I just Beat The GMAT!

received a pm.

my first comment here is that you've already achieved an impressive improvement -- 16 points on your verbal score! -- yet that doesn't register in your writing at all. in other words, this sort of improvement is the kind of thing that should, at least a little bit, decrease your stress level and add to your confidence.
hopefully that has happened and you just didn't bother to write about it.

in terms of stress, one suggestion that i've given many students is to set a goal score that is NOT the round number 700.
round numbers tend to create extreme stress for people. for instance, consider the following thought experiment:
* let's say that your goal is to make $100,000 per year, and that you are currently earning $95,000 per year. how would you feel?
* now let's say that your goal is to make $95,000 per year, and that you are currently earning $90,000 per year. how would you feel?
for the vast majority of people -- weirdly enough -- the first of these two situations creates a feeling of failure and underachievement, while the second creates a feeling of "wow i'm almost there".
the same thing usually tends to happen with a goal score of 700 on the gmat; like other round numbers, that goal score tends to create a constant feeling of failure/underachievement.
even something simple like setting a goal score of 690 can do wonders for your overall attitude.

spb wrote:I attempted the GMAT for the 2nd time a few days back. Scored mere 610 : 39(Q) 35(V). Although the score is below average, it is far better than what i had scored first time around i.e. 460 : 36 (Q) 19 (V).

"below average"? which average?

I am a non native speaker, so English is not really my forte. I have an engineering background and so I feel fairly comfortable with Maths. But the poor score in the Quant section intrigues me.

where are you having most of your difficulties in the math section?

here's an important fact that i don't think very many people on here have stated:
IF YOU MISS SIGNIFICANTLY MORE DS THAN PS, THEN MATH IS NOT THE ISSUE.
instead, if you have this discrepancy, then your problem is one of strategy: basically, you haven't really taken the time to fully internalize the functionality and strategy of DS problems. as a result, you are almost certainly not missing these DS problems because of the math itself -- you are probably missing them because of other things, such as not really understanding the format of DS, not trying to find the correct quantity, etc.
for more on this issue, please watch the first part of the APRIL 14, 2011, recording at the following link:
https://www.manhattangmat.com/thursdays-with-ron.cfm

if you miss significantly more PS than DS, on the other hand, then the math itself is more likely to be the issue.

(2) I also had NEVER included AWA in the practice tests earlier. As a result, On the D day, verbal section was literally unintelligible to me.

bad move.

your only goal with the essays is to make them routine and effortless -- a goal that you can only achieve by actually doing the essay each time you take a practice test.

During my 1st attempt, I had tried to cram every possible rule given in the Manhattan SC guide. As a matter of fact, I must have gone through that book at least 6 times.

ya, that sort of approach doesn't work.

this is one practically universal weakness of printed reference books -- because they are printed books, they can't really emphasize or deemphasize particular information. as a result, many people approach SC with the (completely mistaken) idea that every single thing in the SC guide is of equal importance.

This time around, I decided not to lay equal emphasis on each and every rule but rather look out for the meaning first, then parallelism issues, then S-V agreement and so on. Solved a bunch of questions timed. What I also did was read the explanation of each SC question, whether I got it right or wrong. I did see an improvement in my Verbal score on the practice tests. My score ranged from 28 to 32. Never had I touched 35 in any of the practice tests but I did so in the 2nd attempt.

so that's working for you, then. rather splendidly, it seems.

I must add that I feel pretty confident with the basics as well as the concepts tested on the GMAT except for certain areas such as probability, work rate, time distance and the weird sets/grids problems. I should also confess that I still have timing issues as things don't click for me at the spur of the moment although I am able to crack the very same problem untimed.

you're doing problems untimed?
why are you doing problems untimed?

DO NOT, EVER, UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCES, WORK GMAT-STYLE PROBLEMS UNTIMED!

if you do so, then you are *actively training yourself* to solve these problems in an unlimited amount of time. therefore, the fact that "things don't click for you at the spur of the moment" is at least partially a RESULT of the fact that you are doing problems untimed -- i.e., things aren't clicking quickly because you are giving them permission NOT to click quickly.

YOU MUST PRACTICE WITH NORMAL TIMING RESTRICTIONS AT ALL TIMES.

I don't know where I am going wrong. My Quant score is still the same as the one I got last year in the Diagnostic test. I don't expect a 50 or 51, but I am sure that I can get atleast 45.

see my question above re: DS vs PS.

also, watch the FEBRUARY 4, 2010, video at the same link posted above -- if you truly take the time to master the "backup methods" given in that lecture, then those methods will probably be enough to bridge the gap between where you are now and where you want to be in quant.

Also, What else should i do, or continue doing in order to improve my verbal score ?

you have already improved your verbal score by 16 points, so you should probably continue doing some version of what you are doing now. don't mess with success, and all that.

spb wrote:Hey Ron,
I can't thank you enough ! You have no idea how helpful your posts (Opinions/suggestions/explanations) have been. I owe the 16 point jump to you. I am certainly more confident today dealing with the GMAT verbal section than i have been ever before.

great to hear.
good luck from this point onward.

krishp84 wrote:Ron - I must say whenever I read the way you tackle and answer questions on GMAT psychology, I remember Sigmond Freud's articles.....

yikes, you are comparing me to a guy who basically just wrote down whatever thoughts he had about psychology after taking tons of drugs. |: (seriously, that's basically what freud did.)

I guess you will write a book on psychometric tests one day and that will be a best-seller !!!

i do like these tests ... a lot. i think they're fun. (the fun is not so much in *taking* them -- although i enjoy that, too -- as in seeing how they are designed.)