how to wisely use the time left

[irons91]

Hi everybody,

Before I move on with my question I would like to point out that I already had the GMAT exam once, precisely on the 20th of September; unfortunately my score was definitely not enough (otherwise I would be here posting this wouldn't I?). I got a 580 as a score (55th percentile) with a score breakdown of 38V (84th percentile) and Q_Q 32Q (28th percentile). Yeah yeah i know it sucks right? Anyway I have to say that during the preparation time I had, about 3 weeks, I was working 40h a week and I had almost no time to dedicate to preparation (maybe 20 h in total?). On top of that I should add that I had almost no basic math preparation during my years at high school (I was a bad student myself and I had really incompetent teachers) so no wonder why I performed so bad on the text; the funny part is that I studied only the quant material and not the verbal and that English is not even my first language.

Anyway after I received my final grade I had to quit my internship and move to study full time for the GMAT, which I plan to give on the 7th or 8th of this month (13 days :O !!); don't think I am crazy! I didn't need the internship at all, I was doing that only to strengthen my curriculum.
Now it has been around four weeks of studying:
-during the first 2 weeks I only had the OG13 and the Quant2 to study on so I spent an average of 7 hours a day working on the PS, which I completed twice, and DS problems, most of which I completed once and some twice
-At the beginning of the third week I finally received the Manhattan material (the basic math book, the 5 separate guides and the advanced math book) and I spent always an average of 6-7 hours per day on the books!
The average of 6-7 hours a day applies from Monday to Saturday! On all Sundays I spent the morning doing a trial exams and rested on the evening

So in the past 10 days I managed to finally get the theory of 6 of the 7 books I ordered (excluding the advanced guide) and understand what I couldn't understand just by analyzing the problems from the OG and Quant books; as a matter of fact I needed to study the theory since I was missing several important elements.
Anyway now I finally feel like I got a chance; I have never been really good at math but I like it and I also like to study and I spent a lot of time and effort on this preparation so I am confident it will possibly go ok this time (after all how can I do worse than a 28th percentile :D).
What I don't know is what to do now. Today I am working on all the exercises I got wrong on both the times I did all the PS (90% are Hard or Devilish according to OG Archer); also yesterday I started studying the advanced math book which is really interesting and I am sure it could somehow help me but I feel like I have no time anymore.
So from tomorrow I was planning to do all the math problems I can find on the Manhattan online resources, re-read all the 5 guides (not the basic math book), re-do as many OG problems I can and, as the exam date come closer, start doing one trial test per day. I was also planning to do some of the hardest verbal OG exercises, just to see if I still get them right.
Do you think this is a good strategy? I would say that by now I get around 60-70% of the 650 level math questions right (maybe a little bit more). Also what do you think about the advance math book? Should I study it? I mean it does look hard but it is really interesting and I am sure it could help me performing well even on easy or medium difficulty level questions.
On Sunday I will do another Manhattan test and I will give you the results so you can have a better idea.

[irons91]

Ok i managed to do 2 mock tests even though for the first one I wasn't really in the best shape..anyway here is the overall result ( a bit deluding)

CAT 2 Q38 (48%) V34 (59%) Total 590 (59%)
CAT 1 Q41 (54%) V32 (64%) Total 600 (62%)

and the Assessment Report for both the tests

Total-Right-Wrong-Blank-%Right-Average Time RIGHT- Average Time WRONG- Answers Average Difficulty RIGHT- Average Difficulty WRONG

Problem Solving 43 23 19 1 53% 2:04 2:44 590 660
Data Sufficiency 30 12 18 0 40% 1:15 1:39 600 670
Sentence Correction 30 18 12 0 60% 1:24 1:18 720 700
Critical Reasoning 28 14 14 0 50% 1:40 2:06 690 740
Reading Comprehension 24 12 12 0 50% 1:39 2:18 640 730

plus the partial for the quantitative section

Total Right Wrong- % Right- Average Time RIGHT- Average Time WRONG

Geometry 12 5 7 42% 1:06 2:58
Number Properties 14 7 7 50% 1:43 1:37
BEST Algebra 15 9 6 60% 1:56 2:17
WORST Word Problems 18 7 11 39% 2:28 1:39
Fractions, Decimals, & Percents 14 7 6 50% 1:29 2:58

I also took my time to categorize the questions according to this article http://www.manhattangmat.com/articles/e ... -part1.cfm (and part 2 ofcourse)

50% + correct plus timing within the expected timeframe
-Algebra: 60% correct, average time 1.86
-Fraction Decimals & Percentages: 50% correct , average time 1.93

Less than 50% correct plus timing in the expected timeframe
-Geometry: 42% correct, average time 1.86
-Word Problems: 39% correct, average time 1.83

Less than 50% correct plus timing way too fast
-Number Properties: 42% correct, 0.97 average time

there is also one more thing. Although i always scored high (more than 75-80 percentile) on GMAT prep test (done three times), Kaplan tests (done 5 times) and on the GMAT test itself, i managed to score significantly low on the verbal part of both the Manhattan CATs i have done. Should I be worried about it? i mean i was planning to do some verbal before the exam but not really to study it but rather just to exercises ad analyze mistakes.

[irons91]

Hi everybody again,

My test is in three days!!

I kept practicing and doing CAT exams from different sources, however the results are a bit weird, and all more or less consistent.
Although I managed to significantly increase my math score i keep scoring less than before on my verbal section and I can't really understand why. I'd say that my capabilities are more inclined to perform well on verbal and that has been confirmed by all the CATs and the GMAT itself during my first try. Now however, after 1 month of studying math, I see my verbal score has gone a bit down; the study I've done for the verbal on the first try is definitely negligible and I even reviewed it.
So now what I see is a balanced score, something around 55-60 for quant and 60-70 for verbal in terms of percentiles, while before it was 25-35 and 70-80.
I have a theory why that is so: at my first try i didn't know what to do with most of the quant questions so somehow my brain managed to invest less energies in the quant phase and more in the verbal. Now instead the I think I could be a little bit more tired while completing the verbal section.
What I want is only to keep my verbal constant while scoring higher in math this time.

What do you guys think? What other factor could be causing this drop in verbal score?
Thanks in advance!

P.S. I had a 640 in my last CAT with manhattan (44Q, 34V)

[StaceyKoprince]

Hi, I'm sorry that we didn't get to your posts before your test. This time of year, everyone waits a long time for responses - it's our busiest time of year. In addition, your new posts kept moving you further back in the queue (we answer in order, oldest first, based on the time stamp of the last post in the thread). :(

I hope that you got the score you wanted and don't need my reply, but I'll still answer for anyone in the same situation.

In general, during the "improve your score" phase, you take a test, analyze it, figure out your major weaknesses, and then spend anywhere from a week to a month working to make those better. Then you take another test to gauge your progress and figure out what your current weaknesses are, and then you start all over again.

About 7 to 14 days before the real test, you move into the "review" phase. You're no longer trying to improve your score (it doesn't change much in just 2 weeks); instead, you're doing a comprehensive review to make sure you're ready to go on test day.

These two articles can help with the Review phase:
http://www.manhattangmat.com/blog/index ... an-part-1/
http://www.manhattangmat.com/blog/index ... ew-part-2/

Also, re: your comment about taking a CAT every day - no, that's not a great idea. :) Read this:
https://www.manhattangmat.com/blog/inde ... many-cats/

Okay, I'm moving to your second post now. You categorized some problems, but you didn't actually tell me what you think the data means and what you should do about it. That last step is *crucial* to your ability to improve. If you hadn't already taken your test, I would have told you that you need to provide me with your own analysis and plan before I tell you what I think it means.

For example, you gave me the data about your average time per question type. Do you notice anything off there? I do. What is it?

You're averaging a full minute faster on DS than on PS. It's no surprise, then, that your DS percentage correct is lower - you're not giving yourself enough time! Further, you're losing an average of 45 seconds on incorrect PS problems - save that time and start spending it on DS problems instead!

That's what I mean by analysis. You need to be able to do this in order to figure out how to get better!

Re: your question about scoring better on GMATPrep Verbal than MGMAT Verbal, that's not a concern as long as:
(1) you're taking the GMATPrep tests under official conditions - that is, you didn't do better on verbal because you skipped essay and / or IR on those tests
(2) you didn't see some of those questions ahead of time; a lot of people look at problems shared on forums, so if you already exposed yourself to some test questions, that would obviously artificially inflate your score.

Basically, as long as there is no reason that the GMATPrep Verbal score could be artificially inflated, you're fine!

And this takes us to your last question - yes, mental fatigue could be a reason why your verbal score is struggling a bit. It's probably still the case that you could be saving more mental energy on quant. Now that you know more, I'll bet that you often feel that you "should" know how to do something - because you've been studying! So you probably sometimes expend too much mental energy on things that really are too hard anyway. If you can stop yourself from doing that, you'll have more mental energy for verbal.

Keep reminding yourself of the consequences. When you see a very hard quant question, do you really want to spend that mental energy here? Is it worth it? Or would you rather save it for a later quant question that isn't so crazy or for verbal.