GMAT Prep Dilemma?Help Needed!!!

[rishisbook]

I gave the GMAT prep 1 today. Scored a 630 (Q47 V30).

I suffered in Quant because i spent too much time on the initial questions, due to which the later questions suffered badly. Otherwise, I am pretty sure that i would have increased my score in Q, with proper time management, to say 49-50.

But with regards to Verbal i am a little confused here. Everybody says not only to concentrate on the first 10 questions but also to distribute the correct answers all over. When the exam was completed, what i saw was a little surprising!!! Out of first 14 questions ,6 were wrong. But in the next 27 questions i got only 5 wrong. Still my score is 30. I expected it to be around 35-36. Break-up of Verbal: 6/14 wrong in CR, 2/12 wrong in RC, and 3/15 wrong in SC. With Manhattan tests, the same pattern would have yielded a higher score in verbal. I am sure of it.

CR has been a bit of a problematic area for me. Though it seems RC has improved for now. In Manhattan CATs, RC was around 50% accuracy. CR was around 50% accuracy. And time management in Verbal has definitely improved now. But not for CR though(Avg time for CR remains 2.5-2.75 min).

In addition, i have noticed one more thing.In 50-60% of my wrong CR questions, i am always confused between 2 choices and i end up selecting the wrong one.

Please instructors. Need help on this.

Q.1 What do i make of the GMAT prep 1 score?
Q.2 What do i make of MGMAT scores with respect to GMAT prep 1?Since i have already exhausted all 6 MGMAT tests, i cannot rely on MGMAT scores now.
Q.3 What pointers do you have improving CR?Do i repeat problems from OG 12 or do i practice some other problems(say LSAT)?

[StaceyKoprince]

Hmm. Depends. Did you have strings of wrong answers? How many in a row and where on the test were they?

In 50-60% of my wrong CR questions, i am always confused between 2 choices and i end up selecting the wrong one.

That's about what you should expect, right? If you have 2 answers left, you have a 50/50 shot. You guess... and you get about 50% wrong. :)

You can save time by guessing faster. My guess is that you spend at least 20-30 seconds agonizing between those last two. As a general rule, when you've narrowed to 2 answers, look at each answer ONE more time, then pick. You're getting half of them right already, so get them right faster! (And the wrong ones wrong faster.) Then you'll have more time at the end.

What have you been using to teach you how to get better at CR? I'm not talking about OG or practice problems. I'm talking about lessons that tell you "Here's how you recognize a Weaken the Conclusion question. Here's how you answer Weaken questions. Here are the common traps in Weaken questions." Etc. If you haven't been using anything that actually teaches you this stuff, now's the time to find something and start using it!

Re: MGMAT tests (or GMATPrep, actually), You can still take both with repeats as long as you follow a few guidelines to minimize the chance of artificially inflating your score via question repeats. First, anytime you see a problem that you remember (and this means: I know the answer or I'm pretty sure I remember the answer, not just "hmm, this looks vaguely familiar..."), immediately look at the timer and make yourself sit there for the full length of time for that question type. This way, you don't artificially give yourself more time than you should have. Second, think about whether you got this problem right the last time. If you did, get it right again this time. If you didn't, get it wrong again. If you *completely honestly* think that you would get it right this time around if it were a new question (even though you got it wrong last time) because you've studied that area and improved, then get it right this time.

[rishisbook]

Hey,

I checked the GMAT prep with the sequence of wrong answers for verbal section.

Question 4,8,9,10,12,14,25,28,38,39,40.

These are the question numbers which I got wrong. Now i must say something here.For questions 38,39,40 I did panic a bit. I may have had 5 minutes or so, but this usually happens to me. I am not a good beginner or a good finisher with respect to all tests i have given till date. I either put too much pressure on myself initially to get answers correct or i may spend too much time on initial questions, in turn affecting the end questions. Perhaps this is what is lowering my score.

Probably the latter affected my Quant score as well.

Any suggestions on this?

[StaceyKoprince]

Have you read this time management article yet?

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

If not, start doing what it says.

Mindset is key. The test is looking for good business people. Good business people know how to set priorities, make decisions, and manage scarce resources. Good business people know that, sometimes, they have to decide NOT to do something because something else is more important, right?

So the test is testing you on your ability to set priorities - to decide, sometimes, that something is NOT worth your time right now. Time is a scarce resource. It's better to move on and spend that time someplace else. Can you make those kinds of decisions? If not, your score is going to suffer.

Alternatively, think of this as a tennis match. You don't expect to win every single point when you play tennis, right? That'd be silly. Instead, you want to win more points than your opponent. That's what this test is like - you just want to win *more* points than the cmoputer. But you don't expect to win them all.