Analysis of my first MGMAT CAT....

[rahul.manhat]

Hi Stacey/Instructors,

I took the first MGMAT CAT 1, before the start of my course, on Saturday 6th April,2013.

I scored a 610 with Quant (44) and Verbal (33). I took the test under strict official conditions i.e. I wrote the essays,IR then Quant and Verbal Sections.

I had taken a GMAT Prep 1 before it and had scored a miserable 570 so kind of felt good that there was an increase in 40 points.

Analysis :

Quant:
String of 4 incorrect answers:None
String of 3 incorrect answers: At the end when i could not find time and guessed last 3 questions in a row.
Timing on last 10 questions : 10 minutes so 10 questions in 10 minutes. Guessed some of them and tried answering a few.

Category 1:I got it right roughly within the expected timeframe ( less than and close to 2 minutes)
9 questions. Got lucky on a median question.
Got all the them right following the right method and used the best method.
Out of those 9 questions, 8 questions were Problem Solving(PS) while 1 was a Data Sufficiency(DS). The topics were tested :Linear equations,Quadratic Equations,Triangles, Circle.

Difficulty level of questions:
300-500 - 2
500-600- 2
600-700- 4
700-800 - 1

Category 2:I got it wrong roughly within the expected timeframe ( less than and close to 2 minutes)
8 questions. Out of those 8 questions, 4 were PS and 4 were DS.
The topics were tested :Number,Factors,Polygons,Percentage,Exponent,Linear Equations,Triangles.
I found following to be the reasons for getting them wrong:
Number questions: Carelessness,Hurried on many questions,Did not read all the options thoroughly,Did not know formula(area of Trapezoid,Compound Interest).

I did not know how to solve DS question types but after attending the first course (knowing how to use Grid and rephrasing what is asked), i was able to solve the all the DS question within 2 minutes.

Difficulty level of questions:
300-500 - None
500-600- 1
600-700- 5
700-800 - 2

Category 3: I got it wrong way too quickly (more than 30 seconds faster than it should be)
6 questions. 4 PS and 2 DS. The topics were tested: Probability and Combination. DS questions on Triangles,Odd/Even,Integer.
I did not know how to tackle probability and combination so guessed them rightaway. I got restless on many of these questions and guessed/checked wrong option.

Difficulty level of questions:
300-500 - None
500-600- 1
600-700- 4
700-800 - 1

Category 4:Category 4: I got it right way too slowly (more than 30 seconds slower than it should be)
6 questions: 3 PS questions and 3 DS.
Topics tested: Rate(did not use the quickest method),Overlapping sets(did not use the best method),Averages in DS(did not use GRID), Coordinate Geometry(DS question),Xponents and Time/distance/Speed.

Difficulty level of questions:
300-500 - None
500-600- None
600-700- 6
700-800 - None

Category 5:Category 5: I got it wrong way too slowly (more than 30 seconds slower than it should be)
5 questions: 4 DS and 1 PS.
Topics tested: Digits/Decimal,Inequality,Function,Integer inference,Fraction.
My analysis found following reasons for getting them wrong:
for DS question , i did not know GRID usage so failed at all DS questions.On some of them i was not reading all the options correctly.

Difficulty level of questions:
300-500 - None
500-600- None
600-700- 3
700-800 - 2

So this is what my takeaway is :
Carelessness, not reading all the options thoroughly,very bad at DS.
Main issue is with the TIMING as you can see i spent 10 minutes on last 10 questions.

Interestingly when i sat down to solve the questions no matter how hard they were, i was able to solve most of them within 2 minutes. I also used the GRID/Rephrasing question method for DS questions that i learnt in the first class course and was able to solve most of the DS questions within 2 minutes.


Overall:here is the assesment report for the question difficulty
Problem Solving

level : 300- 500 total 2 , right 2, wrong 0,average time(right answer): 0.40 min,average time(wrong answer): NA

level : 500- 600 total 2 , right 1, wrong 1,average time(right answer): 0.10 min,average time(wrong answer): 1.58

level : 600- 700 total 12 , right 8, wrong 4,average time(right answer): 2.08 min,average time(wrong answer): 2.02 min

level : 700- 800 total 6 , right 2, wrong 4,average time(right answer): 2.06 min,average time(wrong answer): 1.42 min

Data Sufficiency:

level : 500- 600 total 1 , right 1, wrong 0,average time(right answer): 2.07 min,average time(wrong answer): 1.58

level : 600- 700 total 12 , right 4, wrong 8,average time(right answer): 2.41 min,average time(wrong answer): 1.57 min

level : 700- 800 total 2 , right 0, wrong 2,average time(right answer): NA,average time(wrong answer): 3.25 min

Verbal:

String of 4 incorrect answers: twice
String of 3 incorrect answers: twice
Time spent on lat 10 questions: 8 min.
Time spent on last 5 questions: 2.5 min

No. of questions where :
spent 3+ min on each CR question: 2(1 correct,1 incorrect)
spent 2+ min on each SC question: 5 (4 correct,1 incorrect)


Sentence Correction:

level : 500- 600 total 1 , right 1, wrong 0,average time(right answer): 2.34min,average time(wrong answer): NA

level : 600- 700 total 4 , right 2, wrong 2,average time(right answer): 2.09 min,average time(wrong answer): 0.20 min

level : 700- 800 total 10 , right 8, wrong 2,average time(right answer): 1.38,average time(wrong answer): 1.21 min


Critical Reasoning:

level : 300- 500 total 2 , right 2, wrong 0,average time(right answer): 1.54min,average time(wrong answer): NA

level : 500- 600 total 1 , right 0, wrong 1,average time(right answer): NA,average time(wrong answer): 2.15 min


level : 600- 700 total 7 , right 5, wrong 2,average time(right answer): 1.58 min,average time(wrong answer): 2.09 min

level : 700- 800 total 4 , right 0, wrong 4,average time(right answer): NA,average time(wrong answer): 1.06min


Reading Comprehension:

level : 300- 500 total 1 , right 0, wrong 1,average time(right answer): NA,average time(wrong answer):0.39

level : 500- 600 total 2 , right 2, wrong 0,average time(right answer):1.03,average time(wrong answer): 2.15 min


level : 600- 700 total 2 , right 0, wrong 2,average time(right answer):NA,average time(wrong answer): 2.52min

level : 700- 800 total 7 , right 2, wrong 5,average time(right answer):1.12min,average time(wrong answer): 3.15.

So this is my takeaway from verbal section analysis:
Awfull timing, RC is very bad, not able to comprehend all the details.

Stacey, Could you please provide your take on my performance and advise how to improve in weak areas like CR,RC,DS. How to avoid careless mistakes. Looking forward to hearing from you.

Thank you,
Rahul

[StaceyKoprince]

Great analysis. Keep that up.

Okay, so cleary some timing issues. :)

Start with these two shorter "mindset" articles first:
http://www.manhattangmat.com/blog/index ... to-win-it/
http://www.manhattangmat.com/blog/index ... -to-do-it/

And then dive into this longer one (and start doing what it says!):
http://www.manhattangmat.com/blog/index ... nt-part-1/

In particular, start to build your 1-minute time sense (section 4 of last article).

How to minimize careless mistakes:
http://www.manhattangmat.com/blog/index ... -the-gmat/

If you know that you don't know, then that's a good reason to get something wrong fast. If you made a careless mistake, though, or just got impatient and gave up really quickly... that's not so good. :)

And, as you noted, you've got some process issues (eg, DS). As you learn these strategies, your performance will also improve.

On verbal, you're going to need to learn some processes for reading - how to read SC, how to read RC, and so on. You can't read / do these the way you think you would in the real world (where you wouldn't have a crazy-short time limit).

For RC (reading):
http://www.manhattangmat.com/blog/index ... p-passage/
http://www.manhattangmat.com/blog/index ... -passages/
http://www.manhattangmat.com/blog/index ... -passages/

Also, I just submitted an RC article today that should go live on our blog either later this week or next week, so just keep checking back for it.

Later, once you've gotten better at reading, we can talk about question types - but concentrate on reading for now.

For SC, this is the "regular" strategy for working through an SC (this will help you on timing / efficiency):
http://www.manhattangmat.com/blog/index ... n-problem/

And this article talks about what to do on hard questions where the regular strategy might not work as well:
http://www.manhattangmat.com/blog/index ... orrection/

Get the regular strategy down first (you'll be practicing this in class, of course), and then you can start to work on strategy for the harder / more convoluted sentences. Of course, the more grammar you learn, the faster you'll get, too. :)

You won't start CR until class 4, so I'm going to tell you to wait on that for right now - dive into SC and RC first. Then check back in with me in a couple of weeks. Good luck!

[rahul.manhat]

Thank you Stacy. I will let you know about my progress over the next two weeks.

[StaceyKoprince]

good luck!