Need to improve on re-take

[AK891421]

Hi instructors,

I took the official test a couple of days back, and was rather dismayed with my 610 (Q39, V33) score. I am planning on taking the test again in 6-8 weeks time, and I wanted to make sure I achieve my target score of 700+. I'll share the key points from my prep experience (including test day) and my analysis of what possibly went wrong, and I would appreciate any advice from the experts.

My total prep time was about 3 months (maintained a regular study timetable) using the OG and the review guides. I felt I had consistently improved in both verbal and quant as time progressed - my accuracy was above 70%, and I was managing time quite well. My practice test scores were:
MGMAT1: 640 (Q42, V32) - took this mid way thru my verbal prep. I made a string of consecutive errors in math (6 and 4 straight) and I knew this, coupled with careless errors, was the main issue.
GMATPrep1: 660 (Q47, V35) - 3 weeks out
GMATPrep2: 680 (Q47, V38) - 2 weeks out
GMATPrep3: 740 (Q50, V40) - 1 week out

Although the last test was good, I knew this was a bit inflated (had to reinstall my exam pack and this somehow seemed to have mixed up exams 3 & 4, so saw 4-5 questions repeated in both Quant and Verbal). Another key point to mention is that I took only one full-length test. In addition, I had to pause the tests a couple of occasions each time.

So going into test day, I was a little worried about timing possibly going wrong. But I felt quite confident I could continue the upward trend in performance and score at least 700. I knew the content well and figured the timing wouldn't be much of an issue since I hadn't had much trouble with individual questions during practice. I read about the "2nd level of GMAT study" and felt I could handle whatever the test would throw at me.

Moving on to actual test day. Everything leading up to the test was near perfect - I was well rested, fresh and felt focused. The IR section was a bit of a nightmare and I stressed a little towards the end so had to guess on a bunch of questions. I tried to put this behind me, and started quant quite well. I remember this one question which was so simple and I had recognized what needed to be done before I finished reading it, but for some reason the answer I got wasn't one of the choices! I must have spent a good 3-3.5 minutes on this and ended up having to guess. This was followed by a comb/prob question, which was one of my "guess fast" question types. From then on I could "feel" I wasn't doing great, cuz the questions seemed too straight forward. So I must have made a lot of careless mistakes on even the seemingly easy ones. For verbal, I remember having issues with CR, especially towards the end. I somehow manged to get myself into a serious timing issue, and remember reading CR questions but couldn't for the life of me figure out what the right answer choice was!

So here we are (If I haven't lost you yet). After some self analysis, I suspect my biggest issue was not taking enough full-length tests. And also, though I felt fine during the test, I may have had a case of decision fatigue. My plan is to do some speed drills for quant and take a full-length test every weekend for the next 4-6 weeks. But I'm not sure if this would suffice. I wonder if I'm right in attributing all my troubles to just pacing/timing or if there is some deeper, more sinister, underlying problem. As I said, I feel quite comfortable with the content on both sections (I used the advanced quant and kaplan 800 books for some practice on advanced problems and got an accuracy of above 70%). So I really don't want to have to "start from scratch" again. Thoughts?

[StaceyKoprince]

I don't think you need to start from scratch. But I think there is more to it.

Another key point to mention is that I took only one full-length test. In addition, I had to pause the tests a couple of occasions each time.

This information unfortunately means that all of your test scores were possibly inflated (as I think you may realize now). From now on, don't take a test unless you know you will not have to pause. (You can pause if your house is on fire. Otherwise, no pausing.) You will not get extra mental breaks during the real test; don't give them to yourself on practice tests.

I knew the content well and figured the timing wouldn't be much of an issue since I hadn't had much trouble with individual questions during practice. I read about the "2nd level of GMAT study" and felt I could handle whatever the test would throw at me.

When you say you thought you could handle whatever the test could throw at me...do you mean that you thought you could pretty much answer correctly anything that they could throw at you? As you discovered, you can't. I can't either, and I've been doing this for 20 years!

Being able to "handle" whatever the test can throw at you includes knowing when to guess and move on - which everyone has to do, me (and other 99th-percentile scorers) included. And that skill includes being able to pull yourself out of "But I should know how to do this! How come I'm not getting the answer?" situations. Remember that this is a business test - they're interested in knowing how you react to bad "business opportunities," too! You can't always win. Classic business case.

I'm now to your last paragraph. Yep, I'm sure only doing one full-length test hurt you in the mental stamina arena. As you start to get more mentally fatigued, it becomes harder and harder to make good decisions - and that is made even worse when you're under stress, as you of course are when you're taking the real test. Most people don't know when they are experiencing decision fatigue - your brain is so tired out that it literally can't tell!

I agree that timing and mental stamina are major aspects, but I think there's a larger aspect that needs to be addressed: your overall mindset and decision-making process. I don't think you need to do a bunch of speed drills for quant - that makes it seem as though the solution is just to get stuff right faster. But there's a broader issue: you need to decide what you are and are not going to do in the first place, and you need to know how you are going to pull yourself out of a question in which you've already invested time - even if you are convinced that you "should" know how to do this problem. If you're at 3m, it absolutely doesn't matter what you studied or whether you really should know how. The point is that you don't have the correct answer now, and is throwing more time at this really the way to go? That's like saying you originally intended to invest 2 million in this company, and then they had trouble and tapped you for another 1 million...and now they're still in trouble and want even more money. Are you going to give it to them?

Take a look at these (I'm guessing you've read at least some of them...read them again):
http://tinyurl.com/executivereasoning
https://www.manhattanprep.com/gmat/blog ... -the-gmat/
http://www.beatthegmat.com/mba/2016/02/ ... n-the-gmat

Now, tell me why I asked you to read (or re-read) these, and what you think you need to change with respect to your overall mindset in order to study better, to simulate test situations better, and to execute better on the real test. And give me some ideas for how you are going to do so. (I'll give you my ideas, too. But I want your ideas first - you'll be able to better adjust your process as you go if you can analyze and come up with good ideas yourself!)

[AK891421]

Hi Stacey,

Thanks for your reply. I should have been clearer in my initial post when I mentioned feeling confident about "handling anything the test threw at me". I meant that I felt confident I had a strategy to achieve my target score - I was ok with getting a bunch of questions wrong and intended to guess fast on my weaker areas. Basically navigating the test and coming out with a positive (target) score. I guess I didn't factor in the possibility of being stumped by a seemingly easy question from one of my strong areas.

The articles you mentioned touch upon this issue. I guess going forward I need to be able to cut myself off from questions taking >2.5mins, and also not think about whether I got it right or wrong (feeling good about guessing). Understanding/approaching the test as a test of decision-making skills would probably help too, as I have had a tendency to focus too much on getting individual questions correct (at least in my strong areas).

Seems to me that my plan going forward should involve practicing with this mindset - determine rather quickly if I can solve a question, and make a decision. This may tie in with learning to recognize patterns as well. (I was reading your article on how to analyze a practice problem, and I realized I was guilty of wanting to do as many questions as possible, but maybe didn't get the most out of them). I can then use this approach on timed sets, and eventually on practice tests, which have to be full-length. Spending enough time on subsequent review (even of questions I got right) has to be a priority from now on. I also plan on digging deep into some of the question types where I'm not 100% confident and prone to making careless mistakes.

[StaceyKoprince]

...the possibility of being stumped by a seemingly easy question from one of my strong areas.

Ah! got it. Okay, key thing to know: the people who write these test questions are geniuses at writing questions that are a lot harder than they look.

I look at official questions sometimes and think, "That's a work of art." Totally serious! So, okay, lesson learned: we can't always judge / tell when something is easy or hard. It can look pretty straightforward and be brutally hard. Now you know, so now you won't assume that if it looks easy, it is easy.

Yes to everything in your 2nd and 3rd paragraphs. You've got it exactly. In fact, save those words on your machine somewhere and re-read them periodically to remind yourself of your overall focus - couldn't have said it better myself.

I'll add one more thing: when you can determine quickly that you can't do something, that's great. But sometimes, you are going to get sucked in: you're going to think you can do it but you can't. So you still need to be able to pull yourself out after a couple of minutes - and NOT feel demoralized or like you've done something "wrong." Think of those as, "Well, I chose to invest some money, but the business plan didn't work out, so I'm pulling out now, before I lose my shirt." You know how all of the most successful business leaders have said that they learned the most from their failures? In order to have failures, you have to be willing to take those risks in the first place. Be willing to take calculated risks sometimes, but also be willing to admit when it doesn't work and pull out before you lose your shirt. Shrug your shoulders and move on to the next opportunity.

Okay, here are some other pieces.

Let's start with what I call "annoyances." I know the kinds of questions or topics that annoy me. This is not the same as the topics / question types that I hate. I hate combinatorics and I won't do them on the real test. Annoyances are more mild. I dislike them, but I'll mostly still try them.

There are two broad categories of annoyances: objective and subjective. Objective annoyances are things anyone would dislike. Roman numeral questions are objectively annoying because they're making us do more work for one question. Subjective annoyances are things I'm annoyed by personally. If you asked me to choose between inequalities and absolute value, I'd rather do an inequalities problem. Absolute value just bugs me for some reason.

Now, a lot of problems have annoying characteristics. If I see a problem with just 1 or 2, I'm still generally going to try that one. BUT if I see a problem with 4+ annoyances, I'm done. I might not realize I've got that 4th annoyance until I'm 90 seconds in. But if I'm still noticing something new at that point that causes me to think, "Ugh!" then this question is not going very well and maybe I'm better off pulling out.

(You might notice that I didn't address 3 annoyances. That one's a judgment call. If the annoyances are pretty mild, maybe I'll keep going. If one or more are big annoyances, I'll probably stop.)

So that's one way to pull yourself out. Start practicing this (and pay attention to your "Ugh!" moments so that you consciously know what your annoyances are).

Here's another: I find myself thinking, "But I should know how to do this!" Or "But this should work! How come it's not working?"

If I'm thinking anything like that, then I am at least 90 seconds into the problem already. You don't think that unless you've already done a decent amount of work. Plus, if you are thinking that, then something's wrong. You don't really know what you're doing. So pull out.

Note that it doesn't matter why this isn't working or how recently you studied it or that whatever this problem is testing is usually a strength for you. It isn't happening right now and you've already spent most or all of your time. Get out of there.

Next, you mentioned careless mistakes. Yes, definitely continue to address those! Take a look at this if you haven't yet:
http://www.manhattanprep.com/gmat/blog/ ... -the-gmat/

Do you have access to our Interact lessons? If so, do the Timing Strategies lesson from Session 6. If not, this article talks about some of what that lesson talks about:
http://www.manhattanprep.com/gmat/blog/ ... tch-paper/

And here's more on timing. Pay particular attention to section 4. (Note: section 5 is superseded by the article just above about scratch paper.)
http://tinyurl.com/GMATTimeManagement

After you've started to learn more about the time management and decision-making (meaning you're starting to feel like you can do it on questions), take a look at this series:
http://www.beatthegmat.com/mba/2015/09/ ... gmat-quant

That's enough to go on for now. Try that out and let me know in a week or so how things are going.