Self-Assessment of Quantitative Section Errors

[AUMGRE_2015]

Hello Everyone,

Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year…

I hope you guys are enjoying your Christmas/New Year Break or perhaps (working professionals like I) you are taking this opportunity to focus on your GRE preparations.

I would like to apologize upfront for a long post and I hope it will not be a redundant one. While I seek an advice for my own predicament, I also wish to share my experience with the hope of being helpful to others, who (if) may be experiencing the same or a similar problem.

For the type of graduate programs I intend to apply, the quantitative score is more significant than the verbal score. Therefore, I am aiming for a quantitative score of 165 or above.

First, allow me to start with sharing some information about my exam preparation, which may be important for you guys.

1. I have been out of school for over 10 years

2. Working full time and having a family, I have not been able to study regularly and consistently

3. I have been (trying to) study since the beginning of November, and taking the exam on January 2nd, 2016

4. My main prep materials are:

a) MGRE Prep Quantitative Strategy Guides (1-6), b) MGRE 5 LB Book of GRE Practice Problems, c) ETS Official GRE Quantitative Reasoning Practice Problems, d) NOVA’s GRE Math Tests

5. I first study the subject in line with ETS GRE Math Conventions, then I solve practice questions, check my answers, and try to solve the questions I answered wrong or left blank without looking at the solutions (and I mostly get them right)

For the last three weekends, I have been doing the online MGRE practice tests under realistic, timed conditions (except that I exclude the AWA section from the practice test).

Here are my practice exam scores (with 1 week intervals):

Exam 1: Quantitative: 160 - Verbal: 146
Exam 2: Quantitative: 163 - Verbal: 149
Exam 3: Quantitative: 160 - Verbal: 150

Before going further, let me state that, after each exam session, I went back to the questions I answered wrong (or left blank) and I tried to solve them without looking at the solutions (and compare my after-exam solutions to my during-exam solutions on the scrap paper). Additionally, I must also state that time management was a serious issue, especially during the first exam, which I feel it has been getting better at some level, in each consecutive practice exam.

Below are the breakdown of the quantitative sections by wrong answers and the difficulty level of them:

E1/Q1: Wrong: 4, Guess: 0, Blank: 0 (1xEasier, 2xMedium-High, 1xHarder)
E1/Q2: Wrong: 2, Guess: 0, Blank: 5 (1xEasier, 1xHarder)

E2/Q1: Wrong: 5, Guess: 3 (1 Correct, 2 Wrong), Blank: 0 (1xMedium-High, 2xHarder, 2xDevilish)
E2/Q2: Wrong: 4, Guess: 3 (1 Correct, 2 Wrong), Blank: 0 (1xEasier, 3xDevilish)

E3/Q1: Wrong: 3, Guess: 1 (1 Correct), Blank: 1 (1xMedium-High, 2xDevilish)
E3/Q2: Wrong: 6, Guess: 3 (1 Correct, 2 Wrong), Blank: 0 (1xMedium-High, 1xHarder, 4xDevilish)

As I stated above, after each exam, I go back to the questions I get wrong (or left blank) and I try to solve them without looking at the answer key or the solution. And while doing so, although I do not time myself (since the main purpose is to learn from the mistakes) I do not spend excessive amount of time on any question either. As a matter of fact, I am able to solve each of these questions in about the same amount of time that I spend for each question on average, during the practice test.

From the total of 24 wrong answers and 6 blank questions, I was able to answer all but 4 questions correctly. Many of you may emphasize that without having the exam stress or the pressure of time, one’s ability to solve GRE-type questions correctly would differ significantly. And I would totally agree with that; however, after carefully analyzing my wrong answers and comparing my during-exam solutions to my after-exam solutions, I found the following factors to be the source/reason of my wrong answers:

1. Only 4 genuine mistakes – wrong thinking or not understanding the question at all
2. Marking the answer key wrong – the solution method and the answer is correct
3. Operation errors – taking the positive of a negative number, forgetting to change the direction of an inequality, summing instead of subtracting, etc.
4. Failing to pay attention to the question detail – mostly due to reading fast or rushing the question
5. Using the wrong table/graph in Data-Interpretation questions where there are more than one table and/or graph – again due to rushing

As you can see, it is very discouraging to miss questions, especially not due to lack of knowledge, being unfamiliar with the concepts or wrong thought process, but due to minor, trivial mistakes that are totally avoidable!

What do you think I can do to improve my testing performance and rectify this flaw of mine?
Could this be the case because I have not taken enough number of practice tests? Or, is this the case because I have not educated myself well enough or in the right way about the GRE test taking techniques?

On a side-note/question, I have not done any of the ETS PowerPrep II practice tests yet and I am curious about how would you guys compare the level of accuracy of the MGRE practice exams and the ETS practice exams in terms of simulating the actual GRE, and providing accurate score estimates.

Thank you very much for taking the time to read my post and I would most appreciate any advice and guidance you can provide. I especially would like to hear from individuals who had experience the same or similar problem and how they overcame it.

Regards,

A.

[tommywallach]

Hey A,

Well, if you want a really in-depth recommendation, you should consider scheduling a single private tutoring session. But I'll say a few things:

1) In general, most people's errors on the GRE are not the "genuine errors" you discuss. The math on the GRE is middle-school level (i.e. math people learn around the age of 12-13 years old). The difficulty is all in the presentation, not comprehension of the subject. So I would be careful to consider certain errors "genuine" or not. Screwing up arithmetic or misreading the question is as genuine as anything.

2) Practice arithmetic. Run drills. Hundreds of questions. No errors. (There are plenty of books for this, and websites.) Don't forget you have a calculator. Use it if it seems to be helping. (Though it's generally only useful on 3-4 questions per test.)

3) Self-study is often dangerous this way. Consider taking a class or a tutoring session. I'm really not trying to upsell you, but when a student says he or she has studied a ton and still isn't getting the necessary score, that's my recommendation.

4) Our students generally prep for about 3 months. That's doing quite a bit of work every week. If you're planning for less study than that, and you aren't being able to study consistently, that could be your main problem right there.

Okay, those are my basic recommendations! Good luck!

-t