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Practice strategy for the full length test.

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Practice strategy for the full length test.

by anurag.shrivastava2908 » Sat Jun 06, 2015 12:47 am
I have started preparing for GMAT from Feb. now my concepts are clear, I have solved OG15 and Veritas DS.
When I give the section wise test, results are very good. But when it comes to full length test my scores go down and stuck between 620-640 level.
The recent one I have given is Manhattan free test and got only 580(Q42V28). The reason is my slow speed and lack of concentration specially after 2.30hrs of the test.

Please suggest how to practice in such a way so as to increase my speed and stamina for the whole length test.

My Final test date is 28th June.
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by MartyMurray » Sat Jun 06, 2015 6:49 am
For anyone to give you a good answer, it might help if you provide some more information.

How many entire tests have you taken?

What tests were they?

What were your scores, including section scores?

What is your score target?

I mean, if you have only taken one or two, for instance, then you could reasonably expect that just by taking a few more your you would get better at handling them.

Still could use more information to get a better sense of what to offer you in terms of ideas.
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by anurag.shrivastava2908 » Sat Jun 06, 2015 8:00 am
Hi Marty,

I have taken 3 tests, most recent one is what I already mentioned.
1) GMAT prep free test - 580
2) ECONOMIST - 570 (Q44V26)

My target score is 700+ and target school is UCLA.

I am clear with my basics, but when it comes to full length test, I always go short on time in both sections. Also, lack of concentration in the last 1 hour of the test is a pain area for me.
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by MartyMurray » Sat Jun 06, 2015 6:58 pm
The first thing that jumps out at me is your use of the words "concepts" and "basics". While yes, to score high on this test you need to understand the concepts and basics that are the building blocks of the test, the GMAT is a reasoning game and so to rock the test you need to be good at playing the game.

In other words, to get faster, you need to get better at playing the game. In quant this can mean learning to find quicker, more efficient, or tricky ways of finding answers. In verbal this could mean such things as getting better at eliminating wrong answers, learning what to note carefully and what to breeze through when reading passages, and getting better at finding decision points in SC questions.

To speed up in quant, one thing you can do it look at your practice tests and see which question types are taking you longest, whether you get them right or wrong. Then practice those types. Many people use error logs to track how they are doing and figure out what they need to work on. By getting quicker at handling those types you will save yourself time to do more questions of other types.

One way to work on specific types of quant questions is to use question banks that can be broken down into categories. One such question bank is the BellCurves question bank, which can be accessed by going to the BellCurves site, going to the GMAT section and setting up a practice account. That's a great source of tricky quant questions, thousands of them, and you can work category by category watching your time, your accuracy and your understanding.

The explanations on the BellCurves questions are not always the greatest, but anyway, you can work on developing your own approaches to handling the tricky questions. A great source of good approaches is this forum. The experts often offer multiple approaches to handling a question and you can learn a lot from seeing how they do things.

So doing these things could be a way for you to take your quant answering skills to another level and speed up your performance.

There are other question banks that can be used for verbal practice. One is the Veritas bank, with which you are already familiar. Once again figure out what's taking you the longest, and when your ability to concentrate is the most challenged and focus on those things.

One thing to realize is that really this test is less than four hours long, which is a little long, but not that long. Yes, after a few hours continuing to concentrate can be a little challenging, but maybe if you remind yourself that you only have an hour to go, you will be better able to continue to focus and get right answers. One thing people do, I don't know if you are one of them, is get caught up in worrying about the fact that they are losing focus. I say stop worrying about that and be concerned with finding something to do to get a right answer. Another things people do is get angry, panicky or freaked out. None of that is going to get you right answers or help one bit. What will help is to get involved in a question somehow. By doing that you will tend to naturally start concentrating again.

This answer is not the end all for your GMAT success. Maybe some other people will jump in with some more ideas for you. In any case, you could do these things and continue to assess your performance, and you can continue to get advice as you go along.
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by [email protected] » Mon Jun 08, 2015 8:53 am
Hi anurag.shrivastava2908,

I'd like to know a bit more about the specific issues you're having. Pacing/speed problems don't exist on their own - they're the results of OTHER problems in how you approach the Test.

1) Do you have to rush to finish any of the sections (and how many questions do you have to guess on just to finish on time?)?
2) On this last CAT, How often did you spend more than 3 minutes on a Quant question? How often did you spend more than 90 seconds on an SC? How often did you spend more than 2 minutes on a CR?

Stamina can be impacted by a number of different factors: the time of day that you take your Test, the amount of sleep you had the night before the Test, the food you eat, your posture, etc. Many of these issues can be 'fixed' with 'physical' solutions, but you have to nitpick the issues and really identify what you're doing wrong.

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by anurag.shrivastava2908 » Fri Jul 03, 2015 11:16 am
Finally I have given the GMAT, but the result is not so good. :(
590 (Q47 V25) IR3 AWA5
I was happy when I saw bold faced question second time (heard these are toughest in the lot). I had already got 3 RCs. So I was somewhat relaxed that I am doing well. But at 34th question and 10 mins in hand 4th RC passage jumps out of the screen, to add to my misery it was 4 paragraph science passage. I just somehow tried to answer those questions and I know from 34-41 all my answers were wrong.

Now I am planning to give GMAT again in August.
I am doing SC and CR from Veritas prep books and will be doing the OG again.

Please suggest some strategy to upgrade my Quant score as well.
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by [email protected] » Fri Jul 03, 2015 12:04 pm
Hi anurag.shrivastava2908,

I'm sorry to hear that Test Day did not go as well as hoped. Since it's been about 4 weeks since you last posted in this thread, we had no way of knowing how you were studying and whether it was actually helping you to improve or not.

Based on what you described, you seemed surprised by the 4th RC passage - but there are always 4 RCs. Also, while having to guess on those last 8 questions could have hurt your score, even if you had gotten all of those questions wrong, that would not have been enough (on their own) to drop you from a 700 to a 590. This is a wordy way of saying that you were already 'in some trouble' before you got to those last 8 questions.

Given your score goal, this Official score and the challenges you've faced so far, I do not think that simply going back to redo questions that you've already answered is the solution. You will likely have to learn and practice some new tactics for the Verbal section and work on some new materials.

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by anurag.shrivastava2908 » Fri Jul 03, 2015 10:54 pm
Hi Rich,

That is surprising! I have been told by my tutor at IMS (India) that mostly people get 3 RCs and 4th RC is very rare.

Apart from all these, what other options you suggest to build tactics for verbal?

Thanks,
Anurag Shrivastava
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by [email protected] » Sat Jul 04, 2015 9:45 am
Hi anurag.shrivastava2908,

Since you've been using a variety of different resources during your studies, I'd like to know more about how YOU approach the Verbal section. What 'steps' do you go through when dealing with a typical SC, RC or CR prompt? What types of notes do you take? Etc.

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by anurag.shrivastava2908 » Sat Jul 04, 2015 10:44 am
Hi Rich,

SC- I read the sentence, then check for differences in the answer choices, group them then, eliminate. For this I have noticed that I take ~1 mins for easy level questions. around 1min 30 sec for medium level question and if I get stuck at a high difficult I know that I waste time. But I am trying to unlearn this habit.

CR- For this I use SWIM strategy (Veritas prep.). During the prep I tried the note taking strategy as they teach in Manhattan, but I found it very time taking.
Frankly, I am not good at CRs and take lots of time. Please suggest some techniques to increase my speed in CR questions.

RC- I love business and social science essays but I literally hate science passages, especially biology. In RC i start by reading the first question then the passage, noting down imp. words, and transitions. Then I eliminates answer choices and go on with the next question. For 1 passage with 4 question I take 8-9 mins to answer.

I try to avoid taking a lot of notes in verbal section, as I take lot of time doing so, to solve a question.

Please let me know if you want any other specifics.

Thanks,
Anurag Shrivastava
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by MartyMurray » Sat Jul 04, 2015 9:49 pm
Hi Anurag.

One thing you better do is learn to like or at least deal with those science passages. You know that you are likely to see at least one on the test. So if you are going to freak out even just seeing one, you are toast.

So get used to dealing with them. They are not that difficult to handle actually. What they have to say is logical and understandable. Just people get freaked out by them.

One thing you could do is do a lot of science passage questions until you get used to handling them. You could search around online for them. The GMAT Avengers group on BTG has some, there are some in the Veritas question bank, and I am sure you can find more.

On another note, maybe it helps you but it certainly does not work for many to read the first RC question before reading the passage. That question can be too distracting, and one does not read the passage optimally, because one already has that question in mind, but hey if it works for you, then maybe stick with it.

When doing SC, be careful about breaking them into groups for elimination. Often there is a trick that makes choices seem similar when they are not. So people think that they can eliminate a choice because it seems to contain an error that others contain, but actually it's the right answer.

Regarding note taking, some people get a lot of use from note taking on verbal, and others do great taking few to no notes on verbal.

To do better on CR, you need to get good at seeing the conclusion and the premises and how they are all logically connected. No matter what strategy you use, either you see what the logic is and connections are or you don't, and if you don't probably you won't get the answer.

One thing you can do to get better at CR is go back over questions you didn't get right and figure out what you needed to see in order to get the right answer. Another thing that's helpful is reviewing questions and seeing exactly why all four wrong answer choices are wrong. Once you get good at knowing why the wrong answers are wrong, then basically you are good to go with CR.
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by [email protected] » Sun Jul 05, 2015 9:06 am
Hi anurag.shrivastava2908,

From what you describe, the processes that you're using for the Verbal section are not enough to get you to a higher score. It also sounds like you're not taking many notes - and THAT is actually contributing to many of your problems (lower score, pacing problems and fatigue). To significantly increase your Verbal score, you're likely going to need to change how you handle the entire Verbal section, which will mean investing in some new resources and practicing different tactics.

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by DavidG@VeritasPrep » Sun Jul 05, 2015 9:31 am
Can you offer a bit more about your post-test review process? Your official score was inline with your practice exams, so part of the issue might be that you haven't been extracting the appropriate lessons from older questions. When you've reviewed your old tests (and the OG questions), particularly on the verbal side, did you understand why you made the mistakes you made, or were you left with the sense that if you encountered a similar question in the future, you'd likely miss it again? If the latter is true, make sure to post your questions here. The more specifics we have in terms of your approach, the more strategic adjustments we can offer.
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by anurag.shrivastava2908 » Sun Jul 05, 2015 10:06 am
Hi David,

One thing I noticed in myself,during the exam, in verbal section I loose track of the difficulty level, timing etc. when I get a very difficult question. I waste time in that question, which impact subsequent questions.
For example, in quant, I easily understand the aprox. difficulty level, make educated guess which saves valuable time. But in verbal, it's a complete different scenario for me. I cannot follow a proper strategy. Even though I am working to strengthen this shortcoming, I am still not confident when I answer a high difficulty question.

Regarding the post test review process:
I go through all the incorrect questions after the test, and try to solve and check what I have missed. There's one thing I like to confess here that when I loose track and am not able to follow any strategy, I use intuition and believe on my ear. May be this is the reason for my weak CR and SC skill.

I am now trying to learn the concepts and strategies in such a way that I become comfortable in verbal as I am in quant.

Please suggest what plan I should follow for next 6 weeks before my 2nd attempt.

Thanks and Regards,
Anurag Shrivastava
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by DavidG@VeritasPrep » Mon Jul 06, 2015 8:38 am
One thing I noticed in myself,during the exam, in verbal section I loose track of the difficulty level, timing etc. when I get a very difficult question. I waste time in that question, which impact subsequent questions.
For example, in quant, I easily understand the aprox. difficulty level, make educated guess which saves valuable time. But in verbal, it's a complete different scenario for me. I cannot follow a proper strategy. Even though I am working to strengthen this shortcoming, I am still not confident when I answer a high difficulty question.
First, I wouldn't devote any mental energy to trying to determine the difficulty level of a given question. You can't know this. The hope is that, with time, you'll develop an intuitive sense of how much time has elapsed during a question - you've only taken a few practice tests, so it's understandable that you don't quite have the timing down yet. The challenge is when you're down to two answer choices, and you can't tell why one is better than the other. If you've spent 2+ minutes on a Sentence Correction question, for instance, and you find yourself in this predicament, you'll need to push yourself to be decisive. Try not to rely solely on your ear. Always articulate your justification, "I'm down to A and D, and A's meaning is ambiguous, so it has to be D." "I'm down to B and C, but C has fault parallel construction." etc.

Did you time yourself when you did the OG questions (or do them on the mba.com website?) If not, I'd either re-do these questions, or tackle the question pack: https://www.mba.com/us/store/store-catal ... ack-1.aspx

You can use our question bank for some additional practice:https://www.veritasprep.com/gmat-question-bank/

Make notes when you review. If taking notes on hard RC passages improves your timing, note that. If your note-taking is too extensive, note that as well. Post questions you have here.

Take one practice test per week and thoroughly dissect it afterwards. Always have at least three concrete strategic adjustments that you can incorporate on your next test.

If you continue to struggle with awareness of how much time has elapsed on a question, consider incorporating some mindfulness meditation into your regimen.

The plan is to average 700 on your final practice tests.

Keep us posted.
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