Final Plan for Verbal

[shankhdhar.gaurav]

I have been studying for GMAT for 3-4 month now.
I am around 20+ days away from my GMAT and working on finalizing my game plan as suggested by Stacey.

I resisted taking notes and relied on Memory Maping to solve RC and CR. The accuracy level wasn't consistent and in tough passages it drops significantly.

For last 1-2 week i am using the MGMAT suggested abbreviated notes with close to 100% accuracy.
I have decided to use the abbreviated notes in exam too.

My worry is that the reading some time get into the 4-5 minutes range for really tough or long passages.
Same for CR, almost always CR takes 2+ minutes to solve.
I am skeptical if i will be able to use it in the exam without ending up with guesses in the end?

Any tips to reduce the RC reading time in less than 3 minute range and CR in less than 90 seconds range?

Also, My SC average time is also in 100+ seconds range for easy and medium difficulty q and approximately 2 minute in hard problems. I have decided that if i am not able to find any error in the Sentence, i have no idea what the error is or find it too complex to find any error in it, I would guess 'A' and move on. This will provide me more time in RC and CR, the topics i am confident to solve with higher accuracy.

What do you say?
Suggestions?

[StaceyKoprince]

Any tips to reduce the RC reading time in less than 3 minute range and CR in less than 90 seconds range?

Yes:
(1) do not read as much for RC. Don't read everything. Once you realize something is detail / example, skim it and don't even try to remember it or understand how it works. If you get a question about that detail, then you can come back to read the sentence and try to understand it. (This works because you will NOT be asked about every detail in the passage.) Focus on the big ideas only.

(2) for CR and RC your notes should be VERY abbreviated. If you picked up your notes a week from now, could you still read and understand them? They should be so abbreviated that you really have no idea what they're saying without looking at the argument or passage again.

There are two other places where people tend to lose time on verbal while going through the answers, so here's what to do while assessing answers:

1st pass through answers: place answers into 1 of 2 categories, definitely wrong or maybe. DO NOT decide whether something is actually correct at this stage. (Point #1 where people lose time)

2nd pass through: look only at the "maybe" answers, compare, choose one

When you are down to two answers on verbal, look at each answer ONCE more, then pick one and move on. Do NOT agonize back and forth repeatedly. (Point #2 where people lose time)

Your SC guessing strategy sounds fine.

What's your goal score? How far away are you from that goal score right now? You say you're 20 days away from the test, so you should be pretty close. If you're not, you should be thinking about either postponing the test or lowering your goal score.

[shankhdhar.gaurav]

I am currently working on improving my SC as per your feedback in the following post:

more-mgmat-tests-or-more-practice-for-one-month-t15945.html

I did work on some of the mentioned tips and re-looked to my OG13 and OG12 SC practice and error log again.

Main reason behind my SC is that i wasn't as systematic with the SC approach as i am with SC and RC approach.

I corrected the mistake and SC looks better.
I will come back soon with findings on SC.

In RC, i do abbreviate my notes a lot but it seems problem is with my reading. Unknowingly, I try to understand the passage as if i can answer Q from my memory without looking back at passage. Need to practice skimming :-)

In CR i note only P --> C relationship (Suggested in Manhattan LSAT CR) and in case of non-Assumption Q i do take some note to understand whats going on specially in Inference. I did some CR from OG11, and decided not to take notes for easy and my strengths Q type and take notes for tough to comprehend argument. What do you say?

My current Verbal timing on an average are close to:
100+ seconds for SC
120-150 seconds for CR
6-7 minutes for Short Passages with 3Q
8-10 minutes for Long Passages with 4Q

But i feel Bunnel's strategy mentioned at

http://gmatclub.com/forum/timing-strate ... 80176.html

seems more promising for improved accuracy in RC.
He recommends:
45 sec for SC
90 seconds for CR
use remaining ~40 minutes for RC.

I end up doing total 3-5 errors in RC if i try to achieve:

6-7 minutes for Short Passages with 3Q
8-10 minutes for Long Passages with 4Q

but only 1-2 errors if i spend:

8-10 minutes for Short Passages with 3Q
9-11 minutes for Long Passages with 4Q

I am trying to save time on CR and SC easy Q' and hoping to save time for RC for improved score? What do you say?

Note: This also depends what improvement i can do to my CR and SC timing in next 10 days or so. I am an Indian IT male aspiring to join a ISB/IIM-A/NTU/NUS/HKUST/INSEAD one year course. It wil be hard to get in with less than 700ish score in any of these college because of my over represented demography :-(

[shankhdhar.gaurav]

Main reason behind my SC is that i wasn't as systematic with the SC approach as i am with SC and RC approach.

Correct sentence: "Main reason behind my SC is that i wasn't as systematic with the SC approach as i am with CR and RC approach. "
It was a typo :-(
In addition to what i already mentioned above, i tried again few of the tough problems (as per my error log) from VR 2 and OG12 again.
I found that without taking abbreviated notes, i can not solve the Q with confidence. With abbreviated notes my accuracy is close to 100%. (How ironic is that i resisted taking notes until recently :-( )
But i am taking around ~ 2 minutes (plus minus 15 seconds) to solve a CR Q but with confidence and 100% accuracy.

This also brings to another query of mine, I had practiced and studied from any resources but now i am only using Q's from Official resources such as OG12/13 QR/VR 1 and 2, QP1 to formalize my D-Day Game Plan . People say that the real exam Q's are tougher than the official resources.
Am i making a mistake or its completely ok to do so?

Thanks a lot in advance for coining the idea of D-day Game Plan and helping me deciding my D-day Game Plan :-)

[StaceyKoprince]

Main reason behind my SC is that i wasn't as systematic with the SC approach

Good, so now you're learning that.

Unknowingly, I try to understand the passage as if i can answer Q from my memory without looking back at passage.

In other contexts (like school), that might be a good strategy - it just isn't here because we have so little time.

Also, think of it this way: you're actually wasting your valuable time when you try to understand and remember EVERYthing because you absolutely know that you are NOT going to get asked about everything in the passage. Would you waste valuable and precious time like that when you're post-MBA running your own company? No way! So don't do it here either. :)

In CR i note only P --> C relationship (Suggested in Manhattan LSAT CR) and in case of non-Assumption Q i do take some note to understand whats going on specially in Inference. I did some CR from OG11, and decided not to take notes for easy and my strengths Q type and take notes for tough to comprehend argument. What do you say?

Totally fine as long as you're happy with your performance level. There are so many variations in how things can be done - the only rule really is "if you want to get better, something has to change; if you're happy as things are, then don't change anything."

My current Verbal timing on an average are close to:
100+ seconds for SC
120-150 seconds for CR
6-7 minutes for Short Passages with 3Q
8-10 minutes for Long Passages with 4Q

The above would cause you to run out of time before a test section is over.

He recommends:
45 sec for SC
90 seconds for CR
use remaining ~40 minutes for RC.

Wow, I don't know many people who could do that. I wouldn't feel comfortable recommending that as a general strategy to most people.

As a general rule, you do not want to allocate more time to your weakest area. You want to make sure to spend adequate time on your strengths in order to get right the things that you know how to get right. If you have to cut time on anything, you cut on your weaknesses.

Remember that you are NOT trying to get everything right. You may have already read this but, if so, read it again:
http://www.manhattangmat.com/blog/index ... to-win-it/

Also, there are more SCs than any other type, so don't sacrifice SC unless necessary!

Your 2nd post:

With abbreviated notes my accuracy is close to 100%. (How ironic is that i resisted taking notes until recently :-( )

But i am taking around ~ 2 minutes (plus minus 15 seconds) to solve a CR Q but with confidence and 100% accuracy.

Good and good.

Re: your last question, I personally prefer the official questions for verbal. For quant, I like a combination of the official questions and some high-quality test-prep questions (because I do sometimes feel that there could be more really hard quant Qs).

[shankhdhar.gaurav]

Took GMAT, 690 (Q47, V37)
I am planning to apply to two of my target colleges but probability is very less for converting it.
I will have around 20 free days from my work in Dec around Christmas and planning to give GMAT a second try.
I know what i need to do for Quant and move into Q50 wil ltry my best in these 4 months.
Need your help with my Verbal strategy:
As expected this what happened in the exam while taking verbal:
1. Have no clue in most of the SC Q's. have to Guess many to keep up with the pace.
2. Able to solve most of the CR Q's confidently, took notes and applied PoE. But ended up spending more than 2 minutes in the CR Q's, leading to guesses at each milestone to keep up with the time.
3. I didn't took notes in RC and was not confident of answering Q's but managed to solve few confidently. Spend more than 100 seconds in most of the RC Q's. Didn't guess any RC Q though but i was not confident in few Q's.

I have studied from following sources:
MGMAT SC/RC/CR guides (4th Edition)
MGMAT Verbal Foundation
Powerscore LR Bible
MGMAT LSAT CR Guide
MGMAT LSAT RC Guide

Verbal Practice Questions from many forums and OG11/OG12/OG13/VR2 and QP1.

What do you suggest for improving my verbal score?

[StaceyKoprince]

Nice job! I know that you want to take it again, but 690 is a great score - I just want to acknowledge that!

Re: SC, have you read this?
http://www.manhattangmat.com/blog/index ... orrection/

If you feel that describes how you're struggling with SC, then use that article (and the other articles to which that one links) to help you develop and practice ways of handling these "more convoluted" SCs.

But ended up spending more than 2 minutes in the CR Q's, leading to guesses at each milestone to keep up with the time.

When you go over 2 minutes, why does that happen? Where are you spending the extra time - reading the argument? Re-reading it? Going through the answer choices? The first time you go through? After you've narrowed it down to 2 or 3?

Make SURE that you are doing this on all verbal answers:

1st pass through answers: place answers into 1 of 2 categories, definitely wrong or maybe. DO NOT decide whether something is right at this stage. Do not waste a second on that thought!

2nd pass through: look only at the "maybe" answers, compare, choose one

When you are down to two answers on verbal, look at each answer ONCE more, then pick one and move on. Again, do not waste ANY time agonizing back and forth. Once more. That's it.

Were you already doing that? Or do you think you've been losing time at the "evaluating the answers" stage?

[shankhdhar.gaurav]

Thank you. I do plan to apply for few colleges.
I am kind of do not redo any part of the whole process but the single execution of all the steps takes close to 2 minutes :-(

How should i go about it?
May be more practices on taking shorthand notes in CR and RC?
Improving my reading speed?

[StaceyKoprince]

Yes, work on both reading speed and on taking notes. You have months to do this, so a little bit every day on the reading (doesn't need to be GMAT reading). Here are some ideas (if I haven't given you this before):

http://www.manhattangmat.com/blog/index ... rehension/

Re: taking notes, do you go back over your notes after finishing a problem and ask yourself how they could have been better? Could you have abbreviated more? Did you write something down that you didn't need to write down? How could you have known that it was too much from the beginning? Did you write anything down that ended up being confusing? How can you write it more clearly next time? Etc.

Then make yourself write out the "ideal" notes. :)