CAT score weirdness!

[ket310]

I took my first CAT under test taking conditions after studying for 2 weeks, and got a weird result.

IR - 0 (;;; I actually solved all the problems, I guess I really need to work on IR a bit more)
Quant - 47/68% (weird, cause I'm a typical Asian and got most of OG problems correct under strict time condition...;; I actually ran out of time for last two questions)
Verbal - 37/83% (weird, cause I struggle so much in OG with verbal sections, but had over 6 minutes left and got a decent score)
Score - 690

My target score is 680+, so I guess I'm on the right track. I'm just wondering how I did so horrible in Quant while I did so well in Verbal. I've done more than 70% of OG 2016 problems so far. Rarely I miss a question in Quant but I miss about 40% in Verbal.

Have you seen any student with similar situation?

[StaceyKoprince]

Yep, this happens all the time. You're in good company! Studying out of OG is not the same as taking an actual CAT.

The key is in the timing and the adaptive nature of a test. No matter how good you are, the test can give you something that's too hard. If you go into the test thinking, "I can do everything because this is my strength!" then you are going to spend too much time on some questions that are too hard / take too long...and then you're going to run out of time...and then your score is going to drop at the end of the test...and the GMAT is a "where you end is what you get" test. So boom, your score is lower than you expected (and lower than you are capable of getting!).

And that's pretty much exactly what happened, from your description. So now you know: even on your strength, expect to have to bail on a few questions because you can't figure them out in a reasonable amount of time. Next time, you'll be better prepared.

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

For more on timing, take a look at these:
https://www.manhattanprep.com/gmat/blog ... -to-do-it/
http://tinyurl.com/GMATTimeManagement
http://www.beatthegmat.com/mba/2015/09/ ... gmat-quant

Finally, yes, you are definitely on the right track! First CAT is already 10 points higher than goal: that's fantastic!

p.s. Was this our CAT? Our IR is *really* hard. We're working on that - but right now most people score 2-3 points higher on the real IR. That's still too low for you - you want to aim for probably a 5+ - but just FYI that our IR is really hard.

[ket310]

Thank you very much Stacey for a quick response! Yes the CAT is from this website, the 1st of the 6 CATs. IR was really difficult. I bought all the 10 series books so I'll review IR section again and then get some easier questions first.

In Quant, questions 26 to 30, I got all 5 of them wrong straight and spent on average of 3 minutes. I got the next 5 correct straight, but ran out of time for the last two questions. I guess that really hurt the score.

I'm thinking about purchasing the GMAT Advanced Quant book. Are there many 700-800 level questions in that book? Just wondering what kind of a book it is. I feel the need to practice 700-800 level questions more on Quant. Most OG problems are way too easy and didn't appear on my CAT anyways. Can you direct me to some resources?

-----

So after reading the articles, my takeaways should be,

1. If I cannot solve it in 2 - 2.5 minutes at the most, make an educated guess and move on.
2. In conjunction with #1, Do NOT try to get everything right (This is the toughest one. I scored 800 on SAT math I & II and got all As in every math class I took in college). But for GMAT, I really have to break this habit that I built for past 27 years. Not easier said than done, but I'll work on it.
3. Don't rush on easier problems (I actually spent < 1min on quite a number of questions, got couple of them wrong)
4. For verbal section, keep doing what I'm doing

[StaceyKoprince]

At Quant 47, yes, you're at the level to handle the Advanced Quant (AQ) book. The vast, vast majority of the questions in the book are 700+. Some are 800+. There are only a few that introduce some concept that aren't solidly 700+.

Note that the AQ book doesn't really teach math concepts - it assumes that you have already learned all of those in the 5 main quant strategy guides. But you have those already, so you can always go back and look something up. The AQ book focuses on ways to approach hard problems.

Just be aware of one thing: you can get a lot of 700+ questions wrong and still get a 47 to 51 on quant. If you miss too many sub-700 level questions, though, you'll have a big problem. The algorithm allows a couple of careless mistakes - it will consider a couple of lower-level incorrect answers "outliers" - but if you have too many, those problems are no longer considered outliers. They're now your actual performance.

And be aware of another thing: you WILL get a lot of questions wrong even if you do score 47 to 51. Even at a 51, people are getting questions wrong. I have had multiple very-strong-quant students give themselves 4 freebies (guess immediately, move on) and still score a 50 or 51 on quant. And of course they likely missed others that they did do.

1. If I cannot solve it in 2 - 2.5 minutes at the most, make an educated guess and move on.

Not quite. Two things. First, you will also have some faster questions. In general, my rule is that I want quant questions to fall in the 1m to 3m range. I don't want to go so fast that I increase the chances of making a mistake. And I don't want to go so slow on this one that I increase the chances of missing another one because I'm rushing. (Besides, if I'm STILL not figuring it out in 2.5 to 3m, then I don't really know how to do this problem.)

Second, just to make sure: the process is not, "Okay, I'm going to spend my 2 to 2.5m (or whatever) and THEN I'll move on if it's not happening." I'm not just assuming I'm going to do anything they put in front of me until I've spent my time. I'm making a series of decisions about how best to spend my time.

If it's combinatorics, I'm out of there in 10 seconds (because I know I'm terrible at combinatorics).
If I've been reading / jotting stuff down for a minute and I'm still not sure what the problem is asking, then I'm out of there (because if I don't even know what it's asking at 1m, how am I possibly going to solve it in 2-3?).
If the problem has 4+ annoying* characteristics, I'm very likely to bail.

"*Annoying" can be anything from objectively-longer-to-answer (eg, a roman numeral problem) to "I'm not that great at this."
eg, I'm pretty good with inequalities; I'm not as good with absolute value. If I see a roman numeral problem (strike 1) about absolute value (strike two) and it has 4 variables (strike 3 - that many variables is annoying!) and it includes layers in some weird equation or something (strike 4), I'm outta there!

Vs. If I just see an absolute value problem with none of that other stuff, I'm still going to try it.

And, yes, if I thought I understood it and I thought I knew how to do it, and I'm 2.5-ish minutes in and I'm thinking, "Hmm. This isn't really panning out the way I thought it would," then yes, I'm going to bail on that problem. Contrast that with being 2.5-ish in and thinking, "Yep, it's all working out, 2 more steps and I'm done with this one!" Obviously I'm not going to bail then.

**Note: That last scenario is NOT the same as, "I KNOW I studied this and I SHOULD know how to do it, if I could just remember that one thing, argh..." That's not "things are working out the way I envisioned and I can see that I'm literally almost done."

Your other 3, yes. My rule for "easy" quant is this: if I have finished the problem and don't feel like I spent even a minute on it, I double-check the problem and my work. Just to make sure I didn't miss something. And I have the time, because I didn't spend 4 minutes on the last one (and I got it wrong anyway )

[ket310]

Wow, that was great long explanation on my takeaway#1! I actually was halfway thinking what you said, but didn't elaborate it very well. Sorry about that! But now I'm full-way understanding the strategy regarding when to stick to the problem and use 2+minutes versus when to get out as soon as possible.

Thank you very much! 3 more weeks and hopefully I'll come back and tell you I got 700+!

[ket310]

I took second CAT (Manhattan) today, and the score is:

IR 5.2/ 4-6%
Quant 46/66%
Verbal 45/99%
Total 740/97%

Today, I actually found out that I am not as good as I thought in Quant. So, I'll devote my time more into Quant. Thank you very much for all your help so far!

[StaceyKoprince]

Wow, great work!

Quant (especially on our test) might be a function of not making optimal decisions: hanging on to some problems too long, messing up your timing, and losing points on problems that you could have gotten right...but you didn't have adequate time / mental energy to do them (or you made careless mistakes).

I say "especially on our test" because we are particularly careful to include questions that will tempt you to hang on too long (or tempt you to get into some crazy math calculations that you really don't want to be doing!). We're trying to make sure that, if you're going to "fail" in that way, you do so on our tests -- so that you learn not to do the same thing on the real test!

Keep it up!