Hi Instructor,
I took my third practice exam this past weekend after finishing the in-person class 2 weeks ago. I was frustrated to see my score of 540 (Q 38, V 27) down 50 points from my CAT 2 of 590 (Q 38, V 34) and about the same as my initial CAT 1 (Q 33, V 30). I didn't read too much into CAT 1 because I had never taken a full GMAT exam before but saw the score as a taller mountain to climb to reach my goal, more than anything. My goal is 700 and in all honesty, was on top of the week to week homework, completing about 90% of the homework on time and active in class. Depending on the topic, I'd say I had a 1/4 chance of answering the questions correctly when quizzed in class (first time seeing the question type most of the time).
I felt good in my progress from CAT 1 to CAT 2, largely seeing timing issues with Manhattan's scratch paper approach. Knowing that and cleaning it up, I had a good feeling about CAT 3 and ended up not having the timing issue - relatively on-time (no large chunks of time taken up on questions) and more confident in answering each question. Specific to the order of incorrect, I didn't have a large string of incorrect answers so that didn't bring me down. To prepare for CAT 3, I got a good night's rest and specifically re-read the SC and FDP books in the weeks prior as these were my weakest areas. I, also, don't think anxiety or anything like that was in play.
While the overall score isn't ideal, I understand some days we just don't have it, but I don't believe that to be the case as I was entering the CAT like a real GMAT exam. I would say I'm most concerned that I didn't miss any of the "low hanging fruit" 300 - 500 on quant and 300 - 600 on verbal question types. The question types I missed were all over the board so I'm not sure how to proceed in studying. If I had to put my own plan together, I'd navigate away from learning the content and commit 100% to doing question types on each topic.
Hoping I can receive some assistance to be pointed in the correct direction. I'm hesitant to go into my pre-exam assessment this far away from my target score. I'd rather maximize that time versus learning content or how to approach the test as a whole.
Any help, comments, ideas, etc. are greatly appreciated. Thank you in advance.
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- hckysgreat1
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- StaceyKoprince
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Re: Practice Exam Fluctuations
Studying for this test can be really frustrating—and it's unfortunately not linear. We definitely have our ups and downs.
Have you used this article to thoroughly assess the data from your most recent CAT?
https://www.manhattanprep.com/gmat/blog ... ts-part-1/
(That's the same article linked in Atlas.)
I'm asking because here are some things I'm seeing in a quick look (I'm not doing a full review because that's what your Post Course Assessment meeting will be about).
Overall
Q score stayed the same; V score went down. You're hoping both will go up, obviously, but at least Q stayed the same. V is more concerning.
Quant
You do have timing / decision-making issues. Sort by time. You had 6 questions above the 3m mark and missed 4. Of your 10 slowest questions, you missed 8. That is: You got 2 of 10 right—random guess position, since this is a 5-item multiple-choice test. So you're hanging on too long to questions that you really don't know how to do; that time and mental energy, therefore, can't go towards things that you might have a better shot at getting right.
For the other questions you missed, how many were careless mistakes? How many were things you might have gotten if you hadn't been trying to answer them in 1 to 1.5 min rather than 2 min?
Also, you did miss a couple of 5-6 levels in this section, so definitely take a look at those and figure out why you missed them. Content? Careless mistake? Strategy? Process? The answer will help you to know what holes you need to plug.
Verbal
You hit a rough patch from #13 to #20. In that string, you got only 1 right. That brought your score down from 63rd percentile to 23rd percentile. You now had less than half the test left to try to work your way back up. And you did, in fact, work your way all the way back up to 47th percentile—but then the section ended.
The GMAT is a Where You End Is What You Get test, so unfortunately, the fact that you had been up at 63rd percentile earlier on doesn't matter. Where you end is what matters.
So, first, that string of questions. You went into that string, as I said, at 63rd percentile (your highest point in the section) and you were roughly 2 minutes behind on time. It makes complete sense that you would miss the first 2-3, because your score was pretty high so those questions were hard.
You did spend some extra time (and time = brain energy) on some of those earlier questions. So you may have had a similar decision-making issue on Q and V: Spending extra time + mental energy on certain questions that were too hard, thereby putting yourself short on both time and mental energy for other questions in the section that you might otherwise have gotten.
Another data point on the decision-making thing: You missed your two longest CRs and 2 of your 3 longest SCs. So same pattern, hanging on too long to things that you're not getting—and the mental fatigue that goes along with that.
Towards the end of that string from #13 to #20, you started getting easier questions, but you still missed them—you may have been feeling mentally fatigued or rushed or both. I would look at those again to see whether you can do any better on them now. (You might also just have gotten unlucky and hit certain items that were weaknesses for you. If so, now you know you need to work on those areas.)
You had one other unusual pattern: You missed all 4 of the first RC questions you had for each passage—but you answered almost all of the later questions for a passage correctly. I often see this when someone's feeling pressured to read and then rushes answering the first question—you don't check the proof carefully or something like that and then fall for a trap. Go try those questions again now, untimed, and see how you do.
By the way, you had a similar lapse in V on your second practice test—only one right in the string from #2 to #7. The difference was that it happened earlier, so you had more questions left (ie, more time to recover). You also did the Q-V order on both tests, so there may be something around mental stamina going on with your second section.
Two things here:
(1) This reinforces the need to make better decisions during Q, because that extra mental energy you're using up on questions you're missing anyway could have been used not just elsewhere in the Q section but also in the V section. Mental energy doesn't "refresh" at the beginning of the next section the way the clock does.
(2) What can you be doing on the break to help refresh yourself more? Stretching, jumping jacks, making sure you have something to eat and drink. Try something like coconut water for a quick burst of glucose to the brain, along with complex carbs+fat+protein. Your brain runs on fat and protein; complex carbs help to keep the molecules in your bloodstream longer.
Let me know what you think when you've had a chance to review based on what I wrote (and I do recommend going to use that article I linked if you haven't done so already). I also recommend that you do go sign up for your Post-Course Assessment. This is the kind of stuff you need to be talking about during that meeting, so that you don't find yourself spinning your wheels and getting more frustrated with this test!
Have you used this article to thoroughly assess the data from your most recent CAT?
https://www.manhattanprep.com/gmat/blog ... ts-part-1/
(That's the same article linked in Atlas.)
I'm asking because here are some things I'm seeing in a quick look (I'm not doing a full review because that's what your Post Course Assessment meeting will be about).
Overall
Q score stayed the same; V score went down. You're hoping both will go up, obviously, but at least Q stayed the same. V is more concerning.
Quant
You do have timing / decision-making issues. Sort by time. You had 6 questions above the 3m mark and missed 4. Of your 10 slowest questions, you missed 8. That is: You got 2 of 10 right—random guess position, since this is a 5-item multiple-choice test. So you're hanging on too long to questions that you really don't know how to do; that time and mental energy, therefore, can't go towards things that you might have a better shot at getting right.
For the other questions you missed, how many were careless mistakes? How many were things you might have gotten if you hadn't been trying to answer them in 1 to 1.5 min rather than 2 min?
Also, you did miss a couple of 5-6 levels in this section, so definitely take a look at those and figure out why you missed them. Content? Careless mistake? Strategy? Process? The answer will help you to know what holes you need to plug.
Verbal
You hit a rough patch from #13 to #20. In that string, you got only 1 right. That brought your score down from 63rd percentile to 23rd percentile. You now had less than half the test left to try to work your way back up. And you did, in fact, work your way all the way back up to 47th percentile—but then the section ended.
The GMAT is a Where You End Is What You Get test, so unfortunately, the fact that you had been up at 63rd percentile earlier on doesn't matter. Where you end is what matters.
So, first, that string of questions. You went into that string, as I said, at 63rd percentile (your highest point in the section) and you were roughly 2 minutes behind on time. It makes complete sense that you would miss the first 2-3, because your score was pretty high so those questions were hard.
You did spend some extra time (and time = brain energy) on some of those earlier questions. So you may have had a similar decision-making issue on Q and V: Spending extra time + mental energy on certain questions that were too hard, thereby putting yourself short on both time and mental energy for other questions in the section that you might otherwise have gotten.
Another data point on the decision-making thing: You missed your two longest CRs and 2 of your 3 longest SCs. So same pattern, hanging on too long to things that you're not getting—and the mental fatigue that goes along with that.
Towards the end of that string from #13 to #20, you started getting easier questions, but you still missed them—you may have been feeling mentally fatigued or rushed or both. I would look at those again to see whether you can do any better on them now. (You might also just have gotten unlucky and hit certain items that were weaknesses for you. If so, now you know you need to work on those areas.)
You had one other unusual pattern: You missed all 4 of the first RC questions you had for each passage—but you answered almost all of the later questions for a passage correctly. I often see this when someone's feeling pressured to read and then rushes answering the first question—you don't check the proof carefully or something like that and then fall for a trap. Go try those questions again now, untimed, and see how you do.
By the way, you had a similar lapse in V on your second practice test—only one right in the string from #2 to #7. The difference was that it happened earlier, so you had more questions left (ie, more time to recover). You also did the Q-V order on both tests, so there may be something around mental stamina going on with your second section.
Two things here:
(1) This reinforces the need to make better decisions during Q, because that extra mental energy you're using up on questions you're missing anyway could have been used not just elsewhere in the Q section but also in the V section. Mental energy doesn't "refresh" at the beginning of the next section the way the clock does.
(2) What can you be doing on the break to help refresh yourself more? Stretching, jumping jacks, making sure you have something to eat and drink. Try something like coconut water for a quick burst of glucose to the brain, along with complex carbs+fat+protein. Your brain runs on fat and protein; complex carbs help to keep the molecules in your bloodstream longer.
Let me know what you think when you've had a chance to review based on what I wrote (and I do recommend going to use that article I linked if you haven't done so already). I also recommend that you do go sign up for your Post-Course Assessment. This is the kind of stuff you need to be talking about during that meeting, so that you don't find yourself spinning your wheels and getting more frustrated with this test!
Stacey Koprince
Instructor
Director, Content & Curriculum
ManhattanPrep
Instructor
Director, Content & Curriculum
ManhattanPrep
- hckysgreat1
- Course Students
- Posts: 6
- Joined: Sun Mar 24, 2019 11:42 am
Re: Practice Exam Fluctuations
Stacey,
This is incredibly helpful – thanks so much.
I went back through the week by week lesson and found the link to the article you mentioned (I am finishing up Week 9, not yet to Review & Improve). I read the article three or four times and slept on it. While it didn’t seem like the case initially, I still have a flavor of the larger timing issues (like you called out). Admittedly, my mind has naturally always been scatterbrained and combined with the strict timing conditions of this test, it’s an area of opportunity to improve towards a full focused test and proper/evenly allocated amount of time on each question type. I’m hoping this gets better in time through honest, full picture assessments and taking more practice CAT exams (not just to take them but continue to adapt to the conditions and use the data for review and improvements).
More specifically – the timing metrics chart in the article you called out gives me a good idea of a strict deadline for each question type. Even cutting down my longest questions to those time marks, it opens up significant time to be spent elsewhere. I definitely do feel the pressure when I compare the cumulative time with my scratch paper target time. My biggest fear is being too far behind at the end and missing a string to close out the test. Clearly that’s translated to missing a string in the middle of the test when I acknowledge the potential time discrepancy. (IR is a whole different beast).
In regards to the verbal string you called out (#14-20), my thought process was: 1. strings of incorrect questions generally hurt the overall score more than scattered missed questions (therefore I didn’t want to guess on 2 or 3 straight) 2. I would have to read the passage to answer the next few questions anyway so skipping 1 or 2 of those questions seems like a waste of the effort that will be put in regardless 3. generally feel weaker on SC questions so planned to make up time through guessing there. Open to your thoughts on how I can adjust that approach.
Since reading your message and re-evaluating, I still think CAT 3 was a large jump towards improving my overall timing issues from CAT 2 but I now know I need to focus on specific areas (let go of questions sooner, eliminate careless mistakes on Quant, be mindful of the “max” time deadline per question). I don’t believe you’re advising to consider switching up the order of sections that I took the test but I still plan to review each question on this test and start focusing my training on timed questions versus studying topics (since my misses were all across the board). Hoping question patterns/recognition will start to kick in, and when combined with an improved timing approach, I can really make strides towards that 700 goal!
This is incredibly helpful – thanks so much.
I went back through the week by week lesson and found the link to the article you mentioned (I am finishing up Week 9, not yet to Review & Improve). I read the article three or four times and slept on it. While it didn’t seem like the case initially, I still have a flavor of the larger timing issues (like you called out). Admittedly, my mind has naturally always been scatterbrained and combined with the strict timing conditions of this test, it’s an area of opportunity to improve towards a full focused test and proper/evenly allocated amount of time on each question type. I’m hoping this gets better in time through honest, full picture assessments and taking more practice CAT exams (not just to take them but continue to adapt to the conditions and use the data for review and improvements).
More specifically – the timing metrics chart in the article you called out gives me a good idea of a strict deadline for each question type. Even cutting down my longest questions to those time marks, it opens up significant time to be spent elsewhere. I definitely do feel the pressure when I compare the cumulative time with my scratch paper target time. My biggest fear is being too far behind at the end and missing a string to close out the test. Clearly that’s translated to missing a string in the middle of the test when I acknowledge the potential time discrepancy. (IR is a whole different beast).
In regards to the verbal string you called out (#14-20), my thought process was: 1. strings of incorrect questions generally hurt the overall score more than scattered missed questions (therefore I didn’t want to guess on 2 or 3 straight) 2. I would have to read the passage to answer the next few questions anyway so skipping 1 or 2 of those questions seems like a waste of the effort that will be put in regardless 3. generally feel weaker on SC questions so planned to make up time through guessing there. Open to your thoughts on how I can adjust that approach.
Since reading your message and re-evaluating, I still think CAT 3 was a large jump towards improving my overall timing issues from CAT 2 but I now know I need to focus on specific areas (let go of questions sooner, eliminate careless mistakes on Quant, be mindful of the “max” time deadline per question). I don’t believe you’re advising to consider switching up the order of sections that I took the test but I still plan to review each question on this test and start focusing my training on timed questions versus studying topics (since my misses were all across the board). Hoping question patterns/recognition will start to kick in, and when combined with an improved timing approach, I can really make strides towards that 700 goal!
- StaceyKoprince
- ManhattanGMAT Staff
- Posts: 9349
- Joined: Wed Oct 19, 2005 9:05 am
- Location: Montreal
Re: Practice Exam Fluctuations
Great! Starting from the end: I agree that you are improving. There's just still room for more improvement—and actually, that's great news, since your score is not yet where you want it to be.
No, I'm not suggesting you switch up the test order. (Not now, anyway. That could be something that becomes a factor later...but not yet.) If the issue is really just mental fatigue about halfway through your second section, then the working hypothesis right now would be that switching the order would just mean having the lapse in Q next time vs. V—doesn't actually fix the problem.
Rather, the issue is training yourself to make better decisions as you go so that you're just not that tired halfway through the second section.
This is true...
...but there's a but. If you happen to get 2 or 3 in a row that really are too hard for you...what are you going to do? Spending more time on something doesn't turn a "too hard for me" question into an "I can suddenly magically do this!" question. If it's too hard...oh well. It's not uncommon to be doing so well that you earn such a hard question that this happens: You get it wrong and you get another question that's too hard anyway. (Also: You have a 20% chance of getting lucky on the first guess...so you might have guessed and gotten it right and now you have an even harder one!!
)
So really...try to evaluate each question in front of you in a vacuum as much as you can. How do you feel about *this* problem? React accordingly.
Re: bailing on SC, the annoying thing about that is that SC is the shortest of the 3 problem types on V, so bailing here doesn't save you as much time. Plus, it can take longer to tell whether this is the kind of SC you hate, further reducing the amount of time you save. (If I know I hate a certain kind of CR, I can tell it's that problem type in about 10 seconds. But if I know I hate certain grammar rules, it might take me 30 seconds to figure out that this SC is testing those rules.)
If you know you hate certain set-ups for SC (full underlines, for example, or super-short underlines), then that's an easy / early clue to allow you to save a minute or so. (Even then, you're still saving less than you would on one CR or RC.) If you are truly better at *all* CR and RC than you are at pretty much *any* SC, then bail on SC.
But if there are certain CR types that you hate, that's usually the best way to save the biggest chunk of time. And on RC, I base it on the passage content, usually. If there's a certain part of the passage that I found super confusing and then you ask me a question about that specific part of the passage...I'm out. And for either CR or RC, there's also the "Huh??" reaction to the question. If I read the question, don't follow it, read it again, and am still like "Huh??"—I'm out. (That applies to SC, too. If I read the sentence and can't even understand what they're trying to say, like the basic meaning...forget it.)
I love that you have diagnosed this:
That's a totally rational fear! And sometimes our fears lead to other problems in our lives. So you just need to do what you're doing—figure out the fear, understand what issues that fear is causing, and adjust accordingly.
Back to the end of your message again—yep, mixed sets so you can practice timing and jumping around among topics (which is exactly what the test makes you do). You've got a good plan! Check back in and let me know how it's going.
No, I'm not suggesting you switch up the test order. (Not now, anyway. That could be something that becomes a factor later...but not yet.) If the issue is really just mental fatigue about halfway through your second section, then the working hypothesis right now would be that switching the order would just mean having the lapse in Q next time vs. V—doesn't actually fix the problem.
Rather, the issue is training yourself to make better decisions as you go so that you're just not that tired halfway through the second section.
This is true...
strings of incorrect questions generally hurt the overall score more than scattered missed questions (therefore I didn’t want to guess on 2 or 3 straight)
...but there's a but. If you happen to get 2 or 3 in a row that really are too hard for you...what are you going to do? Spending more time on something doesn't turn a "too hard for me" question into an "I can suddenly magically do this!" question. If it's too hard...oh well. It's not uncommon to be doing so well that you earn such a hard question that this happens: You get it wrong and you get another question that's too hard anyway. (Also: You have a 20% chance of getting lucky on the first guess...so you might have guessed and gotten it right and now you have an even harder one!!
)So really...try to evaluate each question in front of you in a vacuum as much as you can. How do you feel about *this* problem? React accordingly.
Re: bailing on SC, the annoying thing about that is that SC is the shortest of the 3 problem types on V, so bailing here doesn't save you as much time. Plus, it can take longer to tell whether this is the kind of SC you hate, further reducing the amount of time you save. (If I know I hate a certain kind of CR, I can tell it's that problem type in about 10 seconds. But if I know I hate certain grammar rules, it might take me 30 seconds to figure out that this SC is testing those rules.)
If you know you hate certain set-ups for SC (full underlines, for example, or super-short underlines), then that's an easy / early clue to allow you to save a minute or so. (Even then, you're still saving less than you would on one CR or RC.) If you are truly better at *all* CR and RC than you are at pretty much *any* SC, then bail on SC.
But if there are certain CR types that you hate, that's usually the best way to save the biggest chunk of time. And on RC, I base it on the passage content, usually. If there's a certain part of the passage that I found super confusing and then you ask me a question about that specific part of the passage...I'm out. And for either CR or RC, there's also the "Huh??" reaction to the question. If I read the question, don't follow it, read it again, and am still like "Huh??"—I'm out. (That applies to SC, too. If I read the sentence and can't even understand what they're trying to say, like the basic meaning...forget it.)
I love that you have diagnosed this:
My biggest fear is being too far behind at the end and missing a string to close out the test. Clearly that’s translated to missing a string in the middle of the test when I acknowledge the potential time discrepancy.
That's a totally rational fear! And sometimes our fears lead to other problems in our lives. So you just need to do what you're doing—figure out the fear, understand what issues that fear is causing, and adjust accordingly.
Back to the end of your message again—yep, mixed sets so you can practice timing and jumping around among topics (which is exactly what the test makes you do). You've got a good plan! Check back in and let me know how it's going.
Stacey Koprince
Instructor
Director, Content & Curriculum
ManhattanPrep
Instructor
Director, Content & Curriculum
ManhattanPrep
- hckysgreat1
- Course Students
- Posts: 6
- Joined: Sun Mar 24, 2019 11:42 am
Re: Practice Exam Fluctuations
Stacey,
Unfortunately, the latest CAT (Q 36, V 30) didn't see improvements from the last and is still hovering around the same score as my original CAT, which was taken before ever seeing the test. Putting the given advice into practice, I skipped questions as necessary based on the target time/personal feelings towards the question, and attempted to keep my mind fresh by drinking coconut water and doing jumping jacks during the 8 minute break. Additionally, I got a good night's rest, worked out briefly prior to taking the test and had a quiet environment.
The last 4 weeks have been filled with a throughout review of class notes combined with problem sets on the side. To be honest, I don't think my problem recognition/approach has improved much since starting and completing the class and now doing practice questions. I did not feel like my correct versus total question ratio was improving the past few weeks, either.
Quant - I felt like all questions (easy or hard) were foreign. The overall score on 600/700 level questions was nearly 0 correct.
Verbal - I expected a higher score than the score ended up being. I'd say that I felt about 85% confident when answering most of the questions.
Specific to time, I'm still very much so pushing myself to stay on schedule but I think time-wise I have good awareness of the target time. Based on the CAT review, I'm guessing you're going to say I still have timing issues after seeing 12 verbal and 16 quant questions over 2 minutes. My answer to that is maybe after 4 CAT's I've learned that my brain can't process question -> plan -> action -> answer that quickly.
Knowing that a month between CAT 3 & 4 may be a little too long in between, I plan to take another next weekend. Again, the missed question types were all over the board so it's hard to pinpoint one or two areas of focus without forgetting about other areas.
At this point in my studies maybe I should be asking, when do I hit a point where I take a step back and re-evaluate whether my target score is truly within reach?
Unfortunately, the latest CAT (Q 36, V 30) didn't see improvements from the last and is still hovering around the same score as my original CAT, which was taken before ever seeing the test. Putting the given advice into practice, I skipped questions as necessary based on the target time/personal feelings towards the question, and attempted to keep my mind fresh by drinking coconut water and doing jumping jacks during the 8 minute break. Additionally, I got a good night's rest, worked out briefly prior to taking the test and had a quiet environment.
The last 4 weeks have been filled with a throughout review of class notes combined with problem sets on the side. To be honest, I don't think my problem recognition/approach has improved much since starting and completing the class and now doing practice questions. I did not feel like my correct versus total question ratio was improving the past few weeks, either.
Quant - I felt like all questions (easy or hard) were foreign. The overall score on 600/700 level questions was nearly 0 correct.
Verbal - I expected a higher score than the score ended up being. I'd say that I felt about 85% confident when answering most of the questions.
Specific to time, I'm still very much so pushing myself to stay on schedule but I think time-wise I have good awareness of the target time. Based on the CAT review, I'm guessing you're going to say I still have timing issues after seeing 12 verbal and 16 quant questions over 2 minutes. My answer to that is maybe after 4 CAT's I've learned that my brain can't process question -> plan -> action -> answer that quickly.
Knowing that a month between CAT 3 & 4 may be a little too long in between, I plan to take another next weekend. Again, the missed question types were all over the board so it's hard to pinpoint one or two areas of focus without forgetting about other areas.
At this point in my studies maybe I should be asking, when do I hit a point where I take a step back and re-evaluate whether my target score is truly within reach?
- StaceyKoprince
- ManhattanGMAT Staff
- Posts: 9349
- Joined: Wed Oct 19, 2005 9:05 am
- Location: Montreal
Re: Practice Exam Fluctuations
I'm sorry you're having such a frustrating time with this test.
A few comments in reply to things that you wrote:
If it's not too late, go back and try the questions again without looking at the answers. Unlimited time. Do they all still feel completely foreign?
If a decent number of them now seem at least somewhat okay, then there's a good chance that you're experiencing performance anxiety under testing conditions. Feeling like everything is completely foreign is a really common symptom of that.
If they do all still completely foreign, then go ahead and start to review the solutions. But don't just read straight through. Start to read, but stop immediately whenever something gives you an idea or you think, "Oh, yeah, I know this" (or just have an idea). Try to push forward on the problem as much as you can—if / when you get stuck, go look at more of the solution (but again stop when / if you have an idea of something to do or try).
If you find that you aren't getting any ideas at all (ie, that you really do just end up reading straight through the solution because nothing is ringing a bell), then yes, we might have to talk about whether your current goal is achievable. If, though, you find that you're getting all kinds of ideas once you have a few hints to get you started—but the issue was getting started in the first place—then that tells us what you need to work on. You need to work on how to "translate" GMAT-speak into steps you can take to try to solve the problem.
Many people study for the quant as though it's a school math test in the sense that you're going to see the "exact same" kinds of problems but with different numbers (because that's how school math tests mostly are). But that's not at all how the GMAT works. When you study for the GMAT, what you're really learning is how to think your way through new problems, because the ones you see on the real thing won't be clones of the ones you study. They'll share some elements, yes, but I think of it more like: You're doing something at work that you've sort of done before, so you have some idea what to do, but this new thing is adjacent to what you did before, not exactly what you did before.
Verbal:
And when you reviewed those questions, what did you find? Were you completely off base? Had you narrowed to two answers but picked the wrong one? When you look at the correct answer now, are you able to articulate what that one's the right one and the one you chose is not? Or are you still thinking that the one that you chose was better? Etc.
I'm not sure whether you mean while studying or while taking an exam. Your percentage correct will never improve (much) on an adaptive exam. What changes is the difficulty range of the questions you're answering, not what percentage you answer correctly.
Not based on being over 2 minutes, no. 2 minutes is an average, not a time limit. You're going to have a decent number of questions both above and below that average—the issue is just making sure that the "over" times are not too far over. Generally speaking, anything within 30 seconds of the average time for that question type isn't even considered over. If you're more than a minute over, that's an issue. (Between 30 and 60 seconds is a judgment call. When you're making a conscious decision to spend that extra time for a really good reason, that's fine—although you can't do that very many times, of course. But when you're getting sucked in / it wasn't a conscious decision, or you do make a conscious decision but you realize in hindsight that there wasn't actually a good enough reason to spend that extra time—that's what you want to fix going forward.
Did you do your PCA? I scanned back through our last few posts but can't find a mention of already having done it. And let me know your answers to my earlier questions so we can try to diagnose what's going on.
A few comments in reply to things that you wrote:
Quant - I felt like all questions (easy or hard) were foreign.
If it's not too late, go back and try the questions again without looking at the answers. Unlimited time. Do they all still feel completely foreign?
If a decent number of them now seem at least somewhat okay, then there's a good chance that you're experiencing performance anxiety under testing conditions. Feeling like everything is completely foreign is a really common symptom of that.
If they do all still completely foreign, then go ahead and start to review the solutions. But don't just read straight through. Start to read, but stop immediately whenever something gives you an idea or you think, "Oh, yeah, I know this" (or just have an idea). Try to push forward on the problem as much as you can—if / when you get stuck, go look at more of the solution (but again stop when / if you have an idea of something to do or try).
If you find that you aren't getting any ideas at all (ie, that you really do just end up reading straight through the solution because nothing is ringing a bell), then yes, we might have to talk about whether your current goal is achievable. If, though, you find that you're getting all kinds of ideas once you have a few hints to get you started—but the issue was getting started in the first place—then that tells us what you need to work on. You need to work on how to "translate" GMAT-speak into steps you can take to try to solve the problem.
Many people study for the quant as though it's a school math test in the sense that you're going to see the "exact same" kinds of problems but with different numbers (because that's how school math tests mostly are). But that's not at all how the GMAT works. When you study for the GMAT, what you're really learning is how to think your way through new problems, because the ones you see on the real thing won't be clones of the ones you study. They'll share some elements, yes, but I think of it more like: You're doing something at work that you've sort of done before, so you have some idea what to do, but this new thing is adjacent to what you did before, not exactly what you did before.
Verbal:
I'd say that I felt about 85% confident when answering most of the questions.
And when you reviewed those questions, what did you find? Were you completely off base? Had you narrowed to two answers but picked the wrong one? When you look at the correct answer now, are you able to articulate what that one's the right one and the one you chose is not? Or are you still thinking that the one that you chose was better? Etc.
I did not feel like my correct versus total question ratio was improving the past few weeks, either.
I'm not sure whether you mean while studying or while taking an exam. Your percentage correct will never improve (much) on an adaptive exam. What changes is the difficulty range of the questions you're answering, not what percentage you answer correctly.
Based on the CAT review, I'm guessing you're going to say I still have timing issues after seeing 12 verbal and 16 quant questions over 2 minutes.
Not based on being over 2 minutes, no. 2 minutes is an average, not a time limit. You're going to have a decent number of questions both above and below that average—the issue is just making sure that the "over" times are not too far over. Generally speaking, anything within 30 seconds of the average time for that question type isn't even considered over. If you're more than a minute over, that's an issue. (Between 30 and 60 seconds is a judgment call. When you're making a conscious decision to spend that extra time for a really good reason, that's fine—although you can't do that very many times, of course. But when you're getting sucked in / it wasn't a conscious decision, or you do make a conscious decision but you realize in hindsight that there wasn't actually a good enough reason to spend that extra time—that's what you want to fix going forward.
Did you do your PCA? I scanned back through our last few posts but can't find a mention of already having done it. And let me know your answers to my earlier questions so we can try to diagnose what's going on.
Stacey Koprince
Instructor
Director, Content & Curriculum
ManhattanPrep
Instructor
Director, Content & Curriculum
ManhattanPrep
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