GMAT Strategy

OK well let me tell you what I did different to go from V 23 on my first GMAT to V 40 on my second. Keep in mind I think I could've done a lot better too, I had 15 mins for last 2 questions so kinda fucked up on my time management.


This time I realized that people are simply lazy and . Period. Everyone loves practicing SC and sometimes CR but NEVER RC. That's what I did different this time, I k!IIed myself doing CR and RC, I overdid it almost.

When you're doing RC and CR when you're practicing, go through and eliminate every wrong answer. Give a convincing story for why each is wrong. Do this instead of simply finding a good fit and moving on. On test day it will make things a lot easier.

For CR and RC I found that doing LSAT material really helps. RC on the LSAT are very, VERY long and full of info so you'll be relieved when you get back on the GMAT train.

OH BTW! when I did my verbal I had enough time to read every passage twice, why? because I had gotten used to insanely long LSAT passages.

For SC this is the area where I left for last in terms of training. This is how I see it: When I look at a SC, I don't compare it to what I read in MGMAT SC. That's a great book BUT I usually can remember another question that made a similar error. This comes through practice obviously.

What I'm saying for SC is don't try to put every question to the test. Here are some things to look out for...
which...(obviously you know which is the devil)
there are...(anything passive, don't rule it out but give it the evil eye)
compare words...(anything that puts 2+ things in comparison, make sure they're similar, parallel...)

VP_Jim wrote: spend your time studying rather than worrying!

lunarpower wrote:here are a few general suggestions and guidelines.

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* for certain CR problem types (most notably Find an Assumption and Draw a Conclusion), you must STICK TO THE CONTENT OF THE PASSAGE. (in contrast, for other problem types, such as 'strengthen the conclusion', you MUST go OUTSIDE of the passage for additional information.)
- this simple observation can be a powerful tool for process of elimination. to wit: imagine that a debate judge has handed you a list of the SPECIFICS that are treated in the passage, and will BUZZ you if you mention anything that doesn't show up on that list of specifics. the thing is: correct answers to 'find the assumption' and 'draw a conclusion' problems WON'T GET BUZZED in this situation, because they stick to the specific points actually contained in the passage. you'd be surprised how much mileage you can get from just eliminating the answer choices that get 'buzzed'.

* if your goal is to WEAKEN an argument, try to identify the ASSUMPTIONS behind the argument, and choose a choice that strikes down one of those assumptions. if all else fails, pick the choice that stays closest to the content of the passage itself (the more "links" you need to connect the answer choice to the passage, the less likely it is to be the correct answer).

* same thing for STRENGTHENING passages. if all else fails, try to pick the answer choice that's MOST DIRECTLY related to the passage - the more degrees of separation, the smaller the choice of being correct.
answer choices that need 2 or more "links" to connect logically to the passage WILL be wrong.

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finally, a word about the mentality that you have to take into reading and processing these passages:
if an argument connects ANY two specifics that aren't literally the same, then the argument requires an assumption that connects / relates those two specifics to one another.
for instance, if a premise talks about drivers who receive speeding tickets, and the conclusion deals with drivers who speed, then you need an assumption that says something about speeders actually receiving speeding tickets.

this is a difficult sort of thing to look for, because you really have to "turn off the common sense module" in your brain. in other words, you have to think like an autistic - if two things are not LITERALLY THE SAME, then you should consider them to be COMPLETELY DIFFERENT. in other words, "drivers who receive speeding tickets" and "drivers who speed" should look just as different to you as would "drivers who receive speeding tickets" and "drivers with red hair".

once you learn to think that way, you'll be on your way to a much better CR score.

good luck.

lunarpower wrote:more CR strategies pertaining to FIND THE ASSUMPTION and DRAW A CONCUSION problems:

* when you go through critical reasoning passages, you need to be able to sort out IRRELEVANT INFORMATION. there are 2 kinds:
- (a) parts of "conclusions" that really aren't conclusions at all. there's a simple way to tell whether this happens: if something isn't mentioned in the premises, then it can't possibly be part of the conclusion. in other words, the conclusion actually has to come FROM the premises, so anything not in the premises can't be part of the conclusion.
- (b) "bowling pins" or "setup statements": if a passage starts out by telling you some piece of information and then constructs an argument for the sole purpose of proving that statement wrong, then the initial statement (the "bowling pin") doesn't even count as part of the argument.

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when you're looking for an ASSUMPTION or trying to draw a CONCLUSION, remember that those things can NEVER, ever, be more general than the premises you start with. for instance, if a passage talks about weightlifting, you CANNOT have assumptions regarding "exercise" in general - because any other exercise is irrelevant to / out of the scope of the passage.

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remember that assumptions are things that MUST be true. because of this, there's another way that you can attack assumption problems, if necessary:
- REVERSE the assumption in the answer choice, and see if the argument FALLS APART. if it doesn't, then the assumption is not required.

--

on ALL critical reasoning questions, but especially on "find the assumption" and "draw a conclusion", you need to be able to do the following 2 things:
- (1) learn to treat all SPECIFICS as objective, judgment-free things. for instance, in problem #V63, "easily" (in choice c) should be treated as would any other mention of an irrelevant specific. in other words, just because "easily" is a common word that's thrown around a lot in conversation doesn't mean you can gloss over it in the answer choice. you should pay absolutely as much attention to it as you would to something like "decisions should be made in blue jeans".
- (2) learn to treat ANY SPECIFICS THAT ARE AT ALL DIFFERENT as COMPLETELY DIFFERENT. in other words, in CR land, there are only two possibilities: (a) two things are exactly the same, or (b) they are completely unrelated without evidence. in CR land, there is no such thing as "similar" or "like each other". so you should get to the point where 2 things such as "people who commit murder" and "people convicted of murder" sound COMPLETELY unrelated, just because they're not exactly the same.

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* if an argument contains a conditional (an "if-then" statement), then any statement for which the IF part is FALSE lies outside the scope of the passage. for instance, if i say "i like redheads", then that's "if she's a redhead, then i'll like her". therefore, any non-redheads are outside the scope of this argument.

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when you draw conclusions, your conclusions have to be PERFECTLY DEDUCTIVE. they CANNOT MAKE ANY ADDITIONAL ASSUMPTIONS, no matter how seemingly trivial.

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you're not allowed to have "vacuously true" statements as conclusions. for instance, in the port blockade problem (og#101), you can deduce from the passage that the blockade won't be successful. therefore, anything starting with "if the blockade is successful..." should be considered out of scope.

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when you draw conclusions, you MUST remember that your conclusions NEED TO STAY DEDUCTIVE. among other things, this means that you ABSOLUTELY CANNOT EXTRAPOLATE, even by a little bit.
- ex: there's one OG problem about fish catch and rainforests. in that problem, you have to limit yourself to ... fish catch and rainforests. you CANNOT generalize to "nature".

MarsellusW wrote:After a long struggle and a failed exam in November (680 - Q49/V33) today I finally beat the monster and am very happy about it.

First of all, thank you guys for everything. Had it not been for you and this fantastic forum, I would have never reached my dream score. If I ever get into B-School and finish it, you can say, this is because of you. I will not say it is not.

It’s a bit hard to describe the plethora of feelings that rushed me now that I have finally won over my long-time arch-enemy, the GMAT. I have envisaged many times this moment, but now actually living the reality of having an acceptable score is really something else. I know the battle is really over. There will be no more frustrated moments of finding out that what I though of as a 750 is 580 indeed and that my verbal score is once again under 35.

Since my feelings are not important to anyone but me and you – just like me once – read this forum to get ideas about this dreaded exam, which really is a wicked piece of work, that’s exactly what I’m gonna give to you.

I. First, some general things to consider (warning: some of these things will be highly unorthodox, but they helped me to achieve my score, if only one of them helps you, you already make my day):

1, Don’t let anxiety overcome you. This is my most important advice. Think about the GMAT as the hated relative who comes over to the Christmas Dinner and will surely make a scene. You know this will happen. And since it will happen, there is absolutely nothing you can do to avoid it. So embrace the idea of actually liking this stupid relative. Embrace the GMAT. Let it become the sluggish, unresponsive relative. You don’t like relatives like these, but they are relatives, anyway. You’ll know when to let go and to severe family ties, anyway .o).

2, Don’t think you can’t do it. You surely can. If I could, anyone can. My verbal score improved from 25 to 41 (including an 8 point increase during last month) and I don’t speak English better than before (I am not a native speaker) and have absolutely no more knowledge about English grammar. I know a lot more about the GMAT, though and this helps.

3, Don’t think about time as a barrier. 75 minutes are a lot of time and you can play my strategy. Hide time. Don’t let it boost your anxiety. Don’t calculate all the time how many minutes you have left per question, whether your statistics have become better over the course of the last 10 questions or not. You’re not there to make statistics, GMAC doesn’t give you any points for that, you are there to answer the questions. The time-hiding strategy applies naturally only if you can finish the test in time during you practice sessions. Then, there’s absolutely no use getting all jittery about time issues. You can concentrate on the questions better.

4, If you can afford it and like to travel, make the exam in a foreign city. Although everyone says it is better to stay home, for me, this really helped a lot. I am on vacation now and vacation is good. Oh, did I just finish the GMAT? Who cares? I am not home and this gives me a lot of extra energy. There’s a lot to explore out there and I don’t have to watch the familiar faces.

5, A little magic can’t hurt. My best friend’s mother is an astrologist and she provided me with times to leave home, arrive at the test center, etc. Does this sound like rubbish? It might be, but it provided me with one thing. A determination. A belief that what I do is right. Isn’t this a great feeling? It surely is and it alleviates anxiety. Do whatever you can to make this happen. You will wonder what makes all the other people at the test center so fricking nervous. Smile and know that you came to win.

6, Don’t overlearn. For my first exam I learned 2 weeks non-stop (2 complete tests/day), following the 2 months phase with 2 hours of daily learning,. I was so tired in the end that I hardly knew my name. This time, I did something else. I learned less, but my days and hours were more concentrated. It really helped.


7, Know your weaknesses. If you are great at Critical Reasoning, then don’t practice it as hard as you practice for example geometric Data Sufficiency questions. Don’t try to boost your score in areas where it’s high. Even though this sounds trivial, it isn’t. People – including me – happen to practice those tasks that they do well., Why? Because it gives them the dubious feeling of success. But this success is clearly faulty.

8, There are eggs and then there are eggs. No two problems are the same. They can be similar but they are not the same! Always read the whole question, the whole sentence and the whole paragraph. There might be a hidden “not” somewhere that reverses the whole meaning and then you’re trapped. That’s what the test writers expect. Fall short of their expectations! Don’t let them defy you!


II. Now, about the specific parts of the test:

The analytical writing can be intimidating at first, but believe me, it is not that bad! This is where you can say what you think. And it will be heard. Yes, you can start your sentences with “I” and you’re expected to do so. By the argument part be sure to damn all the assumptions of the writer. You are there to criticize it, after all. By the issue part, you should concentrate on telling your real opinion about the issue. Don’t try to be someone else. Remember: the schools you apply to get your little essays and even though no-one will read them thoroughly at GMAC, your literary work will be read by the admissions officers, so you might put some humor in it and be yourself. They might find out if you’re mimicking somebody else. You surely don’t want that, do you? Think about this as if you were writing a play or a little novel. Make up a story and defend it. Your essays will be convincing.

The math part didn’t give me a lot of headaches (I used to be a high school math teacher once), but then again there are some important things to consider, even if you’re good at math. Practice can’t hurt, but this time I didn’t practice math at all, yet reached 48. And I’m happy with it. I used Kaplan’s GMAT 800 for the math part. It had the hard questions I needed to have for my practice. I completed the Official Guide as well, but it was too easy for me. Only the last 20-30 problems were a bit harder than the rest.

1, Problem Solving: read everything twice. Or three times. Always know which parts are compared. Always take a look at the question another time. Is it dollars or cents? Cubic meters or cubic centimeters? Tons or kilograms? These are the easiest traps and many people fall for them. Don’t rush. Rushed answers are bad answers and you don’t want to lose 10 points because you did the calculations right but the answer is still bad, because you just calculated the incorrect thing. Nobody gives you points for your calculations. Sadly.

2, Data Sufficiency: it’s not as hard or bad as it seems to be. Remember, don’t solve the problems! Find out whether you can solve them or not. And remember, no is also an answer. A good answer! It is hard to train the mind to accept this and know that a good answer to a DS question can be a no, but it surely can.

The verbal part was the real monster for me. I am not a native speaker but English is like my second mother tongue. Against all these things it seemed nearly impossible to even get close to 40 points. I started from 25 in August and reached 33 in November with very hard work. Whatever I did, I failed and my mood started to sink. There was no motivation left when after each exam I learned that from the 41 questions I got 15-20 wrong. Then I started to apply new methods during the past four weeks and boy, did they wonders for me! Today, I reached 41 points and didn’t suffer a bit trough the exam.

1, Sentence Correction: for me, the hardest part was forgetting what I like and learn what is right. I like lengthy sentences and wordy constructions, we are polar opposites with GMAC. One strange tip for all of you out there: if you have to choose between two answer choices, always choose the shorter one. You’ll be right at about 75% of all cases. That’s better than the 50-50 you get by random choosing. SC is the easiest of the three tasks and with a lot of practice, you can master it relatively easy and it comes repetitive after a while. That’s good, because it doesn’t drain your brain on the real exam, you can get through the usual ones (modifiers, parallel constructions) in 15-20 seconds and earn valuable time. I used PowerScore’s SC Bible, it is a rather good book.
Another piece of good advice in SC format:
A, If it ain’t broken, don’t fix it!
B, If they are broken, don’t fix me!
C, If we aren’t broken, then they fix them!
D, Had they been fixed, we wouldn’t be broken!
E, Fix me, I’m broken. )))))

2, Critical Reasoning: CR was my nemesis for a long time. I simply never got it right and couldn’t find the logic behind all these stupid arguments. But then, the CR Bible helped me out. It is worth its weight in gold. In about 2 weeks everything fell into its place and since then GMAC really has to get a nasty assumption question to make me sweat. But even those can be mastered. The Official Guide is also very important at this point and I also ordered the extra Verbal Guide and did all the questions in that one, too.
Good advices for CR: scope, scope and scope. Don’t fall for what your mind is telling you! If the argument states that small green men have taken over the management of the plumbing in Manhattan and the mayor is nervous because their productivity is falling because of their frequent telespheric phone calls to Mars, you have to believe all this rubbish and think about it as true. If it is a weaken question, look for the answer that tells you that they can communicate without phones and you have just found the right answer. If the argument is stupid, you have to be stupid, too. Don’t try to be clever, it doesn’t pay off.

3, Reading Comprehension: RC is the part you can improve most. I have to admit that I hate most of GMAT topics (let’s be honest: who likes them?), but I learned to embrace them. If it was molecular biology, I let a little TV screen run in my mind with the National Geographic logo. If it was history, I always envisaged the leaders the passage was about. I always created pictures in my mind and these pictures helped me a lot. I tried to read the passages as if I was enjoying them. I became an RC pervert and this boosted my scores.
Inference and suggestion questions: don’t infer and don’t suggest anything! This is really important. Be narrow-minded, behave like the colleagues you hate most because they are so stupid that it hurts. Your investment will be rewarded with precious GMAT points.

III. Other things:

Learning material:
Official Guide 11th Edition
Official Verbal Workout 11th Edition
PowerScore Critical Reasoning Bible
PowerScore Sentence Correction Bible
Manhattan GMAT Reading Comprehension Guide
Kaplan GMAT 800
Princeton Review’s GMAT2009

My practice exams:
690 (Q49/V35) – GMAT practice CD test #1
640 (Q47/V31) – MGMAT practice #1
680 (Q47/V35) – MGMAT practice #2
640 (Q48/V31) – MGMAT practice #3
710 (Q49/V38) – MGMAT practice #4
760 (Q50/V41) – GMAT practice CD test #2 – this really helped, this was the day before yesterday and it gave me a lot of self confidence

MGMAT practice tests are really great, but the math part is remarkably harder than the official one, nevertheless they are the best practice material available on the market.

The real exam:
720 (Q48/V41)

This is the end of my debrief. For all those out there, with GMAT still to complete, know that you can succeed and you can do it. GMAC might be clever but people working together, like on this forum, are cleverer.

Good luck everyone,
Marcell

Stacey Koprince wrote:Here are some additional things you can do (I did post this in answer to another question recently, but I can't find that thread anymore, so I'll copy it again here!).

RC Passage:

What is the main point or purpose of the entire passage (most commonly found in the first couple of sentences or the last couple of sentences of the whole thing)?

What is the purpose / main idea of each individual paragraph?

What kind of info is contained in the various paragraphs?
- background info / context
- support for the main point / purpose (this is generally the largest category of info)
- the actual main point / purpose
- follow-on discussion / expounding upon the main point / purpose

Is there any foreshadowing that gives you an idea of what's coming?

RC Questions:

Is it a general question or a specific one?

If general, what type?
- main idea
- passage structure
- tone

If specific, what type?
- specific detail, what
- specific detail, why
- inference
(those three are the main types, though there are other minor types)

Do you know how to handle each of those types? Do you know what they want? (This is different for each type.)

RC Wrong Answers:

Why are the wrong answers wrong, especially the tempting wrong ones? What kinds of commonalities can you notice after you've thought about a bunch of these? Here are some I've found:

RWP: Real World Plausible. The info sounds good in the real world, but I'm supposed to limit myself only to what the passage tells me.

DC: The info is directly contradicted by the passage

The Mix-Up: Two different pieces of info from the passage have been mashed together in a way that is not what the passage actually says - it just looks good b/c the two different pieces are discussed (separately) in the passage

Extreme: extreme words -- always, never -- typically indicate wrong answers (on RC - this is not as certain on CR)

TBNR: True But Not Right. This info is actually presented just as stated in the passage... but it doesn't answer the question that was just asked.

And, of course, the biggest category of all: Out of Scope. (RWP is a subset of OOS.) The info goes beyond what the passage actually says and we can't do that.

Stacey Koprince wrote:I received a PM asking me to reply.

First, read what I wrote here and see if it helps:
https://www.beatthegmat.com/verbal-strategy-t14035.html

To address your case a bit more specifically: you absolutely need to jot down some (short) notes, but don't wait until you are done with a paragraph to summarize that paragraph. Summarize after you've read the first sentence (or, in some cases, the first and second). The opening sentence or two is called a topic sentence - most of the time, it tells you what that paragraph is about.

Note that you won't yet have read all of the detail of that paragraph, so how will you summarize that? You won't. You should not write down (or even try to summarize) all of the detail. Rather, you should note something like:

P2 (meaning paragraph 2): pest & fert bad for b-flies (pesticides and fertilizers are bad for butterflies)

The rest of the paragraph may be about specific chemicals and what they do at a physical or genetic level to butterflies - lots of detailed, scientific stuff. You don't care about that on your first read-through. What you care about is that, if you do get a question about the harm being done to butterflies, you know now to go to P2 and start concentrating on that detail.

If you can answer any specific detail questions (anything beyond the main idea, tone, that sort of thing) without looking back at the passage, then you are spending too much time and (if applicable) writing too much down on your first read-through.

Go back to some old passages you've already done and go through them more carefully. Try to produce an outline of the passage - one that includes any main ideas and topic sentences but does NOT include any specific details or examples. Take all the time you need and actually study what you're doing and how you're doing it. How do you know that you should include this info and not that info? How do you know where to find "high level" info? (Typically at the beginnings of paragraphs. Occasionally after "change of direction" words, such as "however," "yet," etc.)

Once you get the process down (taking all the time you need), start to practice doing this at a higher speed. If you've done the prep work correctly, you'll find it's not too hard to speed up because you've learned how to strip out the details and ignore them, for the most part, on your first read-through.

lunarpower wrote:here's my two cents.

when you read longer passages especially, here's a good guideline for reading them in the optimal way:

read the passages as though your only job is to make an ABSTRACT and a TABLE OF CONTENTS for each passage.

ABSTRACT: be able to give a very general idea of the content of the passage, and, more importantly, the PURPOSE of the passage. what is the point of the whole thing? WHY was the passage written?

TABLE OF CONTENTS: that's right, a table of contents. you should read as though you're just going to make a table of contents, with a heading for each paragraph (and possibly sub-headings, if you see any obviously important sub-sections or sub-points).
the main point of the "table of contents" analogy is that you can feel free to skip portions of paragraphs once you have established the main point and purpose of that paragraph.
for instance, let's say you're reading a long passage about science, and you encounter a paragraph that starts to give you a long, detailed rundown of a certain scientific procedure. the point is that you don't have to read the whole thing; as soon as you realize they'le describing the way the procedure works, you just write "paragraph 2: PROCEDURE" in your table-of-contents notes, and move on.

once you've done this, you can use your notes as a literal table of contents, which you can then use to look up the appropriate parts of the passage in which to find material for the detail-oriented questions.

good luck.

lunarpower wrote:* on Find an Assumption problems, you must STICK TO THE CONTENT OF THE PASSAGE. (by contrast, for other problem types, such as 'strengthen the conclusion', you MUST go OUTSIDE of the passage for additional information.)
- this simple observation can be a powerful tool for process of elimination. to wit: imagine that a debate judge has handed you a list of the SPECIFICS that are treated in the passage, and will "buzz" you if you mention anything that doesn't show up on that list of specifics.
here's the key: correct answers to 'find the assumption' problems WON'T GET BUZZED in this situation, because they stick to the specific points actually contained in the passage. you'd be surprised how much mileage you can get from just eliminating the answer choices that get 'buzzed'.
in short:
"find the assumption" problems don't contain any concepts that aren't in the original passage, and don't make any distinctions that aren't made in the original passage.

when you go through critical reasoning passages, but especially for Find the Assumption problems, you need to be able to sort out IRRELEVANT INFORMATION. there are 2 kinds of irrelevant information:
- (a) parts of "conclusions" that really aren't conclusions at all. there's a simple way to tell whether this happens: if something isn't mentioned in the premises, then it can't possibly be part of the conclusion. in other words, the conclusion actually has to come FROM the premises, so anything not in the premises can't be part of the conclusion. for an example, see problem #7 in the OG purple verbal supplement. the part about "physical disease" isn't part of the actual conclusion, since NOTHING in the passage actually deals with physical disease.
- (b) "bowling pins" or "setup statements": if a passage starts out by telling you some piece of information and then constructs an argument for the sole purpose of proving that statement wrong, then the initial statement (the "bowling pin") doesn't even count as part of the argument.
if you detect irrelevant information, ignore it completely. in other words, solve the problem as though those words literally weren't there.

--

when you're looking for an ASSUMPTION or trying to draw a CONCLUSION, remember that those things can NEVER, ever, be more general than the premises you start with. for instance, if a passage talks about weightlifting, you CANNOT have assumptions regarding "exercise" in general - because any other exercise is irrelevant to / out of the scope of the passage.

--

remember that assumptions are things that MUST be true. because of this, there's another way that you can attack assumption problems, if necessary:
- REVERSE the assumption in the answer choice, and see if the argument FALLS APART. if it doesn't, then the assumption is not required.

--

on ALL critical reasoning questions, but especially on "find the assumption" and "draw a conclusion", you need to be able to do the following 2 things:
- (1) learn to treat all SPECIFICS as objective, judgment-free things. for instance, in problem #V63, "easily" (in choice c) should be treated as would any other mention of an irrelevant specific. in other words, just because "easily" is a common word that's thrown around a lot in conversation doesn't mean you can gloss over it in the answer choice. you should pay absolutely as much attention to it as you would to something like "decisions should be made in blue jeans".
- (2) learn to treat ANY SPECIFICS THAT ARE AT ALL DIFFERENT as COMPLETELY DIFFERENT. in other words, in CR land, there are only two possibilities: (a) two things are exactly the same, or (b) they are completely unrelated without evidence. in CR land, there is no such thing as "similar" or "like each other". so you should get to the point where 2 things such as "people who commit murder" and "people convicted of murder" sound COMPLETELY unrelated, just because they're not exactly the same.

--

lunarpower wrote:* if your goal is to WEAKEN an argument, try to identify the ASSUMPTIONS behind the argument, and choose a choice that strikes down one of those assumptions. if all else fails, pick the choice that stays closest to the content of the passage itself (the more "links" you need to connect the answer choice to the passage, the less likely it is to be the correct answer).

- you can also solve "weaken" problems by reverse engineering. here's how:
(1) take the statement that's supposed to weaken the passage
(2) figure out what assumption would be struck down by that statement (i.e., "town X is bigger than town Y" would strike down an assumption that the towns are of equal size)
(3) ask yourself whether that assumption is necessary to the passage.
if the answer is "yes, the assumption is necessary", then the statement weakens the argument. if the answer is no, then the statement doesn't weaken the argument.

- if all else fails, try to pick the answer choice that's MOST DIRECTLY RELATED to the passage - the more degrees of separation, the smaller the choice of being correct.
answer choices that need 2 or more "links" to connect logically to the passage WILL be wrong.