More MGMAT Tests or More practice for one month

[shankhdhar.gaurav]

Gave my 2nd MGMAT CAT and scored 680. Though MGMAT tests looks weird after giving the GMAT Prep, i am not able to decide whether to give more GMAT test after rectifying the problem areas or concentrate more on practicing?

As of now the main problem for me in Verbal is SC speed. I am not able to solve the Q's in 1 min and this leads to less time for RC and CR
And in Quant its the PACING. I still end up spending 3+ min in few Quant Q's leading to guessing to maintain the pace

My exam date is in Aug 2nd week. What should be my strategy in terms of practice tests and improving on my problem areas?

I am targeting 740-750 score.

GMATPrep 1 710 (13th May)
GMATPrep 2 720 (16th May)
MGMAT CAT 1 690 (21st May)
MGMAT CAT 1 IR 680 (24th June)
MGMAT CAT 2 IR 680 (1st July)

[StaceyKoprince]

Timing:
http://www.manhattangmat.com/blog/index ... to-win-it/
http://www.manhattangmat.com/blog/index ... anagement/

Generally, CATs are really good for (a) figuring out where you're scoring right now, (b) practicing stamina, and (c) analyzing your strengths and weaknesses. The actual act of just taking the exam is NOT so useful for improving. It's what you do with the test results / between tests that helps you to improve.

So do enough work between tests to feel you have made substantial progress. Then take a test to see what your current strengths and weaknesses are, and develop a new 2-3 week study plan from there.

Which brings us to the next step: I'd like to get some more detailed data on your strengths and weaknesses in order to advise you. Use the below to analyze your most recent MGMAT CAT(s):

http://www.manhattangmat.com/blog/index ... ice-tests/

Then come back here and tell us the results of your analysis. (Note: do share an analysis with us, not just the raw data. Part of getting better is developing your ability to analyze your results - figure out what they mean and what you think you should do about them!)

Finally, you would likely benefit from a number of the articles linked in this article (pay particular attention to the "how to study" section):
http://www.manhattangmat.com/blog/index ... -the-gmat/

[shankhdhar.gaurav]

I am less than 1 month away to my exam.

MY SC reference:

MGMAT Verbal Fundamental
MGMAT SC Guide
Material prepared by a local instructor
VR2
OG12
OG13

After referring all of the above, and reading lot of posts, strategies, and blog posts, i attempted OG12 Q's from the end to start.
These 10 Q's are the ones which i answered wrong in my previous attempt.
I answered all of them wrong and took 14 seconds to answer :-( :-(
I m very disappointed and frustrated.
I know about meaning clarity, logic etc but i was not able to apply or was not able to identify the core problem with sentence.
I am non native speaker.

Though i can answer medium and easy SC questions with close to 90% accuracy, i am kinda giving up on hard SC Q's :-(
Is there any hope of improving SC in say 20-25 days?
What am i missing and how can i improve?

[shankhdhar.gaurav]

14 seconds was a typo :-(
I took 14 minutes to do 10Q from the harder pool of OG12.
I have finished one round of OG12 and after a lot of study attempting only the wrong ones from the first attempt.

In my first attempt about 2 month back i did 21 out of 140 OG 12 Q wrong. That is 85% accuracy.

I tried these 21 Q in two sittings 10Q (9 wrong from harder side in the end range)and 11Q (5 wrong easy and medium difficulty). This turns out to be 67% accuracy level for these 21Q's.

My observation is that if Q is testing only one or two grammatical concept i am good with it. But as soon as logical comparison, Parallelism, and Meaning Clarity join together to make my life tough, I find myself at loss :-(

I also have GMAC QP1 and tried the tough 16 Q's (6 wrong) from it in one go with an average time 1 min 27 sec.

I am planning to re-brush my SC concepts and other notes.
After that i am planning to redo the VR2/OG12 and OG13 (Unique Q's).

Is that a sound plan?
Should i look at the GMAT Club Grammar book and give it a try? (or for that matter any other Concept Material)
I need a plan to crack these tougher SC problems.

Here is my raw data from last few MGMAT CAT's:
CAT 2 (July 1st)
SC 15Q (6 right 9 wrong), All 9 wrong are from 700 800 level. Overall SC average time of 1 min 25 seconds. 100% wrong in comparison, meaning and parallelism.
CAT1 (June24th)
SC 15Q (8 right, 7 wrong), All of the 7 wrong are from 700 800 level difficulty. Overall SC average time of 1 min 21 seconds. 100% wrong in comparison and parallelism But 100% right in Meaning Questions.

My RC and CR goes for a toss because of the jittery feeling i have after struggling with SC in the practice tests. I find it hard to concentrate on RC and CR if i feel i wasn't confident in the last few SC Q's.

[StaceyKoprince]

Okay, good, 14 minutes makes a lot more sense. :)

You can improve in general, of course, but it's harder as the questions get harder. Given that you also have a very short timeframe, you may need outside help - in the form of a friend who's very good at SC (and can also teach / explain things in a clear way), or an actual teacher / tutor.

Alternatively, you may need more time.

But as soon as logical comparison, Parallelism, and Meaning Clarity join together to make my life tough, I find myself at loss

The good news is, you know where you need to work. Take a look at this:
http://www.manhattangmat.com/blog/index ... orrection/

That will help you learn how to do these and how to study them. First, go back and re-try ones that you have already tried in the past, using what you learn from the above article (and the other articles that are linked in that article). When you feel that you've started to make some progress, go and test yourself on a few new ones.

Note: NOT 10+ new ones. A few at a time. Then learn from them, go back over other old ones, etc. THEN try a few more new ones. You have to make sure that you are actually learning *in between* trying new questions. You don't learn much while you're trying the new questions - the new questions are to tell you *whether* you learned anything since the last time you tried a set of questions. :)

Which brings me to my big overall point: don't follow a plan based on what might have worked for you so far - doing tons of practice questions. At the level you're at now, you've really got to be digging in and analyzing these things or you're not going to learn much more!

It's very possible that, as you do the above, you will need to go back to your MGMAT SC Guide or any other of your grammar resources - but don't just go do a comprehensive review. Rather, only go back and look at what you need to look at based on the weaknesses you uncover when analyzing a specific problem.

[shankhdhar.gaurav]

Which brings me to my big overall point: don't follow a plan based on what might have worked for you so far - doing tons of practice questions. At the level you're at now, you've really got to be digging in and analyzing these things or you're not going to learn much more!

If i use one Indian Slang, your overall point lit a bright 200 watt bulb in my head :-)
I am practicing and practicing and practicing...

Though i am analyzing my mistakes working on them but not enough. Actually i hit a wall in case of RC and CR and not able to decide on my final plan for these two topics. Conceptually i am good both of these topics but speed is an issue, write or not write, take notes or note etc :-(

I carried over that practicing thing to SC too without realizing that it is still a weak topic for me. I never realized that i need to work more on content and concept clarity for SC.

I have already initiated a Final Verbal Plan thread and hopefully i would end up with a solid plan considering my weaknesses and strengths.
For Quant i am yet to decide on my final game plan. I am scoring in 46-48 range and currently doing MGMAT Adv Guide 150 Q set. I will initiate a separate thread for same. I liked both of your post about final 14 days. And now i am finalizing my prep, those posts make a lot of sense.

[StaceyKoprince]

Good.

i hit a wall in case of RC and CR and not able to decide on my final plan for these two topics. Conceptually i am good both of these topics but speed is an issue, write or not write, take notes or note etc

So you know what you need to do now? You actually need to go back over specific passages that you've already done and ask yourself: should I write this or not? HOW do I know (on the first read-through, before I've read the whole thing or seen the questions)? What's worth writing down? HOW do I know?

That "HOW do I know" question is going to come up repeatedly. Basically, every time you figure out "oh, I should have done that" or "oh, I should do this next time," you then ask yourself "How will I know to do that?"

What's the trigger? What are the clues in the wording or setup of the particular problem that will remind you: oh, yeah, I should do this next.

So get to it! :)

[shankhdhar.gaurav]

This weekend, I choose to give GMATPrep1 again (2nd try) rather than MGMAT CAT. The good news is that i am able to maintain consistency and socred 710 (Q48, V39) and the bad news is that i have maintained consistency :-( After all the hard work in last 2 months, the only positive from this test is that i was more confident in Quant and indeed scored better (12Q wrong v/s 14Q wrong). But Verbal was worse than the first time (V39 v/s V41 and 12Q wrong v/s 7 wrong).

I panicked in 2 RC and 2 CR problems. Guessed (turned out to be wrong) and moved on to avoid wasting time.I can work on the problems with RC and CR in remaining 14-15 days but SC improvement is a challenge.

There are 6 wrong Q's in SC and i was able to zeroed upon final 2 choice in only one SC Q but ended up choosing wrong. In the remaining 5 SC Q's, i have no clue about the intended meaning of the sentences and as expected ended up guessing.

I reviewed and planning to continue the review of my OG11/12/13 SC work till now. Specially the weak area i identified in my previous post. Is that a sound approach or should i look elsewhere for tougher problems and any other book for content.

[StaceyKoprince]

Did you see any repeated questions? If so, how did you handle those in terms of both accuracy and time spent?

You've got about 2 weeks and are looking to make the jump from 710 to 740/750. It could happen in 2 weeks or it might take 3 more months (or possibly never of course) - when you're talking about this level, it's really hard to tell. We've had people who wanted to teach for us who score in the 98th percentile and take anywhere from a few weeks to many months to get the last 10 points - and some have never made it.

So I can't tell you either that you will or will not be ready in 2 weeks - but I would say that most people would probably need more time. The leap from 710 to 740 is not a small one.

In the remaining 5 SC Q's, i have no clue about the intended meaning of the sentences and as expected ended up guessing.

Do you now, after the fact? If not, that's where you start. What is the meaning, how should / could you have known that in the moment, what do you need to learn / study in order to be able to see that next time, what distracted you or prevented you from seeing it this time, etc? And then that tells you what you need to study or practice (in order to remedy whatever those issues were).

Still not sure? Start looking for discussions of those problems - here or on other forums. Do a search first to see whether they've already been discussed. If not, start your own thread (make sure to follow the posting rules).

You might spend 20, 30 minutes on a single problem. That's what it takes at this level.

Look at this:
http://www.manhattangmat.com/articles/7 ... erence.cfm

So, yes, do continue what you were doing before, but also dive deeply into the particular problems giving you trouble from this new source (the latest test) as well.

[shankhdhar.gaurav]

You may have read from my other posts that i was not able to get my target score, scored 690 (Q47, V37). I am planning to study on my weakness for next one month and took the Mock Test again after one month. I am yet to get a reliable source to test my real verbal skills :-( any suggestions on the way i should loook at my Mock Tests?

[StaceyKoprince]

The way you should analyze them? Or what tests to use?

Analyze using the same article that I gave you on analyzing practice tests (if they aren't our practice tests, then just try to adapt to do the same kind of analysis in general, even if you don't have the exact same types of data).

I know you were seeing repeated questions on various tests - not sure anymore which tests you did try, but I'll assume that you've exhausted both MGMAT and GMATPrep. You can also try 800Score or Kaplan.

But only to get a sense of strengths and weaknesses - don't just keep taking a bunch of practice tests!