Strike 2 : 680 (Q44, V39)

[arambhan.snehin]

Hi ,

Just took the GMAT for the second time yesterday. I had scored a measly 640 (Q43 V35) the first time and i was hell bent on getting a better score.
After 2 and a half months of some serious studying, i was really confident about getting at least a 720.(All my mocks seemed to suggest so).

However, the quant section on the actual test blew me away and not in a good way, with long complicated word problems that i had never expected.
Verbal was good. I started off really well as verbal has always been my forte. But then around the 20th question i got a couple of horrid RC passages (one was a long winding rant about opera) that i ended up wasting unnecessary time on. As a result, although i was doing really well up to that point i messed up the rest of the section as i ran short of time and had to guess toward the end, which was the last thing i wanted to do.

Anyway, math feels like a lost cause to me. Mainly because i feel like i've done all i can to improve my Quant Skills. On the other hand, i know i can improve my verbal score to at least a 42, provided i don't do anything stupid like i did yesterday.

I'm thinking of taking the exam again in a month as a final attempt before i start applying to schools.

Stacey,How do i tackle the my Quant demons during the next month ? I've been using the Manhattan strategy guides and the tests but the quant questions i saw on the actual test were unlike any i've ever practiced (or may be that was just the stress talking).

Any help would useful.

Regards,
Snehin

[StaceyKoprince]

Hi, I'm sorry I'm just getting to your question now. FYI, everyone, it's going to be like this until about mid-Dec - this is our busiest time of year.

I know you didn't get the score you wanted, but your score did go up 40 points, so you're going in the right direction! Especially on verbal - nice work.

Have you read this?
https://www.manhattangmat.com/blog/inde ... lly-tests/

(Go read it right now.)

Are you really applying that when you take the test? I'm guessing you aren't 100%, because you describe getting caught up on certain problems, messing up timing, etc - and those are all decisions that you'd make only if you're still trying to take the "school" test - that is, trying to get everything right.

Re: the quant Qs seeming to be completely unfamiliar, I will bet that two things happened:
(1) You did see *some* questions that were unfamiliar, and your mind remembers those more than the others, and
(2) You were feeling very stressed, so some problems may have seemed unfamiliar because you were having trouble thinking clearly.

Both phenomena are extremely common. What to do?

One is to convince yourself that this test really is about making the best decisions possible, NOT about getting everything right. If you're running a business and you have a choice between going after a contract that is very similar to 10 other contracts you've done, vs. going after one that is completely different from anything you've done before, which one are you going to go after right now?

Not the unfamiliar one. So why are you going after it on the test? That should be a "forget it, I don't want this one" moment.

Next, you wouldn't get super stressed out about NOT going after the unfamiliar contract. You'd know that one was out of your league, and you'd shrug your shoulders and go look for a better place to spend your time.

So do that on the test, too. You CANNOT get everything, ever. They are actively trying to find your limit. So just acknowledge it when they do, shrug, move on.

I just met with a student whose timing was pretty good overall - but she still spent too much time on about 5 to 6 questions in each section, and she got 90% of those questions wrong. Complete waste of time, right?

But wait, it's even worse: she expended so much brain energy on those problems that she felt like she was in a "fog" when the verbal section came around.

So that extra time you're wasting is not just time - it's also mental energy. You can't get that back - you're going to make mistakes later on because you're tired.

So your major goal here really is to balance your two most precious resources: time and mental energy. If you run short of one before the test is over, your score is going to drop. Figure out how to balance those resources over the whole length of the test.

(The next thing people usually say is, "Oh, so I should start out faster and just not try as hard, but then be more careful towards the end.) No, not that either.

Think about running a marathon. You have to figure out how to expend your energy over the entire thing - start to finish. You can't go too slowly at the start because then you'll never come close to winning or hitting your target time. But you can't expend too much energy early on or you'll crash before the race is over. So you balance across the entire thing.

All right, long story short:
(1) So what if you see some totally unfamiliar questions? Expect that! Remember that a good portion of the questions are experimental anyway! Do what you can with what you know, and shrug your shoulders at the rest. (Do NOT expend a bunch of mental energy on something that's totally unfamiliar!!)

(2) You're good at verbal. Even still, they're going to find your limit. Let them. When you get a crazy passage (or whatever it is), take your best shot and move on.

Read this and see if it will help on quant (stress):
https://www.manhattangmat.com/blog/inde ... mat-score/

Also, if you'd like any advice about specific content areas / question types, let me know!