2 and a half weeks left and stuck at 620

[sidceg]

Hi,

I have two and half weeks left and I am stuck at 620. Most of my errors are due to careless mistakes. I mean I feel like how did I ever do such a mistake, or how did I not notice this information in the question, or why did I complicate so much when I could have thought this way. May be 1 or 2 out of 10 questions I make content errors.

Also, I make consecutive mistakes. Especially in the first 15-16 questions. I am confident when I solve practice question sets but I bomb when I take a full length test.

How can I improve my score to push beyond 700? Is it possible to do so within 2 and a half weeks?

Experts, please help.

TIA

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Hi sidceg,

In many cases, silly mistakes occur because the Test Taker isn't take ENOUGH notes, so the solution to this problem is probably that you should take more notes, label your work, write EVERYTHING down, do NOTHING in your head, etc.

While you've identified your 'issue', the tough part now is really about how quickly you can get yourself out of all of your 'bad habits.' Can you get through a FULL CAT, taking notes throughout, and minimizing the little mistakes? I'd like to think that you CAN, but only YOU can take the notes. Whether you can make that process a part of your standard approach to dealing with questions in 2.5 weeks or not is up to you.

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

[sidceg]

Hi Rich,

That makes sense. I will implement your strategy and get back to you. Thank you.

[Brent@GMATPrepNow]

Hi,

I have two and half weeks left and I am stuck at 620. Most of my errors are due to careless mistakes. I mean I feel like how did I ever do such a mistake, or how did I not notice this information in the question, or why did I complicate so much when I could have thought this way.

Hi TIA,

If silly mistakes are hurting your score, then it's important that you identify and categorize these mistakes. Some examples might include:
- sloppy writing causes a 7 to mysteriously turn into a 1
- you forget that a question is an EXCEPT question.
- you fail to notice crucial information such as x is an integer or w < 0.
- you calculate Pat's current age when the question asked for the Pat's age 5 years from now.
- and so on

Once you have identified the types of mistakes that YOU typically make, you will be able to spot situations/questions in which you're prone to making errors.

I write about this and other strategies in the following article: https://www.gmatprepnow.com/articles/avo ... teaks-gmat

Cheers,
Brent

[MartyMurray]

Here are some more things you can do.

One is start to seek to notice silly mistakes AS YOU ARE MAKING THEM. Anticipate that you will do your usual things and seek to catch yourself in the act.

For instance, I had a tendency to make crazy calculation mistakes. I would do things like adding 26 and 26 and getting 56. Once I realized this I started to notice myself doing it as I was doing it and to say like, "No, no, no, thaaaat's not it" to myself.

Another thing you can do is keep working on weak areas, especially things that are taking up lots of time when you take the test. That way your work will be faster when you are taking the test and you might not feel as rushed.

Also over the next few weeks you could seek to be more accurate in everything you do. Accuracy is similar across all things. So you could seek to type more accurately, speak more accurately, do anything you do more accurately and so get yourself into more of an accuracy mindset.

A more sophisticated thing you could do is, the following that could reaaally help if you figure out how to do it. You may be, probably are, unconsciously gravitating toward those silly errors. Something within a person can in a way want to make silly errors. I am into meditation and stuff and via meditation I found that my inner child just laughed and loved in when I made silly errors. So naturally I was making them to satisfy some inner thing going on. Once I meditated on that and dealt with it some, I immediately started being much more accurate and making fewer silly errors. So maybe by becoming a little more self aware you will find some similar things about yourself and change them to make being accurate easier for yourself.

Finally, you could do practice problems in long strings with the goal of seeing how many in a row you can get right. You could even benefit from doing this untimed. Speed makes less of a difference in making silly errors than you might think. There's just a mindset to making them, and to being accurate, and even by slowing down and really working to be accurate in question after question you can succeed in getting into a different, more accuracy creating, mindset. You could even fist pump when you get another one right and extend the string.

2.5 weeks sounds like enough time for you to increase your scoring the way you want to if you just make the right weak areas stronger and make your work more accurate. For one thing, with accuracy you get other benefits, such as working more quickly, which gives you more time to do the real work that gets you right answers.

[Rich@EconomistGMAT]

Hi sidceg,

I'm also curious to know if your issues have been documented. Knowing whether or not you're struggling with entire concepts or if you're having an issue with timing will help you focus your attention on the real issue at hand. While it sounds like you're making silly mistakes at the beginning of the section, if you're not already keeping an error log, I'd suggest you spend the time reviewing your previous CATs to look for any deeper patterns in the errors you're making.

Best,
Rich

[sidceg]

Hi,

I have two and half weeks left and I am stuck at 620. Most of my errors are due to careless mistakes. I mean I feel like how did I ever do such a mistake, or how did I not notice this information in the question, or why did I complicate so much when I could have thought this way.

Hi TIA,

If silly mistakes are hurting your score, then it's important that you identify and categorize these mistakes. Some examples might include:
- sloppy writing causes a 7 to mysteriously turn into a 1
- you forget that a question is an EXCEPT question.
- you fail to notice crucial information such as x is an integer or w < 0.
- you calculate Pat's current age when the question asked for the Pat's age 5 years from now.
- and so on

Once you have identified the types of mistakes that YOU typically make, you will be able to spot situations/questions in which you're prone to making errors.

I write about this and other strategies in the following article: https://www.gmatprepnow.com/articles/avo ... teaks-gmat

Cheers,
Brent

Hi Brent,

That's a lot of insight. Thank you.

From my review, I notice that most often I miss out on parts of questions or I confuse the question for the data or vice versa in a data sufficiency question.

[sidceg]

Here are some more things you can do.

One is start to seek to notice silly mistakes AS YOU ARE MAKING THEM. Anticipate that you will do your usual things and seek to catch yourself in the act.

For instance, I had a tendency to make crazy calculation mistakes. I would do things like adding 26 and 26 and getting 56. Once I realized this I started to notice myself doing it as I was doing it and to say like, "No, no, no, thaaaat's not it" to myself.

Another thing you can do is keep working on weak areas, especially things that are taking up lots of time when you take the test. That way your work will be faster when you are taking the test and you might not feel as rushed.

Also over the next few weeks you could seek to be more accurate in everything you do. Accuracy is similar across all things. So you could seek to type more accurately, speak more accurately, do anything you do more accurately and so get yourself into more of an accuracy mindset.

A more sophisticated thing you could do is, the following that could reaaally help if you figure out how to do it. You may be, probably are, unconsciously gravitating toward those silly errors. Something within a person can in a way want to make silly errors. I am into meditation and stuff and via meditation I found that my inner child just laughed and loved in when I made silly errors. So naturally I was making them to satisfy some inner thing going on. Once I meditated on that and dealt with it some, I immediately started being much more accurate and making fewer silly errors. So maybe by becoming a little more self aware you will find some similar things about yourself and change them to make being accurate easier for yourself.

Finally, you could do practice problems in long strings with the goal of seeing how many in a row you can get right. You could even benefit from doing this untimed. Speed makes less of a difference in making silly errors than you might think. There's just a mindset to making them, and to being accurate, and even by slowing down and really working to be accurate in question after question you can succeed in getting into a different, more accuracy creating, mindset. You could even fist pump when you get another one right and extend the string.

2.5 weeks sounds like enough time for you to increase your scoring the way you want to if you just make the right weak areas stronger and make your work more accurate. For one thing, with accuracy you get other benefits, such as working more quickly, which gives you more time to do the real work that gets you right answers.

Thank you Marty for the wonderful information.

[sidceg]

Hi sidceg,

I'm also curious to know if your issues have been documented. Knowing whether or not you're struggling with entire concepts or if you're having an issue with timing will help you focus your attention on the real issue at hand. While it sounds like you're making silly mistakes at the beginning of the section, if you're not already keeping an error log, I'd suggest you spend the time reviewing your previous CATs to look for any deeper patterns in the errors you're making.

Best,
Rich

Hi Rich,

Yes I do maintain an error log. I also analyse my timings. I found that I race past the first 15 questions and then start lagging behind slowly that sometimes I take more than 5 minutes per question and I lose track of time. Suddenly, I noticed that I have 5 minutes and 7 questions left

[Brent@GMATPrepNow]

Hi Brent,

That's a lot of insight. Thank you.

From my review, I notice that most often I miss out on parts of questions or I confuse the question for the data or vice versa in a data sufficiency question.

Confusing the answer to sufficiency question with the answer to the target question is one of the most common errors when tackling Data Sufficiency (DS) questions.

If you're interested, we have a free set of 16 videos that cover everything you need to know to tackle DS questions: https://www.gmatprepnow.com/module/gmat-data-sufficiency

Cheers,
Brent

[Rich@EconomistGMAT]

Hi sidceg,

Just curious if you have any additional updates since it's been a little over 2 weeks since your original post. Would love to hear about any progress you've made.

Best,
Rich

[sidceg]

Hi Rich,

Thanks for following up. I started taking more notes and I draw a box to separate the question from the data so that I don't confuse which is one is what. I am improving but I haven't reached my target score yet. Right now, I am averaging at Q45 and V32 range.

[vivek1303]

Since it has only been two and a half weeks I feel you can trod on further. You scores will start stablizing by around 1-2 months. Now is the time you can be creative in your approach and see what startegy suits you best - skipping questions, focusing hard on first 15 etc.

Good luck!