Want to make my strategies as habits

[chetan86]

Hello Experts,

I need your help.

I have developed some strategies to solve SC, CR and RC questions.
The issue I am facing is that in time pressure I am not able to follow those strategies.

Could you please guide and give me some tips on how can I make myself follow strategy even in timed environment?
How can I develop my mind to follow all of the strategies?
How should I study/solve questions so that my strategies become my habits to solve questions.

Thanks,
Chetan

[[email protected]]

Hi chetan86,

There are proven tactics to solve each of the major question types on Test Day (for both Verbal and Quant questions). If you've come up with your own approaches, then that's great - how long have you been using these approaches though?

Your concern right now is pacing, which is understandable; assuming that your approaches help you to get the correct answer, then what you really need is time to practice these approaches so that they become natural (and thus, faster).

Based on the work that you've done so far, how much time does it take you to answer a typical SC or CR prompt? For pacing purposes, RC has a greater "range", since prompts can vary in length and difficulty-of-content as well as in the number and type of questions. This means that we have to treat RC a bit differently.

Most pacing problems actually occur because of multiple re-reads of the prompt. To correct this issue, you have to become more proactive in your reading (thinking and making connections as you read, instead of after you're done with the prompt).

It might also be that your approaches just take too long. If that's the case, then you have to stop using them and learn to use some of the more proven tactics.

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

[Brent@GMATPrepNow]

Hello Experts,

I need your help.

I have developed some strategies to solve SC, CR and RC questions.
The issue I am facing is that in time pressure I am not able to follow those strategies.

Could you please guide and give me some tips on how can I make myself follow strategy even in timed environment?
How can I develop my mind to follow all of the strategies?
How should I study/solve questions so that my strategies become my habits to solve questions.

Thanks,
Chetan

It may help if you tell us the strategies you've developed for SC, CR and RC questions. It may be the case that your strategies can be streamlined.

Cheers,
Brent

[chetan86]

Hi Rich,

Thanks a lot for your reply.
Below is my answers.

Hi chetan86,

There are proven tactics to solve each of the major question types on Test Day (for both Verbal and Quant questions). If you've come up with your own approaches, then that's great - how long have you been using these approaches though?

After recognizing lots of careless errors and multiple re-read error, I have started using strategies from last 2-3 weeks.

Your concern right now is pacing, which is understandable; assuming that your approaches help you to get the correct answer, then what you really need is time to practice these approaches so that they become natural (and thus, faster).

Based on the work that you've done so far, how much time does it take you to answer a typical SC or CR prompt? For pacing purposes, RC has a greater "range", since prompts can vary in length and difficulty-of-content as well as in the number and type of questions. This means that we have to treat RC a bit differently.

For SC, I have good accuracy and I am able solve question in 1-1.5 mins(max).
For CR, if I follow the strategies then I am getting good accuracy but with timing I am not able to follow strategies efficiently.

Till 2 weeks back I was very weak in RC so I spent complete 2 weeks to get familiar with all the things which can be asked in the test.
To read short passages it takes me around 3 mins and for long passages around 4-4.5 mins.
To answer questions it takes me around 1.5 to 2 mins. For main point question, I able to answer it within 30 secs.

Most pacing problems actually occur because of multiple re-reads of the prompt. To correct this issue, you have to become more proactive in your reading (thinking and making connections as you read, instead of after you're done with the prompt).

It might also be that your approaches just take too long. If that's the case, then you have to stop using them and learn to use some of the more proven tactics.

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

Yes, I have multiple re-read problem too so I have started reading actively but in time pressure I am not able to read proactively.

Thanks,
Chetan

[chetan86]

It may help if you tell us the strategies you've developed for SC, CR and RC questions. It may be the case that your strategies can be streamlined.

Cheers,
Brent

Hi Rich/Brent,

In my post I should have mentioned "I have adopted some strategies and modified it to suit myself" instead of "I have developed some strategies".

I am using the standard strategies but added some more steps so that I don't make careless errors.

For example,
To solve SC questions I was generally reading the complete sentence in single shot and identifying S-V agreement, Parallelism, Idiom, Modifier, Clauses etc..
But after solving some set of question I realized that I was doing silly mistakes for the questions, which has Pronoun error, so I started checking pronoun in the underlined portion before reading complete sentence.
By adopting this strategy I could tell my self that underline portion has pronoun so be alert!!!

For CR:
I use the standard approach i.e reading the question then thinking what I can encounter in the paragraph (causal scenario/ facts etc..).
Assumption/Weaken/Strengthen questions would definitely have a conclusion so I try to find conclusion and check what evidence authour has provided to conclude the argument. I also check whether argument has causal scenario or not and then I go to answer options. Based on correct and incorrect answers characteristics I select and eliminate the answer choices.

If I stuck in two options then I again glance the conclusion and check options word by word and try to recognize why one is correct and other is wrong.

If in POE the only remaining option does not suit the question then I recheck the paragraph and eliminate options.
Sometimes this way I am unnecessarily wasting time so planning to develop pre-thinking and adopt pattern recognition strateges.

For RC:
While reading the paragraph, I try to identify the topic, scope and purpose of each paragraph, and based on question type I follow the standard approach to solve different type of questions.

I want to develop good habit in such extent that if someone wake up me in middle of the night and ask me to solve any question, then I should be able to solve that question with proper strategy.

I am targeting 750+.
Right now I am getting 44-45+ in Quant with careless mistakes, misunderstanding question etc.. I know I can easily score 49+ in quant so right now I am not concentrating much on Quant but once I get confidence in my Verbal skills I will eliminate bad habits to solve quant question and give GMAT straight away.


Thanks,
Chetan

[[email protected]]

Hi Chetan,

With your score goal and what you've described, it seems to me that what you need is more time to practice and a greater focus on organization.

A 750+ score requires a high level of precision, a calm performance, proper pacing and no silly mistakes. Most Test Takers need the better part of 3 months (or more) practicing a set of tactics to hit their respective peak scores. By your own admission, you've been dealing with the Verbal section in this "new" way for just a few weeks. Also, you're still making silly mistakes in the Quant.

Once you take another CAT, we'll have some updated information and we can gauge how all of this is working. Until then, you need to keep practicing. With review, you can hone in on your little mistakes and fix them. Speed normally improves with time; as you become more and more familiar with the content, you should be able to respond faster to the various prompts that you'll see on Test Day. For the score range that you're interested in though, there is no "wiggle room" - silly/little mistakes of any kind simply cannot be allowed to occur.

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

[chetan86]

Hi Rich,

Thanks a lot for your invaluable inputs.
As per your suggestion I will keep practicing and try to fix silly mistakes and re-reading issues.

I am planning to give my next CAT on this weekend so will update you my score.

1. Could you please guide and give me some tips on how can I make myself follow strategy even in timed environment?
2. How can I develop my mind to follow all of the strategies?
3. How should I study/solve questions so that my strategies become my habits to solve questions.

For my above questions, I am planning to solve all the questions strategically and while solving the questions I will note how much time each question/question type is taking so that later I can manipulate my strategy accordingly.

Could you please suggest whether it would be good approach to make my habit to solve questions strategically?

Thanks,
Chetan

[[email protected]]

Hi chetan86,

The simple answer to your questions is "repetition." There's no quick solution to any of those issues. Think about how you would learn to play a musical instrument, a sport or a video game - start slow, repeat the process over-and-over, make mistakes, fix the mistakes, keep practicing, etc. After a certain amount of time, you won't have to "think" about what to do, you'll just do it.

Thankfully, the GMAT rarely has any "surprises" to it - the Test is standardized, so you'll see the same content over and over. Most of what you'll do on Test Day is repeat what you've been practicing, which is why all of this practice matters so much.

Make sure to include some "review time", so that you can go back, examine the tactics you used and the "steps" that it took to answer each question. The ability to remember how you've answered past questions will help you to move faster on newer ones.

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

[chetan86]

Hi Rich,

Thanks a lot for your invaluable advice.
Now I have got the clear idea about how I should proceed.
Your suggestions would definitely help me to achieve my dream score.

Thanks,
Chetan