Guys,
You are all like family, trying to protect each other from that GMAT ! So you all are the ones I am coming for help !!
Ok, Coming straight to the point...I bombed my GMAT today. I took it 2 years back without studying at all and this time I studied for 3 months and was very focused, but bombed it again. It clearly tells me, my study methods are wrong and my basics are weak!
What I did over these 3 months ? I have practically everything available in the market for GMAT. I focused my preparation on studying from MGMAT guides and GMAT hacks materials. Even though I got a low score, I am not blaming these materials but myself. I am a big FAN of MGMAT materials.
I did everything...
1) Took Test at a public library
2) on laminated sheets and a marker
3) I stopped drinking/clubbing/partying for 3 months so that I could focus on this damn exam.
4) put timer on questions
scores in practice test ranged from 510-560
scores in practice test ranged from 510-560
GMAT prep 1: 430
MGMAT prep 1: 540
MGMAT prep 2; 560
MGMAT prep 3:550
GMAT prep 2; 510
Actual: 380
Well, Things I have learnt:
I don't hate this exam, its just that I need to prepare myself better.
1)This test is designed to see, if you break in pressure..
3) GMAT is atleast 30 % luck, it all starts from what kind of questions you get ? Right from question #1. I got a probability as question #1 and I hate that topic. and guess what ? I got it wrong and it just created a mental block and because of that I could not focus on the next questions.
4) DS questions are IMP, because problems alone won't take you that far.
5) I don't know, if the test is getting any easier or harder, but the wording is defn tricker.
6) Math fundamentals should be ROCK HARD ! then issues like mental block and all don;t happen.
6) To all those struggling with quant (Including myself, before you move to any test prep company for your Math, get a math high school book to work the quant).
Which book should I refer for Math ?
7) Doing bad on verbal, hurts your score more than doing bad on Math.
Can you tell me what I should do now ?
I know one thing for sure, In Math your fundamentals for this test should be so strong that, even if someone wakes you from sleep and ask you a mixture or probability question then you should be able to answer it.
Another important thing, I am going to do is that, if I don’t finish a PS question under 2 minutes, then I am going to practice that concept and that question until I get it 100 times. There is no reason to spend more than 2 minutes on a PS question !! I spent 8 minutes on something today and eventually got it wrong. How ridiculous is that ???? It just showed that I panicked because I did not practice enough.
Reading problems on the screen and doing it on paper, there is a lot of difference ?!!! I think I am going to take couple of days off and then re-evaluate my strategy. I am not going to QUIT !
I was just joking with my dad the day before I test and I said " Ohh well, if I get a good score then I am going to miss studying for this " Guess what now ?
Please help me with your valuable suggestions !!!
GMAT Forum
2 postsPage 1 of 1
- RonPurewal
- Students
- Posts: 19744
- Joined: Tue Aug 14, 2007 8:23 am
Re: Help !
first of all, good luck, and don't get discouraged. it is easy to be intimidated by the test, so stick in there and keep your head up.
--
no matter what you're studying, make sure that you study with the appropriate DEPTH, not just BREADTH.
this is going to be difficult at first - there won't be that many connections to make when you're just digging back into the material - but you should try to RELATE problems to each other in order to gain the maximum benefit from them.
for EVERY problem:
* don't concentrate on the solution to that actual problem, since you can be sure you aren't going to see that actual problem on the exam
-- i'm more than a little worried about the fact that you are planning on repeating the same problem over and over again. this isn't really a good idea -- it will reinforce the (pernicious) notion that each problem as a separate entity in and of itself, divorced from and unrelated to other problems.
* instead, try to find TAKEAWAYS from the problem, which you can then APPLY TO OTHER PROBLEMS. this is key - DO NOT LEAVE A PROBLEM until you have extracted at least one piece of information, whether a formula, a strategy, a trick/trap, etc., that you can apply to OTHER problems.
do not leave a problem until you can fill in the following sentence, meaningfully and nontrivially:
"if i see _____ ON ANOTHER PROBLEM, i should _____"
if the lessons you learn from a particular problem apply only to that problem, then, unfortunately, those lessons are largely useless.
* notice the SIGNALS in the problem that dictate which strategy to use.
if you miss the problem, then notice the strategy that's used in the book's solution (not always the best solution, in the case of the o.g., but better than nothing), and go back to see if there are any signals 'telling' you to use that strategy.
--
question 1:
have you exhausted the official guides?
if not, then you should bury yourself in those - at the very least, the later problems.
question 2:
have you been practicing CONSISTENT TIME MANAGEMENT on EVERY SINGLE PRACTICE PROBLEM that you ever solve?
this is not an exaggeration.
you should NEVER solve a gmat-like problem untimed, EVER.
never.
ever.
if you do so, then you're undermining your efforts in two ways: (a) you're building poor time management habits, and (b) you're coming up with solutions that are, frankly, irrelevant to the official exam, because they take longer than you'll actually have.
you should also NEVER exceed your time allotments per problem, even in practice.
you mentioned taking up to eight minutes on practice problems. you should NEVER do that -- if you do, you're actually conditioning yourself to take just as long on test day. you must practice exactly the same time-management habits in practice as you will have to on the actual exam.
the ONLY things that you should ever do without a stopwatch are remedial exercises, such as the ones found in our strategy guides. if you're ever solving anything that is, or looks like, a gmat problem (i.e., has multiple choices or data-suff statements), then use a stopwatch. period.
no excuses.
if you find yourself rushed at the end, i'd wager that the biggest reason is that you haven't been practicing time management with enough diligence or consistency.
--
no matter what you're studying, make sure that you study with the appropriate DEPTH, not just BREADTH.
this is going to be difficult at first - there won't be that many connections to make when you're just digging back into the material - but you should try to RELATE problems to each other in order to gain the maximum benefit from them.
for EVERY problem:
* don't concentrate on the solution to that actual problem, since you can be sure you aren't going to see that actual problem on the exam
-- i'm more than a little worried about the fact that you are planning on repeating the same problem over and over again. this isn't really a good idea -- it will reinforce the (pernicious) notion that each problem as a separate entity in and of itself, divorced from and unrelated to other problems.
* instead, try to find TAKEAWAYS from the problem, which you can then APPLY TO OTHER PROBLEMS. this is key - DO NOT LEAVE A PROBLEM until you have extracted at least one piece of information, whether a formula, a strategy, a trick/trap, etc., that you can apply to OTHER problems.
do not leave a problem until you can fill in the following sentence, meaningfully and nontrivially:
"if i see _____ ON ANOTHER PROBLEM, i should _____"
if the lessons you learn from a particular problem apply only to that problem, then, unfortunately, those lessons are largely useless.
* notice the SIGNALS in the problem that dictate which strategy to use.
if you miss the problem, then notice the strategy that's used in the book's solution (not always the best solution, in the case of the o.g., but better than nothing), and go back to see if there are any signals 'telling' you to use that strategy.
--
question 1:
have you exhausted the official guides?
if not, then you should bury yourself in those - at the very least, the later problems.
question 2:
have you been practicing CONSISTENT TIME MANAGEMENT on EVERY SINGLE PRACTICE PROBLEM that you ever solve?
this is not an exaggeration.
you should NEVER solve a gmat-like problem untimed, EVER.
never.
ever.
if you do so, then you're undermining your efforts in two ways: (a) you're building poor time management habits, and (b) you're coming up with solutions that are, frankly, irrelevant to the official exam, because they take longer than you'll actually have.
you should also NEVER exceed your time allotments per problem, even in practice.
you mentioned taking up to eight minutes on practice problems. you should NEVER do that -- if you do, you're actually conditioning yourself to take just as long on test day. you must practice exactly the same time-management habits in practice as you will have to on the actual exam.
the ONLY things that you should ever do without a stopwatch are remedial exercises, such as the ones found in our strategy guides. if you're ever solving anything that is, or looks like, a gmat problem (i.e., has multiple choices or data-suff statements), then use a stopwatch. period.
no excuses.
if you find yourself rushed at the end, i'd wager that the biggest reason is that you haven't been practicing time management with enough diligence or consistency.
2 posts Page 1 of 1