Retake (640 q49, v27)

[prinka.shar]

Hi Stacey/Ron,

I read many of your compilations and suggestions. They are very logical and helpful. I tried searching some historic cases like me but could not find any. so had to bug you like this. I need your help specific to my preparation if you can spare little amount of time from your busy schedules.

Firstly, I would like to make you aware of my current stand.
I have taken gmat twice till now. First take 610(q47, v26, 5.5) and second just yesterday 640(q49,v27, awa awaiting).
Preparation 3 months:
First take all Manhattan guides both verbal and quant.
prepared notes from these books. But never did advance chapters for SC. GmatClub quant tests and verbal question bank GmatClub.

Retake Preparations:
1000CR accuracy almost 90% with around 2.5 min per question,
OG companion for quant(only the hard questions and found it very helpful)
gmatclub for SC question bank 700+ questions... took help from your forums too.
OG 13 OG 10 OG 11 almost same,

Manhattan guides SC CR RC for theory .

I had the big time issue with whole underline SC's and the modifiers issues. But in the end I was able to figure out the answer in SCs (without timing constraints) mostly in 2 min.

For RC I am not good basically non native speaker so... and have very unpredictable accuracy. Its like sometimes even if i give 20 minutes to a passage i am not able to hit the correct answers . I am that bad. I read your RC strategies book i know all strategies by heart those signal words skeleton approach i make notes also. Till now what i concluded is that i am not yet comfortable with the language maybe to comprehend well enough. Do you recommend me reading some novels etc before practicing RC ?

But for SC and CR I don't know what else I need to do . I mean there is definitely a gap between my approach and the required approach.

Secondly, My Mock Scores are totally messed up:

Manhattan 2 610
Manhattan 3 640
Manhattan 4 680
Manhattan 5 610

Princeton 610
Veritas 610

GmatPrep: 640, 640 both times.

Before my Retake : Below in sequence.
Kaplan online 710
Manhattan 2 710(seen few CR questions and two passages)
Veritas 650
GmatPrep: 650
Manhattan 3 650
Manhattan 4 600(missed last 6 question quant verbal was 32)
GmatPrep 2 680
Manhattan 5 640 (again quant issues major and verbal 30)
(a day before my exam).

In all the exams above i never got below 30 in any of the verbal section.

As per my analysis, I think the higher score are not the accurate because i remembered few of the SCs and infact RCs too.


Finally, My Exam Day Blunder: missed 2 min before verbal section.
I had my exam yesterday. I was in very good shape mentally.
I did my awa wrote around 700+ words passage with valid points and elaborations.

Then, finished my IR 5 mins before time.
Again, finished my quant 10 min before the allocated time.
I was aware this is the main game for me verbal part so i kept saying myself inch by inch speech by al pacino. (although it helped me otherwise i don't know may be i would have pushed my score way below this one). infact i saw my last question and said this is the inch. But BAMM,, score is 640 :(

HORROR part: :(
in between my quant and verbal sectional break an instructor came in rushed towards me and said your time is over. and I was eating biscuits and I got panicked and ran towards my seat. there when I reached I missed my 1 and half min already. they prompted with a message that this time will be deducted from your sectional time and rushed skipping the instructions and got panicked I guess I did my first three questions in that mental state. Then I don't know why on earth. I got two RCs back to back the big lengthy one in my first 15 questions. but i managed to make notes skeleton one and answer questions god knows right or wrong.

Current Plan:

As per my analysis i need to do Manhattan SC again with OG analysis for each question 2 chapters a day.

CR: need to practice with strict timings constraint.

RC: 4 passages together a day in one short with timings with deep analysis from various forum. + one good novel may be atlus shrugged.

Quant: keep practicing 10 DS and 10 PS from GmatClub question bank.

I am planning to retake after a month because i am getting married next month this is the last time I can prepare otherwise i have to live with him and be a housewife throughout my life :'( . Although he is very motivating. Please suggest what should i follow next whether I need to change my approach totally.

CHALLENGE AHEAD: How can I gauge myself now. as I have exhausted almost all the tests in market. For gmatprep I almost remember all the answers so not point taking it again.

Looking forward for your valuable review.

[StaceyKoprince]

Thanks for all of the detail - that's useful.

You mention avg CR time fo 2.5 min and avg SC time of 2 min. I can tell just from those numbers that you have a timing problem - CR needs to average about 2m and SC needs to average about 1m20s.

You can have a little flexibility to go a bit longer on one type if you're faster (but still consistent) on another type... but you don't describe that happening.

So the timing needs to be fixed first of all.

Second of all, I'm guessing that you had stamina issues for two reasons. First, I'm going to guess that you didn't always do the essay and IR - which would mean that you were more mentally alert during verbal on practice tests. That would make the real test a lot harder for you.

Second, you mention taking a practice test the day before the real thing and you also took 8 practice tests during your re-take prep. That's too much! My guess is that you were trying to do more and more and more - hoping that if you just did enough, you'd get the score that you wanted - but quantity isn't your goal. The quality of your prep is far more important. Quantity is just likely to tire you out and cause even more problems on test day.

Now I'm looking at your plan and... yes, you're going for quantity again. It's not about how MUCH you do. It's about how WELL you study what you study. Do less, but study more effectively.

Read this (right now):
https://www.manhattangmat.com/blog/inde ... lly-tests/

Does that give you an idea of how your approach so far has been problematic? You've been approaching this like it's a school test - and that's not what this is.

Now read this:
http://www.manhattangmat.com/blog/index ... -the-gmat/

This will help you address your timing issues:
http://www.manhattangmat.com/blog/index ... -to-do-it/
http://www.manhattangmat.com/blog/index ... nt-part-1/

From what you'd described, my guess is that you'll need closer to 6 weeks (maybe 8) to work out these issues. Do you have some leeway on when you can take the test again?

Don't take another practice test for at least 3 to 4 weeks. You already know what your strengths and weaknesses are (or you can look at those tests to know). Don't even study those questions - forget about them. Then, in about a month, you can try one of the tests again (the one that you took longest ago, so that you'll have forgotten as many of the questions as possible).

Use the below to analyze your most recent MGMAT CAT(s):
http://www.manhattangmat.com/blog/index ... ice-tests/

Think about that data in conjunction with the other articles I posted above. 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 can give you some materials already on CR and RC though:
https://www.manhattangmat.com/blog/inde ... reasoning/

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