No improvement in scores!

[StaceyKoprince]

It's probably the case that your quant score was inflated if you'd already seen 7 questions before, unfortunately. If you see repeated questions on future tests, look at the timer immediately and make yourself sit there for the full 2 minutes. That way, at least, you won't save time that you shouldn't really have been saving.

It's important to make sure you take the essays in your practice tests - as you found, stamina is a big factor. You can do a couple of things to conserve energy. First, figure out what structure you want to use for your essays before you even go in there. I always do:
- intro paragraph with thesis, acknowledgement of "other side," and introduction of the two examples I've picked
- body paragraph about one example with detail as to the relevancy to my thesis
- body paragraph about the second example - same
- conclusion paragraph, re-stating thesis, re-acknowledging the other side, and asserting that my two examples did support my thesis.

Then, I just have to see what my topics are, find two flaws in the argument, think of two examples for the issue, and plug things into my framework. That saves serious brain energy.

I also don't take the full time to write. If you can score a 5.0 in 20-25 minutes or a 6.0 in 30 minutes, I'd take the 5.0 / 20-25 every time. Not everybody can do this but, if you can, do it!

So, you've got some work to do. You said you've got 16 days to go. Don't take an exam within 5 days of the real thing - you'll just compound the stamina issue by tiring yourself out right before test day. But take a couple of exams (including essays!) before then. It's been about 3 days since you took GMATPrep, so maybe take another test in a few days. Then do it again one week before your real test day. If possible, take the practice test at the same time of day as you'll take the real thing. Also, take the breaks, stand up and walk around, have something to eat and drink, etc. - just like the real thing!

[GMAT85]

Should I be practicing with MGMAT CATs or GMAT PREP since I have only 12 days left in the exam? I took CAT 5 and received the same score as in GMAT PREP 600(43Q, 30V). I am probably going to spend 20 mins on each essay. I like the idea of creating outlines for the essay ahead of the exam. Thanks for the advice!

[RonPurewal]

Thanks Mike! I really appreciate that you will let me extend my MGMAT access for free. I will probably postpone my exam date for 2 weeks. :)

mike is a good man.

[GMAT85]

Any suggestions on which source to practice with in the last 10 -12days, MGMAT CATs or GMAT Prep, taking into consideration that GMAT Prep repeated the questions last time I practiced with it? Advice from anyone? Thanks in advance!

[RonPurewal]

Any suggestions on which source to practice with in the last 10 -12days, MGMAT CATs or GMAT Prep, taking into consideration that GMAT Prep repeated the questions last time I practiced with it? Advice from anyone? Thanks in advance!

if you have any unused mgmat tests left over, you should certainly take those first. if you get to the point at which you've used up all the unique tests from both mgmat and gmatprep, i would vote in favor of repeating the gmatprep exams - UNLESS timing has been a HUGE issue for you, in which case i'd take the mgmat exams with a per-problem time limit.

if i were you, i would also go through the OG quant questions, but, rather than solving the problems all the way, i would just do OPENERS. in other words, in a maximum of 30 seconds - including the time it takes you to read the problem in the first place - you should be able to formulate a cogent and effective APPROACH to the problem. clearly, you don't have to solve the problem in thirty seconds (that's essentially impossible for most problems), but you need additional review if you can't consistently generate "openers" in that amount of time.
the good thing about practicing openers is that you can review massive numbers of problems in a short amount of time (100-150 problems in an hour). if the exam is coming up, that's just the thing you need.

[GMAT85]

Thanks Ron! I do get bogged down with timing a little but practicing 'openers' sounds like a good idea. I haven't taken the MGMAT free practice exam. So I will take it. Is it as accurate as the 6 CATs?
Do you have any suggestions for Verbal in general?

[StaceyKoprince]

The free test comes from the same pool of questions as the 6 CATs. Ron, I like that "openers" idea, too.

I have a couple of months' worth of verbal suggestions. :) If you can be more specific about what's still giving you trouble, we'd be happy to give you some advice!

[GMAT85]

I meant to ask if there is a "openers" kind of method that could apply to Verbal questions. I end up spending 3 mins on 600-800 level CR ques. Sometimes I get them right but other times I don't. These days, I am doing CR ques. from OG but it's not helping me much because I know the answers to most of the questions. General CR type that's giving me trouble (and they tend to vary with each exam) are: provide an example, strengthen, evaluate an argument and explain a situation. In the Sentence correction, I spend 2 mins on 600-800 level and get 50% of them correct. Due to this, I couldn't read a RC passage, which was long, and randomly picked answers in the MGMAT CAT. Key SC topics that give me trouble are: Pronouns, concision and subject-verb agreement. I usually get super-long sentences wrong and I got a lot of those in GMAT prep. Is it a good idea to go over SC guide?

I am also having trouble with word translation problems in Quant. especially overlapping sets and rate probs (700-800 level). I can do them in 3-4 mins but not in 2 mins.

Any advice?

[StaceyKoprince]

Provide an example and evalute an argument are not that common - you may not even see any of either type on the test and you wouldn't see more than one. Learn how to make educated guesses and move on within 2 minutes - don't waste your time on those.

Strengthen and explain a situation are more common, so they're worth more effort to learn. Go back to some that you've done and study how to identify the wrong answers - not the right ones. In particular, for every problem, pick out the one or two wrong answers that you think are most tempting. Articulate why they are so tempting and why they are wrong anyway. Keep doing that and notice the patterns that are common to each question type. (eg, on strengthen, they may give you something that strengthens or supports a fact-based premise but it does not actually impact the conclusion one way or another - it's already a fact, so giving you additional data about that fact doesn't change anything. Since the question asks you to strengthen the conclusion, telling you that a fact-based premise is a fact is tempting but not good enough.)

In SC, you need to average 1.5 min per. You can't do 2 min at the 600+ level and still hope to get a 700; you simply won't have enough time. It is a good idea to go over the SC guide, in particular the areas that are giving you the most trouble, and it's also a good idea to practice your technique - not just how to spot errors and eliminate, but how to do so as efficiently as possible. I can't remember whether you took our course but if you did, review the "split and resplit" technique from class 1 and remember that you should be scanning vertically, NOT horizontally. You absolutely should not be reading each answer choice through horizontally - that takes way too long.

Overlapping sets are really not that common - learn how to make an educated guess and move on within 2 minutes. Rate problems are somewhat more common, but no problem is worth 3-4 mins. You said that you "can do them in 3-4 mins," but actually you can't do them - because the test wants them done in 2 mins and you can't do that. 3-4 mins simply guarantees another problem or two wrong at the end due to lack of time; that's not a good trade-off!

Learn how to make educated guesses on rate problems - you can almost always get rid of 2-3 choices due to logic and estimation, if you practice. If you get a rate problem you can do in 2 to 2.5 min, do it. If not, make an educated guess.

Remember that you are going to get a lot of things wrong on the test. If you enter with the mindset that you have to get everything right and "can't let go," you're not going to get the score you could get because you'll mismanage your time. Think of it literally as a competitive sport. Your "opponent" is going to win some of the points in the match; you can't win them all. When your opponent gets one, let it go and move on to the next point.

[GMAT85]

I took another GMAT exam and got a 540 (40Q, 24V). I am extremely disappointed with this score. This is not reflective of my true ability as I got a 680 in MGMAT practice test just a week before the exam. So, I have decided to take another stab at the GMAT but I need help in figuring out how to study this time.

Here's how I studied for the last exam:
I took MGMAT in-class course from March 25th to May 20th. I did all my homeworks on time. In fact, I stayed ahead of the class. I took the exam on Aug 26th, three months after my classes ended. I worked full-time throughout, except for 2 weeks before the exam. My usual study routine was 2-3 hrs at night on weekdays and 8-10hrs on the weekends. On weekdays, I normally did quant probs from OG books under timed conditions about 50 or so. This was followed by revision of the problems, which normally took 2 nights. My weekends were highly focused on Verbal because weekdays weren't enough to effectively study it. So in a study session, I usually did 30 CR, 50 SC and 4 RC passages, followed by thorough revision. I followed this pattern for 22 weeks.

Here's how I plan to study for 11 weeks before I take GMAT again (suggestions greatly apprciated):
I will do in-class recordings of all 9 sessions. This will help me brush up all Verbal and Quant strategies. I will re-do SC, CR and RC strategy guides. However, I feel that I need another guide for sentence correction. I haven't been able to improve much on SC. Then I will attack OG probs. I am not sure how to improve Quant?

I have used up all the practice exams. So there are no unique exams left for me to practice. I need help in planning my next 11 weeks so that I can accomplish my desired score (700).
Thanks!

[StaceyKoprince]

It's important to ensure that your study is high-quality, not (just) high quantity. In fact, quantity without quality is not very effective at all. I'd much rather have you do fewer questions but spend more time on each question.

When you review problems, how do you review them? Of course, you figure out the right way to do it - everybody does that. But what about:
- why you got the problem wrong
- what you could do to minimize the chances of making that same mistake in future
- for verbal, why are the wrong answers tempting - why would someone pick a particular wrong answer? Why are they wrong anyway?
- what words / structure in the problem indicate the specific type of problem this is and give you clues as to what technique would be best to solve that problem?

And if you got it right, do you still review the problem?
- did you get it right for the right reason, or did you get a little lucky?
- is there a better way to do the problem? (more efficient? fewer chances to make a mistake? just easier in general for you?)
- what are the traps? how can you spot and avoid them on similar problems in the future? (this is much easier to learn on problems you get right than on problems you get wrong)
- how could you make an educated guess (eliminate wrong answers)? (again, much easier to learn on problems you get right

All of the above is designed to get you to one place: how do you recognize a problem of a similar type in future? If you have to figure everything out from scratch on this test, you won't maximize your score. If you can recognize what to do with even part of a problem, you have just greatly increased your chances of scoring well - both because you save time AND because you're trying something that you know worked before in a similar problem... so the chances are much better that it will work again on this one. If you can get to the point where you recognize something about a problem, at least how to start it and get rid of some answer choices, for maybe every other problem you see on a test, then you're in good shape.

If you're not thinking about how to recognize something again in future, however, then you're just leaving it up to chance. Sometimes you will recognize, sometimes you won't. And that means you're not maximizing your score potential.

Re: the exams, it's been a while since you've taken some of those (you presumably started taking them last March, when you you first started studying), so you won't remember a lot of the questions. If you don't remember a question, or only vaguely remember it, then it doesn't really matter that you've seen it before. In the event that you do see a question you completely remember, glance at the clock immediately and make yourself sit there for 2 min (or 1.5 on SC) before you move on. That way you won't also artificially inflate your score by saving time when you wouldn't normally save time. (Plus, if it's a question you got right before, then you aren't artificially inflating your score at all by getting it right again this time - that only happens if it is one that you really wouldn't know how to do if you were seeing it for the first time.)

So go look at the results of a recent (last 4 weeks) practice test, or take another, and figure out your strengths and weaknesses based on both the percentages you're getting and the time you're spending - it's not good enough to mostly get a certain category of things right but take too long on average to do so. Set up your study plan based on those specific strengths and weaknesses - follow the course to do a general review, but then go back to more of the fundamentals on weaknesses, and spend more time practicing higher level problems for your strengths. For both, though, do the kind of analysis I discussed above. And remember - analysis takes time. In one 2-hour study period, you might do 20 problems of some type (which takes 40 minutes) and then spend all of the remaining time analyzing.

[GMAT85]

Thanks Stacey! Is there an additional book that I could use to improve my sentence correction skills?

[StaceyKoprince]

A book for grammar rules or a book for practice problems?

[GMAT85]

I need a book for grammar rules. I ran out of all unique exams. So I bought 5 CATs from 800score.com and am wondering how accurate these exams are? Is it worth doing them?
Thanks!

[StaceyKoprince]

From what I've heard, 800score is pretty good on the verbal side, at least.

Re: grammar rules, our SC book contains all of the grammar rules you need to know for the GMAT. If you're struggling with more fundamental stuff (eg, identifying parts of speech, that sort of thing), then you might look into a standard grammar textbook. I'd go look in your local library and browse a few books until you find one that explains things in a way you understand.