Using CATs to assess weaknesses

[wschaeff]

Hello,

First a little background on me so that you get an idea of what I should be good at and where I might struggle. I have an MS and BS in Electrical Engineering from top programs (yet I'm struggling with Math as you'll see). I've been using all of the Manhattan GMAT Guides along with the the Official Guide, and Official Quant and Verbal Reviews provided by GMAC. I have completed all of the Manhattan GMAT Guides without the Advanced Material (will begin that portion next week) and have completed 3 Manhattan GMAT CATs. Through my studies my scores have improved, but I need help identifying my weaknesses in order to break 700. CAT scores are as follows:

CAT 1 - 590 (41Q, 31V)
CAT 2 - 650 (43Q, 36V)
CAT 3 - 690 (45Q, 38V)

Now, the reason I am having trouble determining what I need to improve is because I'm generally strong in all areas below 700 level questions and weak when answering the more challenging problems (especially factoring in the time constraints). So, depending upon the exam and the questions I receive, I appear weak or strong in different areas.

Is there a means to perform better analytics to assess my weaknesses? Or should I just accept that I am doing poorly in all areas above 700 level questions and reevaluate after working through the Advanced portions of the guides?

Lastly, should I be surprised that I am doing worse on Math than Verbal? My background proves that I can solve REALLY hard problems and I consistently did much better on SAT and GRE Math than Verbal sections.

Thanks!

edit: 1 thing I forgot to mention. I "cheated" on the Math section of the first 2 CATs by hitting pause a few times. I was just blown away by how difficult answering ALL questions in 75 mins was. Between test 2 and 3 I learned how bad it was to pause the exam and really focused on improving my timing and accepting that a question was too difficult and moving on. So, Exam 3 Quant is a better reflection of where I am and in that case it's an even bigger improvement. So that's exciting.

However, I broke into a sweat trying to keep my timing and answering so many difficult problems. (21 700-800 level questions, 14 600-700 level questions) Is the real exam so difficult? It just seems like there is absolutely no break and it so difficult to answer so many challenging problems in so little time!

Finally, I forgot to mention that Data Sufficiency is significantly weaker than Problem Solving. It doesn't really matter what the topic is. Correct answers are, on average, slower than correct PS answers and wrong answers are much faster.

[tim]

Greetings,

Without getting too deep into the data, it sounds like you need a general review of high-level questions, which I suppose you'll be getting to next week so that's good. I wouldn't be surprised to hear that your math is weaker; I teach in Silicon Valley where most of our students are engineers, and what I hear from them consistently is that the GMAT just tests a different kind of math than they use every day at work..

As for getting a better feel for where your strengths and weaknesses lie, there are some very detailed tools on our assessment reports that will allow you to break things down much further, and they get more useful the more practice tests you've taken. However, I must caution you not to take all your practice tests too early; they are a very limited resource and you want to space them out sufficiently so that you don't find yourself six weeks out from the GMAT with no new practice tests to take..

[wschaeff]

Thanks Tim!

Having studied some of the harder level problems, I'm feeling much more confident about my test on the 7th. However, I have a new question.

My best MGMAT CAT was a 690 (45Q 38V) and I recently took my first GMAT Prep and scored a 710 (47Q 41). What I'm most encouraged about is that I feel I can do even better because most of the math problems I got wrong on the GMAT Prep CAT were caused by careless errors which I can correct.

But now I'm sort of confused about timing. Having practiced with the MGMAT CATS, I was sweating, skipping questions I knew would take me 4 minutes to get through the work, etc. The GMAT Prep CAT was significantly more straightforward, including the more challenging problems, and I finished with plenty of time remaining.

So, my question is, which CAT is a better exam to practice timing? This is important, because if I know I will have a little bit more time on the GMAT, I can take an extra 15 secs or so on each problem to ensure that I don't make careless errors, including selecting the wrong answer choice!

[StaceyKoprince]

Generally speaking, I would use our CAT to practice timing. The general consensus is that GMATPrep doesn't seem to have enough *very* high level questions on quant, so people who are good in that section don't get pressed as much as they do on the real test.

Also, students generally tell me that they feel our quant section has either as much time pressure or more time pressure than the real thing, while GMATPrep has as much or less. Better to be over-prepared. :)

I feel I can do even better because most of the math problems I got wrong on the GMAT Prep CAT were caused by careless errors which I can correct.

Great! Here's how you minimize careless errors: every time you make one, add it to a "careless error" log that you keep. Describe what error you made, exactly WHY you made it, and what habits you need to make or break in order to minimize the chances of making that same type of error again in future. Then go do something to build or break those habits.

The last two steps (why, and what habits to make or break) are the critical ones - it's not enough just to know that you made a careless mistake and that you "should" have gotten it right.

Here's an article that talks more about learning from your errors (one part of which is about careless errors, specifically):
http://www.beatthegmat.com/mba/2010/04/ ... our-errors

Good luck - let us know how it goes!

[wschaeff]

Thanks for the advice! I took the exam yesterday and did extremely well... a 750! I'm a little concerned about the AWA essays because I had a difficult time coming up strong examples in the essay portion. Both of my essays were well structured so I don't think I'll score lower than a 4. As long as I receive a 4 on the AWA portion, my GMAT will not keep me out of any b-school.

Thank you Manhattan GMAT for creating such amazing strategy guides! I took SAT and GRE classes with another company and felt underwhelmed by their services. Whereas their "strategies" were nothing more than finding the Joe Bloggs answer and guessing, Manhattan GMAT taught me what I needed to know to do well. For an Electrical Engineer who had never heard of gerunds or idioms and never knew about parallel sentence structure, there was a lot to learn. The math guides were very helpful as well. For example, as an engineer, I see triangles and think trigonometry and radians. Your guides taught me how to rethink these problems so they are solvable in less than 2 minutes without the use of a calculator.

I'll highly be recommending Manhattan GMAT to friends!

[StaceyKoprince]

Congratulations! That's fantastic - I'm really happy for you! If you're willing, please share the quant and verbal subscores as well; we track the data for research purposes.

And you can now use those language skills in future - grammar is actually really important in general. People think you're smarter and trust you more when you speak and write in a grammatically correct way. :)

Good luck on apps - let us know how it goes!

[wschaeff]

Hi Stacey,

I'm surprised that I neglected to include the breakdown, but here you go:

Quant: 49
Verbal: 42

Here's a few more CAT data points if you track these. I scored a 710 (47Q, 40V) on my last MGMAT CAT (10 days before exam) and a 730 (49Q, 40V) on my second GMAT Prep exam (6 days before exam).

Also, if this matters for your data. I purchased the set of 8 strategy guides and studied on my own using the sample syllabus provided on the website to guide my studies. I took about 4 months between the time I started seriously studying and my exam date.

If I can add my 2 cents about MGMAT CATs, I think they're much more challenging than the real exam. Although the MGMAT CAT is far more challenging (especially the math section), the algorithm must be scaled differently so the score is an accurate estimation of actual performance. While I think that this is a great way to prepare, I'd suggest making it known up front that the MGMAT math problems are more difficult. I found myself deeply discouraged that my Quant scores were consistently so low (struggled to break the 80% barrier). Fortunately, my desire for an MBA was strong enough that I continued to push myself and improve and I never quit.

[james.jt.wu]

Hey there my friend -

Congratulation on your score! I'm hoping to repeat your success in 3 days.

I agree that generally the MGMAT CAT maths are much harder (maybe that explains my strange scoring as shown in my post right below yours). However, I've heard that the Verbal on MGMAT is much easier - do you find this to be the case?

Thanks for your help. Again congratz!!!

[StaceyKoprince]

Thanks for that data - we really appreciate it!

I do try to let people know that our quant is generally a bit harder. On verbal, people have varying opinions about that - some think it's easier and some think it's harder - so verbal I think is closer to the real thing. But everyone thinks quant is harder; that one's universal. :)