Hello,
I have 2 weeks to go and want some advice on maximizing my studying. My MGMAT prep test scores, taken under test conditions, have been:
Overall Q/V
640 43/35
680 43/39
720 46/42
720 46/42
Today I took the GMAT Prep test under test conditions from GMAC/MBA.com and got a 700, Q/V: 48/37. 2 things concern me...
1. My verbal dropped by 15 percentile points from the MGMAT to GMAT practice tests. I was rushed a bit at the end and could have had better time management, but 15 percentile points is still a lot (I missed 10 verbal problems total including 4 out of the last 6, getting 2 wrong, 2 wright, 2 wrong).
2. While I did better on the quant today than previous MGMAT exams, the questions seemed a lot easier (not due to my studying...they just seemed easier overall). Additionally, I've had to strictly watch time management for quant (I've always been down to the wire even with good time management) on every single practice test until today, when I ended quant with 13 minutes on the clock (wow!). Is there really that big a difference between the complexity of quant problems on the MGMAT and official exams?
From here my goal is to maintain the 48 quant and get back up to 42 verbal or better for the actual test and get a overall 720 or better. For the past few weeks I've been studying 2-4 hours per day, (doing blocks of OG/Quant Review/Verbal Review problems and then reviewing answers and strategies to solve), and taking practice tests about every 2 weeks (3 were taken during my MGMAT course). For verbal, my biggest area for improvement is SC, as the others are solid. For quant, there's a number of areas my course instructors discussed with me. With 2 weeks less, should I continue to do lots of practice problems, focus on OG problems I've missed in practice, or something else? I don't really feel burnt out, as I'm motivated to get the best score I can, but should I be lowering my study time?
There's a lot of info here, so thanks for any help and suggestions.
Best,
Aaron
GMAT Forum
2 postsPage 1 of 1
- aaron.eisenberg
- Course Students
- Posts: 1
- Joined: Tue Dec 01, 2009 10:34 am
- StaceyKoprince
- ManhattanGMAT Staff
- Posts: 9361
- Joined: Wed Oct 19, 2005 9:05 am
- Location: Montreal
Re: 2 Weeks Left! Best Prep Strategy?
Okay, so first, good work so far. You've made nice progress.
When you say you took your practice tests under test conditions, you're including the essays right? (For a lot of people, if they skip the essays, their verbal score goes up a bit.)
I agree that it would be nice to know what happened to cause the verbal to drop a bit. Some of the difference in score is just random; people don't score exactly the same thing every time. The timing problem you described at the end of the verbal could have been the rest of the problem, depending upon the difficulty levels of those problems. It's good that you got two right in the middle, but if some of the ones you got wrong were lower-rated problems, that could have pulled you down 5 or 10 percentile points (depending upon how many and how low-rated). If you rushed at all before those last 6 and that cost you one or two more that you should have gotten right - well, all of those things combined probably would account for this drop.
So, the important thing now is to figure out how NOT to repeat this on test day. Go back and figure out WHY you got behind. (This is a bit harder to do because GMATPrep doesn't show you your per-question timing. I recommend that my students ALWAYS time themselves for each question on GMATPrep, so keep that in mind for future.)
It's either going to be something like a couple of brutal questions or a really hard passage, or it's going to be more general, something like "it was harder for me to find splits or to find the conclusion" or whatever. If it's more general, it may be that you spent too much time studying MGMAT-language problems and not enough time with OG-language problems. (There can be a difference based upon the natural language differences and preferences of the test-writers.) You may have "internalized" the way that an MGMAT test-writer writes things but not the official test-writers. If so, concentrate as much as you can on OG and GMATPrep problems from now on.
On quant, no, I don't think there's such a huge difference in complexity between our tests and the official test. It is true that, on the official test, you will sometimes get experimental questions, and those questions will sometimes be quite easy compared to what you are used to - but most people will find themselves pressed for time at least a little bit on the official test.
So, what to do? It looks like you need to do a bit of work on timing in two directions: what to do if you find yourself ahead and what to do if you find yourself behind.
Here are the general timing benchmarks:
Quant:
Q10: 55 min left
Q20: 35 min left
Q30: 15 min left
Verbal:
This is trickier because it partially depends upon where the 3 or 4 RC passages begin. The below assumes that one new passage starts within each quarter of the test (Q1-10, Q11-20, Q21-30, Q31-41).
Q10: 56 min left
Q20: 37 min left
Q30: 19 min left
You may have to adjust the above if the passages don't start in the way described above. For instance, if by the time you get to Q10, you've actually had 2 passages start, not just one, then you should expect to have fewer minutes left - maybe 53 instead of 56. If, on the other hand, you get to Q10 and you've had no passages start, then you should expect to have more - maybe 59 left. Every time a new passage starts, I keep track with a tick mark on the first page of my scrap paper. If you're worried about losing that or having to flip back to find the tick marks, then keep track on your hand - maybe with dots, so that you don't have as much skin to scrub later. :)
Here's the basic rule: as soon as I discover that I'm more than 2m behind (or ahead), I do something about it immediately. (Less than 2m ahead or behind isn't a huge problem.) If I'm behind, the next time I see a question that seems extra hard within the first 15-20 seconds, I pick a random answer immediately and move on. If I'm still behind, I do that again the next time I see something extra hard (even if it's the very next one).
(Note: that's because, the first time you do it, you're probably going to get that question wrong, in which case there's a good chance you'll be able to do the next one. If you happen to get very lucky and get it right, then maybe you won't be able to do the next one - after all, the first one was already extra hard - so it doesn't hurt to skip the second one because you got lucky on the first one!)
If you're ahead, you need to slow yourself down. You do that by reading more carefully, writing your work out fully, taking more notes, double-checking your answers, and that sort of thing.
You can keep to your normal schedule for now, but you do want to reduce it as you get closer to the test, starting about 4-5 days before. In particular, on the last two days, do only high-level review of major strategies and content.
At this point, you should be doing random sets of problems in blocks of at least 10 problems each. Make a "mini-GMAT" set of random problems from OG (mixing DS and PS, or CR, SC, and RC). Do the problems under timed conditions, then check your work and use your results to drive what you should go back to review from other books or problems.
When putting together a set, the timing for quant is easy: # of questions * 2. The timing for a verbal set is more tricky. Give yourself 1.25m for each SC, 2m for each CR, 3m for each RC passage, and 1.5m for each RC question. (Do either 3 or 4 questions for each passage; don't do all of the questions printed in OG for one passage.)
When you say you took your practice tests under test conditions, you're including the essays right? (For a lot of people, if they skip the essays, their verbal score goes up a bit.)
I agree that it would be nice to know what happened to cause the verbal to drop a bit. Some of the difference in score is just random; people don't score exactly the same thing every time. The timing problem you described at the end of the verbal could have been the rest of the problem, depending upon the difficulty levels of those problems. It's good that you got two right in the middle, but if some of the ones you got wrong were lower-rated problems, that could have pulled you down 5 or 10 percentile points (depending upon how many and how low-rated). If you rushed at all before those last 6 and that cost you one or two more that you should have gotten right - well, all of those things combined probably would account for this drop.
So, the important thing now is to figure out how NOT to repeat this on test day. Go back and figure out WHY you got behind. (This is a bit harder to do because GMATPrep doesn't show you your per-question timing. I recommend that my students ALWAYS time themselves for each question on GMATPrep, so keep that in mind for future.)
It's either going to be something like a couple of brutal questions or a really hard passage, or it's going to be more general, something like "it was harder for me to find splits or to find the conclusion" or whatever. If it's more general, it may be that you spent too much time studying MGMAT-language problems and not enough time with OG-language problems. (There can be a difference based upon the natural language differences and preferences of the test-writers.) You may have "internalized" the way that an MGMAT test-writer writes things but not the official test-writers. If so, concentrate as much as you can on OG and GMATPrep problems from now on.
On quant, no, I don't think there's such a huge difference in complexity between our tests and the official test. It is true that, on the official test, you will sometimes get experimental questions, and those questions will sometimes be quite easy compared to what you are used to - but most people will find themselves pressed for time at least a little bit on the official test.
So, what to do? It looks like you need to do a bit of work on timing in two directions: what to do if you find yourself ahead and what to do if you find yourself behind.
Here are the general timing benchmarks:
Quant:
Q10: 55 min left
Q20: 35 min left
Q30: 15 min left
Verbal:
This is trickier because it partially depends upon where the 3 or 4 RC passages begin. The below assumes that one new passage starts within each quarter of the test (Q1-10, Q11-20, Q21-30, Q31-41).
Q10: 56 min left
Q20: 37 min left
Q30: 19 min left
You may have to adjust the above if the passages don't start in the way described above. For instance, if by the time you get to Q10, you've actually had 2 passages start, not just one, then you should expect to have fewer minutes left - maybe 53 instead of 56. If, on the other hand, you get to Q10 and you've had no passages start, then you should expect to have more - maybe 59 left. Every time a new passage starts, I keep track with a tick mark on the first page of my scrap paper. If you're worried about losing that or having to flip back to find the tick marks, then keep track on your hand - maybe with dots, so that you don't have as much skin to scrub later. :)
Here's the basic rule: as soon as I discover that I'm more than 2m behind (or ahead), I do something about it immediately. (Less than 2m ahead or behind isn't a huge problem.) If I'm behind, the next time I see a question that seems extra hard within the first 15-20 seconds, I pick a random answer immediately and move on. If I'm still behind, I do that again the next time I see something extra hard (even if it's the very next one).
(Note: that's because, the first time you do it, you're probably going to get that question wrong, in which case there's a good chance you'll be able to do the next one. If you happen to get very lucky and get it right, then maybe you won't be able to do the next one - after all, the first one was already extra hard - so it doesn't hurt to skip the second one because you got lucky on the first one!)
If you're ahead, you need to slow yourself down. You do that by reading more carefully, writing your work out fully, taking more notes, double-checking your answers, and that sort of thing.
You can keep to your normal schedule for now, but you do want to reduce it as you get closer to the test, starting about 4-5 days before. In particular, on the last two days, do only high-level review of major strategies and content.
At this point, you should be doing random sets of problems in blocks of at least 10 problems each. Make a "mini-GMAT" set of random problems from OG (mixing DS and PS, or CR, SC, and RC). Do the problems under timed conditions, then check your work and use your results to drive what you should go back to review from other books or problems.
When putting together a set, the timing for quant is easy: # of questions * 2. The timing for a verbal set is more tricky. Give yourself 1.25m for each SC, 2m for each CR, 3m for each RC passage, and 1.5m for each RC question. (Do either 3 or 4 questions for each passage; don't do all of the questions printed in OG for one passage.)
Stacey Koprince
Instructor
Director, Content & Curriculum
ManhattanPrep
Instructor
Director, Content & Curriculum
ManhattanPrep
2 posts Page 1 of 1