Great verbal, questionable maths next steps?

[julsxf]

Hi,

I took my GMAT last Monday and got a 660. I was disappointed as my target is 720-730. On my two GMAT prep practices I got 720 and 730, so I thought I could swing it on the day.

How my scores break down:

I have very little trouble with the verbal side of the test, probably because I studied Classics and have always been something of an anal grammarian. My two GMAT Prep verbal tests were 96th and 99th percentile. The lowest I scored on verbal in my manhattan CATs was 81st percentile and I've been 96th or above for most of them.

What lets me down is my maths. I've never got above 71st percentile on quant in my Manhattan CATs and my GMAT prep ones were in the 60s.

Test day woes:

On the day of my actual test I think I messed up because I didn't really have any margin for error. My 720/730 practices were reliant on mid 60s quant and out-of-the-park verbal. Problem was, I found the very first question of quant hard, and it put me in a bad mindset from the get go. Then I think I had several questions where I was getting part way and having to guess 'cause I was taking too long. A few of them I just didn't even understand how to do. Result - a quant of 42 (54th percentile). Then I got 90th percentile in my verbal, which is low for me. I think it's because I got a couple of very hard reading comprehensions (which are always the wild card, I find) and I wasn't in a great state of mind.

What to do?

I want to resit pretty soon, maybe 27th August. I can't help but feel that there should be easy gains in quant to get me to a consistent 70th percentile or maybe even 80th percentile. Combined with my solid verbal, that would surely be enough to meet my target. I was always pretty good at maths at school, but haven't touched it since I was 17. I don't know if it's just a matter of practising more... I've read all the Manhattan quant guides and I found them really useful. I understand all the concepts, but when it comes to seeing the questions I still find them hard to do. Then I see the answer and usually I think "ok, that makes sense now", but a new question comes up and I still find it a challenge!

Any advice would be much appreciated!

Thanks

[StaceyKoprince]

90th on verbal is fantastic! Nice work. Yes, you probably went into the section knowing that you weren't totally happy with the quant, and that probably affected you. (You were probably also more mentally exhausted than usual by the time you got to verbal, both because of the natural adrenaline of knowing you're taking the real test and because of the issues you were having in quant.)

Given what you've described, I think you're going to need more time than 1 month to get your quant where you want it to be. There are some mindset shifts that you need to make and some skills that you need to develop that usually take more like 6 to 8 weeks. (Though maybe you'll pick them up faster than most!)

Read this:
https://www.manhattangmat.com/blog/inde ... lly-tests/

Articulate to yourself what implications that has for how you have been approaching math and how you need to change now that you know what that article says. (Feel free to check that with me.)

Next, read these:
http://www.manhattangmat.com/blog/index ... -to-do-it/
http://www.manhattangmat.com/blog/index ... nt-part-1/

Again, articulate to yourself what you need to do (and feel free to run it by me).

Finally, read these:
http://www.manhattangmat.com/blog/index ... -the-gmat/
http://www.manhattangmat.com/blog/index ... -the-gmat/

And once again articulate.

All of that will help you to put together your plan. Feel free to share that plan with us and we'll tell you what we think!

[julsxf]

Hi Stacey,

Thanks so much for the input. I'm afraid I've not looked at your links yet [hides embarrassed], and I've already booked my next GMAT for Friday 6th September - but I do have holiday all of that first week in September to really step-up my practice if I need it.

Work should be a bit less frantic next week so I intend to come back with a plan.

Thanks for the encouraging words :-)

[StaceyKoprince]

I do have holiday all of that first week in September to really step-up my practice if I need it.

Not if your test is on Sep 6th. That's when you should be winding down, not stepping up.

The GMAT is a marathon, not a sprint. You can't just jam it all in at the end. If you try, you'll end up tiring out your brain and that can lead to a disappointing test day.

So get going! Spend half an hour. Just do something. Then come back here to tell me what you did!

[julsxf]

Hi Stacey,

I read all your links and I realize I need to get more disciplined at cutting my losses on difficult quant problems so that I don't jeopardize my performance on the ones that I'm more likely to get right.

I do, however, feel that I have some content issues that I need to fix. Previously I read through all the manhattan guides in sequence and thought that if I understood the concepts I should just dive into timed practice tests. The problem with this is that I didn't get good at learning the tricks of the trade for dealing with each individual problem type. So now I'm trying to drill myself in quant topics one at a time, doing a serious of OG questions and analysing my approach to each one in the three part way you suggest (Did I know what, how well did I handle, how well did I recognize what was going on).

I really like overlapping set questions (maybe everyone does - I don't know!) and breeze through them quite easily. I've decided I want to attack my weaker topics until I feel the same way about them as I do overlapping sets. I started with combinatorics and probability (doh - did this before reading that bit where you say they're really rare!). My other major weak spots are: algebraic translations, rates and work, VICs and inequalities. I'm stronger on number properties and geometry.

So my study plan is to target each of those areas in the way I described, whilst doing a bit of verbal every other day just to keep it ticking over.

Let me know your thoughts!
Thanks again.

(P.S. I know I'm a bit up against it a little bit with the timing, I may consider postponing my test depending on how it goes).

[julsxf]

One more thing - are there any articles specifically on how to make intelligent guesses / use answer choices to your advantage? I think I need to learn how to do this and I've not read any strategies. Problem Solving and Data Sufficiency are the areas I'm interested in, as before.

Thanks!

[StaceyKoprince]

Most people don't like overlapping sets, so good for you! Don't expect to feel that way about everything - but try to move some topic categories more towards that feeling. Note that you should still have some that are just "whatever! I don't care!" categories (for me, that's combinatorics and 3D geometry).

Of the other weaknesses you listed, translation in general is SUPER common (this can come into play on any question type, actually). Here's something on translation:
http://www.manhattangmat.com/blog/index ... into-Math/

Oh, and the VIC / Smart Numbers technique can be used on multple questions / across topic areas as well:
http://www.manhattangmat.com/blog/index ... rithmetic/

Target those areas, but anytime you do a set of OG questions, only some should be from what you've been studying recently. You'll never get a set of questions on the real test all from the same area (certainly not in a row!) so don't give yourself the advantage of knowing what's coming. Out of a set of, say, 6 questions, 2 can be what you were studying that day, 2 more should be other things you've studied in the past few days, and the final 2 should be randomly chosen. (That'll be part of your review / keeping your skills up.)

Otherwise, I like your plan. :)

Have you read through the full Time Management article yet? That article contains links to two other articles on educated guessing - one for quant and one for verbal. If you missed them, you should look through that article again to make sure you didn't miss anything else!

[julsxf]

Ah ok, must have missed it. Will have another look.

Thanks Stacey!

[julsxf]

Stacey! I just got back from my GMAT resit wherein I got the following scores:

Quant: 48 (76th percentile)
Verbal: 46 (99th percentile)
Total: 750 (98th percentile)

Thanks so much Stacey! The advice and the links you gave me were instrumental in bumping up my score. I remember coming across one particularly difficult quant question which I threw within 10 seconds 'cause I knew I'd need the time for questions I could handle. I reckon this sort of thing made a big difference as I was always a bit behind the clock, despite my best efforts. It's probably the post-GMAT euphoria talking, but I think I may be in love with you! I must confess, however, that I did ignore your advice a bit and studied pretty hard this last week... My brain was absolute mush by the time I finished. So much so that I couldn't follow simple signs in the underground and it took me about three wrong turns before I caught the right tube home! :-S

It bothers me a tiny bit that I couldn't have got one more quant mark to push me into the 80th, but that's just me getting greedy - I'm so happy right now :-D

I definitely couldn't have done this without the amazing Manhattan Quant guides and your advice, as I said.
THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU!!

[StaceyKoprince]

Wow, that's fantastic!! Congratulations! I'm glad I could help but you deserve the credit for all of your hard work. :)

I love your anecdote about hitting a really hard question and dumping it within 10 seconds. That's my attitude too - first I think, "Yay! I must be doing well to get such a crazy question!" And the next thing I think is, "Okay, what letter am I going to pick?" ;)

I'll forgive you on the studying-too-hard stuff because you also made clear the consequences (mushy brain). Nobody wants that. :)

Good luck with applications! Let us know how it goes!

[julsxf]

Good luck with applications! Let us know how it goes!

Stacey!! I just got an offer from Stanford yesterday!

My GMAT days feel like an age ago now, but I wanted to come back here to make clear that I haven't forgotten the role that you (and the wider team that put together the Manhattan prep materials) played in this success. I'm sincerely grateful.

Thank you so much again!!!!

[StaceyKoprince]

That's wonderful! Congratulations!

And thanks so much for letting us know. Most people don't and we really like to hear. :)

Have an amazing time at Stanford!!