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The more I study, the worse I do...

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The more I study, the worse I do...

by acchi369 » Sun Aug 05, 2012 8:02 am
I took the first practice exam from the Official software before I started studying to give myself a benchmark and I scored an acceptable 610. I spent the following three weeks studying through the Kaplan guide book, took the same practice test and scored a 570. I improved on verbal but did considerably worse on Math. So, I bought the Manhattan GMAT math guide books, and worked through the first two. I decided to take the first MGMAT practice exam and scored a 440! I ran out of time on the Math section, and missed the last 10 questions. I score 1 out of 12 on the IR and, my verbal also dropped by around 30%. I'm not sure if it is due to mental fatigue (I also work full time in a fairly intensive job and do most of my studying on the weekends and sometimes during the week) or if I am just getting bogged down by "test taking strategies". Has anyone else had this problem? If so, how did you tackle it?

Summary:
-1st test: 610
-3 weeks of Kaplan guide book
-2nd test: 570 (improved verbal, worse on math)
-3 weeks of MGMAT math guide books
-3rd test: 440 (didn't finish math section, worse on verbal)
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by machichi » Sun Aug 05, 2012 10:29 pm
I'm not hearing any test taking strategies from your post--rather just practice practice practice. What strategies are you using? For example, have you learned when to skip questions or when to guess with numbers? Have you practiced breaking apart CR questions or mapping out SC? I'm definitely hearing mental fatigue, and it sounds like the more you know about the test the more anxious you get to do better.

If I were you I wouldn't take a practice test for a month and just do questions and practice strategies on them. This way the questions are just another part of your day, etc., so when you take the test it's not so stressful!

Have you scheduled an appt to take the exam?
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by acchi369 » Mon Aug 06, 2012 11:46 am
I was originally scheduled to take the exam on Aug 11st. Decided I wasn't ready and pushed it back to Sept 15th. I think you are right about the test taking strategies. I have learned them through these books but I never really came up with a complete strategy for how to implement them during the test. I will try to spend this week on trying to come up with a strategy for the exam and ways that I can tackle the exam as a whole rather than each question individually.
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by Bill@VeritasPrep » Mon Aug 06, 2012 2:39 pm
acchi369 wrote:I was originally scheduled to take the exam on Aug 11st. Decided I wasn't ready and pushed it back to Sept 15th. I think you are right about the test taking strategies. I have learned them through these books but I never really came up with a complete strategy for how to implement them during the test. I will try to spend this week on trying to come up with a strategy for the exam and ways that I can tackle the exam as a whole rather than each question individually.
This will be a big help. A big part of doing well on the GMAT is knowing how to beat the test itself.

In addition to working on strategy, I would recommend going back and reviewing problems after you've done them to see what you could have done better. For example if a quant problem took too long, how could you have gone faster? Were the answer choices spread out enough that you could have estimated your calculations? Did you miss a keyword in the question that would have let you use a shortcut?

Each practice question is an opportunity for improvement, and it is important to learn as much as possible from them. A lot of students get caught up in the mindset of doing lots of problems instead of learning a lot from the problems that they do.
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by acchi369 » Thu Aug 09, 2012 8:02 am
Bill@VeritasPrep wrote:
acchi369 wrote:I was originally scheduled to take the exam on Aug 11st. Decided I wasn't ready and pushed it back to Sept 15th. I think you are right about the test taking strategies. I have learned them through these books but I never really came up with a complete strategy for how to implement them during the test. I will try to spend this week on trying to come up with a strategy for the exam and ways that I can tackle the exam as a whole rather than each question individually.
This will be a big help. A big part of doing well on the GMAT is knowing how to beat the test itself.

In addition to working on strategy, I would recommend going back and reviewing problems after you've done them to see what you could have done better. For example if a quant problem took too long, how could you have gone faster? Were the answer choices spread out enough that you could have estimated your calculations? Did you miss a keyword in the question that would have let you use a shortcut?

Each practice question is an opportunity for improvement, and it is important to learn as much as possible from them. A lot of students get caught up in the mindset of doing lots of problems instead of learning a lot from the problems that they do.
Thanks! That's great advice. I have gone through the practice tests that I have taken and have separated my performance by question type. I found some great insights: for example, of all the verbal questions that I answered incorrectly 70% of them were inference questions. So, since I now have an idea of where I need to improve, I am going back and reviewing those sections and coming up with some strategies to tackle those sections specifically.
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