10 days to go for D Day....Pls help

[vivek.kapoor83]

Hi,
I am having my GMAT on 13 oct.Pls if any1 can suggest me how to go about prep in last 10 days....Instructors pls help.
I am mainly facing in probelms in the following areas :

1. SC - Mainly in modifiers errors - In this it include the technique...I pick the error 50% of time and 50% of time i dont find the error and if i find it i struggle to fix it as well.
b. I also sometimes fail to recognize that how sentence should be start...like in following example...
T Monk,who was a Jazz pianist and composer,produced a body of work both rooted in the stride piano tradition of wilie and duke , yet in many ways he stood apart from mainstream Jazz repoitary.
1- same as above'
2 - T Monk,who the Jazz pianist and composer,produced a body of work that was rooted both
3 - Jazz pianist and composer T Monk , who produced a body of work rooted
4 - Jazz pianist and composer T Monk produced a body of work that was rooted
5 - Jazz pianist and composer T Monk produced a body of work rooted both.

In the above example...i wasnt able to figure out the content and technique...So failed badly in above example

Sometime i also fell by locating the error but not able to fix it...


Pls help in my SC.

CR : In CR, i am having prob with Assumption ques .. I used the technique of negating the options but still not able to use it efficently


RC : Sometimes my mind distracts in boring passages, otherwise I am ok.


Quant : I struggle with Circles , Triangle and probabilty...

DS : Sometimes in Inequality and mode func.


Pls help me........ I am very low in confidence.... I gave GMAT Prep and go t 32/37 in quant and 21/41 ques in verbal right..

I am aiming score 650-700 .So if any1 can help me in telling me how many ques i should get right on avg..to reach nearby that score..


For Verbal i have done Manhatten SC and OG10,11,1000 SC CR RC(Did 500 ques from each..CR and RC i got almost right but not in SC)
For Quant i have used my old school books .

[Stacey Koprince]

I received a PM asking me to reply to this post.

First, in terms of scoring, you talk about the number of questions you got right, but that's not how the test is scored. In general, except at the very high and very low ends, you can expect to get about 50-60% of the questions right - and that could get you a 500 or a 700. What matters is the difficulty levels of the questions.

You don't mention what you've scored on GMATPrep. As a general rule, what you're scoring a week to 10 days before is about what you should expect to score on the real test. Most people don't see significant score improvement in just a week to ten days, unfortunately. I know that's probably not what you want to hear, but I do want you to be able to set realistic expectations for yourself.

So if you are currently scoring well below what you'd like to score on the test, you may have to consider postponing your test date. If you do take some more time, then you may want to use something specific to the GMAT for quant, rather than just your old schoolbooks - those are good for the actual content being tested but they don't help you with technique. For verbal, you may need help from an outside source (a class or tutor) - see below.

In the SC example you gave, the primary issue is not a modifier issue, actually, although the choices do show modifiers moving around. The primary issue is in the original sentence is an idiom issue. The idiom "both X and Y" is present but it is not used correctly.

work BOTH (rooted in the stride piano tradition of Wilie) AND (Duke)
The X and Y are represented by the parentheses, but these two things aren't parallel. You'd need something more like "work rooted in the stride piano tradition of BOTH (Wilie) AND (Duke)" - though that's only one way to fix this. Another way is to remove the BOTH idiom entirely (which is what this one appears to do).

(Also, when transcribing problems, please proof your transcription carefully. There are errors introduced above that were not in the original problem. As you can imagine, it's pretty hard to address a particular problem if it has not been transcribed exactly.)

Anyway, in this one, you could write a correct sentence that starts with "Thelonious Monk, who was a Jazz pianist and composer, produced a body of work that was rooted..." They just don't give you that option, that's all. The movement of the modifier "jazz pianist and composer" here is just a red herring - something that gets you to think that there must be something wrong with putting it after Monk, even though there's nothing wrong with that at all.

This may mean that you don't have an entirely accurate grasp of your weaknesses in SC. You haven't mentioned using any tests other than GMATPrep but, if you have used a private company's tests, run whatever assessment reports they give you and see what the test says about your strengths and weaknesses. (For example, if you use one of our tests, the questions are all categorized by major error and minor error, so you can actually see a list of categories for which you got questions wrong - or right.)

For CR assumption questions, the correct assumption must tie one of the premises to the conclusion, and if the correct assumption were taken away (or negated), then that conclusion would no longer be supported by that premise. This does not mean that the conclusion cannot be true - it simply means that one of the premises no longer supports that conclusion.

So I could say:
Amy is not 6 feet tall. Therefore, she can't have a successful career as a basketball player.

The correct answer might be: People have to be at least six feet tall in order to succeed as basketball players.

This assumption ties the premise (1st sentence) to the conclusion (2nd sentence). Further, if someone could be less than 6 feet tall and still have a successful basketball career, then the premise no longer makes any sense. Amy might still not have a successful basketball career (maybe she's a terrible basketball player) but she is no longer prevented from having such a career simply because she's less than 6 feet tall.

I know that example is a lot easier than what you see on the test; I'm just trying to show you the logic you have to use on questions of this type. Again: when you find the right answer, you should be able to say: this assumption ties this premise (point to the screen) to the conclusion (point to the screen), and if I said this assumption was NOT true, then this premise (point to the screen again) would no longer support this conclusion.

Everybody gets distracted on the boring passages. All you can do is make yourself keep going.

In quant, circles and triangles are important. Probability is not very common, so ignore that at this point. Make sure you know all of the rules you need to know. Then go back and look at recent problems you did and start an error log. Why did you get each one wrong? What, specifically, led to the mistake? What could you do to minimize the chances of making that same mistake in future? (And then go do that and make it a habit!)

For DS, inequalities are pretty common, mode is not so common. For inequalities, do the same error log thing I described above. Also add: what information were they trying to disguise via phrasing the question or statement in this way? (This is often what's going on in DS when they use inequalities.) How will I recognize / remember next time that this set-up is being used to disguise this piece of information?

eg, xy < 0. May not look all that useful, but what they're actually telling you is that x and y have different signs. If they'd asked you whether x = y, you could answer the question: no, because they have different signs!

[vivek.kapoor83]

Thanx a lot Stacy.I am bit confused after reading your mail to be honest. But you have showed me the truth.
Whether i should go for test or should postphone it. I am thinking to give another GMAT prep on Sunday and will consider than.Wht is ur take on that ?

I am having prob mainly with modifier thing.Pls if u can tell me any specific link for that.
I am ok with quant stuff just need to brush up Circle and Geometry.
Pls if u can provide me any link on that as well

Again thanks a ton for helping me out and for nice explanation.

[Stacey Koprince]

Taking another GMATPrep sounds like a good plan - if you're about where you'd like to be on the real test then don't postpone, but if you are a good way below where you'd like to be then you should consider postponing it.

We discuss modifiers in our book, but it looks like you've already tried that. I don't have other sources I use, unfortunately, though I just did a quick google search and found this web site that looks pretty good: https://www.uottawa.ca/academic/arts/wri ... ifier.html

The main page has a bunch of links down the left-hand side for modifier topics (that main page only has a definition).

Other readers: what have you used for modifiers? vivek really needs your help!

For math, I like the Demystified series of books (there's one for geometry). You may want to go to your local library to see if they carry it, so that you don't have to buy it. Or you can just go camp out at your local bookstore and take notes on the Circles chapter.

And again, other readers: if you have anything you thought was particularly good for circles, please let us know!

[vivek.kapoor83]

Hi Stacy,
recognize me ? the same guy who PM you couple of days back and my exam was 10 days away and after consultation, I decided to give 1 more shot to GMAT Prep and my exam is on 13 Oct
Here , is the result of today GMAT Prep
1.Quant - Scaled Score - 47, 13 Incorrect
2.Verbal - Scaled Score - 29, 14 Incorrect.
Over all Score - 630.
I comitted some silly mistakes in 3-5 ques.

My break up section wise is :

Quant :
DS : 10/19 ,Algebra+Numbers+TSD+Work rate = 12/14
Geometry : 1/2 , Probabilty - 1/2

Verbal : SC - 9/16 , CR -9/11 , RC -9/14


So, I am targetting overall score in range of 650-680.How bright or bleak my chances are. As you suggested me Postphone my exam.
Your advice is v valuable. Should i go for exam ? Wht i shld do in last 7 days. Wht should be my scaled score for 650-680.? Which areas i should conc and how( Modifires..I am v weak)....

[Stacey Koprince]

So, # correct or percentage correct doesn't tell us a whole lot. What matters is the difficulty level of those questions and, unfortunately, GMATPrep doesn't give us that data. How you spend your time matters a lot too (but, again, we don't get that data, unfortunately).

Generally speaking, GMATPrep is the best indicator of your current scoring range (+/- 30 points). So your range just touches (at the top end) the score you hope to get. This is tough because it's not an obvious decision one way or the other (in terms of whether to take the test in a week). You still need some improvement in order to have higher odds of hitting your target score, but you may very well be able to hit it. There's a bit of luck involved in this test (your nerves, the mix of questions relative to your strengths and weaknesses, etc).

I can't remember whether you've already told me this: have you taken an official test before? If not, I'd consider taking it just to see what happens - get the experience of being in the room and taking the test under official conditions. Go into it with the mindset that this is just another practice test and you're going to take your official test in a month. And, if you get a little lucky, you won't have to take it again!

(NOTE: this assumes that you can take it again in a month. I don't know what deadlines, if any, you have, so factor that in to your decision!)

If you've already taken it before, then I'd consider delaying a bit longer until your practice test scores are in the 650-680 range.

Re: what to study. Quant is obviously your strong point, so keep up your skills there, but spend more of your time on verbal. (for two reasons: one, there is a fairly large discrepancy between the two subscores and, two, verbal is weighted more heavily in your overall score)

Obviously, you should concentrate on any weaknesses you already know you have, and you should also cross-check this against the most commonly tested areas on the test (it's not worth it to spend time on areas that aren't tested very commonly):

SC: modifiers, parallelism, sub-verb, verb tense, pronouns (the last three aren't as common, but they are often easier to deal with than the first two)
CR: weaken, find the assumption, strengthen, draw a conclusion
RC: specific detail, infer, main idea

Keep an error log in which you articulate WHY you got something wrong - not just that you got it wrong. For anything you study, pick out the most tempting wrong answer for each problem that you do. Articulate why it is so tempting and why it is wrong anyway. For those same problems, articulate why it is tempting to cross off the right answer and why that answer is actually right.

If you can articulate why you (and others!) are tempted to choose wrong answers, you will be much less likely to pick those wrong answers next time. And this will obviously make it easier to pick the right answer.

You're going to be tempted to take another practice test in the days before the real thing. DON'T. All you'll do is tire yourself out - and if you don't get the score you want on the practice test, you'll lower your morale right before the real thing.