Timing and practice questions

[karan13]

hey... i have been studying for almost 3 weeks and am due to test on the 30th of this month... just gave a manhattan test and got Q47 V33 score of 660.... my score is fluctuting 40-50 points ... is that to be worried about...

also im short of time on both quant and verbal which drops my score in the end... any suggestions on that front how i can improve...the problem that i face is that my reading speed is very slow....

also cr is a big concern.. when i try out OG questions i get a right percentage of 90 in the desired time and find them very easy compared to what i get on my test.....may be tahts cos iv done those OG questions before.. i dont know need help on this from you guys...I also dont know where to practice additional SC and CR questions(whatever questions i get my hands on there is a problem with the answers and that is very frustrating)... please advise...

[messi10]

Hi Karan,

There are quite a few things on this post so I think Stacey will be the best person to point you in the right direction.

Only thing I will say is that on the real test, do NOT under any circumstance, fall behind on the timing. I have read too many posts on how this screws up the test for many people.

Regards

Sunil

[StaceyKoprince]

Sunil's definitely right about the timing.

A fluctuation of 30 to 50 points isn't that unusual, but you also describe timing problems, which does worry me. Timing problems can lead to big score fluctuations (and sometimes disastrous score fluctuations), so that needs to be fixed or you might have a very unwelcome experience on test day.

You mention that you're talking the test in about 2 weeks and that your practice test score was 660. Is that about what you want to score on the real test? Is 660 in the middle of the range of scores you've been getting? At the high end? The low end?

Are you talking these tests under 100% official conditions, including essays and length of breaks? Altering certain conditions can lead to artificial score inflation.

Most people with timing problems need, on average, about 4 to 8 weeks to correct the problems, depending upon how severe the issues are.

So, here are my concerns:
- is it possible that your scores are a bit inflated because you have been taking tests under non-official conditions?
- how far are you from your goal score right now, and are you actually even farther because of the above?
- how severe are your timing problems? how long is it going to take to get better with the timing?

Those things may mean that 2 weeks is not enough time - in particular, if you are hoping to get, say, 700+, I would say that you should think about postponing your test.

Now, in terms of getting more specific advice and concrete actions to take, analyze your most recent MGMAT test using the below article, then come back here and tell us what you discovered. We'll advise you from there.

http://www.beatthegmat.com/mba/2011/02/ ... sts-part-1

[karan13]

hi Stacey..... thanks for you reply and the link was helpful.... there was a typo error in my query what i wanted to write was that i have been studying for the last 3 months and have taken 3 mgmat tests over 3 weeks.....
cat 1 Q49 V28 score 620
cat2 Q42 V24 score 550
cat3 Q47 V33 score 660

cat 1 and 2 were not taken with the essays but the rest of the conditions were true. Cat 3 was taken with 100% true conditions.

My target score is 700+ and im short by about 5 mins on both verbal and math. In math i remember guessing on 3 diff questions cos i was short on time and on the verbal i did the same(last 3).

also my problem is that if i worry about the watch after every question then i cant get a score as my mind gets diverted from the questions and on to the clock. That is what happened on the cat2 (i think). So what i do is that look at the time after every 7 questions. is that wise? the link that you have sugested talks about per question timing but for me that is just not possible cos my concentration gets lost during that process.

Also im short on CR material any advise what is a relaible source?

[seraphicgirl]

i am facing a similar problem. My test is 20 days away and im unsure-purely due to marks which i have been scoring in mock tests.

When i started my GMAT prep (March/April), I focused on the verbal section.As my verbal scores went up (to app. 90%), I shifted my focus to quant. Even though I was always among the top students in my high school class when it came to quants, I have not touched it in the past 7 years and I could see how miserable my speed and tactics were. Over the past two months I laid special emphasis to only quant and my score has remarkably increased.

However, I wrote three mock exams in the past one week and i found that:

Kaplan Paper test:the test which is at the end of the book is not adaptive and i scored 720 on it. I knew all the questions and could solve them easily, and the ones which were wrong were mainly because of silly mistakes.

MGMAT: I scored a miserable 620, my quant score was higher than my verbal and my verbal score had gone down the drain. I had a problem with timing and my internet connection was far from stable. As a result most of my wrong answers were clubbed together as were the right answers. I think it contributed to the lack of concentration. Also, on review i found that out of the 21 questions which were wrong in the verbal section, I did not need to look at the "explanation" and when i read them during the review I could figure out the correct answer myself without making much effort.

Kaplan Adaptive test (0n the CD): I scored a dismal 580 and once again my quant score was better than the verbal. My timing in both the sections was very bad-in each I had 10 minutes for the last 10 questions. As such I was unable to reach 2 questions in quant and 1 in verbal and had to make a guess on the last 3 questions of quant and verbal each. Although i do realize that i spend a lot of time on the initial questions in the quant section and also on all DS questions-which is a major factor as to why i have a time crunch in quant, i fail to understand the paucity of time i face in the verbal section.

Whenever, i do practice questions (from any book, or CD) i always get scores of 90-95% correct answers and never fall short on time whether it be quant or verbal.

Please help me find a solution to my problem. At this point of time I would like to tell you that because of my mock results, i get really anxious while attempting any full length mock exam!

[StaceyKoprince]

seraphicgirl - it's good to read what I'm discussing with others who have similar problems, but please start your own separate post. It's too difficult to discuss two different cases in the same thread. (Note: read the below first and note my advice about analyzing a test and posting the data - do that in your new post; if you don't, I'm just going to ask you to do it in my reply!) Thanks!

karan - the per question timing stuff is strictly while you're practicing or analyzing your results. You absolutely do NOT want to look at the clock after every question on the real test - you'll drive yourself crazy before the test is over!

Take a look at the Benchmarks section of this old article to get an idea of what you should do during the test.

http://www.manhattangmat.com/articles/keeping-pace.cfm

Note: I'm in the midst of re-writing this article right now. The first half was published today (link below) and the second half will be published in about a week. The second half will give more options for tracking your timing throughout a test section, and it will also talk about what to do if you find yourself behind, so check out that website in about a week to read the second half.

http://www.beatthegmat.com/mba/2011/06/ ... ent-part-1

In terms of more specific advice, I'm going to copy and paste something I said in my last post:

Now, in terms of getting more specific advice and concrete actions to take, analyze your most recent MGMAT test using the below article, then come back here and tell us what you discovered. We'll advise you from there.

http://www.beatthegmat.com/mba/2011/02/ ... sts-part-1

I can't advise you about very specific things to do unless I know that analysis. That includes your question about CR material. Are you talking about materials that help you get better at doing CR - giving you CR strategies? Or are you looking for practice questions? If practice questions, what are your weaknesses? I'd rather have you get good strategies to combat the weaknesses first rather than continuing to do a bunch of practice questions - that just reinforces your weaknesses.

[karan13]

hi stacey

Thanks for your reply... regarding CR, this may sound odd but there is no particular topic that i am weak in... i may get one topic say weaken questions all right on one test and all wrong on the next one.....i get stuck on the last 2 and end up picking the wrong one... when i was doing my OG my practice percetntage was very high... just want to know on avg what level of questions are those and will the real gmat hold questions like those or the kinds i see outside the OG(i no this is tough to answer is it depends on how im performing but please try)

I took the score 800 tests... just wanted ur opinion on how good they are... gave a test and it shows 83 percentile on my math but gives me a score of 39.. cant get my head around it.. have in all 12 questions wrong(3 wrong in the 1st 10).... please help explain this.. also dont think they score like the manhattans... in the manhattans i have a chance to recover my score in case i get a few wrong in the begining but i feel on this test there is no way... on the verbal it gave me 31 and i had 15 wrong and only 2 RC wrong(not in a row) in the 1st 14 questions...i just dont understand.... the funny thing is that i had extra 3 mins on my math and 5 min on my verbal on this tests.....should i continue to take these tests and should i consider the score they are giving me?how do you rate these tests?

just very confused please help.....

[StaceyKoprince]

just want to know on avg what level of questions are those and will the real gmat hold questions like those or the kinds i see outside the OG

As you noted, there's no real way to answer this. There are very easy and very hard questions and everything in between, and what you see depends entirely on how you're doing, along with some luck.

You do note something interesting though: that, on those questions that are giving you trouble, you narrow to 2 but then pick the wrong one. I assume the right answer is usually one of the 2? (That is, you don't typically narrow it down to 2 wrong answers?)

If that's the case, then this is less about any one question type, and more about very tricky trap answers. Add this to your list of things to study:

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?

You're probably already doing #2 and 4, but add 1 and 3. And do this analysis on any hard question, even when you got it right. If you can really understand how the right traps to get people to pick wrong answers and eliminate right answers, you'll be a lot less likely to fall into those traps.

I haven't examined the 800score algorithm - but a 39 raw score doesn't correspond to 83rd percentile, so I'm not sure what's going on there. I've talked to other teachers (whom I trust) who think the questions themselves are decent, but I don't think we know anything about how 800score built the algorithm or anything like that.

So for that, I would do those more as a way to get practice.

[karan13]

thanks a lot stacey...... great help....

[StaceyKoprince]

you're welcome!

[karan13]

Hi stacey ...sorry to trouble you again... i have good news and bad news....good news- i took your advise on the CR.. worked like a charm and got only 1 CR wrong on my gmat prep which i took today. Bad news- score 660 Q47 V34. have been stuck on this score for the last 2 weeks and its not going up...gmat date on the 30th(7 days) of this month.... I am going to work on my week points from this test and my target is a min of 680.... please help.....

[StaceyKoprince]

I think I'm getting to this after you took your test - sorry I wasn't able to get back here before your test date.

There wouldn't have been much I could have told you though. In general, our scoring range a week before the test is what we should expect on the real test. You were only 20 points away from your target, so it is possible that you got your score, but the most likely outcome would've been something closer to 660.

If you're still studying and would like to discuss more, please let me know. I'm happy that the CR stuff worked; now I'd want to know what didn't go so well on that last GMATPrep test. Timing throughout? (I know GMATPrep doesn't give you timing, but did you time yourself?) Any strings of wrong answers? Careless errors? Things you didn't expect / weren't prepared for? Etc.