How to Practice for Questions you Get Wrong?

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How to Practice for Questions you Get Wrong?

by Mrrinali » Wed Jun 27, 2018 10:20 pm
I have subscribed to the 60 Day BeatTheGMAT free online course. When I get an answer in Quant incorrect , I read the answer explanation and rectify it. However, I am worried. Would like to get advise - how and when should I revisit these problems? Should I solve these problems all over again at a later stage? I have 60 days only to prepare, so would like a foolproof yet efficient solution! Thanks :) [/b]

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by [email protected] » Thu Jun 28, 2018 10:28 am
Hi Mrrinali,

From your post, it sounds like you are just beginning your studies. Is that the case (or have you studied for some time before now?)? Before I can offer you the specific advice that you're looking for, it would help if you could provide a bit more information on your timeline and your goals:

1) What is your goal score?
2) What is your exact Test Date?
3) When are you planning to apply to Business School?
4) What Schools are you planning to apply to?

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by ceilidh.erickson » Mon Jul 02, 2018 10:03 am
Mrrinali wrote:I have subscribed to the 60 Day BeatTheGMAT free online course. When I get an answer in Quant incorrect , I read the answer explanation and rectify it. However, I am worried. Would like to get advise - how and when should I revisit these problems? Should I solve these problems all over again at a later stage? I have 60 days only to prepare, so would like a foolproof yet efficient solution! Thanks :) [/b]
You should definitely revisit these problems! It's a good idea to go back to them 2 or 3 weeks later so you don't remember the right answer exactly. More here: https://www.manhattanprep.com/gmat/blog ... -problems/

You should also be carefully tracking the mistakes you make, and looking for patterns. Here's how and why to create an effective Error Log: https://www.manhattanprep.com/gmat/blog ... -studying/

Good luck!
Ceilidh Erickson
EdM in Mind, Brain, and Education
Harvard Graduate School of Education

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by Mrrinali » Sun Jul 29, 2018 3:10 am
Thank you very much @ceilidh.erickson :) !

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by MartyMurray » Fri Aug 03, 2018 2:52 pm
Hi Mrrinali.

Your best bet when you don't get a quant question right when you are practicing is to review that question on the spot, learn more about how to correctly answer it, and then answer more questions like it until you are confident that, should you see such a question again, you will get it right.

Later, of course, you can go back and redo questions that you didn't get right the first time. All the same, the key is to use the questions that you don't get correct as indicators of areas that you have to strengthen and then strengthen those areas.

By the way, keeping the following three levels of quant proficiency in mind can help you to optimally approach your GMAT quant training. You can apply the three levels to each type of quant question, such as work/rate, absolute value, or triangle.

Level 1 - You know basically how to answer a question of a particular type, but you may not actually arrive at the correct answers to such questions consistently.

Level 2 - You consistently get the correct answers to quant questions of a particular type, but may take longer than two minutes to arrive at the correct answers.

Level 3 - You consistently get the correct answers to quant questions of a particular type in two minutes or less. When you get to this level for a type, you are ready to handle that type of question when you see it on the GMAT.

Don't try to jump to Level 3 without getting to Level 1 and Level 2 for a type of quant question. You have to understand how to answer questions of a type and learn to get them right before you seek to answer them in two minutes or less.

For further detail on how to increase your quant score, you could check out this post. How To Increase Your GMAT Quant Score
Last edited by MartyMurray on Fri Feb 08, 2019 9:22 am, edited 2 times in total.
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by Mrrinali » Thu Sep 13, 2018 9:04 pm
Hi @[email protected],

Apologies for the last response.

As of today, I have completed my syllabus for the GMAT and plan to revise for the next 1 month and write my exam mid Oct. In the mock GMATPrep exam post completing my syllabus, I scored 640. My target score is 740.

Could you please advise.
Thanks!

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by Mrrinali » Thu Sep 13, 2018 9:05 pm
Thanks Marty Murray !

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by MartyMurray » Fri Sep 14, 2018 6:18 am
Mrrinali wrote:As of today, I have completed my syllabus for the GMAT and plan to revise for the next 1 month and write my exam mid Oct. In the mock GMATPrep exam post completing my syllabus, I scored 640. My target score is 740.

Could you please advise.
Thanks!
Generally speaking, here's the thing. Scoring high on the GMAT is not really about knowing everything, the way scoring high on a school test might be. It's more about being good enough at answering questions to hit your score goal. So, completing your syllabus was just the beginning. Now, you have to find ways to improve your skills in one area after another to drive your score up point by point.

The truth is that anything you can do to become better at answering GMAT questions will drive your score up. You could work on better understanding how to answer certain types of Critical Reasoning questions. You could find ten categories of quant questions with which you are not particularly comfortable and get better at answering questions of those types. Any move that you could make that would result in your correctly answering more questions the next time you take a mock or real GMAT is a good move to make.

Obviously, though, some moves will give you more results than others will. So, figuring out the best moves to make is a key part of efficiently driving your score higher.

What were your section scores on the quant section and the verbal section of the practice test on which you scored 640?
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by Mrrinali » Sat Sep 15, 2018 2:23 am
Thanks @MartyMurray
My section scores were:
Verbal - 33 (Percentile 67)
Quant - 46 (Percentile 71)

Please advise.

Thanks!

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by MartyMurray » Sat Sep 15, 2018 4:50 am
Mrrinali wrote:Thanks @MartyMurray
My section scores were:
Verbal - 33 (Percentile 67)
Quant - 46 (Percentile 71)

Please advise.

Thanks!
OK, so, to get to your target score of 740, you are going to have to score at least 40, and probably 41, in verbal. Scoring 40 in verbal is going to take seeing a fair amount more than you have been. So, you have to train yourself to see more and get more verbal questions correct.

To do so, probably you have to slow way down in your verbal practice and really seek to see what makes the questions work. You have to train yourself to see the subtleties of the logic that makes the wrong answers wrong and the correct answers correct and to see the key details that matter. So, you have to go beyond just answering questions to spending time with each question, analyzing each answer choice, and asking questions such as, "Why is this one wrong?" "What is key difference between this incorrect answer and the correct answer?" "How would this choice trap someone?" "Why did I choose this choice although now I can clearly see that it is incorrect?" You have to learn to see more.

You can score V33 using simple tricks and gimmicks that you might have come up with or learned from a test prep company. To get to V40+, you have to forget about any gimmicky methods and learn to see EXACTLY what's going on in the questions.

Also, to score higher in verbal, you have to improve your approach. So, as you are answering questions, consider how you are approaching them. To get the harder verbal questions right, you have to give them respect, really pay attention, and notice details. Remember the GMAT is an entrance exam for graduate school. So, the verbal questions are pretty sophisticated and you have to handle them accordingly.

If you miss a verbal question, consider what about your approach could have been better. Did you really pay attention to the different versions in a Sentence Correction question, or did you quickly choose a choice because you thought that you noticed a pattern that you could use to eliminate most of the answers quickly. Did you pay close attention to the logic of the answers to a Critical Reasoning question, or did you get sucked in by a trap that sounds somehow correct but actually doesn't even come close to doing what the correct answer has to do. If you choose the wrong choice to a Reading Comprehension question, figure out what you did that allowed you to get sucked in by a trap answer that doesn't actually reflect what the passage says.

It is likely that, to get to 740, you will have to increase your quant score also. You can increase your quant score point by point by finding areas of your quant skills that could be stronger and strengthening them one by one by focusing on questions one type at a time. You can discover these weaker areas by reviewing your practice tests to see what types of quant questions you didn't answer correctly and by honestly considering your comfort level with quant questions of various types. Think about it. If you find a type of quant question that you are not that good at answering and become very good at answering that type of question, logic dictates that your expected quant score will increase. If you go through that process ten times, your expected quant score will increase a little bit each time, and if you do so enough times, you can achieve any quant score that you want to achieve.

So, there are some ideas for you. In verbal, slow down, learn to see more, and improve the way you handle the questions, and in quant, drive your score up point by point by strengthening your skills area by area.
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by Mrrinali » Sat Sep 15, 2018 5:05 am
Thanks a lot Martin.
Is one month a good enough time to pull the score up to my target?

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by MartyMurray » Sat Sep 15, 2018 5:20 am
Mrrinali wrote:Thanks a lot Martin.
Is one month a good enough time to pull the score up to my target?
It could be, if verbal really clicks for you when you start analyzing questions and if you relatively quickly improve your skills in some key quant areas.

It may not be though.

Whether it will be depends on various factors, such as how much time you have to work on GMAT stuff, how effectively you use your time, and how quickly you get what you have to do to get more correct answers to verbal questions. Increasing a verbal score can take a big change in mindset, and probably will in your case. So, whether a month will be long enough to a large degree depends on how fast you make that change in mindset.
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