5 CATs, 2 GMATs and very little improvement

[HunerA886]

Hi Stacey,

I would love to get your opinion on the below, I've analyzed my last CAT as per your two articles. The one I took before this I had gotten a 620 (about 6 weeks ago) so it was very disappointing to see the 580 now after pretty much studying full time. I'm supposed to take the test again next Friday (the 13th) but I'm thinking maybe I should postpone? My aim is upwards of 650 (ideally 680).

1st GMAT 560 (Q36, V31, IR 1)
2nd GMAT 600 (Q41, V32, IR 2)

CAT 1 550 (Q32, V34)
CAT 2 590 (Q34, V36, IR 3.1)
CAT 3 580 (Q38, V32, IR 1.63)
CAT 4 620 (Q43, V32, IR 3.1)
CAT 5 580 (Q40, V30, IR 5.13)

In general for both sections, I tend to get the easiest and the hardest questions right and those at or slightly above my ability level wrong. I have no explanation for this, neither did my PEA advisor. This is especially apparent when I compare this CAT to my previous one where for example I got 9 700-800 CR questions and got 6 right compared to the 8 600-700 CR questions i got on this CAT (only 2 right). Do you have any suggestions for this? I don't know what I can do about it during the test since I can't see the difficulty levels.

Another thing I'm having difficulty with is how to study for CR. I have been doing the questions and analyzing them as your articles suggest but maybe I'm missing something. What I've noticed is happening consistently is that I narrow down the answers to the last two and 90% of the time, I pick the wrong one from the two. I don't know what to do about this other than go against my gut every time?

Below you can see the detailed analysis of my most recent CAT. Thanks in advance for all your help!
H



IR 5.13
Skipped 5 (wasn't aiming high and have had very low scores before). Of those 5, i got 2 right, 3 wrong. Of the ones I actually did, I got 5 right and 2 wrong.
This seems to be the only area where practicing my strategy worked (skip multiple part questions, do charts/graphs/drop down answer questions)

Quant 40
"Correct/Incorrect" Column
No string of +4 questions wrong. Of the 3 string of 3 questions wrong i got, the last one was definitely a timing issue. I was almost 2 minutes behind at the very end of the section and was rushing, and i got 2 questions from my weaker areas (FDPs and rates&work) and then I rushed through a question below my ability level and in a strength area (geometry).
The first string of 3 wrong questions, I did have a timing issue and they were 700-800 difficulty level, though looking through them again, I can definitely do them so maybe I just panicked during. Right after this I have another 3 wrong, also questions from my weaker areas but 600-700 level (looking over them now, I would need a lot of time to get these right so maybe should have gotten wrong faster and saved time for later.)

Cumulative Time vs Target Cumulative Time
I fell behind during my first set of 3 wrong answers (about 4 minutes at the end), by the end of the second set right after I was behind 5 minutes. The rest of the time I unsuccessfully tried to catch up and was about 2-3 minutes behind consistently until the last 5 or so questions which I had to rush through and got 3 wrong in a row.

Time Column
I spent over 2.5 minutes on 11 questions and got only 4 right so that's definitely an eye opener (I can only justify spending longer for one of those questions, the rest I should have let go).
I spent less than 1.5 minutes on 14 questions, getting 8 right so that's not that good either. Of those 6 I got wrong, I rushed on 2, guessed on 2 (too hard) and had foundation holes on 2.
I think the more I study, the more I have the "I should know this!" sense and have a hard time letting go because looking at my previous CATs, I didn't have major timing issues.

From the reports
Looking at the reports, I see that except for Geometry and Number Properties, I spend more time on wrong answers than right answers. The % right are consistently around %50, with word problems at %40 and FDPs at %57. This is strange but encouraging because FDPs were a weakness (that I've been focusing on for the past month) but word problems and geometry have always been strengths.
PS vs DS is %45 to %53 even though I'm spending more time on PS (just over 2 minutes compared to around 1.5 mins for DS).
Based on difficulty level, i missed 1 each of 500-600 level in PS and DS due to rushing. I missed a lot of 600-700 questions in PS mostly due to careless errors and trying to do them faster (also most were my bucket 2/3 areas)

Bucket 1
Geometry (in general)
Divisibilty & Primes
Odds & Evens
Overlapping sets
Ratios

Bucket 2
Statistics
Consecutive Integers
Percents
Fractions
Digits & Decimals
Algebra (in general)

Bucket 3
Combinatorics
Probability
Rates & Work


Verbal 30
"Correct/Incorrect" Column
Here I have one string of 7(!!!) answers wrong. 1 SC, 1 CR, 3 RC and 2 SC. I definitely wasn't rushing through these so I'm not sure what went wrong. Other than the RCs, they were 600-700 difficulty.

Cumulative Time vs Target Cumulative Time
No issues here.

Time Column
In CR I do spend more time without getting them right (overall, I spent over 2.5 mins on 6 questions, 4 were CR and I got 3 of them wrong)
I spent less than 1.5 mins on 19 questions. SC 10 (5 right, 5 wrong), RC 7 (4 right, 3 wrong), CR 2 (1 right, 1 wrong (skipped because i thought i was behind)). I may have gotten overly confident since I've actually started studying for verbal now.

From the reports
It's very discouraging how much CR and SC have fallen compared to my last CAT (from 50% to 36% and 67% to 53%, respectively), RC has gone from 42% to 67%. Based on my PEA, I've been spending about a quarter of my time studying for quant and the rest for verbal, before this I had been only studying for quant. I've gone through the Verbal supplement but have yet to look at the OG guide so I'm planing on doing that from now on. I'm not sure why SC got so bad, I've always relied on my ear for this and don't even know how to study grammar that I learned so long ago.

Bucket 1
SC (I'm putting this in this bucket even though for this one CAT I didn't do so well)
RC specific detail

Bucket 2
CR (all abysmal)
RC Inference
RC main idea/topic (same issues as CR)

Bucket 3
I don't think I have any here

[HunerA886]

Update: I took another CAT two days after this one (out of frustration and knowing I could do better, I also read some of your articles again) and ended up getting a 660! Q40, V40 so almost at my goal. I did the detailed analysis again but won't put it up here since my first post is already long enough and I don't have much to add. I was definitely more conscious of "letting go" during quant this time and all my verbal areas were much better (SC back to where it was on my previous tests). In light of this I decided not to postpone my test which is scheduled for next Friday but I would still love to hear your thoughts on my above comment to see how I can get those last 20 points (or more!) on the real thing.

Thanks!!

[StaceyKoprince]

Responding to your second post first: yay!

So the big difference is in your verbal score. What turned verbal around for you? Get as specific as possible, so that you can be sure to repeat that behavior on test day.

Note: one (very common) factor does have to do with making better decisions to bail on too-hard / too-time-consuming quant questions. That allows you to come into verbal with more mental energy. Was that part of your situation?

The biggest thing you can do is to continue doing what you just figured out how to do. You just need more practice to solidify your strategies so that they are second nature on test day. That alone might get you 20 more points (since you didn't do everything perfectly the very first time you figured out how to take this test in a more business-mindset way).

Back to your first post: during the test, don't think about difficulty level at all. There's no way to tell. But I am wondering one thing: on those mid-level questions that you're missing, how often are you missing them due to careless mistakes? If it's more than a couple per section, then there's a problem there, and it's likely due to spending too much time and mental energy elsewhere. The other reason not to spend too much time and energy on really hard questions (beyond the obvious fact that they're hard) is that you're then drained and more prone to careless mistakes on questions that you do know how to do more easily. (Not easily, necessarily, but more easily than the really hard ones.)

What I've noticed is happening consistently is that I narrow down the answers to the last two and 90% of the time, I pick the wrong one from the two.

I would bet good money that the percentage is closer to 50% but that you're not counting all of the times that you do pick right...because you got it right.

Whenever you do narrow down to 2 and then aren't really sure with your final pick, note that question so that you can review it later regardless of whether you got it right. Then, ask yourself:
1) why was the wrong answer so tempting? why did it look like it might be right? (be as explicit as possible; also, now you know this is not a good reason to pick an answer)
2) why was it actually wrong? what specific words indicate that it is wrong and how did I overlook those clues the first time?
3) why did the right answer seem wrong? what made it so tempting to cross off the right answer? why were those things actually okay; what was my error in thinking that they were wrong? (also, now you know that this is not a good reason to eliminate an answer)
4) why was it actually right?

You'll start to learn what traps you're falling for (whether the trap is to pick a tempting wrong answer or to eliminate a correct answer) and then you'll be better at evaluating the answers when you do get to that stage.

Big picture: I agree that you shouldn't postpone. Keep solidifying what you've just learned to do so that you can make it happen even more effectively / consistently on test day. Good luck - let us know how it goes!

[HunerA886]

Thanks so much for your response!

"Note: one (very common) factor does have to do with making better decisions to bail on too-hard / too-time-consuming quant questions. That allows you to come into verbal with more mental energy. Was that part of your situation?"

Yes, this is definitely why my verbal went up this time. I guessed and moved on immediately on my bucket 3 questions (unless they were super easy) and even on some of my bucket 2 questions that would have taken too long.

"But I am wondering one thing: on those mid-level questions that you're missing, how often are you missing them due to careless mistakes? If it's more than a couple per section, then there's a problem there, and it's likely due to spending too much time and mental energy elsewhere. "

You're right about this. I've missed pretty much 3 questions on each CAT due to careless errors (adding 10 instead of subtracting etc.) because I was trying to move on to the next question a bit too fast, so I'll definitely watch out for that Friday.

"I would bet good money that the percentage is closer to 50% but that you're not counting all of the times that you do pick right...because you got it right. "

I'm guessing you're right about this as well, hadn't thought of it this way I'm going to look over my CR questions and analyze them based on your suggestions above.

So my goal is to let go more easily on quant and give it my all during verbal, and hopefully all goes according to plan.
Thanks again!

[StaceyKoprince]

Awesome! Good luck and let me know how it goes!!

[HunerA886]

Hi Stacey,
So I took the test last Friday and got a 660! Q44, V38, IR 7 and AWA 6.0. Overall, I'm happy with my score, I feel like I might be able to do slightly better on verbal but I don't want to risk my quant score going lower as this is the highest it has been (also I come from an arts background so I feel like a higher quant score is more significant for me personally). I think I got lucky in quant because I got a few bucket 3 questions (too-hard, rates/work, and one that I figured was going to take up too much mental energy) early on which I guessed and moved on immediately so I was ahead 7-8 minutes from question 10 or so on and this helped me catch myself from making careless errors on 4 questions afterward. I'm also very happy with my IR and AWA scores which I hope will somewhat balance my slightly lower verbal score.

Because I come from a slightly less competitive pool of applicants (BFA in undergrad, worked in the fashion industry for the 4 years since graduation, female), I feel like this score is good enough for me, also considering I will have excellent essays My top choice is Wharton and even though their mid 80 range is 700-740, their lowest accepted score from last year was 620. When I went to visit the schools last fall everybody was all about the unique background and encouraging me to focus more on the essays and personal aspects of the application but I don't know how much of that is just talk.

I feel like I can probably get a 680 max if I do retake the test, do you think it will be worth it? On one hand maybe because of the good score I already have, I might be even less anxious this time and can implement my strategy even better. On the other hand even the thought of sitting through another 4 hour test is ughh. I would rather focus on the rest of my application from this point on than keep reviewing, what do you think?

Thanks for everything, you and your articles have been immensely helpful!
Huner

[StaceyKoprince]

Great job! Congratulations - I'm really happy for you!

I don't know that much about the admissions side of things, but I know that they do look out for quality candidates from non-traditional industries / backgrounds. So, yes, I think your GMAT scores across the board demonstrate that you can handle the work in a top program; now, it's going to be the rest of your application that needs to do the heavy lifting to convince them that they want you in their program. Definitely capitalize on the unusual background!

Here's a thought: why not test out your theory by just going in and taking it again very soon, without putting in a ton of extra review time? See whether you really can do a bit better just by being more relaxed this time around. If your score drops, you can cancel it and the schools won't even know you took the test that day. All that it costs you is $250 and 4 hours of your time - and meanwhile, you can mostly focus on your applications.

[HunerA886]

Hi Stacey,

So I did end up taking the test again yesterday and got a disappointing 640, Q47 V31 IR 5. I'm very happy with my quant score (which is why I didn't cancel) considering I had started at a 32 at the beginning of my studies but I really don't understand my verbal score, it fluctuates between a 31 and 40 every time I take a test. I was even more careful to save my energy this time around for verbal and was able to "let go" really easily on quant, which is what had helped me get a V40 before. The last CAT I took before this test I got a 680 (Q46, V37). Looking through the questions after, my weakest area was RC (SC I had missed only one question, I'm not that good with CR so I treated it like bucket 3 quant and guessed a couple and still got a 67%). I think the problem on the test was that I got 3 science passages which I'm not great with. I didn't think any of the questions were that hard, I used the strategy in this article (https://www.manhattanprep.com/gmat/blog ... ed-dating/) which I thought was really helpful. I'm considering getting the enhanced score report to see what went wrong where.

Now I'm kind of torn on what to do. I have the itch to take the test again because I'm upset with myself for the verbal score (something I need to take up with my therapist I know). I'm also worried that it looks really bad because my AWA scores are good and I got my undergrad in the States as well so I don't want this one thing to raise any red flags. One option could be to use one the optional essays to explain that while on this test my verbal is lower, my quant is higher and vice versa on my last test (660, Q44, V38, IR 7 and AWA 6.0). Another option is to take it again, I have just enough time before round 2 applications are due and I'm almost done with all the other aspects of my applications.
What do you think? If I do decide to take the test again I'm going to need to do a lot of verbal prep within the next 2 weeks (I didn't do any quant and very minimal verbal review before this one)

Thanks again!
Huner

[StaceyKoprince]

Congratulations on the quant score! That's excellent! Annoying on the verbal score.

I'd talk to an admissions consultant, because this is definitely not at all my area of expertise. My initial reaction is not to use an optional essay to talk about your GMAT scores. They can see the scores themselves. Mostly, they just look at the highest score; they typically say that they won't mix and match among different test administrations. But if they are concerned about quant, they can also slide their eyes over and see that you did get a Q47 that other time...and maybe an admissions consultant would know whether they'll do so.

We have a forum folder here called Ask An Admissions Consultant - see what they say.

Re: taking the test again, my first concern is that you put together the best applications you can. You say you're almost done with those, so as long as that is NOT a concern, if you want to take a couple of weeks to study intensively and try again, I don't see anything wrong with that. BUT I would ask the admissions consultant about that too. There may be some things that you could spend your time doing on other aspects of the application that I wouldn't know about.

If you do decide to take it again, I'd get the Enhanced Score Report - that'll be the starting point. (Did you get it for the 660 test? Comparing the data could also potentially be useful - to see what dropped most - though that'd be another $25. You might get it for the 640 one first, and then add the 660 one if you feel like you need more data.) Let me know that data and we'll figure out what to do.

[HunerA886]

I ended up scheduling a test for right before applications are due, to have the 'what if' on my mind would have been worse for me than studying while finishing everything. I'm done with my essays so I'm not concerned, I am going to write to the other forum as well though, thanks for the suggestion!

I got the enhanced score report for my last test, here are the details for verbal:
Verbal 31
CR 84%
RC 45%
SC 55%

Time management (mean per question)
Overall 1.73
CR 1.98
RC 2.25
SC 1.45

From this I can see that I was probably overly confident in SC (it's always been a strength) and rushed through questions. I'm pleasantly surprised by my CR score, again learning to let go seems to be working
For RC, I know that the main problem was that I got 3 science passages and since I can't control that during the test, I'm going to start reading some science material to just get used to the language a bit more. I'm also planning on going through the RC study guide again and really focusing on the answer traps. Any other suggestions??
Also, what are your thoughts on skipping an entire RC passage? I don't have huge timing issues so I've never considered doing this but I'm curious.

[StaceyKoprince]

Wow - huge differences in verbal. CR is awesome. I think your plan for RC is great - Scientific American is one good source for science material. You might also look for science-based things on these two sites:
http://magazine.uchicago.edu/
http://harvardmagazine.com/

Since SC was a strength before, you basically want to try to recover that while not letting RC be too much of a weakness (but assume that it will stay the weakest of the three - that's okay).

Here are some lesson resources on RC - teaching the same things as the book, but with different problems to try:
https://www.manhattanprep.com/gmat/blog ... rehension/

Also, when you're reviewing RC problems (especially from OG), ask yourself:
1) why was the wrong answer so tempting? why did it look like it might be right? (be as explicit as possible; also, now you know this is not a good reason to pick an answer)
2) why was it actually wrong? what specific words indicate that it is wrong and how did I overlook those clues the first time?
3) why did the right answer seem wrong? what made it so tempting to cross off the right answer? why were those things actually okay; what was my error in thinking that they were wrong? (also, now you know that this is not a good reason to eliminate an answer)
4) why was it actually right?

In other words, don't just train on what the traps are. Train yourself on why you're falling for them!

I generally don't recommend assuming ahead of time that you'll skip an entire RC passage for two reasons:
(1) Even if it is your weakest area, you don't know what you're going to get - you may like all the topics you're given.
(2) That means skipping 3-4 questions in a row, which isn't great. If you have to, you have to - but if you can, say, at least understand enough to answer a main idea question, then do that. If the detail is too annoying, then you can let those ones go.