buoyant wrote:Is it advisable to take first CAT without IR & AWA? I feel I have stamina issue. So,I couldn't finish the verbal section in first mock. What would be your advice to pace oneself in a month? I also take more time for CR qns & Inference qns in Rcs. What was ur strategy for RC & Cr sections?
Dear Buoyant, good questions. I advice you to give all your CATs with AWA and IR. There are two advantages to this approach; firstly you dont need to allocate dedicated time to AWA and IR. IR can be daunting in the beginning but it is essential to score a respectable score, which comes with practice.
First and for-most, you should be aware about your average time to solve each verbal question time. As you may be aware that you need to solve 41 verbal questions in 75 minutes, approx. 1 min 45 sec for each question. In my case, I knew that I needed 2 minutes to solve CR questions and hence made up the lost time in SC section. SC section can be mechanical and with good practice, you can even master the best practices. Also I was not afraid to guess a question to make up for the lost time. I generally guessed 2 CR or RC inference questions per verbal section. This allowed me to stay calm during the verbal section and completely focus on the remaining questions. You don't need to solve each question correct in order to score 40 in verbal.
I developed a one minute strategy coutesy Manhattan. Do read this
excellent post by Manhattan. If I was not able to solve RC inference question within 1 min 20 sec, I forced myself to move on. No point reading the entire passage again.
In summary, know your strengthens and weakness with regards to each specific question type in the verbal section and device strategy for each when faced in real exam.
abhinayar wrote:Hi Piyush, Congratulations!! Hard work pays!
I scored 550 on mock too! I have been preparing for GMAT 4 months now and still not feeling confident mainly in verbal and I keep forgetting the Quant concepts and requires thorough revision bfr every test.
First mock Q30/V21
platinum mock test : Q41/V30
Materials studied so far:
Manhattan set of 8 strategy guides - 4th edition
OG13 practice questions
Beat the gmat and GMAT club forums qns
Please suggest me should I go through the 5th edition of MGMAT? Are they different?
Dear Abhinayar, I have not gone through the 4 edition so I really cant comment about the differences between the two editions. Looking at your mocks score, I believe you should really work on your basics and find out weakness in your concepts. With regards to maths concepts, they really come with practice. I would advice, if appropriate, follow a structured program with regards to your prep. Good luck
sachinsonu wrote:Congrats !! for the good score..can you please share your strategy for CR Assumption Questions and Evaluate the argument questions. Most of the time I get these two questions wrong.
Dear Sachin, I was bombarded with these question on my actual GMAT, they were just not stopping. Both these questions demand a strong hold of the argument and limited imagination. They require you to be disciplined in your approach to read answer choices, and an advance test taker will be able to spot pitfalls.
I learnt to tackle both these questions through the Powerscore CR bible, which categorized both these questions in the same category of
Must be true questions. In order words, the book demanded us to apply the following
1. Fact test: The correct answer must be absolutely and absolutely be true in all conditions
2. These answers must must be true. Can or maybe is true is not sufficient
3. Use denial test for difficult inference questions.
I also saw inference questions as strengthening question but with no extra assumptions. If we flip the preceding statement, when applying the denial test, the correct answer when negated should necessary weaken the argument. Also I solved LSAT CR questions which had a number of challenging CR inference and evaluate questions.
I was prepared to take a just a little more than 2 minutes to each of such question if required as I made up in SC or guessed a couple of questions in the middle of my verbal section. Good luck for your prep.
