Need some advice

[gumgum]

Hi All,
I don't know how to react to this. I tried or atleast I think I tried.

Last time i took GMAT I agree my preparations were nil for english and when i got a low score of 530(45 math 17 verbal). I was taken aback. But this year I really worked through it. Looks like it didn't work out. I got the same score(46math 15!! verbal).

Is scored a 620 and 650 on my practice tests. This score is unbelievable. Please is there any way I can improve in english. I have a 3.65 GPA in my undergrad and I worked for one of the best companies in India. Is there some way I can push my english score. It is very heartbreaking. Do you think I should hire a private tutor for verbal? Can a manhattangmat staff tell me what I should do? I tried learning eveything. The sentence structure fragment, the verb usage. Do you think I lack the basic english skills to score and I can never improve?

Please don't ignore my question I have the will to do well and I am unable to do well. Not that I am dumb because my maths scores obviously show I am not dumb. Then what is the problem?

[StaceyKoprince]

Your written English is quite good, so no, I don't think you lack the ability to communicate in and understand English.

Something's obviously going on, though, so let's figure out what that is. Start with this:

http://www.beatthegmat.com/a/2009/10/26 ... went-wrong

If there's any chance that you might have a timing problem (note: you can finish the section on time and still have a timing problem), use the below article to analyze a recent MGMAT test:

http://www.manhattangmat.com/articles/e ... -part1.cfm
If you haven't taken an MGMAT CAT, you may want to take one before you start all of the above.

See if you can uncover what might have led to the score drop on your real test. (Note that one of the reasons might be that your verbal score was not as high as you thought it was - there are circumstances that can result in inflated practice test scores.)

Once you've done that, come back here and share your analysis. We'll help you figure out what the most likely causes are and what to do about them.

[sangeethmani]

Hi Stacey,

This might take a while. I logged in using my other account. But this is the account I use for my Manhattan test. I am not sure u can access my test scores.

I got 630, 580 , 610, 630 and 620.

When I started studying I was extremely positive, working my way through my weaknesses. I get stressed real easily. Now when i took my first GMATprep test I scored 560. I got 42 in math 6 weeks away from the test. from that point on I started freaking out. Started being extremely hard on myself.Nevertheless I improved in math, But in the practice tests atleast in GMATPrep I scored 49 and 46 in math. I ended up with a 46. The reason for that I ran out of time and I panicked and my nerves took over my clarity. I cannot understand stuff once panic takes over me.

I was happy. GMAT prep1 2 weeks before the exam I got 31 in english. I know it isnt great and I knew couple of the questions. But I never expected a score drop to 15. I am a hard worker. But maybe I lack faith in myself to a degree that is affecting my performance.

I feel disheartened, because I am struggling to get into a 3rd tier school. When I know my analytical abilities are decent and I can improve with some help. People tell me maybe I am not good at standardized tests. If I were so bad, I wouldn't score in maths either. I need a better answer than that when I ask for suggestions. I know people who cannot talk that great english and are doing superb at the GMAT.

Lets get to the point:
I took on an average 2.5 to 3 minutes to answer CR questions. I had a problem with evaluate the argument questions. I loved boldface CR's and got them right 90% of the times I understand the conclusion and evidence of an argument. Maybe I take a little more time to comprehend the same. RC's I am slow. SC's I am weak at comparisons and still have some fundamental doubts that I would need help with.

Stacey I just have 2 months to give my last short on the GMAT. I don't want to be stuck at home forever, because I am more capable than that. Could you please suggest a healthy study plan where I can score better in a short period of time. Looking at my repeated failure I just want that one ray of hope with which I can achieve better in this test, which is beating my moral down.

My uncle who is a Phd and works for a business school tells me I should read a lot of books such as PG Wodehouse and read books about Roman literature. Books that wouldn't interest me otherwise.

Please help me. I have limited time in my hand. How feasible is it to improve. Can I get a 41 42 score in verbal and get above 700 in 2 months?I feel miserable as I cannot afford the private tutions either. Please help!

Regards,
Sangeetha

[sangeethmani]

Hi Stacey,

I just got my AWA scores. I got a 5.5. Please do reply back!

[StaceyKoprince]

I can technically access your account, but I won't. :) You have to do this analysis yourself, using that article I gave you last time, because you have to actually learn how to self-assess. You can post the results of your analysis (not just the raw data from the reports - your actual analysis), and tell me your interpretations and I'll tell you what I think and give you advice... but you have to learn how to learn for yourself.

The reason for that I ran out of time and I panicked and my nerves took over my clarity. I cannot understand stuff once panic takes over me.

This is true for everyone - nobody thinks as well when we're panicking. What do you need to do to prevent this from happening next time? It sounds like there's some work to do with timing.

This article is a good starting point:
http://www.beatthegmat.com/mba/2009/12/ ... management

I'll give you some other articles to get you started below, but I just want to address your overall questions first. You ask whether you can get a 41 or 42 verbal in 2 months. 41/42 is in the low 90s percentile-wise - your verbal would then be significantly better than your quant currently is. That would be an extremely large jump to make in 2 months. That doesn't mean you can't make the jump, but it would be more realistic either to expect to take longer to make that jump or to keep your timeframe the same but lower the score goal.

It's more realistic to expect to be able to take your quant up to that level in 2 months and also to raise the verbal significantly but not to the point that it's actually much better than your current strength, quant.

For reading and RC, start here:
http://www.beatthegmat.com/mba/2010/09/ ... ading-comp
http://www.beatthegmat.com/mba/2010/04/ ... mp-passage
http://www.beatthegmat.com/mba/2010/07/ ... rc-passage

You can apply some of the above to reading critical reasoning arguments as well.

For CR, start here:
http://www.beatthegmat.com/mba/2010/05/ ... -reasoning

And also start thinking about this:
http://www.beatthegmat.com/mba/2010/08/ ... -on-verbal

Use the articles I linked to last time to analyze your recent test or tests, and come back here to share what you learned and what conclusions you're drawng. I'll help you figure out what to do.

(FYI: I'm traveling for the rest of this week; I won't be back on until Monday of next week.)

[sangeethmani]

Hi Stacey,

I began my analysis. It is a hard process.

I would like to start from the first test I took. In the real exam in the verbal section I got numerous evaluate the argument questions. I thought I was doing fine , but unfortunately things didn't turn out my way.

First would like to start with my section wise weaknesses.


Quant:

First test I took (6 weeks before the test)I got 35 on quant because I hadn't started studying for quantitative. That was the start point of my downhill because I got over anxious. My exam was in a month.

In the next week I improved in math scored about 41.
the week after that I scored 44.
I scored 44 again. Then two days before the exam 41 and 46.
In GMATPrep I scored around 47 and 50.

Ended up with a 46 in the real exam.


I got 54% right on PS.
700-800 level questions I have an accuracy of 33%. Average time spent on wrong answers for such questions is about 2:30. Average time spent on right answers is 3:00.

I scored about 57% accuracy on all the 600-700 level questions. Average time spent on wrong answers:2:15
Average time spent on right answers is about : 2:08

I got 43% accuracy on DS(with avg time of 2:10)
700-800 level questions I have an accuracy of 25%. Average time spent on wrong answers for such questions is about 2 mins. Average time spent on right answers is 2:45.

I scored about 52% accuracy on all the 600-700 level questions. Average time spent on wrong answers:1:30
Average time spent on right answers is about : 2:18


Conclusion: I need to get the 700-800 level questions in time and accurately. To get a score higher than 46 in the real test plus improve on DS.


Verbal:

I don't know where to start.
The assessment says 2:00 on an average. But I know when i was practicing I took about 3 minutes on an average per questions. I take a little time to comprehend the argument. To get the conclusion and evidence. I take about 1:00 to understand the argument, because most of the time I end up re-reading the argument.overall the assessment shows me I have 49% accuracy in CR.

When I answer something accurately, I end up being the slowest at that section. I am the weakest at evaluate the argument, parallel reasoning. Unfortunately I got 8-9 evaluate the argument in the real exam.

I am also weak at inference questions.

I take about 2:30 for SC. Even though I have a 63% accuracy I take sometimes 3:00 to get the question right. I understand the concepts, but I am obviously slow.

I would say Idioms and clarity of meaning I mess up with. Like I mentioned before I take a little time to comprehend and I do end up comprehending it but I little slowly. I can give you an example, I took a drivers test(written test) recently. I got 2 questions wrong on the test, but I took an awful amount of time to complete the test compared to others.

I am the worst at getting the tone of the passage. I need to improve my vocabulary(I am working on that). I also under perform in inference and passage structure.

Hope that helps Stacy.

Also I know my weakness is comprehension. I take time to comprehend but that doesn't make dull. Just that I take a little more time but end up getting it right. I don't know how to overcome this, the only thing I can think of is to read a lot.

But thanks Stacey it did help me see what I am doing wrong. But after that I am stuck. Even though I know what I am doing wrong, I am unable to help myself.

I always run out of time on english. I can attempt only till the 34-35 q on the test.

Thanks a lot again..


Regards,
Sangeetha

[StaceyKoprince]

It takes a long time to do this analysis - I take about 45 minutes to analyze a student's test, and I know exactly what I'm doing! It's going to take students even longer.

Don't worry too much about not knowing (right now) what to do with the analysis - this is something you're going to learn, too. Now you know how to do the analysis, and we're going to discuss what to do about it, so you're going to learn even more about how to do these kinds of things for yourself in future.

700-800 level questions I have an accuracy of 33%. Average time spent on wrong answers for such questions is about 2:30. Average time spent on right answers is 3:00.

What does that tell you? If you never read the question and just guess randomly, you'll get about 20% right. So these questions are NOT worth your time. Get them wrong faster - all of them! I'd rather see your average time at 2m and 20% correct (random guessing) because...

I scored about 57% accuracy on all the 600-700 level questions.

... you have a much better shot at improving your accuracy on sub-700 level Qs than on 700+ Qs. After all, the sub-700 Qs are easier, right? :)

You can't know, when you're taking the test, what the difficulty is for the question on the screen right now, but you do know whether you know how to do it. If we could go back in time and I could interrupt you halfway through each problem and ask you, "Do you know what you're doing right now?" - you'd mostly answer yes for the ones you eventually got right and no for the ones you eventually got wrong. (The major exception would be careless mistakes - you'd have some for which you'd answer yes, but then you'd get them wrong... and for many of those, you'd have gotten them wrong because of careless mistakes, not because you didn't know what you were doing.)

I need to get the 700-800 level questions in time and accurately. To get a score higher than 46 in the real test plus improve on DS.

No, not the correct conclusion, unfortunately. You need to get the sub-700 levels right and you need to make sure that you are not losing time on 700+ questions (whether right or wrong). If you want to get 49/50+, then yes, you need more 700+ Qs right... but even then, you're still going to get a lot wrong.

Unfortunately I got 8-9 evaluate the argument in the real exam.

Are you completely sure about that? I've never seen a real test or heard a report of a real test on which someone got 8 to 9 CR questions in one single category - ANY one single category. Is it possible that you misidentified some questions?

You do have a timing problem on the verbal, and it sounds like this extends to other situations / tests, not just the GMAT.

Given the timing problems you mention, it's no surprise that you're running out of time. Did you know, though, that if you're running out of time with 7+ questions to go, then your score was a LOT higher before you ran out of time? If we can fix the timing problem, which will sometimes mean just abandoning hard questions in the middle of the test, that might be worth 50+ points right there!

Unfortunately, the GMAT isn't going to give you extra time unless you have a long-standing, documented learning disability. You haven't mentioned anything like that, so I'm going to assume that you don't have a disability; you just need some extra time to read (not surprising for a non-native speaker of the language). So what you're going to need to do instead is spend some time learning to work more efficiently, but also spend time learning to let go on some problems. You can't answer everything they give you in the given timeframe - almost no one can. Part of your task is to be a good business person and set priorities for what's going to get done at work today (read: decide when something is too hard for you and make a guess before you've gone over time - and, ideally, while you still have time left so that you actually save time!).

The RC articles that I linked last time are a good place to start, especially the one about how to improve reading skills. You need to get started with that right away, because this kind of skill often takes months to improve. I know you said earlier that you have only two months - I don't want to give you bad news, but you do need to know so that you can be realistic about your expectations for yourself.

We also need to improve your speed on SC. These are the shortest verbal Qs, so we need to save as much time as we can there to help you with CR and RC, where there's always going to be more reading. The average expected time for SC is 1m20s, and you need to get your time closer to that point. This article can help with your overall process:

http://www.beatthegmat.com/mba/2010/06/ ... on-problem

I also want to mention - when you take the GMAT, you are going to have to work faster than you are comfortable working. No matter how much you study, you are always going to feel that you are having to work more quickly than you would like. We all feel this way. It's not great news to know that you can't get rid of this, but maybe it will help to know that it's not just you. :)

The other thing you may want to think about: do the schools to which you plan to apply accept the GRE? Many business schools now accept either test. The GRE still has reading comp passages, but it does not test CR or grammar. Instead, the GRE tests vocabulary. That means you need to know vocabulary, but there isn't as much long, involved reading on the GRE, so that might be a better test for you (and most people also find the quant easier on the GRE than on the GMAT).