Im too Slow

[hanieh.moshki]

Hi,
thank you for your comments. To describe my problem i should say that i have bought all the manhattan series and have studied 3 verbal series till now! Few days ago i took the first gmat prep exam and i scored just 560 :( i just guessed the last 10 and was not able to use the strategies!...
well my main problems were:
-time management
and
-concentration.
Im not a native english speaker and it takes me ages to read the RC and CR questions (since my vocabulary is limited i guess). Although i have spent a considerable amount of time reading the 3 series i can not master the questions and use the strategies and recognize the question types and sorry to say that i forget the strategies soon. Now i have 3 month time to improve my score but i have no idea what is the right way to choose...some friends say that i should ignore timing for 3-4 weeks and work just on strategies! but im still not sure about it! tnx for your support in advance!

[StaceyKoprince]

I wouldn't ignore timing entirely - it's too critical a component of the test.

When you're studying from the red strategy guides, or doing problems printed in those books, then don't worry about timing.

When you're doing OG problems or practice tests, though, then you do have to worry about timing.

A few things. First, you will NEVER have time to do everything to the best of your ability on this test. You get better... and they just give you harder questions. You will ALWAYS have to let some stuff go. Your task is to be able to recognize when you should let something go, and to have an educated guessing process in place that allows you to make a somewhat decent guess without losing time on that problem.

Second, think of this as a tennis match, not a test. You're going to win some points and the other guy is going to win some points; you're not going to win them all, right? Your goal is to put yourself into position to win the LAST point. Translated, that means you have to put yourself in position to answer the last question - you have to have time to address it. Otherwise, you've lost the last point, and by extension the match. When the other guy hits a winner, don't go running after it so fast that you hit the fence and injure yourself, thereby hurting your chances on the later points. (Translation: don't go way over when the problem is too hard.)

Third, I think you would benefit from a timing exercise: learning about how long one minute is without looking at a watch or stopwatch. If you don't have one already, buy yourself a stopwatch with lap timing capability. When you go to do a set of problems, start the stopwatch but turn it over so you can't see the time. Every time you think one minute has gone by, push the lap button. When you're done, see how good you were - and whether you tend to over or underestimate. Get yourself to the point where you're within 15 seconds either way on a regular basis (that is, you can generally predict between 45 sec and 1min 15 sec). Note: at the same time that you are using the stopwatch to time this "1-minute" thing, also use the OG Stopwatch (in your student center) to track the total time spent on each question.

Now, how do you use that when doing problems? If you're not on track by one minute*, make an educated guess** and move on. (The general idea is that if you're not on track by the halfway mark, you're unlikely to figure out what's holding you back AND have time to do the whole problem in the 1 min you have left.)

* For SC, 1min is well beyond the half-way mark (we're supposed to average about 1m15s here), but you can almost always eliminate at least some choices on SC in that timeframe. Once you've got that "I'm around the 1min mark and I'm struggling" feeling, go through any remaining choices ONCE more. Pick one. Move on.

** This also requires you to know HOW to make an educated guess depending upon the type of problem and the content being tested. So that's something else to add to your study: how to make educated guesses on different kinds of problems.

Third, it's important to analyze your work so that you know where you are doing well and where you are still having problems. These two articles can help:
http://www.beatthegmat.com/a/2009/10/09 ... ce-problem
http://www.beatthegmat.com/mba/2010/04/ ... our-errors

Read those to get an idea of the kinds of things you should be asking yourself and thinking about when studying. That will help you to determine, for example, that you're okay on RC main idea questions, but you spend way too much time on RC inference questions (or whatever the case may be). Then, you know what you need to go work on: how to become more efficient with RC inference Qs.

Here are some articles specific to RC and CR - these might be helpful for you:
http://www.beatthegmat.com/mba/2010/04/ ... mp-passage
http://www.beatthegmat.com/mba/2010/07/ ... rc-passage
http://www.beatthegmat.com/mba/2010/05/ ... -reasoning

You can also read a little bit (15-30m) every day from one of these sources:

http://magazine.uchicago.edu/ - particularly articles in the "Investigations" tab
http://harvardmagazine.com/
http://sciam.com/ (This can get a bit too casual for the GMAT, but it's worth including if you hate the science passages on the GMAT.)

[hanieh.moshki]

Thanks a lot for your detailed answer. I will put your comments into practice and inform you about my progress in upcomming two weeks!

[StaceyKoprince]

good luck!

[vocabmax]

[edited by Stacey; please see below]

[StaceyKoprince]

Please do not market your products on our website.

Students are allowed to review or suggest any products or services they have used themselves. Companies are not allowed to post ads (or anything).

[shawn.rodriges555]

[edited by Stacey; see below.]

[StaceyKoprince]

Seriously, people, stop spamming us. You're taking time away from our ability to help students, and that's just going to make our students mad. They're not going to click on your links when they're mad at you!!

[kouranjelika]

Hi Stacey,

I have a bit of a different but a related problem.

So English is basically my first language (not technically, but I grew up speaking it and it feels most native to me). I am a quick thinker and I pick up on stuff pretty fast generally speaking. However, somehow I just CANNOT translate this behavior into reading. It takes me such a long time to read the passages... (when I say a lot I mean about 4-5 minutes for short and 5-6 minutes for long, GENERALLY speaking). Moving on to the questions, rushing, I finish 9 questions in about 13.5 minutes (going over about a half minute per question, assuming my reading was under the allotted time in the calculation...which it wasn't.).
The good news is that I get all or most of the questions correct. But have no idea how to approach doing it faster.

I am taking the in-person class and I really try to read all the strategy guides and tricks and definitely am internalizing and improving. But if anything, I would say it only helps me to quicker eliminate certain choices, but not so much on the actual reading. More-so, I never took notes before the class (still got most questions correct in about the same amount of time), but now with the notes, I find myself actually spending a LOT more time, as I am trying to figure out what to write in the notes and I don't actually even really use them (I know I'm not supposed to, but even as a reference for where to look for things, I remember where to look usually pretty well). As well as actually stopping the reading to look down and write things on the pad, TOTALLY breaks my concentration and takes me out of my zone (then I scramble to find where I was in the passage last and start to forget what my last thought of the passage was...). I wanted to just cut out the note-taking process altogether, but reading the Roadmap and the RC Strategy Guide, they all scream against this technique and really encourage to push through and do it (for our own benefit).

In any case, notes or no notes, my reading is slow. I feel if I artificially speed up, I will not gather any content, then I am just reading words and they have zero meaning to me, which would be wasting even more time. The only way I believe I can comprehend is to read at the speed I currently am. (I've actually tried to unnaturally speed up, I just end up re-reading the sentence or a block of sentences after at my own pace, which kills even MORE time..)

And I know you recommended to the student in this thread to do the Laps for every 1 minute, I read about this technique in the Roadmap as well, but haven't tried it yet. To be honest, by half-way or three-quarters in, I usually already feel the 3rd minute is up anyway and already know I am over the time limit, but I can't, in good faith, just drop the reading and move on to the questions. Besides, if I'll be putting so much focus onto the timer, I think I might lose my concentration on the passage itself.

I am really concerned and I really want to improve. Of course, this issue goes well beyond RC, my SC & CR also suffer due to the fact that I can't meet the allotted time per question. Therefore the whole section suffers. Please help!

[StaceyKoprince]

From what you describe, I think you're reading / paying too much attention on your first read-through.

Pretend you're sitting at your desk and your boss pokes her head into your office and says, "Hey, kouranjelika, before our meeting with our new client, can you run through the press releases on their website over the last couple of months? Just make sure we know the latest about the compay."

You say, "Sure!" Then she adds, "Oh, and the client's going to be here in about 5 minutes."

Uh....

So what do you do? You don't tell your boss "Sorry, can't help you." You don't blow off the assignment. What DO you do?

Most people will say something like: I'll look at the headlines; I'll only look at the ones that are about financials or product announcements (or something specific); or even I'll scan all the headlines and pick the 2 or 3 that I think are the most important and skim those.

The point is that you would NOT actually try to read every sentence (or even every headline, depending on how many there are). You'd prioritize.

The GMAT is like that. You can't read this whole thing carefully in 3 minutes. We know that! That's not what we're trying to get you to do. :)

Instead, we're trying to get you to take in just the "headlines" - what are the main points of the passage? What are the big contrasts or changes of direction?

When you get to detail - an example to support something or whatever - think to yourself, 'Yeah, yeah - I might come back to you later if my boss asks me something about you, but not right now. Shhh, don't distract me. I don't have much time!"

You're in our class, so you have access to our OG Archer program. Take a look at the video explanation I shot for the second-to-last passage in OG13 - the one about plant hormones. That passage is brutal. Look at how much of it I skip / skim on the first read-through.

That's what you're trying to do. You're not trying to learn how to read carefully but reallyreallyfast. :)

Re: note-taking, if you can keep a good mental map to know where to look for certain details, then it's fine - you don't need to take notes. But that's really all the notes should be doing for you anyway, mapping the passage.

You want to be able to say: that detail about pesticides? That's in paragraph 2. I don't know what it actually says about the pesticides - but I'll figure that out later if (and only if) I get a question about it. If you can remember that while still skimming / not reading everything carefully, then great. Just remember that it's harder to keep that Mental Map when you're going more quickly and skimming over stuff.

Note that you talk about doing really well when you're doing the 5, 7, 9 questions that come with the passage. That's not a good measure, because the real test will only give you 3 or 4 of those questions. So, first, you spent a bunch of time upfront reading / learning about details that you will NEVER get asked about in the questions. Second, you will also never get the "later question" advantage - questions 5, 6, 7, 8, 9 become easier because you already know so much about the passage. But the real test is going to stop you at 4.

Okay. So, you have my permission to drop the notes as long as you can consistently keep a rough "map" in your head of the passage. :) If you discover, though, that this ability starts to fade when you start to skim (more on this below), then you've got to start to take a few light notes, but you have my permission to jot down no more than 3 or 4 words per paragraph - just to remind you what that paragraph is about overall.

On the reading, as you know, you just can't spend that much time - the test won't allow you to do so. So you need to change your mindset. This is not "Just read the same stuff but faster faster faster!" Rather, it's: if your boss only gave you 3 minutes, how would you decide how best to spend that time? Only pay attention to the things that are worth your time - let the rest go.

Take a look here at the "what to read and what not to read" articles (and look at that video I was talking about earlier). Then come back here and tell me what you think.
https://www.manhattangmat.com/blog/inde ... rehension/

[kouranjelika]

Hi Stacey,

Thank you so much for your in-depth response.
I apologize for not writing sooner, I am taking the course and we sort of abandoned RC since that week and I've been trying to stay on subject and doing the appropriate topic studying, so took a break on RC for a bit.

But, I did read your post and it actually HELPED A LOT to think of it as something I have to skim over quickly before a big meeting. And considering I was running a start up in the past, sometimes I would do such readings even while IN A conference call with investors. SO your analogy definitely put things in perspective. I am actually getting much better with getting through the Verbal section now. My score is pretty low though, SC needs work (it's been my weakness from day one).

I have actually abandoned the notes on RC (as you gave me your blessing) and I don't think it's hurting me too, too much. I am like an old laptop, when I stop to write something down, I totally have to reboot to start reading again, I am going to try again at picking this up though (it somehow works better for me on CR than on RC).
Another interesting thing I noticed on RC, certain passages I get almost or all questions correct, whereas certain passages I will get almost all wrong. It doesn't seem to correlate to difficulty I believe, but rather topic at hand. I do well on highly scientific wordy passages (which I think actually benefit the reader with wealth of information and new knowledge) and the more social science subjects I tend to suck on (as I was saying, I also find them lacking point and reason). I guess as the Roadmap noted, some of the topics we may find not interesting and that is going to hurt more than the once we are excited about. But, I'm actually not a scientist at all, so not sure why such a correlation. Any advice on how to improve on the social topics? I know that reading publications helps, but the issue with that is that I wouldn't be able to answer any RC questions on what I've read per say. Which begs the questions, "well, OK, you've read this tedious beast and may be several such beasts a day, but did you understand anything? Or did you understand only what you chose to understand and not what the author intended? After all, do you know what the author actually intended?"
This is where I'm at.

I know there are other resources out there. I am enrolled at MGMAT and love the course and all the perks, but sometimes revert to Economist Gmat for daily random question practice (they post like 2-3 freebies a day). I guess I trust them because of the brand, but have you ever looked at their material? Is it actually good quality? I don't want to be learning wrong rules and patterns (if you know what I mean). They post a lot of RC passages and that seems like a good place to practice reading for time and actually being given a question in relation to the passage to respond to (checking comprehension). What do you think/recommend?

Thanks for all your help and articles!

[StaceyKoprince]

Good to hear from you!

Okay, do you have any friends who are "readers"? They like to read and they usually comprehend even complex stuff pretty easily?

If so, ask that friend to help you. You two will both read the same thing and then you'll get together or get on the phone to discuss. You have to give your friend a summary of the passage:
- The overall main point
- The purpose of each paragraph
- Any major surprises, changes of direction, anything that it would be important to take note of

Since you'll be reading "real world" things, you may want to skip the first paragraph or two - and definitely the last paragraph or two, since the GMAT typically doesn't conclude the passages much. They just end.

In addition to the Economist stuff, check out this source:
http://magazine.uchicago.edu/

Go for the more social science topics. Find 2 or 3, send to your friend, tell him/her which paragraphs to read, and then in a day or two, discuss.

(No, I haven't looked at the Economist's stuff - I can't vouch for it!)

[kouranjelika]

Thank you so much Stacey. I will definitely try this approach.

Btw, my reading speed has Improved so much!! I'm now doing some CR questions in under 1:30! And getting most of them correct. In comparison to before when sometimes it would take me 2 mins to just read the argument itself.
Still struggling to get SC in under a minute, some days are good and it all just lifts off the page (parallel markers, comparison triggers, pronouns and their antecedents, modifiers and their modifiees :), etc), but then there's days of total word salad when I can't make sense of anything. I feel I'm better when I explain this stuff to someone. So may be I will try to do a practice test pretending I am a teacher doing a test next to a student and explaining all the rules these wrong choices violate...

Thank you so much for your help on here and your blog entries.

[StaceyKoprince]

Good! Glad to hear it.

You can average about 1m20s on SC (as long as your times are okay on the others) - you don't need to have those under 1m.

"Word salad" - I like that image. :) That may also happen when your brain is really tired out - in fact, it's more likely to happen then. So make sure you're giving yourself some good brain breaks and that you don't do too much / tire yourself out right before the real test or practice tests!

[kouranjelika]

Stacey!!

So I did a CAT two days ago and look what my RC was. Funny enough, the only one I got wrong was one that accidentally selected an incorrect question for!! I knew it was C and picked E accidentally, rushing to finish hastily clicked confirm...only to kick myself as (of course) I couldn't go back and knew it was wrong :(.



In any case, THANK YOU SO MUCH FOR YOUR HELP! I have obviously gotten somewhat luckier on this one and I am still working on further and further improvements. But I would say this is quite a time and quality leap!

Also, believe it or not, I didn't take any notes again. I think part of it is that annoying pad. I prefer to write on paper and it kind of throws me off with a marker. I hope it's ok that I do it this way.

Thanks again!