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How to improve Quant to top Q50 or so?

Problem Solving — algebra and arithmetic (GMAT Focus Edition)
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How to improve Quant to top Q50 or so?

by Thorello » Sun Jan 03, 2016 1:36 am
Dear all,
I've recently subscribed to this forum, following the 60 days prep (I'm currently at day 23, starting with the verbal part).

So far I've completed 3 tests, with the following scoring:
- GMATPrep Exam 1: Q48/V31 - 690
- GMATPrep Exam 1: Q49/V42 - 740 (same test of line above - although I didn't remember much if anything of the previous time I attended the test, as it was 2-3 months before)
- Princeton Review (one of the 5 you get when you buy their book): Q45/V42 - 690

Now, I'm pretty satisfied and honestly surprised with the Verbal part: the scoring seems pretty higher than what I felt I should get, considering that I've never studied gramma, my english is not so great and I'm not a native english speaker. I will anyway proceed as by the study plan, focusing more on the Sentence Correction (90% of my mistakes in the verbal are there now).
On the other side, I recognize I have to work more on the Quant part. I feel I have more or less the knowledge required, thanks also to the great 60-days-study-plan, but I need more and more practice. I need to add I'm an Engineer, but not practicing any algebra or math since about 10 years. I really feel I need practice here, not satisfied with current scoring. Also, it didn't improve after studying, which is weird as on the other side I really feel I know much more than before.

Now the tricky part, and the question for you expert would be: what source should I use to practice with MANY additional problems on Math? Currently I have:
- OG'15: used all math problems as part of the 60 days plan
- Official GMAT Quant: not used yet, should I keep it for the last days?
- Kaplan GMAT Strategies, practice and review: not used yet, although I saw there are only 50 of them, and they look too easy
- Kaplan GMAT 800 Advanced Prep: not used yet, ordered yesterday from Amazon
- Kaplan GMAT 800: not used yet
- Manhattan GMAT Advanced Quant: not used yet
- MANY questions downloaded from this and another source
For studying I've used Manhattan guides.

Also, would you have any suggestion on how to proceed? I don't have a specific deadline yet for the test (not subscribed for it yet), but I'd plan to take it in March or April, more or less. My plan would be from today on to go in parallel with studying for the verbal part (following the 60daysplan), and pracricing at the same time with Math, doing exercizes and re-reading Manhattan guide

Thanks a lot for any support or suggestion!
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by [email protected] » Sun Jan 03, 2016 9:43 am
Hi Thorello,

These practice CAT score results are fantastic; assuming that you took each of these CATs in a realistic fashion, then you're in a great position to score at a high level on Test Day. To that end, I have a few questions about how you took these CATs...

When you took your CATs:
1) Did you take the ENTIRE CAT (including the Essay and IR sections)?
2) Did you take them at home?
3) Did you take them at the same time of day? Will this time be when you take your Official GMAT?
4) Did you ever do ANYTHING during your CATs that you couldn't do on Test Day (pause the CAT, skip sections, take longer breaks, etc.)?
5) Did you ever take a CAT more than once?

With a Q48 or Q49, you could very easily be scoring Q50 or Q51, but you're making some little mistakes that are keeping you from that goal. At the higher levels, the GMAT becomes really 'sensitive' to those little mistakes - if you make too many, then that score is simply impossible to achieve. As such, doing MANY additional practice questions is probably NOT the solution to this issue; determining what you're getting wrong and WHY (so that you can fix whatever is 'off') is what would be needed.

1) What is your score goal?
2) On the two GMAC CATs, how many Quant questions did you get wrong because of a little mistake? How many did you get wrong because the question was too hard?

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by Thorello » Tue Jan 05, 2016 11:16 am
Hi Rich,
thanks for your reply.

So, regarding your questions:
1) I didn't take the entire CAT, as I followed the instructions on the Beat the GMAT 60days plan - so I've skipped the AWA and the IR
2) Yes I took them at home
3) I've taken them at different times as I'm very time constraint because of work... hence, I basically took them when I had time to: 1st in the afternoon, 2nd in late evening, 3rd in the morning. I think I'll have the GMAT in the morning, it's also the time of the day that I prefer by far
4) No I didn't pause the CAT, I sticked to the time available per section. Only exception: in the first and second test I actually took a long break between Math part and Verbal part, as I couldn't find 3 full hours to take the entire test at once. In the third test I did Math and Verbal one after the other.
5) Yes, as mentioned in previous post the 2nd test is GMATPrep #1, as in the first one (although I didn't remember much/anything as about 2 months have passed between the two).

Also:
1) My score goal would be 700. If anything more than that of course I would be happy about. If slighly less than 700 I would also accept that (practically speaking I don't think I necessarily need a very high score), although 700+ would be much better
2) Very good question. I need to check in details, although:
- In the math part, I ALWAYS struggle with the time. I always have to skip 2-3 questions in order to have enough time for the others. When I do this, I'm not skipping questions that "I don't know how to solve", but usually just the ones with a long text - that would require time just to read them. I realize that there might be some better logic than this.
- I rarely find questions that I have no idea where to start. Most of the times, the ones that I do wrong are either stupid mistakes, or I get lost in difficult calculations whilst I could have solved the exercize much more easily just taking 10 more seconds thiking at it before "diving in". Again, I see this connected to the time available. Practically speaking, also for the ones I've done wrong it's rare that I have to check solutions in order to understand how to solve it: most of the times it's a matter of re-trying the exercize in a more paced manner, and I get to the correct answer.
- On the other side, there are some areas that I know are my weak points. An example would be "work" exercizes: I know they're usually very simple and very straight-forward, but I noticed that every exercize of this type takes me a very long time in ordet to write down the right equation and solve it: I will need to re-study that part
- In all of this, the score before and after studying has been stuck at more or less the same. Maybe that could also be because I took about 2-3 months to study the math, hence would need to refresh the different topics to really get out some good results of it?
- In the verbal part, 90% of my mistakes are in the sentence correction. Anyway, I've just started studying that part right now, as part of the BeatGMAT 60 days plan

Thanks!
Thorello
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by MartyMurray » Tue Jan 05, 2016 3:32 pm
Hi Thorello.

One thing that you seem to have run into is that the GMAT is not as much a test of knowledge as it is a test of getting to right answers quickly. So while learning more concepts helps one to do better on quant, it's not necessarily sufficient for increasing one's quant score.

What you need to work on now is applying anything you know to getting right answers efficiently. In other words, what matters in the end is not what you know but how many right answers you get.

One attitude to take when doing practice questions is the following. Shoot for two things, a high right answer hit rate, and secondly, time around two minutes per question. The hit rate has to come first. Finishing questions is useless unless you are getting right answers, and you are better off taking five minutes per practice question and getting almost all of them right than you are spending two or three minutes per question and getting maybe 75 percent right. You need to be good not getting tricked, seeing what's going on and getting right answer after right answer. As you get better at all that and as you find ways to be efficient, you will naturally speed up. Also, as a byproduct of making fewer careless errors, you will both increase your hit rate and speed up.

Check out this post on silly or careless errors.

https://magoosh.com/gmat/2013/careless-m ... gmat-math/

One thing you could do now is to go over your practice tests and identify the types of questions you find most challenging. Then focus on each of those types, developing expertise and facility in one before moving onto the next.

Consider how the quant section would go for you were you to just be MUCH more facile in handling four types of questions. Not only would you get more right answers when you encountered those types, but also you would handle those types of questions more quickly and so leave yourself more time for handling the other questions. Boom, your score goes from where it is to Q50 or Q51. If getting better at handling four types is not enough, get better at handling some more types. At some point you will have done enough to hit your score goal.

For topic by topic practice, you could set up a practice account in the GMAT area here, https://bellcurves.com, and use the categorized quant questions in the question bank, in which you will find, for instance, dozens of work and rate questions.

For some more ideas on how to put more points on the board, you could check out this blog post.

https://infinitemindprep.com/raising-you ... the-board/

Also, you might benefit from checking out this post on resetting GMAT Prep tests.

https://infinitemindprep.com/resetting-a ... et-smoked/
Last edited by MartyMurray on Fri Jan 08, 2016 8:27 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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by [email protected] » Tue Jan 05, 2016 5:43 pm
Hi Thorello,

Your last post provided some important information about what you likely need to do to improve your studies (and increase your chances of locking in a high score when you take the Official GMAT).

Test Day is a rather specific 'event' - the details are specific and they matter, so you have to train as best as you can for all of them. The more realistic you can make your CATs, the more likely the score results are to be accurate. The more you deviate, the more "inflated" your scores can become - and you've deviated a great deal during your CATs. By skipping sections, taking the CATs at home, taking the CATs at different times of day, etc., you weren't properly training for the FULL GMAT 'experience.'

Now this is not to say that these scores are inaccurate, but there are enough questions about the relative accuracy of these results that you really should try to take your future CATs in as realistic a fashion as possible (so take the FULL EXAM - including the Essay and IR sections, take it in the morning, etc.). Once you've taken that next CAT, you should report back here with your score result.

GMAT assassins aren't born, they're made,
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