590 on mgmat 1

[jai.shr5381]

JUST ANOTHER DETAIL WHILE I HAD TIMING PROBLEMS IN MATHS IN
MGMAT I DID NOT ENCOUNTER THE SAME IN THE ACTUAL EXAM AND WAS ABLE TO IMPLEMENT THE ONE MINUTE RULE, IN VERBAL I HAVE NEVER ENCOUNTERED A TIMING PROBLEM IN THE EXAM OR THE MGMAT TESTS.

[jai.shr5381]

FEW MORE DETAILS:
I DID NOT ENCOUNTER ANY TIMING PROBLEMS , IN ANY SECTION, THE ONE MINUTE RULE WAS HELPFUL IN MATHS.

ALSO WHEN I GAVE GMAT PREP 2 MY SCORE HAD DROPPED TO 650
BUT I HAD SCORED 45 IN Q AND 36-37 IN ENGLISH , ON RESETING IT I GOT 740 WHICH MAY BE INFLATED AS QUESTIONS WERE REPEATED.

[StaceyKoprince]

(Do me a favor when you re-post - don't post in all caps. It's harder to read. Thanks. :)

You mention feeling fatigued during the test, especially after the quant / before the verbal. You also mentioned having great difficulty deciphering the verbal question types, etc. Read this article - do you think you were suffering from decision fatigue? What was your schedule like the last few days before the test?

http://www.manhattangmat.com/blog/index ... you-crazy/

Why do you think your score dropped on your GMATPrep 2 test? That might give us some valuable clues about why your verbal dropped on the real test as well.

[jai.shr5381]

ok,

here goes -

1) during the break i felt as if my mind was throbbing, not with pain but as if i had mentally exerted myself, seemed unable to relax during the break,when i faced the first verbal question i was not able to apply myself , apply concepts and eliminate answers instead i kept reading options and tried figuring out what was the answer,

2) this happened during the first 10-15 questions cr particularly, was brutal initially, i seemed unable to feel as if i had reached the right answer or understand the argument itself, ( p.s. -whenever i analyse mgmat cr i can feel my answers getting right),rc comprehension was ok but questions seemed more convoluted and tougher to decipher.
3) in the last 10 questions i seemed to be mentally composed
and able to get my thinking processes going because i got a highlited word in the rc and needed to find a similar useage ,
it was an application question.

3) i did not do english sets during the last week , yes i seemed to be under stress, sleep and excercise was irregular and disturbed , i watched movies just to relax myself.


4)the reason i got 650 in mgmat2 was my score droped in quant-45 (i was not concentrating on gmat maths after facing mgmat maths i felt i did not need to exert myselfin maths)verbal- 36 or 37, so i concentrated on quant in the last week to ensure a good performance,went with a conscious decision to go all out in quant and seemed to be mentally exerting myself , it did turn out so but with a drop in english.




5)after the exam i went to a coaching institute to analyse my situation but when attending a class there in english i seemed to be mentally blacking out again when seeing cr questions , not able to analyse or think,eliminate choices-the teacher told me to relax a while as after facing this exam i seemed to be mentally tired.

6)during the last week i felt more liking getting over with it rather than mentally peaking,just felt irritated and bored with revising same things over and over again.

[StaceyKoprince]

It sounds like you were definitely suffering from significant mental fatigue and burn-out. This decision fatigue stuff was definitely part of that - did you think that what the article described sounded like your situation?

So part of this is to start doing what we discussed in that article - studying in a way that allows you to minimize different decisions as much as possible throughout the exam, and also finding ways to outright eliminate certain decisions wherever possible. Also pay attention to the suggestions about pumping up your glucose level. Start trying that now while you're studying or taking practice tests so that you can find the optimal food or drink that can help your brain recover.

And you have to watch your study schedule and avoid burnout. Stress or burnout from work (or school, or home / family life) will also add to this, so it's important to try to minimize decisions, stress, mental fatigue, etc wherever possible in other parts of your life as well.

[jai.shr5381]

Hi stacey,

need your guidance on retake:
I have read a few posts regarding retakes there are a number of guys with my score 660 and with a strong quant background but weak in verbal in the forum,a few have even dropped scores in their retakes,there is also an opinion in the forum that there are changes in the test(emphasis on SC meaning,less on idioms),new question variety etc.,if so what are the options,is an improvement possible?

a) can mgmat material suffice :maths is ok (Q-49),it is the verbal(V-30) i am worried about.
b)i have started studying verbal again ,am revising the three guides individually also am reading articles form nytimes,scientific american and mckinseyquarterly
and am preparing skeletal sketches everyday for these articles to improve RC comprehension.(my rc was weak in mgmat tests)
C)for tougher material kaplan 800 and kaplan verbal.

d)og 12 with verbal and maths supplement guides.
e)verbal inputs and material from "beat the gmat " i also see your posts there.

f) am excercising regularly with proper sleep for dealing with mental fatigue,also will not inform others of retry to relieve myself of additional
pressure.

g) also need your advice on practise tests and period during which i should reschedule gmat (between november 15- 25).

i)will rethink my last week strategy including energy supplements for the test.

if there is anything you wish to add or delete including subscribing to mgmat verbal database, or other material from the market please do suggest,as well as hours of study ,strengths,weaknesses etc,in short anything.

br//
jai

[jai.shr5381]

also i felt i analyse grammer more on rules ,less on meaning
if so how can i improve this.

[StaceyKoprince]

For the SC meaning issue, look at both of my blog posts from yesterday (26 September). That will give you a good idea of the kinds of things they're testing and how they're testing these things. Then use that knowledge to go back over the OG questions from the point of view of meaning.

(And keep checking the blog this week for more posts.)

For the idioms, they have since clarified that they are only trying to eliminate "American-centric" idioms and expressions. They haven't clarified yet how we should know what's American-centric vs. not. I've asked them whether OG12 has already mostly been stripped of American-centric language, in which case we know we should keep studying those, but I haven't heard back yet.

They started dropping American-centric language about 5 years ago, and OG12 was published a couple of years ago, so I would assume that they already tried to remove as much American-centric language as possible from OG12, but I don't know for sure.

What's your goal for the verbal? Do you want to get to 35? 40? You ask about timeframe, but I don't know how far you're trying to get, so it's tough for me to discuss a timeframe. In general, given the mental fatigue you've been experiencing and given the fact that you haven't been concentrating on meaning much for SC, you likely need at least a month - possibly longer, depending upon your goal.

Your RC plan sounds good. What about CR - what are you planning to do there?

[jai.shr5381]

my aim is to target a verbal score nearer to v-40,
so this is some of the material i hope to look up

kaplan premier/verbal and kaplan 800. og12 and verbal 2nd addition.

e-gmat sc's these according to sources are concentrating on meaning.plz refer any other source you consider worthwhile

for cr- Powerscore CR Bible this has been recommended by dana j on beat the gmat.

nytimes,scientific american, for rc

the time line is better determined by you, plz advise.

br//
jai

[StaceyKoprince]

I've never heard of e-gmat. I've heard from students that PowerScore's CR book is good (but haven't looked at it myself).

Have you been reading all of my blog posts about the meaning issue? There are a lot of OG questions you can study for meaning - one of my posts is actually a list of Qs from OG12 that deal with meaning. Go take a look at our blog (you can get there from our home page).

Your goal is to go from 30 to 40 on verbal, which is 56th percentile to 89th percentile. Whenever we're dealing with that large of an improvement, there isn't an easy way to say "it should take x number of weeks or months." It varies too much individually when someone wants that large of an increase. So you're just going to have to start tackling your weak areas and see how things progress.

Be careful about just "doing" lots and lots of questions but not really learning from them. A lot of people waste time and energy in this way - you're not done with any single problem until you've learned at least one significant thing that will make you a better GMAT-test-taker in future. That might take you 5 or 10 minutes (or longer!) of review and analysis after you've actually finished the problem. (And, in fact, most of what we actually learn comes not while we're doing the problem during that first minute or two, but afterwards when we review.)