GMAT re take studying advice

[westvanyo]

Hello Manhattan GMAT staff, first of all i wanna say thanks for this forum that you made available for us,

First my score summary, 5 CATS,2 official GMAT Exam pack and 1 real gmat (640), of course all mock tests were made under official conditions (AWA, 8 mins pauses, etc),



Also i bought the GMAT enhanced report, i have the following data:
IR(7, 81st)
Time Management IR: 2.49 mins per question

Quant(44, 58th ):
Sub section rankings:
PS (47th), DS(65th), Arithmetic(66th), algebra/geometry(47th)
Time management (in minutes):
Overall (1.99), PS(2.26), DS(1.99), arithmetic(2.19), Algebra/geometry(2.09)

Verbal (34, 71st)
Sub section rankings:
CR (42th), RC(95th), SC(55th)
Time management (in minutes)
Overall (1.83), CR (2.19), RC(1.74), SC(1.55)

On the test day i felt good, only nervous in the first and second GMAT quantitative section questions. My objective is a score over 700. My mother language is spanish.

And now my analysis:
As I can see, I have timming issues for hard questions, it seems I use a lot of time on questions that i fail.

On Math i am good in my country (in standardized tests i have score in the best 99% for math), but the GMAT makes me fall in some stupid mistakes and there are questions that are simply too hard for 2 minutes. The problem for me is that i know all the concepts that the GMAT tests, but i am too slow in finding the trick for the question (that is why 2 minutes is not enough for some questions for me), so i don't know if i should tackle this problem by means of practicing more questions and getting a database of tricks in my head, or training my math logic to find the trick faster, in one way i will use my logic instead of my memory in the other my memory instead of my logic, or somehow train both. If you could give me an advice of how i should train my brain to uncover this question tricks faster, that would be nice.

I think that i can improve a lot on CR and SC since i have good reading skills (but i really don't know if there is a correlation between reading SC and CR at all). I remember that at first i had a hit rate on SC of like 30% and i went even to a hit rate of over 70% (the MGMAT SC guide is very good), so i can keep improving on SC, i just need to autoevaluate myself. On CR I have this contradiction between using the MGMAT method and using my own logic, on the test i used my own logic and i have bad results, but i don't feel comfortable using the MGMAT method because i think that it takes too much energy applying it instead of my logic, because i have to overuse my memory and my logic by learning all the concepts and then categorize a question according to the concepts (learning for example strenghten, weaken, evaluate, etc, and then using my logic to categorize a question), if you can somehow convince me of why the CR method in your book would work better for me, that would be nice, or maybe it is just better to keep using the regular logic. I see that one problem that i have on CR is that my mind sometimes tries to translate the logic my mother language, in which i can process things faster, for example if you say to me, "this plan will have at most a minor effect" i will try to translate it to spanish since it is easier, so i you can recommend me how can i stop doing that language conversion, it would be helpful.

So in conclusion i think that my problem lies in processing capacity (if the questions were in my mother language, i could say that i wouldn't struggle so much in CR), and a fight between memory and logic in math (what else should i memorize and how should my logic work, to tackle the GMAT problem types).

Thanks in advance, I hope that my efforts to explain my head were well understood, if not please tell me.

[StaceyKoprince]

You explained yourself very well. Let's start here:

there are questions that are simply too hard for 2 minutes

No matter how much you study, this will always be true. An adaptive test, by definition, keeps getting harder as you get better. Your task is not to learn how to do everything correctly in 2 minutes. Your task is to figure out what is worth your time and what is not worth your time - and to let go of some questions accordingly.

Read this (right now - before you keep reading my post here):
http://tinyurl.com/executivereasoning

That's the mindset that you are trying to develop in taking this test. Not "how do I answer everything (or even most things)?" You're trying to make the best business-level decisions about where to invest (and how much) and where not to invest.

The percentile difference on DS (65th) vs. PS (47th), as well as the timing difference (nearly 30 seconds longer on PS), tells us two important things:
(1) You know most of the math from a theoretical point of view (so you can do well on DS), but you don't always know how to do the needed computations (so you struggle more on PS).
(2) You are focused more on the academic goal of getting things right than you are on the business goal of choosing your priorities and letting some things go.

You could probably lift your score 1 to 3 points just by changing the mindset alone, because the combination of the two things listed above usually means that you are spending time and mental energy on problems that are unlikely to pay off, and you are costing yourself points on questions that you can do (because those timing and mental energy issues are causing careless mistakes).

So your number 1 goal is to change your mindset and start approaching this test as a series of business decisions for which you know that you will not be able to do everything.

I'm also curious: how much have you been using test-taking strategies such as choosing smart numbers, testing cases, working backwards? Your percentile for algebra and geometry is decently lower than your arithmetic percentile, and that could be one reason why. Another reason might be story problems - do you feel that you struggle more with problems when you first have to translate the story into math?

On the verbal side, your RC performance is remarkable - very nice work. You mentioned translating arguments into Spanish; do you do the same with RC passages? Or do you not need to do that for RC? I'm trying to figure out why RC is so much easier / better for you than CR.

As you get more mentally fatigued, do you find it harder to process English? (I find this when I'm speaking or working in French.) I suspect this is part of the problem as well, and that you may be able to do better on verbal simply by making better decisions during quant and IR. If you are letting the hardest questions go during those earlier sections, then you will be more mentally fresh when you get to verbal, and you may not have to try to translate some sentences into Spanish. (Though that can still be a useful tool when a sentence is particular complex. Remember, though, that the need to translate into your native tongue is a signal that this problem is harder...and so it may be a signal that the best decision is to guess and move on.)

Okay, back to your question about how to recognize better what to do on specific problems (quant or verbal). Read this:
http://tinyurl.com/2ndlevelofgmat

Start doing what that says.

You also asked specifically about CR. First, you said:

if you can somehow convince me of why the CR method in your book would work better for me, that would be nice, or maybe it is just better to keep using the regular logic

You have said that your existing approach to CR is not getting you the results that you want, so your first conclusion should be that you need to change something. You don't need me to help you conclude that.

Whether our process is the right process is a different question, but if you want better results on CR, don't just keep doing what you were already doing.

Next, I agree that there is a lot to remember for each question type - but some question types are much more common than others! Concentrate on the ones that are the most commonly tested: Strengthen, Weaken, and Find the Assumption. Probably half (or more!) of your CR questions on the real test will come from those three categories.

Also, take a look at your current results using your own method. Is it working well on some question types but not others? If so, then keep doing what you already do for the types that are working, and learn a better method for the types that are not working. There may not be as much new stuff to learn or change as you think.

Let me know what you think about all of that!

[westvanyo]

Hello Stacey,

Indeed as of now i still remember that i wasted a lot of energy on problems for which i couldn't find the answer and had to guess. Very helpful and insightful article by the way. I will make of it my top priority to improve my decisions with the questions that appear at the test.

About test taking strategies, i know how to use them, but I use them seldom, and the strategy that i don't use at all is solving the problem backwards.

Translating a story into math at first was very hard, but i made a lot of exercises, so it became easier, but anyway I know i can still get better at it, can you recommend me a way to train this ability?

For example my RC ability was totally trained reading Science Daily newspaper everyday for at least 30 minutes, and for 15 minutes I took notes and then I just read for fun, but being totally focused on the reading and never translating it to spanish. In the months that i prepared for the GMAT i had always my mind working on English (but it is somewhat hard because the people talk to you in spanish here), i don't know if that is too extreme jaja. I think that my problem with CR is with my speed of reasoning, as i said on the first post, for me is a lot easier to process this sentence on spanish than on english :The biggest car among the group with the smallest ones. If you can give me a way to train my processing speed that would be helpful.

Also I remember that on the exam i was mentally fatigued for verbal, i remember that for many SC,CR and even RC questions i was like in a "I don't care mode" so all the questions start to look the same.

And as for the MGMAT CR method i will use it, and after two months i may reply to this post commenting how did it went.

Thanks for your attention and time dedicated to us.

[StaceyKoprince]

Working backwards can be a GREAT strategy in particular for story problems (when the answers allow you to do this), so start learning how to use this technique!

Do you have our quant books? If not, it may be worth getting the Word Problems book. That book contains two strategy chapters that I think would be very helpful for you: Working Backwards and Draw It Out. I'll also link to some free articles below on these topics; if you like them, then you might want to follow up by getting the Word Problems guide.

Work Backwards (this also includes other strategies, not just that one!):
https://www.manhattanprep.com/gmat/blog ... er-part-1/

Making stories real / doing real-world work (instead of using the algebra / textbook approach)
https://www.manhattanprep.com/gmat/blog ... them-real/
https://www.manhattanprep.com/gmat/blog ... ms-part-1/

I love that you made yourself think and work in English as much as possible leading up to your first test. That shows real dedication! I do think it would be valuable to continue to do that. It will help when you get to business school as well, so you aren't doing this just for the GMAT. The more you can make thinking / working in English easier, and the more you can switch your mindset to let some of those too-hard quant (and IR) questions go, the better you will be able to do on the verbal section, because you won't be so mentally fatigued by the test when you get there.

Let me know how CR goes!