GMAT in 2 weeks - should I reschedule? Advice please

[StaceyKoprince]

Great. Your detailed descriptions for SC content and CR traps indicate that you learned something there—you'll be less likely to fall into those traps / make those same mistakes next time.

"Need to know" for CR/RC is really more around process, since there are no facts to know—so things like "On Weaken, it's only necessary to find something that makes the argument a little less likely to be valid—the correct answer doesn't have to completely kill the argument." Go back and look at those again with this in mind (this can also overlap with the "trap" category—so you may have already found what you needed there).

RC. 3 inference—okay, that's a pattern. Review RC inference in the book. You can also search our blog for the word "inference" for more. (That search will also pull up CR inference—but if you're making mistakes on RC infer, then it's good to review CR infer too.) Here are some to get you started:
https://www.manhattanprep.com/gmat/blog ... rehension/

For the 5 in a row, analyze what was going on with the individual questions. Is it the case that you were doing well beforehand and just got a lot of hard ones in a row as a result? (Did you start with 7-8 levels each time? If so, that was at least the beginning of it.)

But then what happened—did you spend too much time and / or mental energy and then start to get fatigued and or nervous and then maybe may a careless mistake or two towards the end of that set, even when the difficulty level came down? The remedy for that, next time, is to recognize faster when something's too hard so you can cut yourself off; you're going to get those really hard ones wrong anyway, so get them wrong faster. Then you won't be so fatigued or tight on time when you get back down to a level that you can handle.

Alternatively, was there a hole in knowledge or some process issue or whatever on some? Plug that hole and, next time, you won't have 5 in a row. Though note that you'll still have some of those wrong. Maybe even 3 or 4. That's okay; you're just trying to break up the long-drop.

This will be my last post (sniff) here this year—but Sage will be on for me starting next week and he will continue to help you. Good luck with your studies!

[JamieE899]

For the 5 in a row, analyze what was going on with the individual questions. Is it the case that you were doing well beforehand and just got a lot of hard ones in a row as a result? (Did you start with 7-8 levels each time? If so, that was at least the beginning of it.)

But then what happened—did you spend too much time and / or mental energy and then start to get fatigued and or nervous and then maybe may a careless mistake or two towards the end of that set, even when the difficulty level came down? The remedy for that, next time, is to recognize faster when something's too hard so you can cut yourself off; you're going to get those really hard ones wrong anyway, so get them wrong faster. Then you won't be so fatigued or tight on time when you get back down to a level that you can handle.

It seems like that was the case. i started with 700-800 levels in both occasions and made careless mistakes on some lower level questions that I would've otherwise gotten right.

Anyway, thank you so much for your help thus far! Enjoy your sabbatical and have a great holiday season

[Sage Pearce-Higgins]

Taking over from Stacey here, as forewarned. It looks like you've found some good, specific takeaways for SC and have targeted the areas to work on. As for Critical Reasoning, becoming familiar with the different question types and working out a good method for each (e.g. on 'explain the surprise' questions you need to find the surprise and understand why it's surprising). They'll be a lot of overlap here, but you can make a crib sheet with your specific important points.

For RC, things are harder. There are some important key points, such as the wording of answer choices (how can you distinguish a text that 'discusses' rather than 'advocates'?), and the logic of inference questions. However, what most students struggle with is simply the process of understanding a pretty random passage in a short time. Try that as an exercise: read a passage in, say, 3 minutes, and then close your book and explain (out loud, if possible) to yourself, what it was all about.

Regarding the runs of wrong answers, consistency on the easier level questions is the solution here. Pay more attention to mistakes on lower level questions, and consider what 3 answers you could eliminate on 700-800 questions.

[JamieE899]

Regarding the runs of wrong answers, consistency on the easier level questions is the solution here. Pay more attention to mistakes on lower level questions, and consider what 3 answers you could eliminate on 700-800 questions.

Thanks Sage! Can you clarify what you mean by the part in bold?

[Sage Pearce-Higgins]

I mean that, especially for harder questions, it's important to prepare yourself to make educated guesses. So, when you're reviewing questions, be sure to ask yourself not only 'What's the best method to get to the right answer?' but also 'How could I eliminate 2 or 3 out of the five answers if I had to guess on this one?'.

[JamieE899]

Hi Sage,

I took my third MGMAT CAT a couple hours ago and scored a 590. I was very happy to see that I finally showed some significant improvement - up 100 from last CAT 3 weeks ago. However, while my Quant has been steadily improving (usually my weaker of the 2), I've yet to match or exceed the verbal score I got on my first CAT.

I was really hoping and trying to improve my verbal above my first score of 36 - had I done or even matched that I would've crossed the 600 mark.

Here is a summary of my scores thus far (more details of the previous 2 CATs are in my earlier posts of this thread so not going to repeat those here):

CAT 1: 11/4/17 450 (Q15 V36)
CAT 2: 11/19/17 490 (Q27 V31)
CAT 3: 12/10/17 590 (Q38 V34)

Between CAT 2 and 3, I spent a lot more time studying verbal - especially CR - I completed the entire MGMAT CR Strategy guide, made flaschcards and practiced and reviewed questions. I was however disappointed to see that my CR score still remained at 7/14 (1st CAT 7, 2nd CAT 6).

I got 12/15 on SC (slight improvement from previous 2 CATs) but my RC really dropped as I scored 5/12 - my lowest of the 3 CATs. The passages felt a lot more difficult than usual for me and I ended up skipping 2-3 RC questions to save myself time. i noticed in the score report that I got most 700-800 questions in RC (8) compared to CR (4) and SC (5) but I got only 1 of these right.

I also studied some RC from the Foundations of Verbal Guide mainly to improve how I read the passages and take notes - although I didn't complete the full RC section yet.

Given that my exam is in 4 days, do you have any insights or tips for me w/ respect to improving my RC and CR? I'm not sure what else to try at this point.

Looking forward to your reply - thanks!

[Sage Pearce-Higgins]

Well done for that: it seems that your hard work is paying off on the quant section. Given that your exam is so close, I would keep things very simple regarding the verbal section. In these final days, don't risk confusing yourself with new material, but focus on reviewing and reinforcing what you've studied already. Focus on quality of understanding rather than quantity of material.

Regarding RC, you might just have been a little unlucky to see harder RC questions. It's a more-or-less random mix of questions, and the difficulty of each question is just based on where you are at that point in the test. So you might see easier RC in a real situation. RC is probably the hardest question type to make progress on, and many students simply have to accept that RC will always be slightly weaker for them. For that reason, don't neglect SC and CR over the next couple of days, you might actually have some easier points to clear up with those question types.

Also, prepare a battle plan for your test. On both quant and verbal sections, consider question types that you're going to be more likely to skip if you fall behind on time, and be ready to make partial solutions as well (what I mentioned before about eliminating 2 or 3 answers). And finally, give it your best, but remember that your GMAT score doesn't define you. Good luck!

[JamieE899]

Thanks for your tips and suggestions!

I'm in the process of reviewing the questions from the CAT I took yesterday. I reviewed quant today and will review verbal tomorrow. Beyond that though, I'm not sure if I should continue practing questions as well leading up to the exam?

You mentioned reviewing and reinforcing what I already know - is that simply reviewing previous questions and notes or can I continue doing new questions as well?

I'm trying to keep things simple over these last 2 days but at the same time not forget any of the material!

[Sage Pearce-Higgins]

At this stage I recommend not doing any new questions, but just redoing questions you've seen before.

[JamieE899]

Ok thank you.

[JamieE899]

Hi Sage,

I took my first official GMAT a few days ago and scored 600:
Q34 - 26th percentile (not good enough)
V39 - 89 percentile
IR3 - 26 percentile - need to improve timing

Although this was my highest total score after 3 practice CATs, this was the first time my quant score dropped. It was steadily increasing during my CATs and was 38 in my last CAT 4 days before the exam (I was hoping to at least match or improve this). On the other hand, verbal of 39 was my highest in this section.

I've registered to retake the exam in 3.5 weeks in the 2nd week of Jan as this is the only available date before some of my round 2 deadlines. I actually have (or maybe now had) 3 other deadlines prior to my exam date but I'm now uncertain if to still apply to these schools with a score of 600 which is below their averages (in two cases it falls in the middle 80% but I don't know how much this counts?).

My target score is at least 650 and I'm really hoping to achieve this by my next exam. I'm optimistic by the fact that I improved from 490 to 600 in the last 3.5 weeks.

That being said, I need some assistance planning the next few weeks to achieve my goal. My main focus is improving quant to at least the 38 I achieveD before if not higher as I would ideally like to shoot for the early 40s and also improve IR which I've been stuck at a score of 3.

On Quant, I was disappointed to see that very few of the areas that I studied and practiced a lot (and was generally better at) actually came on the test such as:

1. Geometry - usually my strongest area - about 2 questions came and they were on solids - not a single one on triangles or circles and their special properties.

2. Distance/Work questions - not a single one.

3. Age questions - zero

4. Units digits, sequence (recursive/arithmetic) - zero

5. Exponents - about 1-2 questions

Incidentally, I got many questions in the topics which I didn't get to study thoroughly or in some cases at all - probability, co-ordinate geometry and functions (yes 2-3 functions questions which I had seen not 1 in any practice CAT).

On the IR, I know my issue is timing and I'm not sure what the appropriate strategy should be for this - how many questions should I skip? How many do I need to get right at a minimum to get at least a 4 or 4.5? Any advice on this is greatly appreciated. I also didn't really practice or study for this section - the only time I did IR was in my CATs and the official exam.

I would also appreciate any guidance on how to structure these next few weeks to improve my quant and IR (and still keep my verbal up). Should I go back and learn new material in probability, coordinate geo, functions etc.? Or since its only about 3 weeks, should I continue with doing practice and review of questions and CATs until then?

I received my ESR today and would also like to get some insights into interpreting it but not sure how I can share it here.

Looking forward to your reply, thanks!

[Sage Pearce-Higgins]

Well done for that. It looks like your good quality studying is paying off - that's a big improvement from your practice test of a few weeks ago.

Here are a few thoughts:
-If you qualify for a post-exam assessment, go ahead and book that.
-If you get the chance to speak to admissions officers at the schools you're applying to, ask them whether your score is high enough.
-Have you had any contact with mbaMission? They have a good offer for Manhattan Prep students (details in the Atlas center).
-Although I don't know you well, from your progress and approach, it looks like you could raise your score in both quant and verbal by a few points over the coming weeks. Doing that will be a question of patiently applying the same approaches that you've been using: look carefully at your mistakes and learn from them. I'd recommend doing 2 more practice tests before your next test.
-Of the areas that you mention, you should definitely familiarize yourself with co-ordinate geometry and functions (the Algebra guide has a good chapter on the latter).
-As much as I think Manhattan Prep practice exams are good, the balance of questions in GMAT has changed slightly since they were made, so you may find some differences. However, since GMAT tests logical reasoning and problem solving in a rather general way, many of the strategies and approaches will apply to all topics.
-Probability shouldn't be a top priority, but the Interact lesson is worth watching (do the follow-up homework too).
-I'm surprised that you didn't see any rate problems, however, 'age problems' are a small subset of word problems and it's no big surprise that you didn't see any.
-For IR, you can skip 3 questions and get a good score. Skipping 4 is a little more risky, but might be worth trying if you're slow on this section.