How to improve in Quants from Q44- to Q48/Q49 level

[bacchewar_prashant]

Hi,

I took my GMAT prep 1 after studying all the MGMAT guides and scored Q44. Total 11 incorrect in quants.

One of things where I went wrong was I got 5 question incorrect in first 11 questions. I also got last 2 questions incorrect.

One of the important thing to note is there was about 7 mins still available when I completed my quant section.

I did not found any particular area where I am stuck at but certainly DS is something I have problem. Additionaly I think I am not very confident about the Number properties questions specially those appearing in DS.

Permutations and Combinations is something I am not comfortable with and decided to skip the question if I am not able to figure out how to solve it in 30 seconds or so. Fortunately there was no question on this topic.

Stacy or Ron can you please help me to I improve further to 48-49 level?

One more info I score Q43 in MGMAT test with only 18 question correct. I was running out of time and have to pick answers for last 5-6 questions.

Thanks

[StaceyKoprince]

We need a lot more specific data on strengths and weaknesses in order to give you good advice. Have you taken an MGMAT CAT recently and under official or close to official conditions? (If not, take another under official conditions.)

Use this article to analyze your test results, then come back here and post your analysis:

http://www.manhattangmat.com/articles/e ... -part1.cfm

(Note: do NOT post the raw data from the score reports. You need to learn to analyze the data yourself and the article will help you do that - so just post your analysis. :)

Also, you may want to read the scoring section of our free e-book The GMAT Uncovered (you already have an account with us, so it's in your student center already). This explains a bit more about how the scoring works and what implications that has for taking the test. (I'm mentioning this because you spoke several times about the number that you got wrong - but that data is actually almost irrelevant on adaptive tests. That's not really how the scoring works.)

[bacchewar_prashant]

I have gone through article you mentioned and did my analysis on CAT

I got 4 consequtive wrongs Qs 30,31,32,33. After Question no 29 I was at 82 percentile level.
first incorrect question I just skipped because it was a probability question. I have spent 7mins and 14 sec
on problem no 31 and I think hurried thereafter and got next two question wrong. BTW all these questions were
700-800 level difficult.
This 7 min question has caused atleast 2 very simple questions to me Q35 and Q37.

Way too slow questions.

There were 6 of them where I spent more than 3.5 mins. All of them were PS question and got only 2 of them correct.
One 700-800 and other 600-700 level. 4 questions which went wrong were 700-800 level ones.

13 Too fast questions among which 7 correct 6 incorrect 3 Incorrect were 700-800 level 2 were 600-700 level & 1 500-600.
This 500-600 level I got it wrong because of timing Q35 as mentioned above.

Not much difference in avg time for correct and wrong answer of same difficulty level.

Number properties is one area where I did poorly and got only 29% correct 2 out of 7. and there was difference of about a
min in avg time right vs wrong. I have already gone through MGMAT Number properties guide. Certainly need some inputs from you
on how to improve in this area. I have heard from many recent test takers that this topic is heavily tested.

[StaceyKoprince]

So what does the timing data tell you? What do you need to do differently with respect to timing? (I can just tell you, of course, but I'd rather that you think about it for yourself...)

Also, this article can help - but think about it for yourself before you read it:

http://www.beatthegmat.com/mba/2009/12/ ... management

Yes, NP is fairly heavily tested on the real test, so it's important to have a better percentage correct there. Were there any more specific patterns or were you low across all of the NP sub-types? Also, you say there was a difference of about 1m in avg time right vs. wrong. In which direction? What were the actual numbers?

If you're faster on the wrong ones, perhaps they happened to come when you were trying to make up time due to the others on which you spent too much time? If the wrong ones are slower, are they also in the way-too-slow overall category? Or was it that the right ones were really fast?

Part of your work is going to involve going back to that NP guide again. Part of it is going to involve analyzing OG problems in this category. Here's how to analyze a problem:

http://www.manhattangmat.com/articles/a ... roblem.cfm

Use that to go over what you missed; that analysis will then help you figure out what you actually need to study / practice in order to improve.

And here's an article on divisibility (one of the major NP topics)
http://www.beatthegmat.com/mba/2010/10/ ... ty-problem

And another on decoding quant problems (in general, but this works especially well for NP problems and it uses a particular NP problem to illustrate):
http://www.beatthegmat.com/mba/2010/09/ ... t-problems