Two Questions

[omerinbar11]

Hi,

First of all thanks for taking the time to read and answer...

I completed MGMAT first CAT today and scored a 720 (45q, 42v).
I'm taking the real thing in another month. I had 28 correct answers in the verbal section, way to many for the score I got, at least so I thought until now. Can 13 incorrect answers be consistent with a 42 in verbal on the real thing? As far as I know, above 40 scores usually dont miss more than 8-9 questions. Is this true?

Second, I couldn't find anything good on timing strategy for the verbal section. How much time to spend on the first 10 q's the last 10 and so forth. What is a solid strategy?

Thanks
Omer
Tel Aviv, Israel

[StaceyKoprince]

Nice! Did you take the test with the essays? If so, then that's really fantastic. (Sometimes, people experience a bit of a boost when they skip the essays.)

Yep, that can be consistent with the real test - it varies a bit based upon the actual placement of right and wrong answers throughout the section.

For timing guidelines, try this article (it talks about both quant and verbal):

http://www.beatthegmat.com/mba/2009/12/ ... management

[omerinbar11]

Hi,

I took my the real thing last Thursday, and was absolutely DEVASTATED. After scoring 720 on 3 of the MGMAT CATs (including AWA in all) and over 700 on the last two Kpalan CATs I took a week before, I scored a dismal 590 (39q,32v) on the test...

There is no doubt that the pressure got to me. I wasn't able to implement the strategy I had perfected, especially on verbal. I debated cancelling the score, but something (maybe my belief in G-d) stopped me. In quant, I got a lot of absolute value q's and in general the questions seemed relatively difficult, so I thought I was doing fine...

I've signed up for another test in a month, but am not sure what exactly I should do different, what things to think about. I studied very diligently for over 3 months for my first test. What do you think my strategy should be now? More practice CATs? Should I focus only on Gmat prep questions?

How often do people score so far away from their predicted practice CAT scores? Do you think its possible for me to hit my objective of 700, or should I lower expectations because of my score and despite solid practice preformances?

My MGMAT practice scores -
CAT 1 720 (45q, 42v)
CAT 2 650 (45q, 34v)
CAT 3 680 (47q, 36v)
CAT 4 670 (46q, 35v)
CAT 5 720 (45q, 42v)
CAT 6 720 (47q, 41v)

Thanks so much for the reply....I feel kinda lost...

[StaceyKoprince]

I'm sorry that you had a disappointing test experience. You aren't the only one - in fact, I have an article all about this because it does happen to a lot of people.

Read this, do the analysis described, then come back here and tell us what you think:
http://www.beatthegmat.com/a/2009/10/26 ... went-wrong

You mentioned that the pressure got to you and you "weren't able to implement" your strategy. Can you give us more detail on what you mean by that? Did you lose concentration? Did you mess up your timing? Etc. It will be helpful to give as much detail as you can (though do not share details of any specific test questions).

Okay, the above is our starting point. Once we can formulate a theory as to what went wrong, that will give us an idea about what to do to make things better.

[omerinbar11]

Hi Stacey,

Thanks for your answer. I had actually read both of the articles in the weeks prior to the test (I knew that for me taking standardized tests is stressful).

With regards to my practice test conditions, I was on the money. Short breaks, AWA, one sittings, (no cigarettes!!!) etc. You are 100% accurate in mentioning timing - that's what I meant by not implementing my strategy.

Here's a brief run of my testing experience:

I got up after a good sleep, felt a little neasues so I had to force myself to eat, and that's what I did. Arriving a little before time at the test center, I felt the pressure and tried all I could to chill myself out. The test started promptly, and I finished the AWA part in good time and successfully (scored a 6.0).

I'll jump to verbal, because it's easier for me to identify the problem there. Basically, I started out fine. First ten questions were SC and CR, and although I didn't speed through them (probably 2 minutes per q on average) I was doing ok, and felt pretty confident. Then, I made a mistake that cost me the section. I hit a HARD geology RC (the second passage) at around question 17-19, and spent a crazy amount of time answering the four very hard (inference, strengthen, and the like) questions. RC was definently one of my strengths going in, and I couldn't let go. Throughout my MGMAT CATs I've seen some hard RCs, but never did I go blank like I did on test day. (Usually, I make app. 2 mistakes per section on RC). From there on out, well... it was over.

I didn't have more than a minute, or a little more per question and although I answered all the questions, there was no chance to execute what I've learned over the past months. Let me just mention that there were a few SC questions that dealt with punctuation usage - i.e. colon, semicolon, and this caught me a little offguard.

With regards to quant, its much more ambiguous. I felt pretty good during the whole section, time management was fair (20 min for first 10 q's, reach question 20 with 33 mins, and question 30 with 17 mins). Moreover, as I mentioned, I had 4-5 absolute value questions, which to my understanding are considered hard (mostly DS too). In conclusion, I didn't feel surprised and my guts were telling me that the question level was high. (After completing gmatprep several times, I ended up getting 50's on the quant section. This is obviously inflated, but I felt that I had an understanding of what hard questions look like.)

After the section, as my practice CATs have taught me, there is no way to know how I faired. My experience has shown me that usually, I am positively surprised on quant. That, obviously, was not the case.

Let me also say that the marker and laminated notebook were not comfortable for me, and as a lesson I would highly recommend using these when taking practice tests.

Thanks,

Omer

[StaceyKoprince]

Well, the good news on the verbal, at least, is that you know what happened. If you know what happened, it's easier - not easy, but easier - to prevent that from happening again.

Quant is more annoying because you're not really sure what went wrong there. Your timing seemed okay on a "big picture" scale, though you may want to examine the per-question timing for your last couple of practice tests to see whether you exhibit what I call "up and down" timing. I speak with a lot of students who think their timing is okay, only to realize that they're spending too much time on a subset of problems, and speeding up on others to make up for it, so they hit their timing benchmarks, but they're still mismanaging their time.

Take a look at this article, which talks about how to analyze your timing (among other things): http://www.beatthegmat.com/mba/2011/02/ ... sts-part-1

Dig in there and see whether this "up and down" timing might be an issue for you.

The other major potential factor is careless mistakes and/or holes in your foundation. Careless mistakes are mistakes on things that you really did know how to do. Holes in your foundation are individual things that you didn't study well enough, and then you happen to get questions about them.

When you review practice tests or problem sets, how often do you notice careless mistakes? Do you have processes in place to minimize or correct careless mistakes? What kinds of careless mistakes do you tend to make?

There's more in this article:
http://www.manhattangmat.com/articles/error-log.cfm

Also, next time, go for a 5.0 on your essays. Don't actually make mistakes, just write less. Get through the essays in 20 to 25 minutes, and then either get to the multiple choice earlier or use that as extra "mental break" time by sitting in the chair and waiting for the time to run down. (Practice this - figure out whether you prefer to take that extra mental break time or whether you prefer to move ahead to the multiple choice sooner.)

Re: that stubbornness you experienced on that RC passage. Repeat this to yourself: whatever I can do, they can give me something harder. Whatever my limit, they can go past it. You can be Rafa Nadal (#1 tennis player in the world), and Djokovic and Federer (#2 and #3) are still going to take you down sometimes. When that happens, say "nice shot!" and move on. :)

Okay, so go take a look at some of the things I mentioned above and see if you can figure out more about what went on with the quant. Come back here to discuss whatever you find. For the verbal, because you know what happened, you also know what you need to do - more general practice on your gameplan, and mechanisms to help you move on and make guesses when you need to do so.