Strategy - Should I /How to Focus on 600-700 level Quant

[hidden]

Hello!

I just took my third practice exam, and I was pretty disappointed with my results - I got a 650 which was what I scored on my first practice test before I started the program. (I used the timing strategies suggested in the roadmap book, and I've been through all of the texts and many OG problems.) After reviewing my practice tests (with the aid of various articles on the site - so helpful!) I think what I need to do is focus on the 600-700 level quant questions and be sure that I am comfortably getting most of those right - there were some areas where I was answering below 50% right in this level, and I'd like to be at a much higher percentage so I am really working mostly in the 700-800 level questions.

I plan on using the strategies suggested in the roadmap book (I call them sprints -- 10 questions timed in 20 minutes) to practice my timing and thinking, but I'd really like to focus on the 600-700 level questions. Is there a range within the OG & quant supplement for problem solving and data sufficiency that I should focus on to be hitting this difficulty level?

Also, does this sound like a good strategy? I know that I have some timing problems -- and I also guess too much. I think this way I can practice the material and work on connecting problems to strategies much faster. Is there anything else you would suggest?

Thank you!

(PS - I've got 3 weeks left till the exam!)

[StaceyKoprince]

I understand where you're coming from, but I really wouldn't think of it as "give me a bank of 600-700 questions and I'll do only those." Even if such a thing existed, I would tell you not to use it. :) Basically, that kind of grouping doesn't serve you well because there are some areas where you're totally fine already with 6-7 level Qs and others where you might struggle even with 5-6 level Qs. Your strengths and weaknesses will always have a range across different kinds of problems and topics.

The real isse: can you can do the one question that's sitting in front of you right now, both accurately and efficiently? It ultimately doesn't matter what the question's level is - just, can you do this one right now?

Now, yes, if you're going to do question sets from OG and you discover, oh, when I do questions numbered lower than (for example) 30, I answer them all correctly in 1m each - okay, those are too easy for you, so move up the food chain to higher-numbered problems. But there might be others that, right now, you're answering just fine in 1.5m or 2m... and yet you could actually learn how to shave 10 or 15 or 30 seconds off of those problems, and you could actually use those to learn to spot certain traps or figure out how to make educated guesses, all of which will help you on harder problems of the same type. So you don't want to skip / neglect those just because you can already do them.

The MOST important thing is analyzing the problems (to death!) after you've finished doing them so that you're extracting maximum possible learning from each one.

Read the "how to learn" section of this article:
http://www.manhattangmat.com/blog/index ... an-part-2/

And follow the links to the other articles mentioned in that section.

So, very generally, don't do the very lowest-numbered OG problems or the very highest-numbered ones, but really the vast bulk in the middle is fair game for you right now. You don't want to do *only* the ones that are hard for you right now, because there's still a lot to learn on ones that you can already get right.

You mention some timing issues and that's all tied up in this as well. Often, we learn more efficient ways of doing something, or we learn how to recognize what to do, by examining / thinking about problems that we DID get right already. Again, see the stuff up above about how to learn.

Finally, your last line mentions that you've got 3 weeks till exam day. How far are you from your goal score? Just keep an eye on that - things really start to come together at the end of the course and after it's over, because that's when you can start to focus more on the big picture and overall strategy vs. learning very specific rules, techniques, etc. That's also when the timing starts to come together better. You may discover that you would benefit from an extra week or two if you feel like your progress is really starting to ramp up over the next couple of weeks.

[hidden]

Hi Stacey,

Thanks so much for your advice. Just wanted to let you know that I've done a bunch of review -- including lots of timed sprints to practice my timing skills and a review of guessing strategies! I went up to a 670 on my next MGMAT practice test and a 730 on the GMAT PREP!.

One of the changes I made between my fourth CAAT (670) and the GMAT prep test was that I stopped using the "watertight quant timing" suggested (where you check timing every 10 minutes) and switched to one of the other methods suggested by MGMAT (checking 4 times during the exam at 60 min, 45 min, 30 min, and 15 min). I did this because I noticed that I would get very nervous during my practice exams about timing, but when I was doing my timed sets I was always coming in at the end of my 20Q sets with some (maybe 3-4 min) time to spare! I just wanted to share this with the forum in case anyone else can benefit from the idea --> I felt much less nervous about timing on my last exam, and I do think it helped me to improve my quant. (Along with all the other work I've been doing!)

Thanks again for the advice!

[StaceyKoprince]

Awesome! And thanks so much for sharing your timing experience. Yes, there are multiple ways to keep track of time and different things work better for different people, so I encourage everyone to do what hidden did and try various approaches to see what works best for you.

I'll also point out that hidden was paying attention to his/her performance and analyzing the situation (noticing that s/he finished a few minutes early in sets of 20m) - that's why hidden was able to figure out that a different approach might be better for him / her. Pay attention to the data and think about what it might mean! :)