Progress Help - 2 weeks until test day!

[taylor.edgerton]

Hello staff/students,

I have been on a fairly rigorous studying schedule since around Christmas. I chose the route of self-studying through the MGMAT study guides (fifth ed.) while following a typical class syllabus. At this point, I have made it through my 9-10 week plan (completed all strategy guides and a good portion of the OG questions). Below is my progress on my CAT exams:




CAT4, 28-Feb, IR - 5.2, Q-42, 57%, V-38, 84%, Total 660
CAT3, 15-Feb, IR-3.8, Q-42, 57%, V-38, 84%, Total 660
CAT2, 1-Feb, IR-4.43, Q-43, 61%, V-36,79%, Total 650
CAT1, 14-Dec, IR-n/a, Q-32,30%, V-34, 69%, Total 550



I seem to have pretty much plateaued on my scores (my goal from the beginning has been 730). I am not particularly concerned with IR since it doesn't matter much at this point. Also, I'm fairly comfortable with my verbal progress/percentile.

My frustration lies with my progress in quant. I just don't seem to be making any progress, even when doing individual questions outside of CAT exams. I've had difficulty pinpointing my exact weaknesses. My struggle seems to be with identifying the type of question and how to approach solving. If given the time (or once I review the solutions), the problems are making sense. However, under time constraints, I'm simply not understanding, planning and solving quickly enough.

As the exam is 2 weeks away, I'm turning to the forum for help! Should I push back my exam date and change my studying strategy? Or is there a particular approach I should have over these final two weeks to help get me to my 730 goal?

Thanks in advance for your help.

Taylor

[taylor.edgerton]

Any input is much appreciated. Thanks!

[StaceyKoprince]

Please remember to read the forum guidelines before posting. Please don't "bump" your own post. We respond to all posts in order, oldest first, and the date of your post is based on the date of the last post in the thread, not the first. If you bump your own post, you will just wait longer for a response!

Let's see. If you're still going for your 730 goal (and it sounds like you are), then yes, you should postpone the test - 2 weeks won't be enough time to make that jump.

I know you mentioned that you're mostly concerned about quant, but if you are going to hit 730, then you need to continue making progress on verbal as well. It's tough to hit 730 without a 90th percentile in your stronger area.

I need some more detailed data on your strengths and weaknesses in order to advise you. Use the below to analyze your most recent MGMAT CAT(s):
http://www.manhattangmat.com/blog/index ... ice-tests/

Then come back here and tell us the results of your analysis and what you think you should do based on that analysis. 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!)

I'll suggest a couple of things to get started, though. First, if you're struggling with how quickly you can UPS (understand, plan, solve), then you're likely spending too long on some questions that you really can't do anyway and then sacrificing others (through careless mistakes / speed issues), and that's likely bringing your score down. You'll probably uncover this when you do the test analysis I mentioned above.

Read these two articles and start doing what they say:
http://www.manhattangmat.com/blog/index ... to-win-it/
http://www.manhattangmat.com/blog/index ... nt-part-1/

Next, many quant problems are purposely "disguised" and, as you've noted, part of our task is to learn how to "decode" them. Read this:
http://www.manhattangmat.com/blog/index ... -Problems/

Get a stack of flashcards and keep them handy when studying. On one side, you're going to write "When I see _______" and on the other "I'll think / do ______"

Go back over old questions first and ask yourself, "Okay, *now* that I know how to do this, what are the clues within the problem text that could have alerted me to think X or do Y?" Write up a flashcard about whatever you figure out. (Note that one problem might lead to 2 or 3 separate flashcards!)

You're literally training yourself how to recognize GMAT-speak and know what the proper response is, in the same way that you have long since been trained to see the word "product" and respond by thinking about multiplication.

Also, I'm going to guess that the slowness in decoding that you've described often falls into one of two areas (or both), simply because I see this a lot with people :)

translation:
http://www.manhattangmat.com/blog/index ... into-Math/

number properties:
http://www.manhattangmat.com/blog/index ... -gmatprep/

[taylor.edgerton]

Stacey - thank you for your thorough reply. I apologize for bumping my post, just nervous as I'm so close to test day!

Per your suggestions, below is my analysis of my last 3 CAT exams (throwing out my first CAT to avoid skewing).

Assessment Summary Highlights
-Problem Solving - 48% correct, avg. diff. level for correct 610, wrong 700
-Word Probs - only 46% correct with time diff. between right and wrong at 31 seconds
-FDP's - only 36% correct
-Number Properties - only 50% correct, but it's my fastest category!

Category 1
Quant
- Linear Equations
- Exponents & Roots
- Quadratic Equations (although I did spend 3 minutes on a 700-800 level problem)
-Inequalities (although missing the 700-800 level questions)
-Coordinate plane
-Positives and Negatives
-Digits and Decimals

Verbal
-Describe the Role
-Find the Assumption
-Evaluate the Argument
-Strengthen the Argument
-Main Idea
-Subject Verb Agreement
-Modifiers
-Verbs
-Idioms
-Concision
-Meaning
-Parallelism
-Connecting punctuation

Category 2
Quant
-Formulas (33% correct)
-Polygons (50% correct, missing harder q's)
-Triangles & Diagonals (50% correct, missing harder q's)
-Circles & Cylinders (50% correct, missing harder q's)
-Percents
-FDPs

Verbal
-Inference

Category 3
Quant
-Divisibility and Primes (50% correct, but missing harder q's and going too fast)
-Odds and Evens (50% correct, but missing harder q's and going too fast)
-Extra Problem Types (missing some lower level questions)

Verbal
-Comparisons
-Quantity


Category 4
Quant
-Lines & Angles (50% correct, but 3 min avg time)
-Algebraic Translations
-Rates and Work (3 min avg time)
-Statistics

Verbal
-Weaken the Argument (50% correct, >2min per)
-Specific Detail
-Passage Structure

Category 5
Quant
-Combinatorics - just guessing right on a few and spending too much time; know this is a major weakness
-Probability - 0/3 and spending 2+ minutes
-Consecutive Integers - spending too much time on wrong answers
-Overlapping sets - 30% correct, spending 3+ minutes, definitely biggest weakness
-Fractions
-Ratios - 0% correct

Verbal
-Draw a Conclusion (40% correct, >2 min per)
-Explain the Discrepancy (0%)
-Pronouns (only 1 question though)

Takeaways
-Cat. 5 - Do I refocus on these obvious weak areas or do I take educated guesses and skip them on the exam?
-Cat. 4 - revisit areas and see how I can be more efficient
-Cat. 3 - check for careless errors and why I am getting these wrong, too quickly
-Cat. 2 - seem to just be missing the 700-800 level questions; do I devote more practice to these, or make educated guesses on more difficult problems?
-Cat. 1 - most of these are my strengths. no need to devote extensive review to these, but make sure I'm getting these right for the right reasons and know the content

I hope this provides you with enough information. I look forward to your input and thanks again for your help!

Taylor

[StaceyKoprince]

You've given me tons and tons of data but only a little bit of analysis. Push yourself to analyze this more thoroughly - that's how you're really going to learn.

I'll respond now because I know test day is coming up for you, but I actually do recommend that you stop reading right now and go think about this data more yourself - and what you think it means, and what you should do as a result - before you keep reading. You're going to need to be able to "read" this data all the time and react accordingly, so learn how to do so right now!

NP at 50% but also really fast? That might be an opportunity to get better! (Look and see what those problems were though - maybe you just got a few killer combinatorics and probability - and those aren't worth blowing a bunch of time, especially when they're really hard.)

FDP at 36% - yes, need work there. Are these scattered across all categories? Certain ones? Primarily word / story problems or more pure math?

Major conclusions (you can match with your specific category areas):
1) Low-hanging fruit = careless errors. You can already do these! Figure out why, figure out what good habit to make or bad habit to break, and get those points next time! (Some of these will be due simply to speed / timing issues - fix that timing and these will go down.)

2) Low-hanging fruit on the other end = categories that are consistently slow and wrong (eg, sets, probability, ...). Get them wrong faster; spend that time elsewhere. In other words, no, don't spend time on category 5. :)

3) Category 4: these will need to get split into two: the ones you can get more efficiently and the ones you can't. For the ones you can't, if you really are losing 45-60+ seconds (above the average) and you still have careless errors on other questions, get the too-hard ones wrong faster and pick up those careless error points. (The longer you spend on something, the more likely you are to make a mistake - so I'd rather have you answer correctly the stuff that you can do more quickly.)

Categories 1 and 2 are your "good" categories - yes, it's actually good to get something wrong in the appropriate timeframe (category 2). That means you did try it, but then you couldn't do it and so you moved on. (Of course, as always, keep an eye out for careless errors even in this category.) I'm not too concerned about that as long as you've got other low-hanging fruit to deal with first.

Now, of course, you can always go back to category 2 and try to get better longer-term... but in your case we're only looking at a couple of weeks anyway, right? So you probably won't have time. Either way, always deal with the lowest-hanging fruit first.

A few resources to help based on the detail you provided (but I'm not giving you much because, again, you don't have a ton of time!):

translations / dealing with story problems (can help with algebraic translations, FDP story problems, any word problems in general):
http://www.manhattangmat.com/blog/index ... into-Math/

NP:
http://www.manhattangmat.com/blog/index ... -gmatprep/

Verbal
CR Weaken (just in case this helps you shave time):
http://www.manhattangmat.com/blog/index ... g-problem/
http://www.manhattangmat.com/blog/index ... n-problem/

So do two things:
(1) low-hanging fruit on weaknesses

(2) comprehensive review, with a little more focus on strengths and medium areas - make sure that you really can get all those points in category 1 and that you're not forgetting anything because you haven't looked at it in a while (because you weren't having problems with it).