Please give me some advice here

[chughbrajesh]

Right after my 9 week course I took my MCAT exam and I saw my score decline 60 points.

I know we are not supposed to use are GMAT Prep exam but I used one of them way before I joined Manhattan, since then I have been resetting that one exam and trying to see how I progress. The good thing is that I saw progress from 360 to 500 with the same exam. I don't really have a specific date in mind when to take GMAT but I do have specific goal to at least get to a 600-650 in 2 months.

So few days ago when I took my MCAT exam for the first time and got 440. I felt really discouraged, but the good thing was that I learned few things:

1) I need to speed up. I usually take at least 2-3 to answer each question. Well, not every question, questions that I find difficult. In verbal I had to guess a lot of questions because I spent a lot of time in the first quarter of the verbal section and then in the middle I had to speed up and in the end I slowed down again so I need to make educated guesses quickly.
Also, when I went back to review the questions the last question was not answered on both Q and V, because I didn't click submit I thought it would submit as the time would run out. So that might have affected my score too.

But my problem is that I don't understand a lot of questions in under 2 minutes. Verbal or Quant. It does not sink in that short period of time. One or two questions, yes, I can answer in less than 30 sec. But especially CR it takes a lot of my thought process especially inference questions in CR and RC, and special detail in RC.

2) The course has helped me a lot and has made me really good with lots of things I didn't know before. But I think I am having a different issue than what I have learned in the course. Like in math I realized that I make a lot of small mistakes with addition, multiplication, not thinking about square root might have + and - results. It is hard to recall all the possibilities for me under 2 minutes.

Because I am making silly mistakes, I cannot even get to the level of questions I have learned throughout the course and have been practicing. I know I can do those questions. I can do harder ones but I keep on making a lot of small errors. Whenever I go back to review the wrong questions i often know the right answer. I don't know if I get anxious, or what happens. The test feels so easy to me because I am not getting questions right. I just don't know whats the right way to approach this problem. (Please give me some advice on this how can I make myself better.)

After the test I have learned that there are few topics that I am having hard time. In verbal, CR (evidence family question, like inference, evaluate the argument, etc.). SC (meaning, parallelism, idioms). RC (Special detail, passage structure and inference).
Quant (probabilities, general properties in geometry, of course struggles with simple math). How can I make myself better with these topics?

I am putting a lot of hours but finding little progress. Please help so that I can become efficient. You are all experts, I am sure your can figure out quickly what I am doing wrong.

[StaceyKoprince]

This test is definitely challenging.

On the timing issue: no matter how much you study, the test will always give you some questions that you just cannot do in a reasonable amount of time. Your task is to be able to identify when this is true and to have the discipline to guess and move on. The test is trying to figure out how good of a business person you are. Good business people can distinguish good opportunities from bad ones and respond accordingly. :)

Read these two articles:
https://www.manhattangmat.com/blog/inde ... lly-tests/
http://www.manhattangmat.com/blog/index ... -the-gmat/

Are you approaching the test with that mindset? (I'm guessing not, or you wouldn't be having the timing issues you describe.)

Here's more about how to get better at time management:
http://www.manhattangmat.com/blog/index ... -to-do-it/
http://www.manhattangmat.com/blog/index ... nt-part-1/

Next, you mention careless mistakes. You can learn to do something about these, too! Follow this:
http://www.manhattangmat.com/blog/index ... -the-gmat/

For the specific topics that you mention, here are some resources on CR:
https://www.manhattangmat.com/blog/inde ... reasoning/

RC:
https://www.manhattangmat.com/blog/inde ... rehension/

SC:
https://www.manhattangmat.com/blog/inde ... em-part-1/
http://www.manhattangmat.com/blog/index ... orrection/

For quant, start with careless mistakes - the most important thing is to fix what you do already know how to do (but miss because of mistakes). Probability is not very common - that can be in the "get wrong fast" category. For geo - are you struggling to know / remember the properties in general? Or are you struggling to apply them to GMAT questions?

If you'd like more specific advice, use the below to analyze your most recent MGMAT CAT (this should take you a minimum of 1 hour):
https://www.manhattangmat.com/blog/inde ... ts-part-1/

Make sure to read the earlier articles I posted first. Use all of that to figure out your strengths and weaknesses as well as what you think you should do based on that analysis. Then come back here and tell us; we'll tell you whether we agree and advise you further. (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!)

[chughbrajesh]

Thank you, Stacey.
I read the articles that you posted, thank you for your help. They were very helpful. Infact I just took my MGMAT 2nd test and scored 540. My scores were Q40 V25. In the last test my verbal score was 24 and Q 28. So as you can I have not improved much in verbal, I am tough time with it.

I have made a list of topics I am having hard time with. I have learned that on both the test there were questions of the same topics that I got wrong. Below is a list of those, in bold are more often I got wrong.

Quant
Odds and evens
Exponents and roots
Formulas
Quadratic equation
Statistics
Polygons
Digits & decimals
FDP
Divisibility and primes
Combinatorics
Percents
Rate and work
Inequalities
Fractions
Positives and negatives
Linear equation
Probabilities
Algebraic translation
Triangles and diagnols
Ratio

Verbal
Rc
Special detail
Passage structure
Tone
Main idea
Inference
CR
draw a conclusion
Strengthen the argument
Weaken the argument
Explain the discrepancy
Provide an example

Find the assumption
Evaluate the argument

SC
idioms
Verbs
Pronouns
Sv agreement
Meaning
Comparison
Modifiers
Parallelism
Connecting punctuation

To study for them I will be studying from strategy guides. What else can I do to learn better. I am reading new articles from reputable news sources trying to get the meaning and sentence structure.

Is the best way to learn these topics is through strategy guides only? Can you please guide me how to move forward from here on?

Thanks again.
Brajesh

[StaceyKoprince]

Your list is quite long, so your first task is to prioritize. If you just try to plow through everything, you're going to get frustrated and burned out.

In general, prioritize:

1. Careless mistakes. These are things that you already knew how to do or that you feel you should know how to do, but you're messing them up for some reason. These are easier to fix than areas that you find inherently hard.

2. Weaknesses that are more commonly tested. From your bold list, these topics are commonly tested on quant: exponents, roots, statistics, algebraic translation.
On verbal: RC inference, CR draw a conclusion (note: the test is asking you to do the same type of reasoning on those two question types!). SC: Meaning, verbs.

Your best starting point is the strategy guides, yes. Use the guides to make sure that you know the underlying material being tested, as well as the strategies for answering problems of that type.

Then test yourself on OG problems and use the 2nd Level of GMAT Study article to help you analyze / learn from those problems, going back into the books whenever necessary. (Also, whenever you do OG problems for which we have our own solutions in Navigator, learn from those solutions!)