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need retake advice - 3rd try ahead

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need retake advice - 3rd try ahead

by c_on » Wed Sep 16, 2009 12:10 pm
Hi,

First, I wanna thanks everyone here for the questions & answers, I really learned a lot toward my GMAT exam.

A little background about myself, I've a software engineer, not an English native speaker who is planning on enrolling to one of the top 10. (planning on applying on the 2nd round (unfortunately the 1st is gone...)

I've did my 1st GMAT at 11 June 2009 after studying by myself and with a little help from private tutors, the results were poor (V:19 Q:42) (though the verbal result was anticipated in the quantitive i was getting ~47 in the gmat prep).

After the 1st test, I've enrolled to Kaplan's representative in my home country
for a GMAT course.

I've took the test 2 days ago and scored 600 (Q:49 V:24).

Here are the results from my preparation:

1. 1/8 GmatPrep1 V:29 Q:49 - 650
2. 4/8 KapTest1 V:26 Q:48 - 640
3. 8/8 KapTest2 V:30 Q:40 - 600
4.12/8 PowerPrep2 V:28 Q:45 - 600
5. 15/8 KapTest3 v:29 Q:35 - 540
6: 18/8 MGMT 2a v:32 Q:51 - 660
7. 21/8 GmatPrep2 v:23 Q47 - 580
8. 25/8 KapTest4 v:31 Q:47 - 620
9. 27/8 GmatPrep1 V:31 Q:49 - 650
10: 29/8 MGMT 3a v:34 Q:47 - 670
11. 01/9 Kap-Diag v:36 q:42 - 650
12. 02/9 GmatPrep1 v:34 q:50 - 700
13. 4/9 KapTest5 v:29 q:49 - 660
14. 6/9 MGMT 5a v:34 q:50 - 690
15. 7/9 KapTest 6 v:32 q:47 - 660
16. 8/9 GmatPrep2 v:29 q:50 - 650
17. 9/9 KapTest 7 v:30 q:50 - 670
18. 10/9 GmatPrep2 v:27 q:49 - 640
19. 12/9 GmatPrep1 v:34 q:50 - 700
20. 14/9 REAL-Gmat2v:24 q:49 - 600


Clearly, I need to improve my verbal skills.

In the course I've done. For the SC questions, we've learned a system to find 'clues' in the sentence and then to use them such as: when there is "...And..." look for list structure etc..

For the CR and RC there were only brief methods, learning what are the major traps and what are the question types in each category.

Further analysis of the tests reveals that in:
SC - ~62% - more or less equally distribusion
RC - ~50% - where the inference question are the lowest (~40%)
CR - ~50% - where the inference is the weakest.

I'd love to hear advice from you people who have tried to improve your score.
Recommendation for books, different methods, suggested tests (I've done nearly all MGMT and Kaplan's).

Even strategy's for learning, since I'm working full time for at least 9hrs a day, my day is pretty tight, though for the last try i've got up early and had approx. 2.5 hrs of studying.


Thanks,

Ran.
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by beatthegmat » Wed Sep 16, 2009 7:24 pm
Hi Ran,

Thanks for the message. Sorry that your first GMAT experience didn't quite match your expectations, but our community is here to help you improve. :)

It seems like you've identified the general areas for your weakness, but it's time to get tactical: do you know specifically what areas within SC, CR, and RC you are having problems?

One suggestion--look back at all the practice you went through and take inventory of the questions you got wrong. Do you notice any patterns? For example, perhaps when you see idioms on SC, you usually get those wrong. Try to narrow down to the core subjects that are problematic for you first, then design a strategy that seeks to target and improve those weak areas.

Here's a grid that can help you log your errors: https://www.beatthegmat.com/gmat-practic ... s-t68.html

Good luck!
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by lunarpower » Wed Sep 16, 2009 11:12 pm
i just want to second eric's advice here:
beatthegmat wrote: One suggestion--look back at all the practice you went through and take inventory of the questions you got wrong. Do you notice any patterns? For example, perhaps when you see idioms on SC, you usually get those wrong. Try to narrow down to the core subjects that are problematic for you first, then design a strategy that seeks to target and improve those weak areas.
read this advice several times, because it seems that you may have the wrong priorities.
in particular, you took TWENTY PRACTICE TESTS IN 1.5 MONTHS. even more astonishingly, you took the last TEN practice tests in FOURTEEN DAYS.
...and worse yet, there's not much detectable improvement (even on the oft-repeated GMATPrep tests, which, presumably, would contain an ever increasing # of familiar problems).
all of this strongly suggests that you are deriving little or no value from these practice tests. this is not surprising, given the rate at which you're taking the tests, because:
the only real purpose of taking practice tests is to generate material that you can REVIEW INTENSIVELY afterward.

by INTENSIVELY, we mean that you should follow the process outlined by eric above, for ALL the problems you get wrong. moreover, you should go beyond that process; you should be doing the following:
you should find TAKEAWAYS from the problems.
by takeaways, i mean that you should be able to fill in the following sentence:
"if i see ________ ON ANOTHER PROBLEM, i should ________"
you should be able to fill in this sentence in at least one way based on EVERY problem you get wrong - and, if you're really reviewing in depth, even based on the problems you get right.

in any case, a good rule of thumb is that you should spend at least 2 minutes reviewing for every 1 minute you spend taking a practice test.
with the spacing of your practice tests, this is patently impossible, unless you're spending up to nine hours a day.
and if you are spending up to nine hours a day, then that time is largely wasted, since the intensive LEARNING capacity* of all but the world's most exceptional adult humans is capped at about 4-5 hours per day.

you should go back through these practice tests and extract these sorts of TAKEAWAYS from the problems. this process could, and should, take you a while - but that's where the real learning will take place.

--

*not to be confused with the capacity for doing or producing things.
even if you're the type that can labor away productively at work, creating things, for 12+ hours per day, do not make the mistake of thinking that this means you can study productively for the same number of hours. you can't.
Ron has been teaching various standardized tests for 20 years.

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