Two weeks to the real deal and strategies to improve verbal

[meera_murthy]

I am taking my GMAT on October 19 (2 weeks away). I have taken 3 practice exams so far:
MGMAT 1: Q48 V37
MGMAT 2: Q48 V42
GMAT Prep 1: Q48 V39

My first GMAT (actual test) was Dec 10 and I got Q48 V24 (610). I took a 6 month break and started preparing again this summer.

I am trying to make the most of the next 2 weeks and focus on the area where I can get the most bang for my time. I feel that it should be verbal because scoring higher in verbal will push me into the 700 barrier. The plan is to take a test every other day and practice/study the alternate days. Is this an overkill?

Also, the assessment report generated my MGMAT shows RC as my weakest area in verbal. I am getting a higher percentage of 600-700 level questions wrong in RC than SC or CR. My strongest among SC, CR and RC is SC, where the avg difficulty of right answer is 720 and avg difficulty of wrong answer is 750. Timing is not an issue.

Can I improve my RC and CR skills in 2 weeks? Especially RC? I have gone thru all OG 12 RCs. Unfortunately there are only few passages that are 700+ difficulty.

I have developed my own technique for both RC and CR problems (a combination of MGMAT and my own strategy). At this late in the game I am nervous to change my strategy.
So would just practicing improve my score? If so what are some recommendations for difficult RC and CR questions. I have the 10 LSAT practice exams but haven't used it yet. Should I use that?
Would purchasing RC99 help? I plan to work through the OG Verbal this week. But my fear is that there aren't enough difficult passages/questions in it.

For quant, my strategy is to continue what I am doing and taking more practice exams. I have the MGMAT advanced book which I haven't touched. I am thinking about browsing through but not really sure if it would be time spent wisely. I have a feeling pushing my Quant from 48-50 will be a challenge and not the most pay off. Is that right?

Thank you!

[StaceyKoprince]

The plan is to take a test every other day and practice/study the alternate days.

Complete overkill and an extremely inefficient way to try to improve. :)

CAT exams are really good for (a) figuring out where you're scoring right now, (b) practicing stamina, and (c) analyzing your strengths and weaknesses. The actual act of just taking the exam is NOT so useful for improving. It's what you do with the test results / between tests that helps you to improve.

You didn't tell me what your overall practice test scores are right now but I'm guessing they don't get to the 700 level beause you said that you're trying to "push" yourself to that level still.

As a general rule, wherever you're scoring about 1 to 2 weeks before the test is about where you should expect to score on the real test. If you are almost at 700 already, you may want to go ahead and take it in 2 weeks, hoping for the best but prepared to take it again if needed. If you are far from your goal, you will likely need to postpone (if you don't want to lower your goal score).

It is difficult to significantly improve anything in 2 weeks and, unfortunately, RC is probably the hardest verbal area in which to improve rapidly.

At this late in the game I am nervous to change my strategy.
So would just practicing improve my score?

You aren't happy with your current score, so you have to change something or get better at something. I agree that you don't want to be changing major strategies a week or two before the real test, but if you aren't happy with your score, you've got to change... so that leads us back around to postponing your test.

But my fear is that there aren't enough difficult passages/questions in it.

I see this assumption a lot - people have the mindset that if they just do a lot of hard problems, they'll somehow pick everything up and remember it and then get better / do well on the test. That's possible, but that takes a LONG time; it's a really inefficient way to study.

Rather, your focus needs to be on learning how to get better - and you can do that using things that you have already used in the past. Then, you use new material to test yourself. But don't just keep plowing through new material and more new material - if you're not learning what you need to learn on each question, you'll take forever and never really get anywhere.

Take a look at these articles for RC; they talk about what to do for various tasks and questions types, but also how to analyze, think about what you're doing, figure out how to get better, etc.:
http://www.manhattangmat.com/blog/index ... p-passage/
http://www.beatthegmat.com/mba/2010/07/ ... rc-passage

How to do an RC infer problem AND how to analyze RC problems in general:
http://www.manhattangmat.com/articles/a ... estion.cfm

http://www.beatthegmat.com/mba/2010/09/ ... prehension
http://www.beatthegmat.com/mba/2010/11/ ... il-problem

Remember this: 80% of what you learn / how you get better comes from the analysis and review you do AFTER you have finished doing the problem in the first place. :)

[meera_murthy]

Thank you Stacey!

Here are my overall scores (my goal is to get above a 700)

MGMAT 1: Q48 V37 --> 670
MGMAT 2: Q48 V42 -->720
GMAT Prep 1: Q48 V39 --> 690

I broke the 700 range once so far. I am planning on taking another MGMAT CAT today. Hope I see another 700+.

This was my reasoning behind taking CATs every other day:

It helps me really get methodical about how I approach the actual exam.

I can get my timing better in quant (the last 2-3 problems I catch myself rushing with under 5 minutes.)

Also the biggest reason is improving stamina. I typically get most RC questions right if I am just working on RC. On the other hand in a practice exam, I seem to get more RCs wrong. I am attributing this to stamina -->is that a wrong assumption.

Given all the above reasons, do you still think more CATs between now and October 19th is an overkill?

I have been using your article on how to analyze practice exams and have been thoroughly reviewing all questions.

Quant: I feel like I have been stuck in 48 since my last GMAT attempt in December. I can't seem to get it higher. If I focus on getting more questions (typically 700-800 difficulty) then I end up running out of time. I have been browsing the advanced quant book to improve my strategy for solving overlapping sets and VIC problems (these are my 2 biggest areas where I spend too much time). I am not too sure if 10 days is enough time to improve.

Verbal: I find verbal to be the most difficult to study and analyze, mainly because I have a tough time remembering what my thought process was in an practice exam while I answered the question. This is especially true for RC. I really like your suggestion and I think I will review OG passages again and focus on the thought process that I use. Thank you!

Once again thanks for your detailed response. It definitely gives me more confidence knowing that I am using an approach recommended by you versus just randomly studying for the last 10 days.

[meera_murthy]

So I really think stamina is my issue with verbal. I took a MGMAT CAT yesterday and unfortunately my laptop crashed as I was about to finish my quant section. I had to stop taking the test and continue few hours later. I ended up getting a Q47 V44 750. This is the highest I have ever gotten in verbal. My typical verbal score is around 36-38 (I had an outlier last week 42). My quant score was on par with all my other practice tests.

I analyzed the verbal section and I had done dramatically better in SC (85% accuracy and avg time 1.25). I had done fairly better on CR as well. The last CAT I took was last Saturday where I got a Q48 V37. So yesterday's verbal score is dramatically higher. Given the inconsistency I am attributing my score increase to being less tired, more focus during verbal section due to my laptop crash.

I am taking the real GMAT next wednesday (Oct 19th). I don't expect to get a 44 on verbal but how do I get close to it?

Isn't this discrepancy indicating that the problem I have is less about aptitude and much more about stamina/concentration? How can I fix this problem? can it be fixed in under a week?

As stated in my last post will taking more exams help?

Thank you!

[meera_murthy]

Hi Stacey,

Can you also suggest a good strategy for keeping a check on timing during the verbal section. I have been analyzing my verbal practices CATs and I think the underlying issue might be timing. When I get into the "this is the absolute real deal" mode, I spend 30-45 seconds longer on each question. So although I am doing well in the beginning, I end up rushing in the 5-7 questions at the end of the exam which ends up dropping my score.

For quant I check my time every 5 questions (5 65, 10 55, 15 45 and so on). Based on my timing I either speed up (guess on 1-2 questions which I know I will screw up typically probability or line coordinates) and pick up the pace. The advantage to this approach in quant is I don't end up rushing through a chunk of questions. If I do get questions wrong it is more dispersed versus clumped together.

I would like a similar approach for verbal. Given how close I am to the real exam I am really nervous about trial/error approach. Instead I would like a more standardized timing approach.

Sorry I am bombarding this forum with questions. As I continue analyzing my practice tests/problems I am getting a better understanding of my true pit falls. But the challenge now is how do I try to fix these issues in under a week.

Thank you!

Meera

[meera_murthy]

BTW I came across the time management blog. I will try method 1 in my next CAT and hope that will help me monitor my time throughout the section.

Some additional data which quite honestly puzzles me. I have taken 3 MGMAT CATs and 2 GMAT Prep CATs. Since there is really very limited data available in the GMAT Prep CAT for analysis, the only observations I could make:
(1) both the GMAT Preps, I had lesser than 10 minutes and I had 7 questions left. I also looked at the clock at question 23 in GMAT Prep 2 and I had around 25 minutes left (roughly 18 questions and lesser than a 1.5 minutes per question). so I panicked and rushed through the next 5 questions or so to catch up.
(2) I have 2 chunks of wrong answers: one in the middle around question 25-29 and the last chunk 35-41 with 1 question correct in between.

GMAT Prep 1: V39 GMAT Prep 2: V35 (GMAT Prep 1 my accuracy was better and I had only the big chunk of wrong answers at the end none in the middle. I might have not checked time in the middle)

MGMAT 3 CATs: verbal score ranges from 36-42

in all the 3 CATs I don't see timing as a major issue. The cummulative time versus target cummulative time throughout the test is within +- 1 minute (there are 2-3 outliers in the middle but looks I caught up). The end of the test, questions 35-41, I have spent on an average 1.3 minutes per question, with the last few questions closer to 2 minutes.

Overall during the MGMAT verbal, I never felt rushed, did not guess on any questions either.

The biggest difference that I can think of is my attitude to MGMAT CAT versus GMAT Prep. I think I inherently approach GMAT Prep with "this is the closest to the real deal so I better kick ass", which means I spend more time on each verbal question to be extra sure of my answer choice---> which costs time dropping my score.

So it should seem like DUH stop obsessing over the answer choice and move on. But I am nervous that changing my attitude and approach this late in the game will cost me more.

My biggest concern at this point is that on the actual exam on October 19th, I screw up timing in verbal dropping my score significantly. My goal score is a 720 but I will be happy with a 680 as well. All my CATs are in the range of 680-720 so far.

On the actual exam (I probably would be more nervous than GMAT prep which means checking my answer choices a bit more), I am thinking about the following strategy for verbal:

(1) watch the time throughout by following method 1 in the article
(2) if I am negative time, guess on a 1-2 questions to catch up. The idea is I will still have good time for the end of the exam (4th RC and CRs at the end) and also my guesses which have high chance of wrong answers will be interspersed.

Any thoughts/suggestions/guidance/confidence booster will be greatly appreciated.

[StaceyKoprince]

Okay, stamina - the biggest thing you can do is make sure NOT to burn yourself out in the last few days before the test. You're not going to dramatically improve stamina in a week or two, so just make sure you're totally rested when you do get in there.

Also, read this:
http://www.manhattangmat.com/blog/index ... you-crazy/

Whatever you can do to minimize the number of decisions you make in those last couple of days, do so. :)

And, yay, you found the timing article on your own - that's where I would have sent you.

(1) watch the time throughout by following method 1 in the article
(2) if I am negative time, guess on a 1-2 questions to catch up. The idea is I will still have good time for the end of the exam (4th RC and CRs at the end) and also my guesses which have high chance of wrong answers will be interspersed.

Yes, exactly.

Also, on verbal, when you have narrowed to 2 answers, look at each answer ONCE more / compare the two, and then PICK. Do NOT go back and forth multiple times. You're just wasting time at that point because you're nervous. (I used to do that, too - but it doesn't help!)

Good luck - let us know how it goes!

[meera_murthy]

Thank you Stacey for your response and your suggestions. I took my GMAT today and scored a 680(Q48, V34). It was on the lower end of my practice scores so I am a bit bummed. On the other hand if not for this post and your article on practice test analysis and time management my verbal score might have been a repeat of my first GMAT (610 Q48 V26). Thank you!

[StaceyKoprince]

That is really great! I know you were hoping to do even better, but you achieved great improvement - 70 points and 6 points on the verbal! Really great work.

The average improvement from official test 1 to official test 2 is only 30 points. Very few people achieve a 70+ point improvement on an official test. Nice job!