In need of exam approach

[enginpasa1]

What worked:
1. Completing OG material untill it became elementary and then analyzing why and how the questions are really put together. I specifically like trying to sit in the seat of the test writer and understand the theory and logic of each question.
2.Going through a multitude of questions and practicing until perfect.
3. Learning not just math tricks that get you out of trouble but overall approaches, logic and REASONS why the answer is right and most importantly why some answers are wrong.
4.Shooting for perfect and making the og material look like childs play.
5.All my practice scores were near perfect in dealing with lsat verbal and og questions. I practiced very rigourosly and with great approaches.
6.I'm a true fan of MGMAT for the great direction, content and guidance from the pros like Stacy and Ron.

What I need:
I was scoring decently and scores were 630,640,650,620 and then a gmat prep cat exam with a score of 700. THis is my goal.
I took the exam and scored a 460. I had to rush on the last parts of the exam for quant but cant see why I messed up on verbal. My tutor explains that I am not really suffering from a content issue. I humbly agree but no one is perfect and we can all learn more. BUt i Feel that I have the content tools to get a 700. I do not have the tools to approach the exam to apply my skills. There is a clear approach issue that I need to resolve. MGMAT Is absolutely great at teaching excellent material for the exam. IN the past, I didn't know a certain topic and I simply refereed to a mgmat book on the topic, learned the material and practiced my brains out until perfect. This worked great. But now I need to do this on how to take the exam. I don't know when to guess, how to approach the exam,how to keep my stamina up and how to work up to the hard questions and stay there. I feel confident that I can achieve my goal but I don't feel confident that I am taking the right steps towards DOING the exam in the correct fashion. Is there such a thing like a manual to read or video to watch on how to approach this in a perfect manner? I need a perfect understanding of how to maximize the scores by approaching the situation the right way. All help is welcome.

[Guest]

My advice to you is to do as many problems as you can and review the explanation for each answer. Understand why the right answer is correct and why the others are incorrect. When you do enough problems you start to see the same patterns and eventually can blaze through the test.

I remember when I first started studying, I would get stumped on a lot of data sufficiency questions. Now, I'm able to see a question and know exactly what information I need to answer the problem. 90% of the time I don't even need to work them out! Problem solving questions are a breeze too.

[enginpasa1]

Yes you are right. However, I am more interested in an approach towards the exam. MOst importantly, I am looking for an explanation as to why my points dropped so low on the real thing. Typically, people raise 30-40 points on the real thing. I dropped 250. This doesnt make much sense!

[Guest]

I've read a lot of posts regarding staying relaxed during the exam and how freaking out can really hurt your score. It seems like everyone who does really well is completely chill and nonchalant about the whole exam experience. Have you ever seen those youtube videos of people who choke while singing the national anthem at baseball games? They can't remember the words and totally screw it up. They practice over and over while preparing but they psyche themselves out on game day. Don't be that guy.

Build your confidence and appetite to destroy the test. I'm taking the test in two weeks from Thursday and have developed this weird relationship with the GMAT. I respect my opponent and understand that I've trained hard to beat him. While I'm taking practice tests I have a running dialog with the computer that I equate to a tennis match. One special rule is that I will lose if I don't finish within 1hr 15 mins.

It usually starts off with, "Ok, here we go. Bring it on." If the first question is easy I answer it and say, "Come on, give me something spicy!" This continues until I see a tough question that I equate to a Roger Federer baseline winner. I say, "Wow. That was a great shot." I move on to the next question and continue playing the match. I know that just because I lost one point doesn't mean that I will lose the match. I also know that the worst thing I can do is sit there and waste time thinking about what kind of serve will help me win one point. I equate randomly guessing on 5 to 8 questions on the end of the exam to lobbing the ball to my world-ranked opponent. The chances of winning those types of points are very small and will probably make me lose.

Here's what I think the best way to approach each question is:

1) What concept(s) are they testing here?
2) What information do I need to solve the problem
3) Which attack mode best fits the mold for this question
4) Execute strategy and find an answer
5) If you cannot find the answer within 2 minutes or with your strategy, eliminate blatantly wrong answers, take a deep breath, guess, and move on.

[enginpasa1]

I thank you for all your help. IN regards to content and foundation of the questions, I have studied and learn almost everything. Verbal is my fun specialty because it comes easier to me and i learned to study for the wrong answer choices and their common characteristics. ALl in all quant is ok also.

My practice scores are mgmat 580,650,640,630, 610 and gmat prep 700.

On exam day:
I was a bit nervous but nothing out of the ordinary. A few times I saw myself getting a bit excited so i took some deep breaths and focused. IN regards to quant, the questions got harder and harder. Towards the middle of the exam then there was a drop and I was losing time and had to rush the last ten. I was nowhere near as calm as my mgmat exam. However, I wasnt panicking and going crazy either. lol

IN regards to verbal, I felt very prepared because i focused much of my practice on retired lsat questions which are much much harder. THe lsat practice made the reading comp rc and cr look and feel absolutely easy. I did not let this get my head too big so I double checked and proved my answer from the given text. I almost always had textual evidence for the answer choices. IN regards to SC, I feel that I gave it a good shot but had a few that were pretty hard to me. All in all, I felt that I had a great handle on verbal though. I was waiting for a score past the 40's. The only bad part was that I had to rush a bit on the quant last ten questions. This I can admit, but the verbal should have been excellent.

I had a good night sleep, nice breakfast and calm head. I was a bit nervous but nothing out of the ordinary because I was focusing in on the questions.

I would never even post such a thread but I was getting excellent scores on tough material. Therefore, my practice scores don't correlate with the real thing. Hence, the confusion. THis is a final hurdle in my opinion. It wont take long to figure out the hole and fix it.

Looking back on what could have been done better during the exam, I need to learn when to guess. I also need to learn how to guess. Sooner or later, the adaptive nature of the exam will stump you. THis is when I need to learn how to move forward in the exam, push for a 700 and get it. This will be done with a trial and error process of many many exams. The content knowledge is there (except permutations - but who is looking..lol) but my knowledge of how to deal with the stamina issue and exam nature is not existent.

[enginpasa1]

I took a week off and didn't even touch my books. I threw out all old notes and am starting from scratch. I will run through OG books and learn a few more things i didn't know i.e. probability and get even better on my strengths. I need to learn how to work the CAT game. In other words, I need to learn how to play the computer so that I can reach max scores. I am learning that no matter how smart you are, the computer can and will stump you at some point. I learned my lesson on knowing when to guess but I still need to learn how to reach max scores for cat and play it right. Further, I will take 5-6more CATS and really hone in on my mistakes and take careful approaches towards all mistakes. ANy suggestions!?

Thank you for the great words!

[Guest]

To enginpasa1,
It's not only you in GMAT wonderland. After lots of practice and analysis I took my test date on last month. Before exam everything seemed alright to me. In fact, in last three tests I scored 710, 720 and 760 on GMATPrep, albeit, few questions were repeated. On exam day I felt quite bold and confident (may be over-confident) and problem started there. Complacency has no decency and that I understood after wasting my $250 bucks and time. I scored a naked 540(V17, Q48).
Now I am deliberately trying to know GMAT. before exam I was able to answer 91% of questions from OG correctly but that was the mistake; presently I am exercising on GMAT questions again. Yesterday I, went through few early posts from Stracy, with hope to pummel the GMAT bluff with full throttle.

[Guest]

hi enginpasa,
i know how you feel. i took the gmat last yr with a 530. i forgot the breakdown. then i took the gmat again this yr and got a 470 even though i got a pretty high score on gmatprep (700 +) ....i can't believe it, but i'm going to be taking it again this month...hhmmm...maybe you should take a week off to relax and then get back to studying. i wish you the best.

[StaceyKoprince]

This test is frustrating to a LOT of people - as you can see, you're not alone.

I loved the guest's post about thinking of it as a tennis match (especially because I love tennis - but, if you don't, insert your favorite sport here). That's a great way to approach things on test day - do your best while the ball is in the air and, when the point is over, move on fully to the next one. (And the point needs to be over about 2 minutes after it starts, of course, regardless of outcome.)

Engin - did your math and verbal scores both drop significantly? Or was it mostly due to one? I know we've also corresponded over at BTG, but I can't remember if you told me this already or not. And, yes, as you're learning, it's not just about the content. You've also got to handle the actual strategy of moving through a question and the pacing of moving from question to question throughout the test. We don't have a particular manual for this from start to finish, unfortunately - it something we teach, piece by piece, throughout the entire course.

The start is what we call "recognition skills" - the ability to see a problem and recognize something (at least one thing!) about it that will help you to get started. This won't happen all the time, of course, but when it does, it helps both your accuracy and your timing. When it doesn't, you know have a series of very rapid decisions to make. What type (or even sub-type) is this? Am I good at this type? How hard does this one seem after my first read-through? Should I tackle it, or should I make an educated guess and move on? (And if I've already spent a minute and haven't really gotten anywhere, I switch to educated guessing mode regardless of my answers to the earlier questions.)

Next, how do I make an educated guess on problems of this type? (Remember, an educated guess is just a fancy way of saying, "Find some wrong answers and cross them off before you guess.") Can I use logic, estimation (for math), knowledge of how the test works and they way in which the writers tend to construct wrong answers for this type of question?

In the event that you get something for which you can't go through the above decision-tree b/c you really don't know what it's talking about - make a random guess and MOVE ON!

Okay, now go practice that fifty times. :)