Struggle to improve in Math

[nicolec646]

Dear instructors,

Please kindly give me some advice:
I scored 48 during my first test. Since then, I have practiced over 1000 math problems from OG, OV, and other sources, and have practiced over 30+ exams. I've also made correction and reviewed concepts. I recently took another test in Nov....Tragically, I still got 48!

I had some timing issue for the last 10 questions. No matter how many problems I practice, there are still some that I have absolutely no idea how to approach them.

How can I apply my knowledge to challenging problems? Is there a SOP?
Besides practicing my pace, what else can I do to improve my math score to 51 ?
How many problems should I practice per day?


Greatly appreciate you help!

[StaceyKoprince]

How many problems should I practice per day?

No more. Not until you learn how you need to approach this test.

First, great job getting to 48 - that's a great quant score. (And I have a question: why are you going for a 51, a perfect score on quant? 48 is good enough for any school. Do you need the higher quant to help lift your overall score?)

Next, this:

I had some timing issue for the last 10 questions. No matter how many problems I practice, there are still some that I have absolutely no idea how to approach them.

No matter how much you study, this will always be true. The GMAT is an adaptive test: whatever you can do, it will just give you something harder. It is trying to find your upper limit - and it will succeed!

Your task is NOT to learn how to do everything, because even someone scoring a 51 is not answering everything correctly. Your task is to learn what to do and what NOT to do. I have had numerous high-level students take the test with 4 allowed "skips" (they guess almost immediately and move on) and still score a 51. And that doesn't even take into account additional questions that you try but then realize you don't know how to do.

Read this:
http://tinyurl.com/executivereasoning

and this:
https://www.manhattanprep.com/gmat/blog ... -the-gmat/

Then start a reply to tell me what you learned and how you have to change your approach.

Next, yes, there are practical things that you can do to reach the "next level" of the test, and in the jump from 48 to 51, those things are not about learning more math. They're about learning more how this test works and how you need to think your way flexibly through the problems they throw at you.

Read this:
http://tinyurl.com/2ndlevelofgmat

Are you totally comfortable with choosing smart numbers, working backwards, testing cases, estimating, drawing out stories and doing back-of-the-envelope calculations?
https://www.manhattanprep.com/gmat/blog ... er-part-1/
https://www.manhattanprep.com/gmat/blog ... them-real/
https://www.manhattanprep.com/gmat/blog ... ms-part-1/

(Those strategies are also covered in our strategy guides, in case you have those.)

Another possible source for you is our Advanced Quant (AQ) strategy guide. This guide assumes that you already know 95% of the math material taught in our "regular" strategy guides (and can recognize that other 5% so you can blow those questions off!). The AQ guide doesn't teach you more high-level math. It teaches you how to think your way through really hard math problems. (For others reading this: we don't recommend people use this guide until they're at 45 quant at minimum. Ideally more like 47.)

Given that you had timing issues on the last 10, you could probably get your score to 50 literally just by fixing that - which does NOT mean learning how to do everything faster. It means making better decisions about when to move on so that you aren't blowing time (and mental energy) on low-likelihood-of-payoff problems. Which brings us full-circle to the business decision-making ideas at the beginning of my post. So start reading and let me know what you think.

[nicolec646]

Dear Stacey,

Thank you so much for sharing those useful insights. I wish I reached out to you earlier.

To answer your previous question, (and yes, you guessed it right) I am so desperate to obtain a 51 on math because I need that to lift my overall score. My verbal is only 33; my overall score is 660, and my goal is 700 and over.

I am aware of my timing issue, and I am practicing and adjusting my pace in accordance with those recommended strategies. Your way to solve math problems using real world approach is brilliant. It saves so much time and energy! Another strategy that I find quite useful is to avoid sacrificing questions I know how to do for those uncertain ones. I do this for both quant and verbal! Horrible.

As I read through all your articles, I find other burning issues. I am in the process of second level learning for both quant and verbal. I have collected, corrected, and organized my “trouble problems,” but I am not really sure how to apply that information. For example, I am aware that GMAT does not explicitly state the concept that is really being tested. Even after my analysis of my wrong questions, I am still not able to “have that instinct” to immediately see what the real question is. As a result, I do the problems blindly, and doing so wastes my valuable time during the test. But if I know what the question is really asking, I am able to solve it.

Meanwhile, I have the same problem in CR and RC as well. I do not have that “reflex” to see what the question is really asking and to predict what the questions will be (I assume this ability can be very useful in RC to reduce time and increase problem accuracy). Somehow I am just not getting it!

I feel like I am so close to getting “that testing instinct” because I know exactly what my problem is, and my approach is in the right direction (doing analysis on my right and wrong questions), but somehow I am missing a small piece to the puzzle. Please kindly let me know what I shall adjust, thank you in advance for your help. Looking forward to hearing from you.


Merry Christmas!!!



Sincerely,


Nicole Chuang

[StaceyKoprince]

Sorry about that - your last post did get caught in our spam filters for some reason. We were closed for a few days for the holidays, so it didn't appear until someone could manually check it and pass it through.

Even after my analysis of my wrong questions, I am still not able to “have that instinct” to immediately see what the real question is.

You actually need to train yourself, consciously, how to do this. It's not an instinct.

For example, afterwards, when you figure out that you should have done XYZ, you then need to ask yourself, "What are the clues in the original problem that lead me to the XYZ approach / path / strategy? How should someone know that XYZ is a good approach here?

Look for explanations that explain not just WHAT to do but WHY to do it. (We try to do this in our own explanations. The official explanations for OG don't do this very well.) If you are discussing something with someone online, make sure to ask them WHY they did something, not just HOW they did it. "How did you know to think about that approach in the first place?"

As you do that, start to keep a file or make flash cards that use the "When I see... I'll think / do..." approach.

For instance, here's an easy one you already know:
When I see: +
I'll think / do: addition

And a somewhat more advanced one:
When I see: xy < 0
I'll think / do: x and y have opposite signs

And a very "test-taking" type one:
When I see: > 0 or < 0
I'll think / do: what does this problem have to do with positive and negative?

And an even more advanced one:
When I see: x + y > 0
I'll think / do: at least one of the variables must be positive (because two negative numbers can't add up to a positive number)

Once upon a time, you had no idea that + meant "add." You learned it in school and memorized it. The second one is probably something you learned in school, too, though you might have forgotten it until you started studying for the GMAT.

The third and fourth ones are much more specific to a test like the GMAT. The first time I saw that last one on a GMAT problem, I had no idea what the significance was, either. I asked myself: what are the kinds of numbers that would make this true vs. false? Both positive? Yes, that would work. One positive and one negative? That would work as long as the positive one is bigger in magnitude (farther from 0) than the negative number. Both negative? Ah! No, that won't work.

Then, I memorized that analysis so that I would just know the next time I saw something like that. (The reverse works, too: if x + y < 0, then at least one of the numbers has to be negative.)

At first, it might take you a long time on each question to figure that kind of stuff out. You'll be googling a lot to read what other people have to say about how they figured it out. (Again, not just how to do it, but how to know to take a certain approach.) As you start to get better and learn more about the GMAT "language," you'll become more efficient.

Don't think of it as a "killer instinct" to figure anything out from scratch the very first time you see it. I can't do that, either. I'm just trying to make connections to clues that I've seen before, so that I can think about things or follow the same path that I did when I saw a similar clue in the past.

[nicolec646]

Dear Stacey,

Thank you very much for your advice. I followed everything you directed me to do, and I finally got a 50 on my math! Thank you much. I wish I reached out to you earlier. I wasted so much time and energy pondering about things that were not even critical to the issue.

I am very grateful for your guidance!!!!

Sincerely,

Nicole Chuang

[StaceyKoprince]

That's fantastic - congratulations! Great work.

Good luck with applications - let us know how it goes!