Strategy to next GMAT (Latest: 680, 44Q/38V)

[gtckim]

Hi Stacey,

I went ahead and ordered the ESR out of curiosity (thanks for pointing out it could be done for cancelled scores!) and as I suspected it seems I will need to improve my verbal across the board, with particular attention to CR and RC. Overall though I think I also got a bit unlucky and/or careless, because I traditionally perform higher in those subjects. Regardless, I'll work on perfecting those as much as I can, with continued "maintenance" of quant subjects to make it more second-nature.

Now that I have been studying GMAT materials for a while, I have nearly exhausted all of the fresh practice questions that I have. For your reference, I have the following resources:

- OG13 GMAT
- OG Quant/Verbal Review Guides
- MGMAT Strategy Guides
- MGMAT Online Question Banks
- MGMAT CAT Exams
- GMAC CAT Exams (+Exam Pack 1)
- GMAC Practice Questions (+Extra Question Pack)

I still have a fair amount of questions remaining in the Extra Question Pack (from the GMAC software), but since I cannot select the specific type of problem I want to study (i.e., Sentence Correction - Modifiers), I am mostly saving those to use for timed set studies, and not so much for focused studies when I am trying to improved my weaknesses.

Obviously there are diminishing returns at play when "recycling" practice problems, but I am still trying to get some value from these problems through analysis of the question etc. Regardless, at this point in the game, what would you recommend? Should I seek new practice problems?

P.S. For CAT exams I am not too worried yet because I have reset my MGMAT CATs (I'm sure there are questions from the pool I have not encountered), and I am primarily using those exams as diagnostic tools.

[StaceyKoprince]

They just published new OGs on June 8th, so you can go there for new problems if you want / need them. About 25% of the questions in each of the three OG books are new. (If you do this, I'd recommend going for the big book, as you'll get both Q and V.)

Before you do that, though, I just want you to make sure that you actually know how to learn from the ones you've already done - and that you've learned what there is to learn from them. If not, then paying for new questions and taking the time to do them is...not a wise use of your time and money.

So how do you feel about your analysis of the existing problems? Are you picking up things that you didn't notice while the clock ticked? Are you adding to your knowledge base of both actual rules (grammar) and process (how to avoid traps, etc)? If that's all working, then great, go get yourself some more new questions. If not, go back to those old ones again.

And to make your life a little easier, here's a link to the first in a series of blog posts on the new OGs:
https://www.manhattanprep.com/gmat/blog ... es-part-1/

Parts 3 and 4 list the new question numbers in each book.

[gtckim]

Thanks Stacey - I still feel that I am getting value out of these, but more so to reinforce my strategies and methods. For example I am trying to go through many of the quant problems I have solved and trying new methods such as choosing smart numbers, since I am partial to doing direct algebra.

So again, I think there is value in these questions, but my main concern is that I am running out of new questions to apply my learning in a timed setting. I still have the official GMAT questions from the question pack, so I guess I will make use of those for the time being to gauge my progress.

[gtckim]

As mentioned I think I can make do with the problems I have currently (I have also borrowed a OG12 book from a friend). However since I have done all of the CAT exams currently available to me -- MGMAT CAT 1-6, GMATPrep Exams (including Exam Pack 1) -- would you recommend I look for new, "fresh" CAT tests to properly gauge my progress?

I understand that with MGMAT CATs, it is likely I may not face repeat questions in some of the tests in the second iteration (1A - 6A). Furthermore, I see ways to properly reset the GMATPrep software to minimize repeat questions. Yet, obviously the "threat" of encountering repeat questions always exists.

That being said, is the simple solution here to just account for this by "scaling" my score manually? For example, if I were to encounter a 720 in a practice test with 1-2 repeat questions, I can expect that that score is realistically anywhere from 700-720.

[gtckim]

Hi Stacey - I had posted a question earlier but it seems the post had disappeared?

Anyway, my question was regarding practice CATs and the danger of facing repeat questions. I understand that the MGMAT CATs pull from a question pool, so I may avoid repeat questions on some of my tests in my second iteration of (1A-6A), but I am not sure if this is the case with GMATPrep exams (I have done the 2 free ones, as well as the ones provided by Exam Pack 1).

Since I have no unbiased predictor to gauge my improvement, do you recommend I seek out fresh practice CATs? Or is the simple solution here to be mindful of repeat questions and "scale" my score down as a result?

[StaceyKoprince]

Yeah, there's something weird going on with the system - it marked that your post needed to be approved before it could be posted. It's been happening to random posts lately. The spam filter's getting aggressive, I guess! (I just approved it, so now it's back again.)

Given the quality of what I've seen out there on other CATs, I generally do recommend that people repeat our CATs and GMATPrep. Not to be conceited or anything, but...

There are things that you can do to minimize the impact of repeated questions:
(1) Anytime you see a problem that you remember (and this means: I know the answer or I'm pretty sure I remember the answer, not just "hmm, this looks vaguely familiar..."), immediately look at the timer and make yourself sit there for the full length of time for that question type. This way, you don't artificially give yourself more time than you should have.
(2) Think about whether you got this problem right the last time. If you did, get it right again this time. If you didn't, get it wrong again. If you *completely honestly* think that you would get it right this time around if it were a new question (even though you got it wrong last time) because you've studied that area and improved, then get it right this time.

Plus, you may not even remember a question - if so, it doesn't actually count as a repeat!

If you follow the steps above, then 1-2 (recognized) repeats mean nothing. If you have more than that, then you'd just start to adjust your score downward accordingly.

[gtckim]

Thanks for the great advice. I'll do that next time to minimize the impact of repeats.

I took my first "second iteration" MGMAT last weekend (1A), and though I didn't face too many repeats in quant, I'd say over half of the questions I saw in the verbal section were repeats. Is this common or did I just get "unlucky"?

[StaceyKoprince]

That may be a combination of two things: you're stronger at verbal, so at the higher end, you're bumping up against the upper limit / can't keep going higher to access new pools of questions.

And you're stronger at verbal, so you're more likely to remember those questions - especially distinctive RC passages, that kind of thing.

Does that last seem to be the case - are you more likely to remember verbal stuff in general?

[gtckim]

Yes, I definitely remember verbal questions must more easily than math issues. Also I have been scoring high in verbal, so what you said about hitting the same sub-pool of questions is probably true as well.

I still got some of the repeat questions incorrect, but I don't think I can really use the verbal section as a fair indicator (at least not in the short term), even with the methods you suggested, due to the consistent repeats. Do you have any further suggestions on how I can get around this?

Edit (7/11):

Hi Stacey - I have my official GMAT scheduled for 7/25, so given the time constraints I will do the best with what I have (unless you have further suggestions). I'm switching gears now to doing timed problem sets rather than targeted study, to keep myself from becoming "rusty" in other areas. Does that sound like a good idea?

I'll be taking a practice CAT this weekend as well as next, and if I feel reasonably comfortable, I will go ahead with my 7/25 date - otherwise I'm planning on postponing to a latter date.

[StaceyKoprince]

Yes, in general, the last two weeks should be a switch to overall review - have you read these articles yet?
https://www.manhattanprep.com/gmat/blog ... game-plan/
https://www.manhattanprep.com/gmat/blog ... -2-review/

Re: verbal on the CATs, first, of course, try to learn from those repeat questions that you're still getting wrong anyway. Sometimes something really is just too hard, of course - or you even feel like arguing with the answer.

I can't remember whether I've posted this before (our thread has gotten pretty long!), but just in case I haven't, here's one very important way to get better at your verbal level:

When you're reviewing, review everything. Identify ALL of the questions on which you narrowed to two and guessed, even when you guessed right. And answer these questions:
1) why was the wrong answer so tempting? why did it look like it might be right? (be as explicit as possible; also, now you know this is not a good reason to pick an answer)
2) why was it actually wrong? what specific words indicate that it is wrong and how did I overlook those clues the first time?
3) why did the right answer seem wrong? what made it so tempting to cross off the right answer? why were those things actually okay; what was my error in thinking that they were wrong? (also, now you know that this is not a good reason to eliminate an answer)
4) why was it actually right?

Being able to answer #1 and #3, in particular, distinguishes a V38 from a V42+. You're actually seeing their hard traps.

If you can do that and get yourself back into your prior verbal mindset / not second guess yourself, then your verbal should be good to go on the real test. Trust yourself!

[gtckim]

So I took my exam again and I am embarrassed to say I did not break 700 again. I improved my verbal score to a 40, but my quant score remained at 44 (drop from my last attempt, in which I got a 46), for a cumulative score of 690. Needless to say, I'm pretty frustrated at the sea-sawing nature of my GMAT scores. If you recall, on my last exam I improved quant, but my verbal dropped.

I'm not sure how to improve my prep, given my last two GMAT Prep practice CAT exams were 760 and 750, respectively. Granted, these are practice exams (and repeat ones at that), so I did expect them to be inflated a bit, but I was not expecting a 60-70 point differential. Would you recommend I continue doing practice problems and working on my weaknesses? I am at a point where I feel that I can recognize patterns and have a methodology to approaching most quant problems (albeit not perfectly).

To supplement my studies, I am planning to purchase the MGMAT Advanced Quant book. I know this book isn't recommended for someone starting out, but given that my quant score is steady at 44-46 (and higher on CAT exams), I think I can benefit from the advanced content of the book. I totally understand that the objective is not to only focus on 700+ level questions, but I can't help but feeling my quant learning has "plateaued" and this book will help jump-start my quant improvement. Please let me know what you think.

P.S. I am planning to retake mid-September.

Thank you!

[StaceyKoprince]

Nice job on verbal! (Yes, I know you didn't get what you wanted overall - but still be proud of what you did on verbal.

You may want to consider ordering the Enhanced Score Report so that you can get more detail on your performance. These score reports don't offer a huge amount of data, but they offer enough for you to draw some solid conclusions about where you may be falling short. (It also might be interesting to compare the ESR data for the 46 and the 44. That's $50 though. Start with the Q44 report and then decide whether you want the other too.)

Speaking of Q46, you did get that once, so I'm okay with you trying out Advanced Quant. BUT, I have to warn you: the differential between Q44 and Q46 is not a result of missing really hard problems. It's a result of underperforming on things that aren't hard enough to be in that book. If you keep that in mind and make sure that you're focused on improving process, reducing careless mistakes, etc, then okay, you can also spend some time on AQ.

Re: your question about weaknesses, I would worry about "low hanging fruit":
- careless mistakes
- things you already know how to do but they take you longer than they should / use more mental energy than they should
- things that you often get right, but not always

Not the things you mostly get wrong. Those - just get wrong faster so you can spend more energy on the stuff listed above!

[gtckim]

Stacey - as always, thank you.

I will purchase the ESR to focus my studies a bit.

As for the "Advanced Quant" purchase, I understand the book may be a bit of an overkill. My logic with purchasing and studying that book was to improve my quant higher overall, and to exceed the 44-46 range I seem to be hovering at. I think I will need to challenge myself with quant a bit more - as mentioned I feel like I have plateaued a bit with quant.

Edit: BTW, do you know what the GMAC considers as "Arithmetic" in its ESR? I assume it's categories such as FDPs and Number Properties?

[StaceyKoprince]

Okay, so I'm okay on AQ as long as you heed my warning.

You can see how they categorize if you look at the solutions in your OG. Each one starts with one of three labels: Arithmetic, Algebra, or Geometry.

Yes, NP and FDP often fall under Arithmetic, but it depends on the problem - some cross over into Alg. Go look at 10 or 20 and you'll start to see. Mostly, if it has an unknown (a variable) or an equals / inequality sign, then it's going to be Alg.