal section. Leave yourself enough time to take good guesses (e.g, if you get a question that asks for the author's tone, make sure you at least can tell if it's positive or negative), but beyond that it's a great idea to go quickly through that last passage if you find that you are running out of time.

Nice job on the quant hit rate - 98% is about as good as one can expect!
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