Hi there,

Here are a couple tips for dealing the errors you mentioned:

• "Careless" Quant Errors. These are always the most frustrating! Kind of makes you wish the GMAT gave partial credit, since you did all the hard work on the problem . Think of it this way, once you've gone to all the trouble of correctly setting up a problem, rushing through the final computational stages means throwing all your hard work out the window! And of course, the test will be waiting with the wrong answer as a trap! If you feel that you've got a problem set up correctly, you should actually slow down a bit and make sure your computations are accurate. Rushing is never a good way to save time on this test – find that extra time somewhere else!

• Verbal "Down To Two" Errors. Ah, everyone dreads this one! It's very common, by the way; most Verbal questions have 2 or 3 answer choices that can be easily eliminated, even at the highest level. Develop a system for dealing with this scenario with every different question type. For example, if I'm down to two answers on a Critical Reasoning problem that's asking me to find the assumption, I always go with the "negation test" – negating the correct assumption will severely weaken the argument. The important thing is that you have a plan for getting out of this scenario so you don't end up spending too much time and second guessing yourself.

Cheers,
Mark
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Mark Sullivan | Manhattan GMAT Instructor | Seattle, WA


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