No improvement after CAT 2

[marucs]

I just took my CAT 2 exam and received a 540. I am taking the online course and have followed the online syllabus. On my first CAT, I received a 550. I have studied and I am not seeing improvement. My Quant and verbal scores are more or less even. On the Cat 2 exam, I completed the AWAs whereas I did not on the 1st CAT. When I do my assignments and answer questions in the Original Guide, I do ok. On similar questions, on the CAT, I get them wrong. On CAT 2, I ran out of time at the 30th question and randomly guessed the last 7. I also ran out of time on the verbal section as well and guessed on the last 6.

[kylo]

i think u need to devise a strategy or plan for each section.



Thanks!

[RonPurewal]

first, a thought:
remember that you aren't necessarily going to see "instant improvement".
since you're un-learning the techniques with which you're currently comfortable (but which aren't working terribly well for you) and learning new techniques in their stead, it's natural for there to be somewhat of a drop in your performance when you first begin to implement the new techniques.
remember to keep the "big picture" in mind at this point in the game. it's still early, and you don't want to let yourself get psyched out by the result of one exam that you think is bad. wait until you have some sort of trajectory of CAT scores before you make such judgments.

--

second:
you NEED to practice better time management. your leaving seven questions blank at the end (!) is a sign that something has gone horribly astray.
some hints:

* on your NEXT practice test, SET THE QUANT SECTION TO A PER-PROBLEM TIME LIMIT, such as 2:40 or 2:45. this is long enough to allow you to take extra time on difficult or laborious problems, but still short enough to ensure that you don't go way, way over the time limit.
after you've taken this exam, you should export your times to excel, add them up, and make sure that you haven't gone over the limit of 75 minutes in total (which will not be enforced when you're doing per-problem timing). even though 2:45 for every single question would add up to about 100 minutes, it's still likely that you'll stay roughly within time with these restrictions (because you certainly won't take the whole 2:45 for every question!).
whatever you do, DO NOT use a limit of exactly two minutes per problem. that's the average time, and it's fully expected that you'll go over that average on difficult problems. to use the average time as an upper limit will actually encourage the other kind of poor time management: i.e., rushing through problems without due diligence.

* USE SECONDARY PROBLEM-SOLVING METHODS.
these include the following:
- PLUG IN YOUR OWN NUMBERS on problems with unknown and undetermined quantities - most often, but not always, problems with a litter of variables in the problem statement ("VIC problems")
- PLUG IN THE ANSWER CHOICES AND WORK THE PROBLEM BACKWARDS on problems with numbers as answer choices and a word problem = algebraic equation as the problem statement
- ESTIMATE answers - especially on geometry problems with diagrams (including diagrams that you draw yourself), but on any problem whose answer choices are spaced sufficiently far apart
* if you don't have a lead on a suitable "theory" method to solve a problem WITHIN 15-20 SECONDS of the time you finish reading the problem, you should INSTANTLY switch to consideration of these secondary methods. they're applicable to a wide range of problems, and, even better, they allow you to "solve" problems that you don't even really know how to solve!

i am not kidding abouth the rapid switching to other methods. you should imagine a "shot clock" in your head that runs down 15 seconds from the first time you start deliberating about how to proceed (NOT from the moment you start writing, but from the first moment you get "stuck"). as soon as that 15 seconds ticks off, you hear the buzzer and you MUST go to the next problem-solving method.
if you're a tenacious type-A go-getter, this will be the most difficult thing in the world for you to do, but the dividends will be impressive once you get the hang of it.

--

other thoughts:
* when you do the official guide problems, are you talking about the problems that are grouped by subject area?
of course you're going to do better on those problems; they're all testing the same things, so you'll get into a groove for whatever particular topic you're slamming at the time. it's the topics in random order that will really nail you.
* it's possible that the increased time commitment (i.e., from answering the essay questions) did you in. were you bamboozled by sitting there taking a test for that long?

[marcus]

Ron,

Thank you for the input. I will implement your recommendations.

[JonathanSchneider]

: )

[Guest]

i am in the EXACT same position as you....same score and everything and was starting to freak out
so glad you asked for help

[StaceyKoprince]

Totally don't freak out. I'd say 40-50% my students stay the same or go down on their 2nd test (halfway through the course).

Anybody remember like 5 years ago when Tiger Woods wanted to change his swing? Bear with me, because I'm really not a golf person, so I don't know the technical details. I do know this story though because it made big headlines. He was having shoulder and knee problems because of his swing, so he took like 6 or 9 months to change it. He lost the #1 ranking, wasn't winning tournaments, etc. But then, once he got it worked out, he came roaring back, took over the #1 ranking again, won a bunch of tournaments, etc.

This is an analogous situation. In some ways, you do actually get worse before you get better. For example, when you're learning new techniques, you're slower at first. When you're slower on some problems, that takes away the time you need to spend on other problems, so the thing snowballs.