Score stagnating - Please help

[SergeyK302]

Hi Stacey, thanks much for your quick response! I really appreciate that you address my questions quickly and thoroughly.

What you need to learn to do is to identify the questions that *you* are not very likely to get right (regardless of how hard they are). So you literally need to study / analyze what makes a problem hard for you so that you can learn to recognize it and get out quickly. (Everyone needs to do this. A lot of people don't, though.)

I know few people who scored >38 on Verbal. I asked for their advice and none of them said that "bail" strategy is good. In fact, all of them were VERY surprised to hear that a Manhattan instructor recommends to bail... I am not going to argue here, but I am concerned whether or not I should rely on bailing... Perhaps, I can at least try to implement your method during my next mock.

Sorry if I sound stubborn. My reasoning is that I don't want to acquire bad habits and develop false & inflated expectations.

Sometimes, it's an entire question sub-type—some people know that they're bad at Evaluate questions or boldface (Describe the Role). When it's this, you're lucky, because you can usually identify these almost immediately by looking at the words in the question stem. (You mentioned that you have been using PowerScore for CR, I think? Do they teach you how to ID the different question types quickly? I assume so. Use whatever their categorizations are.) It could also be that you just can't identify what the question type is—so that's a clue to bail.

Sometimes, it has to do with the type of content—some people struggle more if the CR is science- or math-based or on some topic that the person isn't familiar with. These take a little more time to identify, but you can usually do so within about 30 seconds.

It can be other things. Basically what you need to do is analyze a bunch of CRs that have been really hard for you to see what they have in common, so that you can ID similar ones quickly in future.

It may sound unreal or funny, but I don't really have topics / question types that I absolutely dislike. Following things happen once in a while:

1. I cannot understand some words in the prompt leading to poor comprehension to the prompt itself (there are unfamiliar words which prevent me from getting an idea). However, this is a pretty rare case.
2. I cannot understand the question type. At least half of the questions are straightforward - "the argument assumes that...", "Following answer, if true, would weaken the argument...". But there is usually one or two question prompts which I read 2-3 times before I at least start getting a clue about what is being asked. The trick is that such questions are usually easy, and the only problem is with the prompt itself. Perhaps, such questions are good bail candidates, but it is dangerous to guess on them before reading the prompt itself. If I read the prompt and still don't understand much, then I should guess. But I will be about 1 min into the question. Below is an example of the question prompt that took me 35 seconds to comprehend, but I still did not fully got what is asked...

"Which one of the following principles, if established, would do most to justify drawing the conclusion of the argument on the basis of the reasons offered in its support?" Is it an assumption question? Or is it Strengthen?

3. I get lost in prompt logics. This usually happens on hard questions.

Again, the above is pure theory. I am by no means very efficient in identifying the three types of "issues" mentioned above. Maybe I just need to be more cautious whenever I do the test next time.

Re: verbal, you could basically weight CR/RC more heavily while still doing occasional mixed sets. So cluster today and tomorrow, then do a mixed set on the 3rd day (including SC). That kind of thing.

Yes, this is how I will proceed from now on. I plan to do two or three Verbal mixed sets a week. And do about 5-10 SC questions every day (I can do few questions during lunch at work).

You don't need to practice new questions to figure this out—you don't actually learn how to do this in the moment while the clock is ticking. You learn this during your analysis of the problems, after you're done doing the set. So go back and learn this from the CRs you've done in the past 2-3 weeks.

Okay. It will be interesting to go back to some of the CR questions that I did not solve in last two months and re-try them. I usually analyze every question very thoroughly. Specifically, I do the question with a timer, answer it, and then do my best to understand the logics. Some people who scored high on Verbal even recommend not to look at answer choices before reattempting, i.e. do your best with a timer, then take a break, and then try to solve the same set of questions again, but untimed. Only after the second round, people say, one should look at answer choices. I did two RC medium-hard level passages this way on Sunday and my accuracy was 7/8, timing was 2 min per question.

I would top out mixed sets at 18 questions for Verbal. Yes, you want to mimic the real test, but you also want to iterate—do something, then analyze and figure out how to get better, then practice again. 18 questions is enough to mimic having to manage a big block of time and a lot of questions—but without using up a ton of questions before you've learned how to get even better.

Thank you for your advice. I will not do more than 18 verbal questions in a set then. I also find it exhausting to do more than 18 verbal questions in a row.

Love your last paragraph.

Thanks. If tuned, it could be a good SC question

[StaceyKoprince]

I know few people who scored >38 on Verbal. I asked for their advice and none of them said that "bail" strategy is good.

My top verbal score is 51. I bail on this test. (It's true that I bail more on Q than on V, because Q is my weaker area. My top Q score is only 50.)

This is just based on how the test works. Whatever you can do, they can give you something harder—so whatever you can do, they're going to find your limit. If you can recognize that they just found your limit, then you aren't going to waste time and mental energy on something you're very unlikely to get right anyway. Better to spend that time and mental energy elsewhere.

So your example #2—can't figure out what the question type is. Let's say that you give yourself 30 seconds to ID the question type. If you can't by then, then forget it—you're out. From what you've said, that will get you ~2 bails on average in a section.

Oh, but also, you say:

Again, the above is pure theory. I am by no means very efficient in identifying the three types of "issues" mentioned above.

So go look at 20 questions that you found too hard / got wrong / didn't understand very well even after knowing the correct answer. Study those problems not from the point of view of how to get them right but from the point of view of how to know fast(er) that they're too hard. In other words, take this from "pure theory," in your words, to actual / practical / factual. Study this just like you study anything. Then let me know what you think.

[SergeyK302]

Hi Stacey,

It is time for an update. I have taken the 2nd GMAT today and scored 640 Q45 V32 IR6 AWA TBD... I did not cancel the score this time, so I will share my AWA once I receive the score. I did the test in the following order - Verbal, Quant, IR, and AWA.

In my last 4 weeks, I have been working with a tutor; we focused primarily on Quant. He has a very analytical approach to the GMAT content and is one of the best tutors I have worked with so far, so I am confident that I improved in terms of content and fundamentals.

The results of our work have been quite productive. I did not only improve my skills in Quant, but also learned some timing strategies that definitely helped me to stay on track during the test(s). More importantly, I feel more confident about majority of Quant topics now, so I should be able to elevate my Quant score by 2-3 points once we cover the remaining topics (geometry, stats, probability, and combinatorics).

The reason why I decided to take the official test again is plain simple. Last week, I took two official mba.com diagnostic tests and scored 680 Q46 V37 IR2 and 690 Q45 V39 IR2. So, I decided to give the real thing a shot, and unfortunately did not fall into the 1-sigma range of the scores which I got lately.

In the real test, Quant seemed harder than it was in both diagnostic tests. Verbal was weird, especially SC questions. They were rather short, but most of them had weird structures and I could not easily eliminate more than 2 wrong answers, so POE did not work really well unfortunately (to my surprise). I will write more about SC at the end of the post. As you know, my timing in CR is usually slow, so today I had to randomly guess on 2 CR passages to catch-up on time (the same happened to me during the diagnostic tests, too). In my diagnostics, I performed really well in RC - I only got 1 wrong answer in four passages in each mock test, so I definitely made more mistakes today since my Verbal today is just V32. I have not received the ESR yet, but I am curious to see how I performed in Verbal.

The jump in my IR score from 2 to 6 is definitely a big improvement. This is pleasing considering that I was not confident about IR section after getting IR2 twice in my diagnostic tests and IR3 in the 1st official GMAT one month ago, even though I actually tried my best. I analyzed the IRs from my mocks and employed the "bail" strategy that is taught by the Manhattanprep IR Strategy Guide. I guessed on 1 question in the middle of the test and bailed on the remaining 2 questions because I was running out of time. The last IR question, that I had to guess on, was a chart analysis question, which I usually solve confidently...Anyways, 6 is a good score.

Overall, the significant drop in performance in Verbal section brought my overall score down. So, as you can perceive from the tone of my message, I am unhappy about the score and will continue my fight with the exam. Applying in R1 is not an option anymore, maybe this will lift some pressure off me.

So, I will continue working with my tutor on Quant. In regard to verbal, I will continue reading quality material such as The Economist passages and hopefully that will help me with logics comprehension and general understanding of text. I will continue doing 5-10 CR questions from OG and LSAT every other day, and read explanations by credible instructors & experts on forums. I will probably go through some Manhattan prep SC Strategy Guide chapters to refresh on the grammar, but I will primarily focus on solving SC questions from OG.

As I said before, today the POE process in SC did not help at all. There were MANY questions in which I could not spot the immediate problem. There were 2-3 sentences where I knew the subject which was being tested, but I could not decide between the 2 or even 3 options. So... I want to look at the ESR and understand the level of the difficulty of the SC questions. To tell you the truth, the only problem that I usually have in SC is the parallelism in hard questions. In my last 2 official mocks, I missed 10 SC questions and 9 of them were 650+ level questions which tested the parallel structure. So, this is the only topic that I know I have to work on. Otherwise, I am clueless how to work on SC.

I will appreciate any advice regarding Verbal. I really need to become consistent. The results of the diagnostic tests show that I am capable of scoring in high 30s in Verbal, so maybe I just need to manage my stress in a better way... Easier said than done, though.

[StaceyKoprince]

I think it was the right call to go for it! Even though it didn't match your GMATPrep score, you still have a solid score on record. And great job on IR—that's a big lift! It's nice to know that you don't need to worry about that section.

Have you gotten your ESR data yet? I'd like to see what it says to help us decide how you should proceed with verbal. (It sounds like you feel confident that you can continue to improve quant with your tutor.)

[SergeyK302]

Hi Stacey,

Yes you are right, I got more confidence in my ability - and this is a big thing already. As you can guess, I am quite disappointed about the drop in my Verbal score...Both of the diagnostic tests gave me confidence that I can score at least V35... But that did not happen to be the case.

I got the ESR, please find the data below. My tutor also analyzed the ESR data for me. Some interesting takeaways:

1. Seems that I screwed DS. However, I cannot quite understand how come I got such a low percentile in DS section... I cannot provide the graphics from the ESR, but it says that I was guessing on (missing) very hard Quant questions, which is a good thing to do. The sectional breakdown is weird too... I am 99.999% confident that I solved the 30th geometry question which was a low 600 level question, and I yet got 0% in Geometry. Otherwise, my performance in Number Theory and Ratios / Fractions was quite good.
2. This time, my RC hit rate was very good (I bombed RC in my 1st GMAT). However, my SC accuracy dropped to an unacceptable level especially because I almost never have issues with SC during practice. Also, my SC timing was bad - I took about 1:40 for a question, while I usually take about 60-70 seconds... CR was a disaster again. I did guess on 2 CR questions during the test to catch-up on time. I read the questions and thougth that I was making the right choice (bail on harder CR if I have to), but it turns out that I might have bailed on some easy CR questions... Again, both of the diagnostic tests show that I can do much better in Verbal, and the only thing to figure out is how to be consistent... I reckon that I was way too nervous during Verbal, and I think I was a bit unlucky with the content... Most of the SC questions looked too strange, and I often could not figure out how to eliminate at least 3 wrong options.

I have taken a week off, and will probably take another few days off because I am traveling in Europe these days. But I plan to return to study by mid August.

By the way, do you think that 640 is a solid score? I doubt it will be a good enough score to apply to any top-15 US schools. I might have a chance, but based on the data available in Class Profiles published by b-schools I will be better off if I secure a score north of 600.

ESR data

Verbal
Your Verbal score of 32 is higher than 66% of GMAT Exam scores recorded in the past three years. The mean score for this section is 27.04.
• Your performance on Critical Reasoning questions was equivalent to a score of 23, which is better than 33% of GMAT Exam scores recorded in the past three years. The mean score for this sub-section is 27.59.
◦ Your performance of 50% on Analysis/Critique questions is considered Weak.
◦ Your performance of 25% on Construction/Plan questions is considered Very Weak.
• Your performance on Reading Comprehension questions was equivalent to a score of 38, which is better than 80% of
GMAT Exam scores recorded in the past three years. The mean score for this sub-section is 27.29.
◦ Your performance of 66% on Identify Inferred Idea questions is considered Above Average.
◦ Your performance of 75% on Identify Stated Idea questions is considered Above Average.
• Your performance on Sentence Correction questions was equivalent to a score of 31, which is better than 59% of GMAT Exam scores recorded in the past three years. The mean score for this sub-section is 27.19.
◦ Your performance of 80% on Grammar questions is considered Above Average.
◦ Your performance of 42% on Communication questions is considered Weak.
• You completed 36 questions in the Verbal section.
• You responded correctly to 63% of the first set of questions, 57% of the second set of questions, 57% of the third set of
questions and 50% of the final set of questions.
• The average difficulty of questions presented to you in the first set of questions was Medium, the average for the
second set of questions was Medium High , the average for the third set of questions was Medium and was Medium for
the final set of questions.
• The average time it took you to respond to the first set of questions presented was 2:15, the average time for the
second set of questions was 2:32, the average time for the third set of questions was 1:17 and 1:04 for the final set of
questions.
• Please Note: If you sat for the GMAT exam prior to April 16, 2018 this section contained 41 questions, on or after April
16, 2018 the section consists of 36 questions.


Quant
Your Quantitative score of 45 is higher than 55% of GMAT Exam scores recorded in the past three years. The mean score for this section is 39.93.
• Your performance on Problem Solving questions was equivalent to a score of 48. Your score is better than 66% of all sub-section scores recorded in the past three years. The mean for all test takers is 39.91.
• Your performance on Data Sufficiency questions was equivalent to a score of 6. Your score is better than 0% of all sub- section scores recorded in the past three years. The mean for all test takers is 39.94.
• Your performance on Arithmetic questions was equivalent to a score of 48. Your score is better than 65% of all sub- section scores recorded in the past three years. The mean for all test takers is 40.02.
• Your performance on Algebra/Geometry questions was equivalent to a score of 37. Your score is better than 32% of all sub-section scores recorded in the past three years. The mean for all test takers is 39.88.
• Your performance of 0% on Geometry questions is considered Very Weak.
• Your performance of 71% on Rates/Ratio/Percent questions is considered Above Average.
• Your performance of 83% on Value/Order/Factors questions is considered Strong.
• Your performance of 40% on Equal./Inequal./Alg. questions is considered Weak.
• Your performance of 33% on Counting/Sets/Series questions is considered Weak.
• You completed 31 questions in the Quantitative section.
• You responded correctly to 86% of the first set of questions, 57% of the second set of questions, 29% of the third set of
questions and 29% of the final set of questions..
• The average difficulty of questions presented to you in the first set of questions was Medium, the average for the
second set of questions was Medium High, the average for the third set of questions was Medium High and was
Medium High for the final set of questions.
• The average time it took you to respond to the first set of questions presented was 2:24, the average time for the
second set of questions was 2:19, the average time for the third set of questions was 2:00 and 1:07 for the final set of
questions.
• Please Note: If you sat for the GMAT exam prior to April 16, 2018 this section contained 37 questions, on or after April
16, 2018 the section consists of 31 questions.

[SergeyK302]

Couple more notes:

In both sections I had some timing issues. They were not as severe as those in my 1st official exam, but I definitely managed my time more effectively during the diagnostic tests.

The 2nd official GMAT felt harder than both of the official diagnostic tests. Perhaps, this is why I had more problems with timing. A friend of mine who scored in high 700s on the official diagnostic tests only got 710 on the real thing. I wonder if the real thing is actually harder than paid diagnostic exams.

I just checked the official report - I got 5.0 out of 6.0 in AWA. Apparently, it is just 53% percentile, but I guess it is a decent score anyways.

[StaceyKoprince]

I'm going to look at your data myself first before I read any of your commentary.

Verbal
Score = 32
CR = 23 Lowest of the three. "Construction / Plan" is the weaker area, but it looks like all of CR could use some work.
RC = 38 Very strong!
SC = 31 "Communication" was lower. I don't know exactly how they view this category, but my guess is that it would have more to do with meaning, as the other category is called Grammar.

Your performance was strong enough in the first quadrant to lift you to medium-high in the second quadrant, but you slipped back after that. You also spent the most time in the first two quadrants. Your % correct was lowest in the last quadrant—not surprising given how very quickly you were having to work in that quadrant. Your scoring trajectory, then, dipped at the end of the section. Since the GMAT is a "where you end is what you get" test, that means that your average performance throughout the section was actually higher than where you ended up.

The good news is that this means you are already capable of scoring higher on the V section just by fixing the timing issues alone (without even learning more material).

Do you remember whether you had any kind of cluster of a certain problem type at the end of the section? If you had a bunch of CRs at that point, that could explain the lower CR performance, for example.

Quant
Total = 45
PS = 48
DS = 6

That last stat is a flawed one. Your percentile for DS is not literally 6. It does mean, though, that you missed all or almost all of the DS questions you saw. Since you got very few right, the report defaults to giving you the lowest DS score, but to be accurate, the report would really need to say something like "Your DS is below XY percentile," with XY representing the percentile of the lowest-ranking DS question you were offered.

Does that mean that you are terrible at DS? Maybe...but hang on a second.

You had a similar scoring and timing trajectory on this section—but it was actually more extreme (only 29% right in quadrants 3 and 4). Overall, as with verbal, your time management hurt your score and again the good news is that you are already capable of scoring higher on quant if you fix these timing / decision-making issues. And, in particular, it might be the case that DS showed up a bit more in the second quadrant, when you were rushing, and so that's why you missed so many of these. It may not be the case that DS itself is a big weakness.

What was your average time on PS vs. DS questions? I also commonly see this scenario: People feel more comfortable with PS because the answer choices feel more "real," so they spend more time on PS to the detriment of DS. They then rush (a little or a lot) on most DS problems; that increases the incidence of careless mistakes. They then tell me they're bad at DS, but they're really not. They're just not giving it appropriate time / attention.

So you're at a 640 right now. Your data shows that you can pick up points just by making better decisions about where you invest your time. Right now, you are over-investing in the first half of each section and that's causing you to lose steam and have a score drop at the end. By allocating your time better—choosing to bail on some questions in the first half, allowing yourself to work steadily through the second half without a big time drop = score drop—you can likely lift your score 1-3 points in each section. If you were able to pick up 3 points in each section, that would put you at a 680.

A 640 is a solid score, but if you are looking at top-15 schools, then a 680 would be much better. And you can likely get there just by working on your GMAT Mindset / executive reasoning (all that stuff that we've been talking about for a while now... )!

Now looking at your comments.
– You might have solved that Geo question correctly—it might have been an experimental question. Alternatively, you might have made a careless mistake without realizing it. (Even if it was PS and you found your answer among the answer choices—they know the common mistakes and build them into the answers.)

– You still managed to hit 31 on SC, even feeling that it was tough. I would be more concerned about CR at 23; that's holding back your overall score more. (Unless you remember getting a bunch of CRs at the end when you were rushing.)

– AWA: 5.0 is a good score—so no need to worry about this or IR for next time.

In your second post, you mention that you were aware of the timing issues and that you managed the time better in your diagnostics. Why? What do you think the differences were that caused the timing to be more problematic on the real thing? (Or, if you're not really sure what actually caused it, just brainstorm. What felt different on the real thing compared to practice?)

[SergeyK302]

Hi Stacey,

Apologies for a delay in my response. I have been traveling for work since my exam, and now I am in Europe for next couple of weeks. I took a pretty significant break, so I am hoping to find 5-10 hours a week while I am traveling. Realistically, though, I will likely be able to "fully" come back to study once I am back to the US.

Thanks for analyzing my ESR data. My tutor also analyzed it, and provided with a feedback. I will comment on your analysis and ask some questions

Verbal

I agree that I need to keep working on CR. Unfortunately, I do not remember whether I had many questions at the end of the section... I do remember 3-4 CR questions and that I did rush through them. One of the questions was a Bold Face question. Perhaps, I missed some easy CR questions because I was rushing and could not properly focus.

I have been reading de-briefs from people who recently took the GMAT and many people report that SC questions feel harder than those from official diagnostic tests or Official Guide. It seems that GMAC is offering questions which do not fall into standard buckets of areas (modifiers, parallelism, subject verb agreement, and so on) that test takers are looking for. That is, my hypothesis is that the test might be putting more emphasis on the meaning. I felt miserable while doing pretty much every other SC question, i.e. I could not quickly spot a problem with option A at least 4-5 times.

The good performance in RC is rather surprising. However, I have been doing very well in this section during both of my diagnostic tests. So, maybe your blog posts and reading The Economist daily did help me to improve.

Quant

Not sure I really understand what you mean about DS percentile. Anyways, I did not do well in that section. My tutor says that chances are I was very unlucky with the content, i.e. most of the DS questions were at or above 700 level. If that was the case, it is possible that I missed most of the DS questions because they were actually hard. I do recall that few of the DS questions were really weird - I did not really know how to approach them. However, a few of DS questions were doable and this is why I am shocked with 6% percentile in DS.

Code: Select All Code

What was your average time on PS vs. DS questions?

I do not know... Usually, I am okay with both PS and DS questions. My tutor wants to spend a bit of time with me looking at how I approach DS questions, i.e. whether I make educated guesses or simply guess (this is the case, actually, most of the time). So, I need to improve my "guessicion" making in DS section.


Conclusion

In your second post, you mention that you were aware of the timing issues and that you managed the time better in your diagnostics. Why? What do you think the differences were that caused the timing to be more problematic on the real thing? (Or, if you're not really sure what actually caused it, just brainstorm. What felt different on the real thing compared to practice?)

I wish I knew... I was likely stressed even though I felt much more confident and comfortable this time, after scoring my target scores twice in a row just a few days before the real thing. Also, I had a perfect setting - I was given a private room in which I was the only one, so I did not even need to use the headphones. So, test center experience was as great as it can be. And yet, I did not get the score I needed.

At the moment, I feel that 680 is definitely an achievable result. But quite many things have to align: confidence, timing, stress level, content, luck, and room comfort.

What would you recommend to do to improve my Verbal performance? I exhausted most of the official easy & medium level CR questions from OG 2015 until OG 2019. My tutor suggested we try working on CR a bit and see how it goes. He wants to see whether there are any standard CR patterns that I am not approaching in the optimal way.

What would you recommend to do with SC? Should I go through the Manhattanprep SC Strategy Guide again? Or should I continue doing 5-10 OG SC questions daily (the old way) and focus more on Parallelism? From all SC questions that I missed in two diagnostic tests, 9 out of 10 questions were testing parallelism and comparison.


Thank you!


P.S. It is clear that I am not applying in R1. However, I really want to be done with the GMAT by November so that I can focus on the essays and applications.

[StaceyKoprince]

We have teachers regularly taking the official exam. Recently, I have had some tell me that they though the SC was harder than usual—but in the same month, I have had other teachers tell me that it felt the same as usual. I don't know why, but I have some hypotheses to test. (One is that teachers who are more comfortable working based on meaning will think the test feels the same, but those who tend to use more of a strict rules-based approach will feel less comfortable. If that matches up with who tells me the test is the same vs. harder, then we'll know that something is probably going on in terms of an increased focus on meaning.)

Re: the percentile. Imagine that I give you a bunch of DS and PS questions in the range of 40th to 60th percentile I don't give you any questions below 40th percentile, nor do I give you any questions above 60th percentile.

If you miss 100% of the DS questions in that range, then all I can really tell you is that your DS performance is "below 40th percentile." But I don't know how much below since I didn't give you questions below that level in order to see what you can and can't do.

When someone gets a higher score like yours (45), the difficulty level of most of the questions you saw had to be pretty high. Your overall score wasn't anywhere close to 6th percentile, so the test didn't actually give you questions down in that range. Rather, I suspect that the report is set to give the lowest percentile if everything is wrong—but it didn't actually test you at that level. A "true" report would have said something like "below XXth percentile," with XX = the difficulty level of the easiest question that you got wrong (roughly speaking). So if the lowest question you got wrong was rated 40th percentile, then a "true" report would tell you that your level was below the 40th percentile.

Re: average time on PS vs. DS questions, this is in your ESR. Go to the Quant section and look at the bottom of the first page of Quant data in the Time Management sub-section.

I think it's a great idea for your tutor to see how you're working through DS, CR, and SC. That's the best use of a tutor—to literally see / hear how you're thinking your way through a problem so that s/he can spot the ways to improve your process.

It does sound like, in SC, parallelism and comparisons need work. One idea: Go through OG problems that you've done before and look solely for parallelism and comparisons issues—ignore everything else. (Your goal isn't even to answer the questions. It's just to spot any parallelism and comparisons language / clues / markers and to think through what you can eliminate just based on that.) This should help you to do two things: (1) pinpoint where your skills might be weak in this area—or what kinds of traps you may be falling for, and (2) practice and get better! Talk with your tutor about #1. Bring specific examples to illustrate where and how you're falling for traps / going wrong so that s/he can figure out what you need to do differently in future.

[SergeyK302]

Hi Stacey,

My apologies for a delayed response... My trip to EU was quite occupied with things, but I am back to both the US and the GMAT as of last week In the first couple of days of study I realized that my thinking is "rusty", but then I started to think quicker. I hope that the 4 week break from study will prove to be useful.


It is very interesting to hear that some Manhattanprep tutors provide very different feedback about SC. Have you tested your hypothesis yet? If not, how are you planning to test it? It might very well be that GMAT puts more and more focus on meaning in SC.


Thanks for your explanation of my DS percentile. It is clear and I assume I was indeed getting quite hard questions in DS since the percentile is so low. I have discussed DS strategies with my tutor a bit. I definitely need to improve my guessing strategy in DS section - I do invest time in each question, but sometimes , when I cannot find a correct answer, I blindly pick a letter. Sometimes I do use strategies that help eliminate 2-3 options, so the chances of picking a correct answer when guessing between C and E is 50%, while a blind letter picking is just 20%... I think I need to improve how I analyze a question when I do not know how to solve it.


I looked at my last ESR, and found out that my timing in PS and DS was 1:55 and 2:01, respectively. Not a huge difference. I guess I should be very careful with time management during my next diagnostic test, i.e. I should make sure that I do not over-invest in the first three quarters in both Quant and Verbal. I did well in two diagnostic tests before my last GMAT, but I did not do so well during the real thing.


I have started doing the SC analysis that you suggested. I am going through Parallelism and Comparison problems that I solved in the past, and I am also doing questions from OG 2019 (I have not solved them before). So far, I analyzed about 15 questions and I am yet to find a topic in which I am REALLY not confident... I wish I find something, because otherwise I am clueless what to do to improve. Also, I am planning to go through respective Manhattanprep SC Strategy Guide sections to just refresh on the content.


Last, my tutor and I are going to try working on CR. I will let you know how that goes.


P.S. Happy Labour Day!

[StaceyKoprince]

Thanks for the update. I still have to figure out how to test my hypotheses—it's not easy.

Ok, so your avg time is fine for DS vs. PS—the issue is the overinvestment earlier in the section. And that is really an issue of executive decision-making: You're choosing to overinvest in "poor business opportunities" just because they happen to be offered to you earlier. Pretend you're running a company and you have a certain amount of money to last through the entire year. If you spend it all by August, your business will probably fail. So you literally have to decide *not* to pursue some opportunity in March because the odds are good that you'll find a better use for that money in September. That's the business mindset you're trying to bring to the exam.

Let me know how things go!

[SergeyK302]

Hi Stacey,

I am studying quite hard these days and I hope that I am on track to re-take the GMAT in few weeks. At the moment, I have a timing problem in RC and CR (we discussed this before). My assumption is that the problem is due to my natural ability to comprehend the text, that is, it takes me a while to dissect the meaning.

For instance, my average timing on CR is between 2:20 and 2:30. I take very short passage maps and do my best to understand the passage from the first read, but still cannot reduce my timing to 2:00. One observation that I have is that sometimes I need to re-read the passage to really understand the logic.

In RC my timing is the following:

Reading: ~3:00 min and 4:00-4:30 min for medium-hard level short and long passages, respectively. Reading ideally needs to be reduced...
Answering questions: 1:15 - 1:25 per question. I think timing is fair here.

Yes, I did read most of your RC blog-posts where you solve OG RC questions and show which mindset is required, how to do reading (with skimming through examples), how to approach detail questions, and so on. For instance, I recently read your latest 5-piece post (link below) where you solved the history passage. https://www.manhattanprep.com/gmat/blog ... ge-part-5/

Timing is SC really varies... Usually it takes me 1:20-1:30 min per question, and sometimes I can do <1min, while some harder questions take ~ 1:50...

Conlcusion
From the above, we can assume that I "gain" about 25-30 seconds from majority of SC questions, but the gain is not big enough because I am taking more 2 min per question on both CR and RC (including reading time).

What would you recommend to try to increase my comprehension speed? I know that the simple answer might be to just read-read-read quality articles & books, and I do that almost every day. I try to read at least 2-3 The Economist articles daily, yet the progress is quite slow.


Thank you.

[StaceyKoprince]

Let's do some math to figure this out.

The average time for SC is actually only 1m20s, so unfortunately you aren't gaining any time on those ones. But it sounds like you are averaging 1m20s (since you have some closer to 1m and some closer to 2m), so you aren't losing time there either. There are usually ~13 SCs, so that's just under 17.5min.

On CR, let's use the higher end of your range and say that you're losing 30 seconds per problem. If you do 4 problems, you're taking the amount of time you'd need to take on 5 problems in order to average 2 minutes. There are usually about 10 CR problems on the test, so if you bailed immediately (within, say, 15 seconds) on 2 of the 10, then you'd have enough time for the other 8. Total on CR, you'd use 20 min.

So you have about 27.5min left for RC.

On RC, the most common combination is 3 shorter and 1 longer passage, and you'll typically have a total of 13 problems (3 each for the shorter passages and 4 for the longer one). You'll usually only have 2-3 main idea problems and the rest will be detail problems.

The usual average times are as follows:
shorter passage: 2 min
longer passage: 3 min
main idea Qs: 1 min
detail Qs: 1.5 min

That collectively adds up to about 27.5 min. Your average time per question is already what the "usual" average is, so the time loss is coming from the reading stage. You mention needing an extra min for the reading stage, which is an extra 4m across all four passages. So we've got to make up that 4m somewhere.

Since RC questions are a bit faster, you'd need to bail on about 3 to make up that 4m. Alternatively, you could bail on 2 more CRs to make up that time.

Given your overall performance, it makes much more sense to bail on CR than on RC. So you'd go into the test knowing that you are looking for opportunities to bail fast on 4 CRs (which, by the way, also matches our standard advice for all test takers—bail immediately on approximately 4 problems in each section). And then...you can keep doing what you normally do on all of the other problems.

The question is just how to know when to bail fast—and that's part of your goal in studying: Learn how to spot quickly that a particular CR is a low-potential-return kind of opportunity for you.

Thoughts?

[SergeyK302]

Hi Stacey, thanks for a quick reply. Everything does make sense, assuming the number of questions in each sub-category is close to be correct. The only concern I have is that the method suggests to bail on 4 CR questions... If one gets 10 questions, then (if one has really bad luck) he has a chance to answer only 6 of them correctly. The danger is that it is hard to bail on a question within 15 seconds without knowing how hard it is... I usually take ~45-60 seconds to do both ID a question type (say, 5-15 seconds) and read the prompt (40-50 seconds).

A mistake in CR question classification can have a very detrimental effect on the level of other questions... That is, if I bail on 2-4 easy-medium questions and miss them, I will be pretty much screwed in Verbal. I did bail on 2-3 CR questions in my previous GMAT (I remember bailing on one Bold Face and one hard Inference CR question), so I had 40 percentile...

So, how do you suggest to become more efficient in ID-ing good bail opportunities? Frankly, I do not have question types that I hate. Sometimes I just fail to comprehend the logics... I have one example - I should bail on a question if I do not know some important vocabulary (verbs) and cannot understand the argument. This happens rarely, though, and almost always on medium-hard questions.


Thank you!

[StaceyKoprince]

There's no way to tell whether a question is rated easier or harder when you're taking the exam, so ignore that aspect.

Everybody has weaknesses—the question is just how to classify them. If the data doesn't show that certain overall types of CRs are worse for you (but: check your practice tests and OG performance to make sure this is really true), then there are other types of indicators of CR questions that are bad for you. You just need to find them.

Go look at the 30 CRs that have given you the most trouble over the past month—ask yourself why each one was so bad for you. Find the commonalities / patterns. Use those to figure out what you need to notice to get out within 30-45 seconds in future.

Use the following, in order:
(1) Step 1 is to identify the question type.
(a) Bail on any types you already know are bad for you. (I know you said this doesn't apply in your case. I'm including for thoroughness.)
(b) If you struggle to identify the question type, bail right then. If you're not there within 15 seconds, or you think it might be this category but you're not really sure...get out.

(2) Step 2 is to read and deconstruct the argument.
(a) Are there certain types of content areas that give you more trouble? (For instance, some people do worse on the science-focused ones; other people struggle with the business "theory / technical term" ones.) If so, that's the first place to bail and within the first sentence, maybe 30 seconds in.
(b) Next, how hard it is to understand the argument? If you have to re-read the first or second sentence (or part), get out.

Another question for you: Do you jot down any notes / make a map when doing CR? If so, see whether there are any differences for problems you're more likely to get wrong. For instance, maybe on problems you get right, you are able to start jotting notes right from the first sentence of the argument—but on incorrect problems, you often can't start jotting until you get much farther into the argument. Or maybe you find yourself jotting down way more because you're having trouble trying to make sense of what you're reading. Basically, if there are any visual indicators within the first minute that are giving you more trouble, then also use those as a sign to get out.

If you have a tablet, you might go do 10 problems on the tablet while recording both time and whatever you write on screen, so that you can actually see what the differences are between ones that you're getting right relatively easily and ones you're either getting wrong or spending way too much time on (or both).