HELP, I CANT IMPROVE MY SCORES.

[princess73arz]

RECORDED SCORE: 410,460
Target: 650+

I pretty much went throught the first and second month's suggestions on this post, but I dont understand y i'm still scoring lower than a 600. Do i need to re-evalute my studying strategy. I already tried everything, but im gradually losing hope with it all. I've been studying on and off for two years now, and still i haven't seen any improvement. I felt like I sacrifice everything and already exhausted my resources, and now i'm losing hope. I originally scored a 410, 460 <--- (not effective studying just did run thrus/ w/o fundamentals) on my test and now when i take my practice test I'm scoring an average of 510. I still don't understand what it is that I'm doing wrong. Is there a way I should study? I really need help, but I don't really know where to look without spending already so much money. Here is brief on my study habits, the resources that I have used, and what i already know.

Here is a list of all the books, and resources I"ve used so far:
I pretty much used all the recommend books.
MGMT (Total guide) + 9 wk course
Princeton course
Powerscore CR Bible
Veritas Prep (TOTAL GUIDE)
Kaplan Book (cat test practice tests)
800score.com CAT test

Study schedule: Studied everyday during the weeks (20hr) + weekends (20s)
3wks off: Studied the whole days for 3wks (9am-12midnight)
Finished all the MGMT in-actions problems, + Question Banks
Finished all the CR Bible problems
OG 12th (5x, run thru)
OG VERBAL (1x run thru)
OG QUANT ( 1x run thru)
Veritas Prep (Finished all the reading material, and also did all the math problems)

3/4/2011-->Manhattan CAT#2: 460 (30/29)---> rushed thru last 0 prob
3/6/2011-->Manhattan CAT#3: 530 (43/20) ---> rushed thru last 0 probs
3/7/2011-->Manhattan CAT#4: 530 (36/28) ---> rush thru last 2 probs
2/20/2011--->KAPLAN CAT#1: 520 (28/28)---> rushed thru last 2 probs
2/25/2011--->KAPLAN CAT#2: 510 (27/26) ---> rushed thru las 3 probs
2/27/2011--->KAPLAN CAT#3: 510 (30/23) ---->rushed thru last 2 probs

HIGHEST SCORES
2/28/2011-->VERITAS PREP #1: 550 (40/29) --> rushed thru last 5 probs
2/29/2011-->PLATINUM GMAT#1: 590 (42/23) --> rushed thru 4 probs
2/13/11--->Manhattan CAT#1: 580 (42/28)-->rushed thru 8 probs

Do you see a pattern that I do not see. I dont know what i'm doing wrong. The more CATs I take the lower my score goes.
After I did the CAT exam MGMT #3 & #4, I did a run thru of the test and ask myself why i got it wrong and redo the problems all over again. Is that how you are supppose to study for the exam? As for the sentence corrections, I took a lot of notes for the review and wrote it in my book, answering y I got these problems wrong too. I did that for most of my SC and did see a significant improvement, but what i didnt understand was how come my math was not improving, yet its gets worse and worse and not consistent. At least I should see an improvement from my math right? But I dont see any improvement at all. Do people just keep doing run thrus of all the math problems until they get it right? Or do they try to figure it out through finding out and understanding the prinple of the math for each problem? I know how to solve majority of the math problems in the OG 12th (80%), OGverbal review (70%), but I still dont get it***Y i'm not improving. One of the strategies I used was spliting the btw what my strengths and weakness are.

STRENGTHS: (I EVENT SPLIT IT IN CATEGORIES) DO YOU ID YOUR WEAKNESS AND FIGURE OUT THE PRINCIPLES OF DIFFERENT WAYS YOU CAN SOLVE IT? AM I BEING TOO ANALYTICAL?

PROBLEM SOLVING:
Ratio
Basic Mixture Problems
Inequalities
Geometry (Circles)
Interest Problems
Basic percentage
Algebra
Grouping

WEAKNESS:
(Do you have any suggestions to help me improve on my weaknesses? Do you have any posting to help me with these specific problem categories?) I would really appreciate it*!

SENTENCE CORRECTION: SC (MODIFIERS EXCEPTIONS--> IDENTIFYING THE OBJECT VS. THE SUBJECT/"IT" PN REFERENT, TRIPLE SPLITS)

READING COMP: LOST HOPE, IS THERE A STRATEGY FOR THIS????? I just summarize the each paragraph 1,2,3,4,5. etc.

CRITICAL REASONING: I jot down notes as below: Each questions---> Is this the right ways to get a higher score for Critical Reasoning? Is there a better strategy?
Each question I would ID the: Premise/Conclusion

PROBLEM SOLVING +DS PROBLEMS:
RATE X TIME=D: I use the chart from one of your post, but d=d, t=t, etc. but I don't know when and where to plug in to start. Sometimes when i used the chart to answers the problem I usually get lost and I don't know what to look for and where to start my plug-in so b/c of that it takes me a while to figure it out, b/c not all the problems are like the example posted on this forum, so i have to assume that it's a completely new problem. When I do, its usually takes me 3-4mins to get the answer right. (I KNOW HOW TO DO IT, BUT IT TAKES ME LONGER TO SOLVE IT.) Is there a way i can automatically solve it a lot quicker?

GEOMETRY-(how do you know what is proportional?) fastest ways to solve it.
GEOMETRY-(how do you know how to id how to draw it?) very hard prob OG(DS#109)
GEOMETRY-(similar triangles) is it automatcially similar if 2 angles or 2 sides are similar?

COMBINATION/PROBABILTY-how do you know whether to use probability or combination?
COMBINATION/CONSTRAINTS --> Is there a shortcut? b/c there is so many ways to solve it, i start to get confused in what type way to solve it is the easiest way. Any suggestions? manhattan/veritas prep all have different stratgies.

AVERAGES(DS)- Is there a shortcut?

Percentage Problems-(DS)-variables, is there a shorter way to identify it?

RTD(DS)- are there shortcuts?

DS VARIABLES- Is there another shortcut for DS plugging in? How do you know what to plug in to cut your time in half? I realize that a lot of time when i plug in answers I generally would get the answer right, but I dont know how to do it faster***whenever i plug in I usually take 3-4 mins on those problems and I get press on time to just click on an answer* I use MGMT GMAT's strategy, NPZ, and FIZ, but it's not fast enough for me.

RECOMMENDATIONS?
I really need help. I sacrificed too much already to give up. This morning felt like the end. Studying everyday, every hour, working so hard, then realizing that it didn't pay off is the worse feeling anybody can go thru, especially if it was for 2 whole years of sacrifice. I didn't really see the pattern until I took these 3 weeks off to study for the exam. I sacrified 2 years for this, I sacrifice going out everything. I just don't know what to do anymore that's y I really hope that somebody can help me with this. Besides this I bascially dont know what else to do. I felt like giving up, because it was starting to make me so depressed. But I know that if I do quit I would just hate myself even more. At the end it makes me questions: How many times does a person have to fail in order to finally succeed?

[StaceyKoprince]

It seems like you're spending too much time doing a bunch of problems and not enough time analyzing the problems. Generally speaking, if it takes you 2 min to do a problem, it should take you 5 to 15 minutes to review that one problem. Most of your learning comes during that 5 to 15 minutes.

Read this article first:
http://www.manhattangmat.com/articles/a ... roblem.cfm

This will give you an idea of what I mean by "analyzing" (as opposed to doing the problems).

Then, each of the below articles gives an example of how to do this analysis, using a sample problem:
http://www.manhattangmat.com/articles/GMATprep-SC.cfm
http://www.manhattangmat.com/articles/CR-assumption.cfm
http://www.manhattangmat.com/articles/a ... estion.cfm
http://www.manhattangmat.com/articles/a ... roblem.cfm
http://www.manhattangmat.com/articles/a ... roblem.cfm

Don't read them all through at once - pick one (say, PS), read it, try it yourself with some problems while referring to the article, use the forums to help reinforce what you're trying to learn to do (analyze), and then move on to trying, say, the DS article.

I think this article will also be useful - use it to help you use the forums in the best possible way:
http://www.beatthegmat.com/mba/2010/05/ ... the-forums

Next, when you analyzed your tests, did you take timing into account? You mention strengths and weaknesses, but you didn't split them out by timing or accuracy (or both).

If you were really mostly looking at accuracy only, use this article to help you analyze your tests:
http://www.manhattangmat.com/articles/e ... -part1.cfm

If you have timing issues according to the above analysis, reply immediately and let me know. It's often the case that timing problems can prevent you from making progress on your score even as you're learning more content.

You also asked for help with specific content areas. Here are some resources:

RC:
http://www.beatthegmat.com/mba/2010/04/ ... mp-passage
http://www.beatthegmat.com/mba/2010/07/ ... rc-passage

start with those, and then if you need more on specific question types, let me know.

CR:
http://www.manhattangmat.com/articles/C ... n-type.cfm

(I KNOW HOW TO DO IT, BUT IT TAKES ME LONGER TO SOLVE IT.) Is there a way i can automatically solve it a lot quicker?

You're talking about rate problems there. To answer your question, maybe, but your first goal should be to get it wrong faster. I'd rather have you get something wrong in 2m then right in 3.5m, because you're guaranteeing yourself multiple other things wrong if you go that far over on too many questions.

People who get all messed up on the charts on rate problems often benefit from drawing pictures. Actually sketch out whatever you've got - two trains moving towards each other, or whatever - and then sketch out what the sequence of movement is, just so that you understand the scenario.

This can help you in one of two ways: either it helps you to understand how the chart works so that you can set it up properly, or it actually allows you to solve using the picture! The problem might give you enough information to draw out such that you could actually answer the question that way, step by step (at the first hour, train X is here and train Y is there; at the second hour...). If that doesn't get you to the one right answer, it can let you narrow down significantly. Try this out with problem #119 in your Quant OG supplement book (the smaller, quant only book). (Also, the problem number assumes you have the 2nd edition of the book; let me know if you have the first edition. You're looking for the problem that starts "Two trains, X and Y, started simultaneously...")

The other thing is to do that analysis I was talking about on old quant questions. You got there 3 minutes in. Which part of what you did was wasted time? How could you have known that? How will you know / remember that in future? Is there a more efficient way to set it up than the way that you did? What is that more efficient way, how could you know that for next time, how will you remember? Etc.

Combination and probability are very infrequent on the test. You might get one question - don't worry about those and DO NOT spend extra time on them. Don't hurt yourself on other questions just to try this ONE question.

Geometry:
Try to work some of your questions out. If you have two triangles and two angles of each are equal, why does that always mean that the third angles are equal too? (Because the 3 angles have to add up to 180, always.) What about sides? Can you draw two triangles, one of which has sides of 2, 4, and 5, and one of which has sides 2, 3, and 5? Yes. Why? Because, although there are restrictions on the lengths of the sides, they don't all have to add up to the same number every time. Try drawing out some actual triangles and see how things work and why.

How do you know what to plug in to cut your time in half? I realize that a lot of time when i plug in answers I generally would get the answer right, but I dont know how to do it faster

Study your old problems. What finally ended up working well - which specific numbers? What properties did those numbers have that made them work well? How could you have noticed that when you were still in the process of picking which numbers to try?

eg, does the problem mention odd or even? Try odds vs. evens. Does the problem mention that something is divisible by 2? That also means even, so try odds and evens.

Does the problem talk about something unusual happening with squares or roots (a square doesn't get bigger, for example)? Try numbers that do unexpected things when squaring - 0 and 1 stay the same, fractions between 0 and 1 get smaller, for example.

Sometimes, in practice, you won't see and you'll just have to try a bunch of numbers. But after is where you're going to learn! What numbers ended up working? If you didn't find any that did, or didn't find a pattern, try a bunch of different numbers now - you have time because you're reviewing. See if you can figure out what numbers make a difference. Then figure out why they made a difference - what math principle actually made the difference? Then see whether there's a way to have told that this was what was being tested when you were first going through the problem. That will then be your clue next time that "I should be thinking about negatives" or "I should be thinking about fractions between 0 and 1" or whatever. That analysis is where you learn how to get better at stuff like this!

Okay, that's a lot of stuff. Try out the above and make some progress - come back here to ask any questions. Then, as you make some progress, we'll add some additional stuff in, okay?

[duxbury001]

How many times does a person have to fail in order to finally succeed?

did you ever have any luck?

[StaceyKoprince]

Good question - we haven't heard back from this student. Hopefully s/he succeeded in the end!