Timing Issues on Verbal

[teal777]

Hi,

My accuracy rate is about 50-60% on MGMAT CATs but timing is really bad, average of about 3 -4 minutes (worst case 4 minutes). I think I can get accuracy to move up through more practice but I know if I will try to speed up, my accuracy will drop.

I do make T-diagrams and my note taking strategy is fine (since I am following the note taking process as discussed in the Foundations of Verbal).

Can you please suggest some tips on improving timing?

One thing that I have specifically noted is that I really get slowed down on CR problems involving statistics. To give you an example of a CAT problem that took me 4 minutes and I still got wrong -

In January of last year, Fastfood King started using a new lowfat oil to cook its Fast Fries, instead of the less healthful corn oil that it had been using. Now Fastfood King is planning to switch back, saying that the change has hurt sales of Fast Fries. However, this claim is incorrect, since according to Fastfood King’s own sales figures, Fastfood King sold 10 percent more Fast Fries last year than in the previous year.

Which of the following, if true, most strongly supports the argument against Fastfood King's claim?

a) Total sales of all foods at Fastfood King’s locations increased by less than 10 percent last year.

b) Fastfood King enjoys higher profit margins on its Soft Drinks than it does on Fast Fries.

c) Fastfood King’s customers prefer the taste of Fast Fries cooked in corn oil to Fast Fries cooked in lowfat oil.

d) The number of customers that visited Fastfood King locations was more than 20 percent higher last year than the year before.

e) The year before last, Fastfood King experienced a 20 percent increase in Fast Fries sales over the previous year.


This argument was very confusing for me because of the time point references ( Last Year and This Year). Thinking in out between 'last year' and 'this year' got me really confused and slowed me down. What should I do in order to speed up argument dissection for these specific types of arguments that have lots of stats involved and multiple time references involved?

II) Also, when I analyzed my MGMAT CATs I saw that the average time for wrong answers is 2:30 minutes and these were 600 level problems. I think this is not good. I am spending way too long on questions I am getting wrong.

- How can I cut the time that I am overspending on problems that I am getting wrong in general on RC and CR problems?

- When do you exactly know in verbal questions that you are actually struggling and you have to guess and move on? I can figure this out for Quant but can't figure this out for Verbal.

[tim]

The best thing I can suggest to you at this point is to stop working on practice tests until you've got your timing strategies in place in such a way that will allow you to complete an entire practice test. So what you need to do is work on individual official guide problems and then on timed sets of 10 problems at a time. One of the best things that will help your timing is learning how to recognize problem types and choose an appropriate strategy quickly. Once you have a good sense of how to choose the right strategy for each type of problem, getting faster really just involves a lot of practice. Of course, you have to make sure that you're practicing questions correctly and using the correct techniques or else you won't be as likely to realize improvement in your timing. Once you feel that you're fast enough to answer most of the questions in an appropriate amount of time, you'll want to start devising a timing strategy to help you deal with questions that are going to take too much time and just aren't worth doing. Ideally of course that should be limited to only two or three questions per exam. Figuring out which questions to abandon is a delicate process, and really just depends on what your own strengths and weaknesses are. Many of the same techniques you can use to make those strategic decisions in quant will also work for verbal. For instance, if you realize a minute or a minute and a half into a problem that it's just not going to work out - you either don't know what to do or you realize the question is going to take too long to solve - you may want to consider guessing and moving on to the next one..

[tashiaed]

BTW, whats the answer?

[roshin.nair]

I would go with "a" beacuse that is the only statement that argues against Fastfood from going back to less healthful corn oil.

[tim]

this is a topic about timing on the verbal section. if you want to discuss the question the original poster brought up as an example, please start a new thread with that question..