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Need help with SC

by LoveTheGMAT » Tue May 11, 2010 5:14 pm
Hello everyone,
My GMAT is on 21st May. So, I only have 10 days left to study. I have been studying for a while using Manhattan's guides which are amazing. I wrote 4 CATs and these are my results:
1. 460 (Much lower than what I was expecting). in January
2. 640 (About what I expected). April
3. 560 (Dipped down again). May 3rd
4. 640 . May 8th

My biggest weakness is SC. I have Manhattan's SC guide and did go over chapters 1-8 two-three times, made notes and did the problems from the guide. When I am looking for a certain error, I can find it. So if I'm doing Chapter 8 (Comparisons), I can find the error. But when I don't know which error to look for, I get it wrong. Overall in 4 CATs, my SC accuracy is just 47% and its been around that in all the CATs.

When I wrote GMAT Prep 2 two nights, I only got a 580 (Q42, V28). My quant is okay. But I really need to improve on SC. I am good at CR and RC is decent. I need to get 600-620 on GMAT for the schools I am aiming for. Do you think its possible? I really hope so! I found Verbal of GMATPrep much different than Manhattan's, I'll be spending next 10 days getting used to OG Verbal material.

I am hoping to review more math (I bought Manhattan's OG Companion two nights ago so that will give me some help too).
My plan is to review math and maybe get up to Q44 (I hit that in Manhattan CATs twice when I got 640). So I am not too worried about Quant.

I need help with SC. What do you think I can do to improve? Also, in Manhattan CATs I saw SC was 14 questions each time (which is 1/3 of Verbal and I thought that is how it is), but in GMATPrep 1 and 2, I got 17 SC questions - which also brings me down. CR were only 11 instead of 14. I am good at CR, so I would have done well if I had 3 more of those than SC.

On the Real GMAT, are there 14 SCs or 17?

I need 600-620 for the programs I am applying to. I have got 640 on Manhattan's CATs, so I thought I was doing well.
Unfortunately, I am unable to postpone my exam - have done that twice already!

I think reviewing Quant and CR can bring me up to 600, but I want to improve my SC so I can hit 600+ for sure!

When I wrote GMATPrep 2, my last 6 Quant questions were wrong, even though I had full 12 mins left when I reached the last 6 questions. I also noticed whenever I got a questions wrong, they were in pairs of 2. Is that common?

I wrote ALL my CATs under strict time conditions. (Full essays, 6 mins of breaks since it takes time to sign in and out).

I also wrote several Kaplan CATs and my scores were: 570, 600, 600, 590, 600. I wrote these under strict time conditions as well. But I am not sure how Kaplan CATs are, most people say the scoring is messed up.

Also, I have all the time in the world for next 10 days. I just graduated and have been used to studying 6-8 hours/day. So, I can probably give in good 60 hours in next 10 days. My plan of splitting these 60 hours is:
Quant: 15
CR: 10
CATs: 3 tests totaling to 20 hours including reviewing them
SC: 15 hours. Can I improve in 15 hours? SC is driving me nuts right now!

Also, English is not my native language, though I have been in English school and recently graduated from English University. Like I said, when I am LOOKING for a specific error, I find it. When its all mixed up, I have no idea!

I would really appreciate all everyone's help! Thanks for reading
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by Osirus@VeritasPrep » Wed May 12, 2010 5:19 am
There are roughly 14 SC questions on the GMAT.

In regard to improving SC, one thing that has helped me is to memorize the key words and then look for errors that relate to those topics. For example, memorize all of the parallel markers in the Manhattan GMAT SC Guide, and whenever you see one, immediately check for parallelism. Memorize the comparison markers and whenever you see one immediately check for comparison issues. That has really helped me improve my SC accuracy. At first I was in the same boat as you and I thought maybe if I got additional materials I will finally get it, but I am realizing that everything you need to know for the SC section is in that Manhattan Guide. The thing that you have to improve upon is recognizing those markers. Good luck.
https://www.beatthegmat.com/the-retake-o ... 51414.html

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by Stacey Koprince » Fri May 14, 2010 8:05 am
Received a PM asking me to respond.

Can you give us some more detail about your practice tests? What were your subscores (quant and verbal)? When your score dropped from a 640 on one test to a 580 on the next, did both subscores go down? Or was it mostly only one? If so, which one?

Your goal is 600 to 620, and you also took your practice tests under full official conditions, so you are in the general range that you want to score - that's good.

Oh - the # of SCs varies on the real test. There isn't one number that is the same for everyone.

DO NOT take a bunch of CATs in 10 days. Take ONE, about 5 to 7 days before. CAT exams are really good for (a) figuring out where you're scoring right now, (b) practicing stamina, and (c) analyzing your strengths and weaknesses. The actual act of just taking the exam is NOT so useful for improving. It's what you do with the test results / between tests that helps you to improve. DO NOT take a CAT within 3 days of the real test.

The closer you get to the test, the more you should be reviewing stuff you already know and the less you should be trying to learn new stuff. The 2-3 days before the real test should be 100% review and nothing new. You know it or you don't at that point.

For SC, if I were to show you a particular difference in answer choices but NOT show you the full problem (or even the full answer choices), would you be able to tell me which rule is probably being tested? You can probably do this for some things right now (eg, "has" and "have" would be a pretty straightforward split), but from what you said, I'm guessing you're not good enough at this yet. The splits, or differences in the choices, are the major clues that (should immediately) tell us what rules we need to think about / apply for that choice. That will help with both your speed and your accuracy.

So try this: take a file or notebook and make two columns. On the left-hand side, write down the name of a particular grammar error (eg, subj-verb agreement). On the right-hand side, write down what the splits tend to look like for that type of error (eg, nouns that sometimes include "s" and sometimes don't; verbs that sometimes include "s" and sometimes don't). Go through problems you've already done recently to create this list.

Start this right away - today. It's good news that you know how to do what you need to do when you do know what's being tested. Now, you need to teach yourself how to figure out what's being tested when they don't tell you. You've got about 7 days left, which is not a ton of time, but you can still make some good progress in that time.
When I wrote GMATPrep 2, my last 6 Quant questions were wrong, even though I had full 12 mins left when I reached the last 6 questions
Go back and figure out WHY you got every one of those wrong. Did you make more careless mistakes than usual in that timeframe? Maybe you were extra nervous because you were worried you were going to run out of time, even though you officially had enough time? Perhaps you're the kind of test-taker who needs a couple of minutes left over at the end as a "buffer," just so you definitely know the clock isn't going to run out on you. If so, practice doing that on your last practice test.

It's fine to have 2 in a row wrong (that does happen a lot, yes), but it's going to hurt your score a lot to have 6 in a row wrong.

Finally, just to reiterate, you are within range of your goal score, so I do think that you have a shot! Make sure to stick to your gameplan on test day. Make sure your pacing is good (not too fast and not too slow). And remember that you are going to have to give up on some problems - we all have to do that, no matter how good we get. Don't waste 3 or 4 minutes on a problem before you guess; get it wrong faster! :)

Good luck!
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by LoveTheGMAT » Fri May 14, 2010 8:54 am
Thanks osirus0830 and Stacey! I really appreciate your help.

These my results with the splits:
Manhattan 1: 460 (Q29 V25)
Manhattan 2: 640 (Q44 V33)
Manhattan 3: 560 (Q39 V29) - both down
Manhattan 4: 640 (Q44 V33) - same as #2
GMAT Prep 2: 580 (Q42 V27) - I found Verbal was different than Manhattan's. Quant I thought I was easier than Manhattan's but the last 6 probably dented my score

For Quant, I'm mainly reviewing now - using Manhattan's OGC to understand some tough OG problems in better ways which is helping.

Will I get more SC if I am at a lower level in Verbal?

Thanks again!
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by Stacey Koprince » Fri May 14, 2010 9:02 am
As far as I can tell, the number of SC you get is not tied to your score / performance. (Though they don't actually tell us this info.)

So your verbal dropped a bit more than your quant between MGMAT4 and GPREP2. Go back and try to figure out why, if you can. (This article can help a bit, though GPREP unfortunately doesn't give us much data to work with: https://www.beatthegmat.com/a/2009/10/26 ... went-wrong)

Note: your score didn't drop THAT much - that article is not appropriate for the change in quant that you saw. But the verbal drop was fairly substantial.

As you noted, the look and feel of the language is more important on the verbal side of things, and differences in test writers can be more noticeable. It's a good idea, as you said a couple of posts ago, to concentrate on OG sources for verbal at this point.

Try the SC exercise that I discussed, and also try to figure out more precisely WHAT felt different to you in terms of the GPREP verbal language vs. the MGMAT verbal language. That will give you an idea of what you need to study further in OG.
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