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What to do second time around ?

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What to do second time around ?

by surajsagi » Mon Oct 06, 2008 10:55 pm
Hi All,

I gave my GMAT few weeks back and got a 650 (49, 30v), since i am not satisfied with the score i plan to retake the exam in first week of Dec.

What went wrong for me
- Weak in verbal (i used to get 32-36 during my practise sessions)
- Mismanaged my time (Happened with me for the first time). Had 20 questions in pipeline with only 30 min in pocket. Hence, i paniced and started solving questions at a very fast pace (I think i went wrong here). Now that i look back, i probably should i spend 2 min per question on 12-15 questions and marked the remaining on feel good factor

Areas of concern - Verbal
- CR - Going thru Powerscore right now, seems to be useful. Will come to know the full impact once i am done with the book. Rest i only plan to solve question. It used to be strength area, but i faced lot of problem during the exam (I think it was a major time eater for me)
- RC - I use the MGMAT appraoch and saw improvement in the score, so will continue doing it
- SC - My biggest area of concern. Plan to change my appraoch rather find an approach - spend more time on analysis and less time on solving the question. Plan to redo OG 10, 11, Kaplan and read MGMAT SC book again. I also plan to skim through Wren & Martin (Not sure what is the best way to study it - any comments)

Road Blocks
- Practise Material - I had covered OG 10 and 11 twice during my first attempt and now that i try to solve the questions again, i cant, coz i remember the answers
- SC Approach - I have clear RC (making notes) and CR (Conclusion method) approah in mind, therefore i have not faced significant problem with them. However, i DONT have any strategy for how to tackle SC question - what do i do when i read a question
- Eliminiate options one by one - based on 8 type of errors
- Look for basic errors i.e. subject verb, pronouns, idoms (suggested by a spanish IBanker on the forum) and rest is on feel good factor
- Any other approach ??

Guys pls pls help me on this

Thanks,
SM
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by beatthegmat » Tue Oct 07, 2008 10:16 am
Moved post to correct forum.
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by Toph@GMAT_REBOOT » Tue Oct 07, 2008 8:20 pm
I'd definitely suggest looking over both Spidey's and Sahlil's SC notes in the resource section.

Also, go through all the SC explanations in the OG books and make sure you understand WHY each wrong answer is wrong, in addition to why each right answer is not wrong.
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by Stacey Koprince » Fri Oct 10, 2008 6:49 am
Apologies to others who've already heard me say this many times: but you aren't done with OG just because you remember the answers to the questions. Effective study is NOT about just doing lots and lots of problems. Effective study is about analyzing the problems and there are no better problems to analyze than OG. If you don't yet like your score, then you're not done with OG.

For instance, for those problems in OG, whether you got them right or wrong, could you tell me (in no particular order):

- what clues in the problem tell you what type of problem it is
- what clues in the problem allow you to recognize the best method for solving (NOT allow you to figure the problem out from scratch, but to RECOGNIZE that you've seen something like this before, and remember that last time some particular approach worked so you're going to use the same approach again this time)
- what the traps are in the problem
- how to make an educated guess (ie, how to recognize and eliminate some wrong answers before guessing)
- how to solve the problem in the most efficient way (which is often not the first way you solved the problem)
- (for math) what shortcuts exist and how to recognize similar shortcuts in the future
- (for verbal) why the wrong answers are tempting, and why they are wrong (WHY - not just that they're tempting or that they're wrong)
- (for verbal) why it's tempting to cross off the right answer
- (for any you got wrong) why you got them wrong and what you're doing to minimize the chances of making that particular type of error in the future

Unti you can answer those questions for a problem, you aren't actually done studying that problem. Oh, and some advice: it's easier to (1) spot traps, (2) find shortcuts, (3) get more efficient, and (4) learn how to make educated guesses when you got the problem right in the first place. Learn HOW to do these things on problems you get right and then APPLY that knowledge to harder problems of the same type when you don't know what to do.

So, that should give you something to do re: studying. :)

By the way, nice job your first time out. I know you don't like your score and want to take it again, but take a moment to feel good that you still got a very good score, even if you want to do better!

The time mismanagement is definitely a major problem. The worst thing on this test is a string of wrong answers in a row - and with 20 problems in 30 minutes... you're much more likely to have a string of wrong answers in a row. Your SC timing should be about 1.5 min, not 2. This requires you to be pretty efficient with SC, so here's a process for working through any SC.

1) Read the ENTIRE original sentence (don't stop at the end of the underline)
2) If you noticed anything wrong or anything that sounded funny, go back and look at it. If it's definitely an error, cross off A, and then scan the other answer choices vertically (around that same general location) and cross off any others that repeat the same error.
3) Repeat with the original sentence until you don't have anything else you noticed that was "off"
4) Scan the answer choices vertically (NOT horizontally) and look for differences. If you can deal with the first difference you spot, do so. If not, keep scanning vertically until you find the next difference. There's ALWAYS at least one difference at the beginning of the underline and at the end of the underline (on official questions - and if you're studying from another source and that source doesn't follow this basic rule, then don't study from that source anymore!)
5) Deal with any of the differences that you can and do NOT agonize over the differences you don't know how to handle - move on. If you aren't down to one right answer, just pick something and keep going.

Also, it's really key to make your scrap paper work for you while working on this (or any verbal question, really). Make sure you have ABCDE written down and make sure you have three symbols worked out ahead of time: one for "I think this is right," one for "maybe, unless I find something better," and one for "no, this is definitely wrong." I use a check mark, a horizontal squiggly line, and an X mark, respectively. You can use anything you want, but make sure you're consistent. Every time you make any kind of decision, note down one of those three marks. (Note: this also helps you not to waste too much time agonizing over "maybe" answers - just note it as maybe and move on. Half the time, you'll either mark the other four with Xs, or you'll realize another one is better and you can change the "maybe" to an X.)

I also don't write ABCDE down every time. Instead, I write that horizontally across the top of the page with a little space between each letter. Then, every row represents a new question and I use my symbols below the corresponding letter. But some people do like to write ABCDE out for every question - whatever you prefer.

Finally, if you have narrowed down to two options and just don't know how to decide, don't sit there agonizing. Pick something and move on. A lot of times, when I'm watching my students, they'll narrow it down to two or three pretty quickly - within a minute. And then they'll spend another minute agonizing and then they end up having to just guess anyway. So they wasted a minute when they could've made the guess in 5 seconds.

It can help to remember that you're only going to get about 60% of the questions right anyway, so if you're guessing between 2, you're already at 50/50!
Please note: I do not use the Private Messaging system! I will not see any PMs that you send to me!!

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