Stacey,
Your judicious advices about time managing and study organisation already helped me a a lot to improve my overall score on the mock exams especially on the quantitative area. I come here with a question about overall test management :
I am a weak on Sentence correction while I am doing quite well at Critical reasoning and at Reading comprehension.
to give you some datas based on two MGMAT CAT my results are :
-For the CR after 28 questions I have 75% of right answers (every q below 700 level and 63% of the question btw 700 and 800 , the average level of wrong answer being 750).
-For the RC after 23 questions I have 61% of right answers (all but one below 700 level and only 33% right btw 700 and 800, the average level of wrong answer being 740).
-For the SC after 30 questions I have 43 % of right answers (6 to 9 btw 500 and 700 and 7 to 21 btw 700 and 800 with an average wrong answer level being 730).
I dont think I have timing problem my average time being 1:40 with an average around 1:20 for SC , 1: 50 for CR and 2:00 for RC ( 10 sec less for the right answers and 10 sec more for the wrong ones). I am not rushing, all the answer being around this timing (a little bit more when they are more words and less when the sentences are short)
I dont think I can really improve more my SC, I tried : the MGMAT book, to read English classics, to check my wrong asnwers again and again... when I work on it I am able to see why I am wrong and why the right one is right but as soon as it is a new question in a real test I just get it wrong again. I wrote down every single idioms trying to learn them but in the situation I just dont recognise them. Spending more time doesnt help it just make me hesitate longer btw the answers. I already get less idiom wrong than before.
For the CR , same I am not sure I can do better , I already got it quite well and I think I should work a lot just to have one or two more right answers in the whole test.
For the RC , here is the point I think I can easily improve my score. Actually I noticed that I get poor score when doing the CAT mainly due to stamina, and focus lessening. After the first 2 hours and half on the test I am just feeling extremly tired and hardly focus on the texts on the screen, it is especially true with scientifics texts (biology/medecine) and a little bit less with historical/economical texts. Whem I am training doing the OG texts I dont have any problem and can usually get almost all the question right in the last texts of the book without timing problem while for example when I am doing the RC MGMAT question bank I have poor result because after reading two texts in a row and trying to emptying my brain from previous datas I just feel totally bored and tired.
Here are my questions :
- Do you know if somebody really care about the AWA or is the purpose only to strain us for the verbal content ? For example if I write down stupid essays in 5 minutes without any focus I could save a lot of stamina for the last part of the exam. And do you think the sacrifice of the AWA to have 2/3 more rights answers at a 700+ level in RC (and maybe one more CR collateral of being less tired ) can lead to improve a verbal score of 2 to 3 points ? (I get 35 for my first cat which was 81% percentil for the verbal section and 38 for the second one . I would like to reach 42 in verbal so I think I could safely aim a 720 overall score on MGMAT with a 45/50 in quantitative so if your 50 points range is correct I should reach my score target).
- Do you have any other method to improve RC when being tired ( I am certainly not the only one to have this problem...) , knowing that I intend to pass the test in 2/3 weeks - I am not really sure that reading online paper every day will help that much on this account for a so short time.
-Do you have any other advice on how to reach this target ? For example do you think it is possible to apply some strategy such as trying to not answer all the CR right (usually I can feel when I am right at the CR and when I am doing a 50/50 bet) between question 10 and 20 to keep a difficulty level lower for the SC and trying to focus more on getting as much as possible ending question right ?
Thanks a lot ,
John
GMAT Forum
8 postsPage 1 of 1
- jonathanc
- Students
- Posts: 20
- Joined: Wed Jul 22, 2009 6:34 pm
- StaceyKoprince
- ManhattanGMAT Staff
- Posts: 9361
- Joined: Wed Oct 19, 2005 9:05 am
- Location: Montreal
Re: RC Stamina and AWA
You're doing really well already - your CR and RC percentages + difficulty levels are fantastic, and although your SC difficulty level is lower, you're still doing some fairly hard questions there.
First, on the essays: no, you cannot totally blow off the essays. Though the schools generally don't care as much about the essay score, the schools will be concerned about any score below a 4.0. The schools will also have access to the text of your essay, so they will check if the score is too low - and then they will see that you blew off the essays. They will then likely discount your multiple-choice score because you had an advantage that other students did not. So, you've got to do the essays.
You don't however, need to score better than 4.5, so you don't need to do your best. Just do well enough and move on.
I have a few more questions for you. Take a look at the problem lists and tell me whether you have any patterns in terms of the placement of wrong answers. Do you have strings of 4+ wrong answers in a row anywhere? How many and where? Are you tending to get more wrong at a certain point in the section (beginning, middle, end)? If so where? Check to see whether this is a trend (seen on multiple tests) or just a one-off thing.
What are you scoring on the practice tests already? The numbers you've given me for the verbal are really good, so I'm guessing you're already 700+, yes? From another comment you made, it sounds like you might be going for 770-ish on your practice tests so that you can still "drop" 50 points and have it be a 720 - is that right? If so, that's nice but it may be overkill - if you're already scoring in the low 700s, you're where you should be.
Re: the stamina / fatigue thing, you build this by taking full-length practice tests under official conditions, trying to mimic the official testing conditions as much as possible - BUT you can't do this in the last week or you'll just tire yourself out. (In fact, in general, don't take a practice test more than once a week.) You say you've got 2-3 weeks to go, so that's enough time to plan 2 practice tests.
Experiment with food and drink until you find a combo that gives you a good energy boost without making you feel sluggish. Complex carbs and protein are good, along with a small amount of "good" fat (nuts, peanut butter, tuna salad, etc). Caffeine and simple sugars = bad. (And then make sure to eat / drink the good stuff on the break!)
Exercise on the break. Stretch, touch your toes, do some jumping jacks. Who cares if the other people in the waiting room look at you funny. You're revving up for that last section! Play the Rocky theme song in your head. :)
Next, think about what you're going to do when you do start to feel that fatigue during the test. That might mean that, on the next really hard question you see, you take a minute to close your eyes, roll your head around, stretch your legs, take some deep breaths, and play some song (in your head!) that gets you pumped up and energized. Then you guess randomly on that question and move on to the next one. Sacrifice one to get that energy back and pump up your performance on the rest.
Re: RC in particular, first, you mention that you especially struggle with science texts when you're tired. You may want to spend some time reading articles at Scientific American (www.sciam.com), just to get your brain a bit more used to that kind of language. (I'm guessing you don't like science all that much compared to the other topics - that's why your brain tends to turn off when it sees the science. :)
So, ask yourself: what do I REALLY need to know here? I don't need all the random, nitpicky detail that science passages tend to include - at least, not right now, on my initial read-through - so I'm going to skim right over that stuff. Maybe I'll note that the second paragraph is about "bad eff. fert --> bees" (or: the bad effects that fertilizers have on bees), but all that detail about how, exactly, the fertilizers mess with the bees' innate navigational system? No thank you. Skim.
Now, I'm going to get 3-4 questions on this passage. One will be the "main idea" - which I'll be able to know without knowing all of that random detail. Another 1 or 2 will be not that easy but not that hard either - they'll use some key word or tell me which paragraph they're talking about, and THEN I'll go learn that info and answer the question. And 1 will probably make me think, "Ugh. Seriously?" So that can be my freebie one (where I relax, stretch, make a random guess, and move on).
Also, random thing that actually works: if you get a topic that you don't like (not just science - this can work for anything!), think of someone you know who actually does like that topic and pretend you're reading it for that person. You know she'll be really interested, so what are you going to tell her about this info? That can fool your brain into getting (a bit) more interested, too!
First, on the essays: no, you cannot totally blow off the essays. Though the schools generally don't care as much about the essay score, the schools will be concerned about any score below a 4.0. The schools will also have access to the text of your essay, so they will check if the score is too low - and then they will see that you blew off the essays. They will then likely discount your multiple-choice score because you had an advantage that other students did not. So, you've got to do the essays.
You don't however, need to score better than 4.5, so you don't need to do your best. Just do well enough and move on.
I have a few more questions for you. Take a look at the problem lists and tell me whether you have any patterns in terms of the placement of wrong answers. Do you have strings of 4+ wrong answers in a row anywhere? How many and where? Are you tending to get more wrong at a certain point in the section (beginning, middle, end)? If so where? Check to see whether this is a trend (seen on multiple tests) or just a one-off thing.
What are you scoring on the practice tests already? The numbers you've given me for the verbal are really good, so I'm guessing you're already 700+, yes? From another comment you made, it sounds like you might be going for 770-ish on your practice tests so that you can still "drop" 50 points and have it be a 720 - is that right? If so, that's nice but it may be overkill - if you're already scoring in the low 700s, you're where you should be.
Re: the stamina / fatigue thing, you build this by taking full-length practice tests under official conditions, trying to mimic the official testing conditions as much as possible - BUT you can't do this in the last week or you'll just tire yourself out. (In fact, in general, don't take a practice test more than once a week.) You say you've got 2-3 weeks to go, so that's enough time to plan 2 practice tests.
Experiment with food and drink until you find a combo that gives you a good energy boost without making you feel sluggish. Complex carbs and protein are good, along with a small amount of "good" fat (nuts, peanut butter, tuna salad, etc). Caffeine and simple sugars = bad. (And then make sure to eat / drink the good stuff on the break!)
Exercise on the break. Stretch, touch your toes, do some jumping jacks. Who cares if the other people in the waiting room look at you funny. You're revving up for that last section! Play the Rocky theme song in your head. :)
Next, think about what you're going to do when you do start to feel that fatigue during the test. That might mean that, on the next really hard question you see, you take a minute to close your eyes, roll your head around, stretch your legs, take some deep breaths, and play some song (in your head!) that gets you pumped up and energized. Then you guess randomly on that question and move on to the next one. Sacrifice one to get that energy back and pump up your performance on the rest.
Re: RC in particular, first, you mention that you especially struggle with science texts when you're tired. You may want to spend some time reading articles at Scientific American (www.sciam.com), just to get your brain a bit more used to that kind of language. (I'm guessing you don't like science all that much compared to the other topics - that's why your brain tends to turn off when it sees the science. :)
So, ask yourself: what do I REALLY need to know here? I don't need all the random, nitpicky detail that science passages tend to include - at least, not right now, on my initial read-through - so I'm going to skim right over that stuff. Maybe I'll note that the second paragraph is about "bad eff. fert --> bees" (or: the bad effects that fertilizers have on bees), but all that detail about how, exactly, the fertilizers mess with the bees' innate navigational system? No thank you. Skim.
Now, I'm going to get 3-4 questions on this passage. One will be the "main idea" - which I'll be able to know without knowing all of that random detail. Another 1 or 2 will be not that easy but not that hard either - they'll use some key word or tell me which paragraph they're talking about, and THEN I'll go learn that info and answer the question. And 1 will probably make me think, "Ugh. Seriously?" So that can be my freebie one (where I relax, stretch, make a random guess, and move on).
Also, random thing that actually works: if you get a topic that you don't like (not just science - this can work for anything!), think of someone you know who actually does like that topic and pretend you're reading it for that person. You know she'll be really interested, so what are you going to tell her about this info? That can fool your brain into getting (a bit) more interested, too!
Stacey Koprince
Instructor
Director, Content & Curriculum
ManhattanPrep
Instructor
Director, Content & Curriculum
ManhattanPrep
- jonathanc
- Students
- Posts: 20
- Joined: Wed Jul 22, 2009 6:34 pm
Re: RC Stamina and AWA
Stacey,
First thanks for your answer.
AWA Ok I get it. So I need to do it well and to focus. (I think 4.5 is already not that easy , you see how I am writing and how tiring it is to read it).
I will reply your questions in the wrong order but : I am not really in the 700 + just on the unsafe border. I took my second GMAT PREP yesterday so I can add the related data too.
All my test are made under condition including essays, break, and food, same time in the day. I took once every two weeks but at different days of the week depending on my obligations.
My first GMAT Prep was a 660 (I didnt include it in my previous mail because I dont have the split between V and Q in the scoring, at that time I didnt know it s not possible to see it back ....)
1st MGMAT CAT : 680 Q 47 V 35.
2nd MGMAT CAT : 700 Q 47 V 38
2nd GMAT PREP : 710 Q 50 V 36 . (I didnt see any question I already know consciously as far as I know so I take it being a real score).
I did poorly explain myself : I am not aiming at a 770 for the practice test which I will probably never reach except if I finally break this SC problem, if I am lucky , and in a Good day at the same time which is a lot to ask. I am aiming at a 720 for the practice test and a 700 for the real one. Anyway I think I will be out of hard question for CR before doing 6 tests and that then the score will not be accurate so there is no point at doing this. You told in other post that the deviation is in average around 50 btw MGMAT and Real GMAT. I did subjectively divide this deviation by 2 because :
a) I am pressure and stress resistant due to professional experience actually it could even give me a boost-kick (? sorry if it doesnt exist)
b) Deviation of 50 means 50 up and 50 down so the possibility of getting down is partly compensate by the reverse one which is a kind of bet but we have to take risk.
SO I arrived to the stupid and subjective conclusion that I could be fairly confident to reach 695 if I get 720 in the mock tests.
For the pattern of wrong answers :
GMAT PREP 1 : 660
Q : 5 in the first half , 4 in the second half evenly spread. No row.
V : 5 in the first half, 6 in the second half. 1 CR, 2 RC, 8 SC. 1 row of 4 wrong including 2SC and 2 RC. one other row of 2 SC.
MGMAT CAT 1 : 680 - 47 / 35
Q : 8 in the first half, 7 in the second. Evenly spread. 5 rows of 2 wrong A.
V : 7 in the first half, 10 in the second. 4 CR, 5 RC, 8 SC. 4 rows of 2 wrong A. including two times RC.
MGMAT CAT 2 : 700 - 47 / 38
Q : 8 in the first half, 9 in the second. 1 row of 5 wrongs, 1 row of 3 wrongs, 2 rows of 2 wrongs.
V : 9 in the first half, 7 in the second. 3 CR, 4 RC, 9 SC. 4 rows of 2 wrongs. including 2 RC. (I think there is one mistake in a RC question about LCD as shown in this post : http://www.manhattangmat.com/forums/disagree-with-question-t7434.html )
GMAT PREP 2 : 710 - 50 / 36
Q : 5 in the first half, 1 in the second.
V : 2 in the first half, 7 in the second. 2 CR, 3 RC, 4 SC. 1 row of 3 wrong and 1 row of 4 wrongs. Including a row of 3 RC .
The food idea is interesting and I am going to explore that, I am not quite sure about what are complex carbs but some research will help. Unfortunately I am living somewhere where I hardly understand what is the composition of the foods and barely know half of the things I am eating (even if it s good...). Are we allowed to take a vitamin during the test ? Maybe just a Vitamin C at the end of the Math section or during the break could be enough to stay focus for the last hour before getting excited.
For the verbal part I am totally unable to see the difference btw a hard question and a not hard one , SC I dont know when I am wrong or not. CR the problem is usually not the question but sometime I am missing one or two words of vocabulary which can be importants and force me to guess btw two answers. RC it s because I can not focus the text.
Why I wanted to focus on the RC is not because I have so much wrong answer but because It s more likely linked to a physical problem and ALSO because it s where I get ROWS of wrong answers (and you can bet that before or after the text I will have a SC which for me is a 50/50 wrong) so if even on the hard text I can assure two right one it should be good enough.
I also have a new question linked to my yesterday GMAT prep if you know the answer it would be kind:
I did notice that my GMAT prep Quant is WAYYYYYYY much easy than my MGMAT questions (I even finished with 2 minutes left.... while I am usually rushing for the MGMAT which helped me a lot to solve every single last question right in this second GMAT prep). I see two reasons for this :
- MGMAT is a very good training material in quant and try to teach a lot of reflex about formulas, and fixed relations ? The reverse is that when you dont know or remember these relations it s sometime very hard to solve the problems while in GMAT prep you usually always got an intuitive way of solving the problems even if you dont remember the trick , it will just take a bit more time (I didnt say the trick are not useful they are helping to save a LOOOTT of time).
- Questions are more Easy !
Question : Do you think it s because :
- GMAT prep comes with a fix bank of question which is supposed to be for average test taker (so around a 600 score if I understood well...) and lack of hard question so the score are not really accurate for 700+ because the saving in time is so big than it becomes easy ?
-I was "lucky" on this second GMAT prep but I shouldn't expect question to be that easy in the real test ?
-MGMAT questions are designed to be hard on quant to be sure to teach people lessons ? (even if the score is calculate to reflect this my score was not That different even if I get 3 times less wrong answers and 15 rights in a row MAT prep)
If the answer is yes for the two first points then I have to discount my score a bit from GMAT prep and still work harded for the end...
I know the usual answer is that GMAT prep is supposed to be closer to the real thing but I am a bit suspicious with this answer because :
1) as written on mba website 66% of test taker score btw 400 and 600 so the software to be more accurate SHOULD be design first to be exact with this range of score...
2) People willing to pay for a company such as MGMAT to get a better score show a motivation maybe higher than those who are not, and certainly got a longer preparation (this is a free assumption I make, not based on facts...) so they are probably in AVERAGE scoring a bit higher thus maybe soft like MGMAT could be more accurate for higher score while GMAT prep could be more accurate for average score . I dont know it s just a question.
John
First thanks for your answer.
AWA Ok I get it. So I need to do it well and to focus. (I think 4.5 is already not that easy , you see how I am writing and how tiring it is to read it).
I will reply your questions in the wrong order but : I am not really in the 700 + just on the unsafe border. I took my second GMAT PREP yesterday so I can add the related data too.
All my test are made under condition including essays, break, and food, same time in the day. I took once every two weeks but at different days of the week depending on my obligations.
My first GMAT Prep was a 660 (I didnt include it in my previous mail because I dont have the split between V and Q in the scoring, at that time I didnt know it s not possible to see it back ....)
1st MGMAT CAT : 680 Q 47 V 35.
2nd MGMAT CAT : 700 Q 47 V 38
2nd GMAT PREP : 710 Q 50 V 36 . (I didnt see any question I already know consciously as far as I know so I take it being a real score).
I did poorly explain myself : I am not aiming at a 770 for the practice test which I will probably never reach except if I finally break this SC problem, if I am lucky , and in a Good day at the same time which is a lot to ask. I am aiming at a 720 for the practice test and a 700 for the real one. Anyway I think I will be out of hard question for CR before doing 6 tests and that then the score will not be accurate so there is no point at doing this. You told in other post that the deviation is in average around 50 btw MGMAT and Real GMAT. I did subjectively divide this deviation by 2 because :
a) I am pressure and stress resistant due to professional experience actually it could even give me a boost-kick (? sorry if it doesnt exist)
b) Deviation of 50 means 50 up and 50 down so the possibility of getting down is partly compensate by the reverse one which is a kind of bet but we have to take risk.
SO I arrived to the stupid and subjective conclusion that I could be fairly confident to reach 695 if I get 720 in the mock tests.
For the pattern of wrong answers :
GMAT PREP 1 : 660
Q : 5 in the first half , 4 in the second half evenly spread. No row.
V : 5 in the first half, 6 in the second half. 1 CR, 2 RC, 8 SC. 1 row of 4 wrong including 2SC and 2 RC. one other row of 2 SC.
MGMAT CAT 1 : 680 - 47 / 35
Q : 8 in the first half, 7 in the second. Evenly spread. 5 rows of 2 wrong A.
V : 7 in the first half, 10 in the second. 4 CR, 5 RC, 8 SC. 4 rows of 2 wrong A. including two times RC.
MGMAT CAT 2 : 700 - 47 / 38
Q : 8 in the first half, 9 in the second. 1 row of 5 wrongs, 1 row of 3 wrongs, 2 rows of 2 wrongs.
V : 9 in the first half, 7 in the second. 3 CR, 4 RC, 9 SC. 4 rows of 2 wrongs. including 2 RC. (I think there is one mistake in a RC question about LCD as shown in this post : http://www.manhattangmat.com/forums/disagree-with-question-t7434.html )
GMAT PREP 2 : 710 - 50 / 36
Q : 5 in the first half, 1 in the second.
V : 2 in the first half, 7 in the second. 2 CR, 3 RC, 4 SC. 1 row of 3 wrong and 1 row of 4 wrongs. Including a row of 3 RC .
The food idea is interesting and I am going to explore that, I am not quite sure about what are complex carbs but some research will help. Unfortunately I am living somewhere where I hardly understand what is the composition of the foods and barely know half of the things I am eating (even if it s good...). Are we allowed to take a vitamin during the test ? Maybe just a Vitamin C at the end of the Math section or during the break could be enough to stay focus for the last hour before getting excited.
For the verbal part I am totally unable to see the difference btw a hard question and a not hard one , SC I dont know when I am wrong or not. CR the problem is usually not the question but sometime I am missing one or two words of vocabulary which can be importants and force me to guess btw two answers. RC it s because I can not focus the text.
Why I wanted to focus on the RC is not because I have so much wrong answer but because It s more likely linked to a physical problem and ALSO because it s where I get ROWS of wrong answers (and you can bet that before or after the text I will have a SC which for me is a 50/50 wrong) so if even on the hard text I can assure two right one it should be good enough.
I also have a new question linked to my yesterday GMAT prep if you know the answer it would be kind:
I did notice that my GMAT prep Quant is WAYYYYYYY much easy than my MGMAT questions (I even finished with 2 minutes left.... while I am usually rushing for the MGMAT which helped me a lot to solve every single last question right in this second GMAT prep). I see two reasons for this :
- MGMAT is a very good training material in quant and try to teach a lot of reflex about formulas, and fixed relations ? The reverse is that when you dont know or remember these relations it s sometime very hard to solve the problems while in GMAT prep you usually always got an intuitive way of solving the problems even if you dont remember the trick , it will just take a bit more time (I didnt say the trick are not useful they are helping to save a LOOOTT of time).
- Questions are more Easy !
Question : Do you think it s because :
- GMAT prep comes with a fix bank of question which is supposed to be for average test taker (so around a 600 score if I understood well...) and lack of hard question so the score are not really accurate for 700+ because the saving in time is so big than it becomes easy ?
-I was "lucky" on this second GMAT prep but I shouldn't expect question to be that easy in the real test ?
-MGMAT questions are designed to be hard on quant to be sure to teach people lessons ? (even if the score is calculate to reflect this my score was not That different even if I get 3 times less wrong answers and 15 rights in a row MAT prep)
If the answer is yes for the two first points then I have to discount my score a bit from GMAT prep and still work harded for the end...
I know the usual answer is that GMAT prep is supposed to be closer to the real thing but I am a bit suspicious with this answer because :
1) as written on mba website 66% of test taker score btw 400 and 600 so the software to be more accurate SHOULD be design first to be exact with this range of score...
2) People willing to pay for a company such as MGMAT to get a better score show a motivation maybe higher than those who are not, and certainly got a longer preparation (this is a free assumption I make, not based on facts...) so they are probably in AVERAGE scoring a bit higher thus maybe soft like MGMAT could be more accurate for higher score while GMAT prep could be more accurate for average score . I dont know it s just a question.
John
- StaceyKoprince
- ManhattanGMAT Staff
- Posts: 9361
- Joined: Wed Oct 19, 2005 9:05 am
- Location: Montreal
Re: RC Stamina and AWA
Interesting questions. And I understand your goals better now.
Your overall score is showing steady progress, as is your quant subscore for the three tests for which you have that data. Your verbal score is a little up and down.
I understand your desire to try to keep the "string of wrong answers" stat down by concentrating on RC. That is one important thing we need to worry about, though not the only thing, obviously. (And, FYI, 2 in a row wrong is not really a big deal - 4+ is a problem.)
You also consistently have more SCs wrong than other things, so that's another area for focus. CR looks like your best area (though I would want to couple the data you've given with data about the difficulty levels to know all of this for sure).
The one thing you might want to try with SC: treat it more like math. When you do a math problem, and you see a certain word or symbol, you know what that problem is telling you to do, right? I see a multiplication symbol and I know what that means. I see the word "ratio" and I know how to write the numbers they gave.
Well, SC can be like that: you see a certain thing and it tells you what to do. What you need to see - and recognize - are specific differences (also called "splits") in the answers. When I see "has / has / have / have / have" then I know subject-verb agreement is an issue. That one might be easy to see. When I see "to / for / as / for / to" then I know it's probably an idiom or parallelism issue (because those are the most common things that would be signaled by a changing preposition).
Learning how to do this requires two things (besides knowing the grammar, obviously):
1) scanning choices vertically to look for differences / splits
2) recognizing a particular set of differences / splits when you see it
#2 means you actually have to study what sets of differences you're likely to see and what rule(s) you should think about based upon a particular difference. So - kind of like math, when you see a particular thing and that tells you one or two other things you should think about as a result.
You can do this via flash cards or a two-column document. One side / column has the actual split you noticed in a problem (OG only, please) and the other side / column has the particular rule or rules you should think about based on that split.
Oh, for complex carbs, think "whole grain" - maybe whole grain bread with tuna salad or peanut butter. NOT white bread - whole grain carbs will last a lot longer in your body. :)
It's not unusual for people to feel GMATPrep quant is easier, especially those scoring at the high end. There may be something to what you say re: the pool of very hard questions available - maybe the GMATPrep question pool isn't as big as it is on the real test (we don't know for sure). But the questions aren't fixed - it's still adaptive and it should still be giving you the most accurate practice test score available.
Probably the single biggest factor is something you didn't mention: experimentals. The real test has experimental questions and those questions are not tied to any particular difficulty level (in fact, that's one of the main reasons the questions are experimental - the test makers are trying to determine the question's difficulty level). As such, anyone can get an experimental question that is at any difficulty level. The higher you are, the more likely you will be to get experimentals that are easy (or very easy!) for you. These are mini mental breaks, and they also allow you to save some time.
Our test doesn't have experimentals - so you never get that mini break or that easy way to save time. We could have allowed the algorithm to toss in some easy ones, but we decided not to do so. We think it's better for students to really have to push themselves - it's better to be overprepared than underprepared.
You are right that our average students score higher on the test than the average population of test-takers. (Last I checked, I think our students averaged about a 670 or 680 on the real test.) As such, we are of course trying to push our students and accommodate their higher scoring needs. But the single biggest factor, as I mentioned above, is the experimental nature of some questions (on both quant and verbal, actually, but it's usually more noticeable on quant because more people have timing pressure there).
Your overall score is showing steady progress, as is your quant subscore for the three tests for which you have that data. Your verbal score is a little up and down.
I understand your desire to try to keep the "string of wrong answers" stat down by concentrating on RC. That is one important thing we need to worry about, though not the only thing, obviously. (And, FYI, 2 in a row wrong is not really a big deal - 4+ is a problem.)
You also consistently have more SCs wrong than other things, so that's another area for focus. CR looks like your best area (though I would want to couple the data you've given with data about the difficulty levels to know all of this for sure).
The one thing you might want to try with SC: treat it more like math. When you do a math problem, and you see a certain word or symbol, you know what that problem is telling you to do, right? I see a multiplication symbol and I know what that means. I see the word "ratio" and I know how to write the numbers they gave.
Well, SC can be like that: you see a certain thing and it tells you what to do. What you need to see - and recognize - are specific differences (also called "splits") in the answers. When I see "has / has / have / have / have" then I know subject-verb agreement is an issue. That one might be easy to see. When I see "to / for / as / for / to" then I know it's probably an idiom or parallelism issue (because those are the most common things that would be signaled by a changing preposition).
Learning how to do this requires two things (besides knowing the grammar, obviously):
1) scanning choices vertically to look for differences / splits
2) recognizing a particular set of differences / splits when you see it
#2 means you actually have to study what sets of differences you're likely to see and what rule(s) you should think about based upon a particular difference. So - kind of like math, when you see a particular thing and that tells you one or two other things you should think about as a result.
You can do this via flash cards or a two-column document. One side / column has the actual split you noticed in a problem (OG only, please) and the other side / column has the particular rule or rules you should think about based on that split.
Oh, for complex carbs, think "whole grain" - maybe whole grain bread with tuna salad or peanut butter. NOT white bread - whole grain carbs will last a lot longer in your body. :)
It's not unusual for people to feel GMATPrep quant is easier, especially those scoring at the high end. There may be something to what you say re: the pool of very hard questions available - maybe the GMATPrep question pool isn't as big as it is on the real test (we don't know for sure). But the questions aren't fixed - it's still adaptive and it should still be giving you the most accurate practice test score available.
Probably the single biggest factor is something you didn't mention: experimentals. The real test has experimental questions and those questions are not tied to any particular difficulty level (in fact, that's one of the main reasons the questions are experimental - the test makers are trying to determine the question's difficulty level). As such, anyone can get an experimental question that is at any difficulty level. The higher you are, the more likely you will be to get experimentals that are easy (or very easy!) for you. These are mini mental breaks, and they also allow you to save some time.
Our test doesn't have experimentals - so you never get that mini break or that easy way to save time. We could have allowed the algorithm to toss in some easy ones, but we decided not to do so. We think it's better for students to really have to push themselves - it's better to be overprepared than underprepared.
You are right that our average students score higher on the test than the average population of test-takers. (Last I checked, I think our students averaged about a 670 or 680 on the real test.) As such, we are of course trying to push our students and accommodate their higher scoring needs. But the single biggest factor, as I mentioned above, is the experimental nature of some questions (on both quant and verbal, actually, but it's usually more noticeable on quant because more people have timing pressure there).
Stacey Koprince
Instructor
Director, Content & Curriculum
ManhattanPrep
Instructor
Director, Content & Curriculum
ManhattanPrep
- jonathanc
- Students
- Posts: 20
- Joined: Wed Jul 22, 2009 6:34 pm
Re: RC Stamina and AWA
Stacey ,
Complete answers as always thanks.
For the CR, yes dont need to check this definitively my best area and I will certainly not improve it now before the test. The datas about the difficulty can only be extracted from MGMAT I dont know for Prep :
Critical Reasoning
Total 28 question 21 right 7 wrongs 75% 1:44 average right answer 2:11 average wrong answer.
Average right answer level : 700 Average wrong answer level : 750
500 - 600 2 question 2 rights 100% right 1:32 average time
600 - 700 7 questions 7 rights 100% 1:31 average time
700 - 800 19 questions 12 rights 7 wrongs 63% 1:54 avg time right 2:11 avg time wrong.
Most of my wrong answer in CR come from english subtility hesitation or details stupidly not taken into accounts, I will probably not work on that anymore.
For the SC actually I am already trying to use your method which is the only one I found out to be working till now , It s working especially well with parralelism sentences, Subjects / verb agreement, but I didnt try the flash card thing I will give it a try. Mainly my main problem in SC is that I cannot decide how to apply the rules. I guess it s hard for somebody speaking naturally english to understand (actually in my own language same I am not able to explain the rules anymore to somebody learning it even if i speak without mistake i finally end by saying : well you know it s like that) but to give you some example (just a few among a lot of problems to let you know - I am not expecting an english lesson and an explanation on these problems here you would need to spend a whole life for that ) :
- countable /uncountable ? I know the rule but for example a question was talking about dioxins exposition (OG 80) and I decided thus that it was uncountable. It turned out it should have been countable (I dont want to know how...).
- "it" 's antecedent : I like when the antecedent is unclear so I can dismiss the it but unfortunately sometime the OG is telling that in those particular case because the form of the verb are same or for whatever other reason the antecedend is supposed to be clear even if the sentence is Km long and not more clear that some basic daily sentences that nobody can mistaken but which are supposedly unclear. Again I am supposed to know the rule (I got the MGMAT book which is very good) but they are just so many few exceptions that I cannot remember to scan everything otherwise I would have to spend one hour per question...
-Modifier : SHould be always near the modified name. always ? ho no not in that specific case you see because it s very clear that this very small preposition can be put in between .....
-Verb tenses and mods + participle (why the hell sometime you can write to + ing...) are just a bloody pain the ass ...
I made a research about carbs I know what it is now I didnt know it was called like that in english. Your suggestion about food is very good, and I am expecting a lot from it on my mental stamina for the end of the test. I am already trying to change my diet and will keep that way till the test. I need to check the right way to have a boost for the last hour and I am sure that My verbal should get a bit better (even SC why not, my OG result are a little bit better than when doing the CAT).
Experimentals is very good news It means I will certainly have more time to finish the test even if per my experience in CAT I have to stick with a very thight schedule till having done half of the questions and consider only single question timing until I am sure that I am in advance and that I can spend more time per question. Nevertheless I dont see how it can influence GMAT Prep score as the question are old one they are not subject to experiment anymore.
Anyway thanks for all these informations it is helping a lot , now I have to try to use them and make the best of them.
John
Complete answers as always thanks.
For the CR, yes dont need to check this definitively my best area and I will certainly not improve it now before the test. The datas about the difficulty can only be extracted from MGMAT I dont know for Prep :
Critical Reasoning
Total 28 question 21 right 7 wrongs 75% 1:44 average right answer 2:11 average wrong answer.
Average right answer level : 700 Average wrong answer level : 750
500 - 600 2 question 2 rights 100% right 1:32 average time
600 - 700 7 questions 7 rights 100% 1:31 average time
700 - 800 19 questions 12 rights 7 wrongs 63% 1:54 avg time right 2:11 avg time wrong.
Most of my wrong answer in CR come from english subtility hesitation or details stupidly not taken into accounts, I will probably not work on that anymore.
For the SC actually I am already trying to use your method which is the only one I found out to be working till now , It s working especially well with parralelism sentences, Subjects / verb agreement, but I didnt try the flash card thing I will give it a try. Mainly my main problem in SC is that I cannot decide how to apply the rules. I guess it s hard for somebody speaking naturally english to understand (actually in my own language same I am not able to explain the rules anymore to somebody learning it even if i speak without mistake i finally end by saying : well you know it s like that) but to give you some example (just a few among a lot of problems to let you know - I am not expecting an english lesson and an explanation on these problems here you would need to spend a whole life for that ) :
- countable /uncountable ? I know the rule but for example a question was talking about dioxins exposition (OG 80) and I decided thus that it was uncountable. It turned out it should have been countable (I dont want to know how...).
- "it" 's antecedent : I like when the antecedent is unclear so I can dismiss the it but unfortunately sometime the OG is telling that in those particular case because the form of the verb are same or for whatever other reason the antecedend is supposed to be clear even if the sentence is Km long and not more clear that some basic daily sentences that nobody can mistaken but which are supposedly unclear. Again I am supposed to know the rule (I got the MGMAT book which is very good) but they are just so many few exceptions that I cannot remember to scan everything otherwise I would have to spend one hour per question...
-Modifier : SHould be always near the modified name. always ? ho no not in that specific case you see because it s very clear that this very small preposition can be put in between .....
-Verb tenses and mods + participle (why the hell sometime you can write to + ing...) are just a bloody pain the ass ...
I made a research about carbs I know what it is now I didnt know it was called like that in english. Your suggestion about food is very good, and I am expecting a lot from it on my mental stamina for the end of the test. I am already trying to change my diet and will keep that way till the test. I need to check the right way to have a boost for the last hour and I am sure that My verbal should get a bit better (even SC why not, my OG result are a little bit better than when doing the CAT).
Experimentals is very good news It means I will certainly have more time to finish the test even if per my experience in CAT I have to stick with a very thight schedule till having done half of the questions and consider only single question timing until I am sure that I am in advance and that I can spend more time per question. Nevertheless I dont see how it can influence GMAT Prep score as the question are old one they are not subject to experiment anymore.
Anyway thanks for all these informations it is helping a lot , now I have to try to use them and make the best of them.
John
- StaceyKoprince
- ManhattanGMAT Staff
- Posts: 9361
- Joined: Wed Oct 19, 2005 9:05 am
- Location: Montreal
Re: RC Stamina and AWA
Good luck - I hope your studying is going well.
Re: the grammar stuff, yes, the exceptions to the rules are what make hard questions so hard. The rules apply most of the time but there is almost always some exception to pretty much every rule. You don't need to know how to deal with that unless you're going for a very high score (and 720, of course, is a very high score). You can use that technique I described in my last post to help you with this too - learn what exceptions are acceptable and what they look like in correct vs. incorrect form (that is, what do the differences in the answer choices look like?) to help you spot when the exceptions are used correctly vs. incorrectly.
Re: the grammar stuff, yes, the exceptions to the rules are what make hard questions so hard. The rules apply most of the time but there is almost always some exception to pretty much every rule. You don't need to know how to deal with that unless you're going for a very high score (and 720, of course, is a very high score). You can use that technique I described in my last post to help you with this too - learn what exceptions are acceptable and what they look like in correct vs. incorrect form (that is, what do the differences in the answer choices look like?) to help you spot when the exceptions are used correctly vs. incorrectly.
Stacey Koprince
Instructor
Director, Content & Curriculum
ManhattanPrep
Instructor
Director, Content & Curriculum
ManhattanPrep
- jonathanc
- Students
- Posts: 20
- Joined: Wed Jul 22, 2009 6:34 pm
Re: RC Stamina and AWA
Stacey,
A last post on this forum to WARMLY thank you for your advices and great inputs.
I passed the test this morning and my unofficial report (I guess there is no reason for it to change...) shows a score of 750 (Q50 93% V41 92%) even if I still dont have the Awa result (hope it s 4.5 as you said). It is much higher than my initial target and a higher than my initial hopes.
I think that this score is made from
-10% of luck (I didnt have these dreaded medicine articles in verbal, only interesting things about history*2, economy and agriculture, I still remember very well three of them so I really consider myself lucky)
-40% of work
-20 % of your timing advices,
-20 % of your food advices. I definitively changed my diet since you told me about this method. I found the right combo for me (Kiwi, bananas, whole weat bread, fresh orange juice for the test all already ready to eat in a plastic box. Polenta/Pasta/fish/shrimp days before) and I was not really tired during the end of the exam.
-10 % of stress management that I learned in previous job which help me to perform better under stressful condition than without.
I will not write a long post to relate my study method as I saw before since I guess nobody have the same problems, but if it can help anybody here is two or three toughts on different thing beyond preparation (Actually reading others opinion about the test helped me to prepare myself mentally and also to not arrive in an unknow environnement) :
-MGMAT Quant Test is definitively harder than real stuff for the score I get. 2 reasons :
*Essentially due to timing as we discussed before. As you said I saw a lot of question which were really really easy and helped me to save time, thus even if I know you strongly advise to not do so I spent some 4 minutes on few very hard questions. I dont advise anybody to do the same and every time I first checked the time KNOWING what I was doing only allowing myself to use time on questions as long as I kept a GLOBAL advance on the whole sequence (I was always ahead of the clock not behind I fnished 2 second before the end) and only for question that I knew I would definitively solve.
* If my opinion is any value I think for non- native speaker MGMAT questions are way to wordy in the 700-800 range. Sometimes I had to spend until 40 second only to understand the question in MGMAT question and after the reading the question themselves were hard to solve and requested long time as well. On the real test I met only 2 wordy questions and NONE of them was hard to solve after understanding the question. SO after understanding the question all the work was done.
-For SC I think it s very psychological for non native like me, finally if you pay attention to every exercices in the OG the test dont really provide new stuffs and you certainly have met every problem once before with other words. Just know long sentence = modifier + pronoun + verb, and/ both etc = parallelism etc...
-Even if some people say on different forums that OG problem are easy for quant the real test was of the same level as the one at the end I think (maybe for higher scores than mine is it true?). The only difference is that you have to read it on a computer screen. The best thing to get the same feeling is to work on GMAT Prep again and again, not for the score but just to have the exact feeling (reading a question on a computer, solving it on a scratch etc...). Something that is not emphasises enough is that GMAT Prep is 1000% identical to the real exam even the colour and the characters...
-Break ARE important , 3 people passed the test at the same time as I did and I think none of them were actually using their break except to go to the washroom. I dont understand how it is possible, I am just exhausted and resting was very useful. I even used the one minute tutorial between each phase to stretch before it starts again.
So Stacey Thanks again , and good luck for future test takers.
Kind Regards,
John
A last post on this forum to WARMLY thank you for your advices and great inputs.
I passed the test this morning and my unofficial report (I guess there is no reason for it to change...) shows a score of 750 (Q50 93% V41 92%) even if I still dont have the Awa result (hope it s 4.5 as you said). It is much higher than my initial target and a higher than my initial hopes.
I think that this score is made from
-10% of luck (I didnt have these dreaded medicine articles in verbal, only interesting things about history*2, economy and agriculture, I still remember very well three of them so I really consider myself lucky)
-40% of work
-20 % of your timing advices,
-20 % of your food advices. I definitively changed my diet since you told me about this method. I found the right combo for me (Kiwi, bananas, whole weat bread, fresh orange juice for the test all already ready to eat in a plastic box. Polenta/Pasta/fish/shrimp days before) and I was not really tired during the end of the exam.
-10 % of stress management that I learned in previous job which help me to perform better under stressful condition than without.
I will not write a long post to relate my study method as I saw before since I guess nobody have the same problems, but if it can help anybody here is two or three toughts on different thing beyond preparation (Actually reading others opinion about the test helped me to prepare myself mentally and also to not arrive in an unknow environnement) :
-MGMAT Quant Test is definitively harder than real stuff for the score I get. 2 reasons :
*Essentially due to timing as we discussed before. As you said I saw a lot of question which were really really easy and helped me to save time, thus even if I know you strongly advise to not do so I spent some 4 minutes on few very hard questions. I dont advise anybody to do the same and every time I first checked the time KNOWING what I was doing only allowing myself to use time on questions as long as I kept a GLOBAL advance on the whole sequence (I was always ahead of the clock not behind I fnished 2 second before the end) and only for question that I knew I would definitively solve.
* If my opinion is any value I think for non- native speaker MGMAT questions are way to wordy in the 700-800 range. Sometimes I had to spend until 40 second only to understand the question in MGMAT question and after the reading the question themselves were hard to solve and requested long time as well. On the real test I met only 2 wordy questions and NONE of them was hard to solve after understanding the question. SO after understanding the question all the work was done.
-For SC I think it s very psychological for non native like me, finally if you pay attention to every exercices in the OG the test dont really provide new stuffs and you certainly have met every problem once before with other words. Just know long sentence = modifier + pronoun + verb, and/ both etc = parallelism etc...
-Even if some people say on different forums that OG problem are easy for quant the real test was of the same level as the one at the end I think (maybe for higher scores than mine is it true?). The only difference is that you have to read it on a computer screen. The best thing to get the same feeling is to work on GMAT Prep again and again, not for the score but just to have the exact feeling (reading a question on a computer, solving it on a scratch etc...). Something that is not emphasises enough is that GMAT Prep is 1000% identical to the real exam even the colour and the characters...
-Break ARE important , 3 people passed the test at the same time as I did and I think none of them were actually using their break except to go to the washroom. I dont understand how it is possible, I am just exhausted and resting was very useful. I even used the one minute tutorial between each phase to stretch before it starts again.
So Stacey Thanks again , and good luck for future test takers.
Kind Regards,
John
- StaceyKoprince
- ManhattanGMAT Staff
- Posts: 9361
- Joined: Wed Oct 19, 2005 9:05 am
- Location: Montreal
Re: RC Stamina and AWA
That's exciting! I'm really happy for you. And thanks for the kind words - we're happy to help. (But you had to do all of the hard work yourself!)
Good luck with apps - let us know how things go!
Good luck with apps - let us know how things go!
Stacey Koprince
Instructor
Director, Content & Curriculum
ManhattanPrep
Instructor
Director, Content & Curriculum
ManhattanPrep
8 posts Page 1 of 1