720-score aiming 770. How do I manage timing when practicing hard Qs?

Hi sweetlyimproved,

While it's understandable why you would focus on "700-level" questions at this point, that's actually too narrow of a focus for the Score Goal that you are interested in. That type of result is above the 99th percentile - and it requires a really high level of 'precision' in your work. That doesn't just mean "get the correct answer"; it also means "solve each question in an efficient fashion (so that you have enough time to properly approach all of the questions in each section)." Since most GMAT questions can be approached in more than one way, you have to be careful about assuming that "your way" is the "best way." If you're approaching the 'easy' and 'medium'-level questions in inefficient ways, then you may be spending too much of your time before you even get to the harder questions that you will face on Test Day (and that you're currently focusing on). This is meant to say that your time might be better spent working more on your methodologies, note-taking, Tactics, etc. than trying to work through a random assortment of the harder questions available.

Before I can offer you the specific advice that you’re looking for, it would help if you could provide a bit more information on how you've been studying and your goals:

Studies:
1) Have you taken the Official GMAT? If you have, then how did you score?
2) How long have you studied? How many hours do you typically study each week?
3) What study materials have you used so far?
4) On what dates did you take EACH of your CATs/mocks and how did you score on EACH (including the Quant and Verbal Scaled Scores for EACH)?

Goals:
5) When are you planning to take the GMAT?
6) When are you planning to apply to Business School?
7) What Schools are you planning to apply to?

GMAT assassins aren't born, they're made,
Rich

Hi, EMPOWERgmatRichC

Thanks for writing.Really insightful to know about that. I'll try not to do only hard level questions and will keep working on methodologies etc.

Studies 1) No.
2) 1 month-full time (8h/ day) + 1 month part time (10-15h/week)
3) Manhattan and Kaplan + OG questions
4) This week 720 (Q49/V39), last week 720 (Q51/V35)
5) 16th January (wll be studying 8h/ day until that date)
6) September
7) HBS + Stanford

Hi sweetlyimproved,

While I understand that why you might want to study 8 hours a day, you have to be careful about that type of 'cramming' - especially since you're so close to your Official Test Date. I've never asked anyone to study 40+ hours a week - and while it's great that you might have the available time to study that much, you would run the risk of 'burning out' before Test Day (and that is something that we want to avoid). If you are going to try to study that much, then I suggest that you take one hour "off" for every two hours of study. For example, you could study for 2 hours, then stop for an hour, then study for another 2 hours, then take an hour off, etc.

In line with what we have discussed previously, "review" is an exceptionally important part of the GMAT training process; your ability to define WHY you're getting questions wrong is essential to defining the areas that you need to work on (and the specific things that you need to 'fix'). As such, I'd like to know a bit more about your last CAT. While a full Mistake Tracker would provide a lot more information, there are some basic questions that you should be able to answer (and the more EXACT you can be with your answers, the better):

After reviewing each section of this recent CAT, how many questions did you get wrong....
1) Because of a silly/little mistake?
2) Because there was some math/verbal that you just could not remember how to do?
3) Because the question was too hard?
4) Because you were low on time and had to guess?
5) How many Verbal questions did you 'narrow down to 2 choices' and get correct? And how many did you still get wrong?

GMAT assassins aren't born, they're made,
Rich

The most common issue causing the people I work with and talk with to have trouble increasing their GMAT verbal scores is their doing most or all of their practice timed. When you cap the time per question you spend on verbal questions, you don't give yourself time to learn how to answer them correctly.

On the other hand, I have seen people's verbal scores increase substantially once they start doing practice questions untimed.

Why does practicing in that way work? For at least two reasons.

One reason is that, if you are really good at seeing what's going on in verbal questions, in most cases the time available per question will be practically irrelevant. You'll naturally answer them in less time per question than is allotted.

The second reason is that, by taking as much time as you need to correctly answer verbal questions, you go through the motions that you need to go through in order to do your job, which is to arrive at correct answers. Arriving at incorrect answers in under two minutes each is useless. You have to learn to see what you have to see and execute flawlessly.

You can be sure that, once you learn to see what you have to see and to execute well, you will naturally answer verbal questions in the time allotted. If you are having trouble answering them within the allotted time, you haven't become good enough at seeing what you have to see and at executing. The answer is not to use a stopwatch. The answer is to get better at seeing what you have to see and at executing.

Sure, some timed practice done close to when you are going to take the actual GMAT might make sense. Other than that, just take as much time as you need, and learn to get the questions correct.

By the way, if you want to score 770, your hit rate in when practicing has to be close to 100 percent. So, take as much time as you need per question to get 100 percent of your practice questions correct. Once you can consistently get, say, 50 correct in a row, look for ways to speed up. Can you read more efficiently? Can you better organize the way you go through the choices? Be strategic.

I'll make sure to have breaks in my studies! Thanks.

1) I make few of those errors
2) Math it happens occasionally... But not the root cause as well
3) Ye. It happens.
There are some CR Questions which I end up losing my focus on the conclusion;
some SC questions in which I fail to find the answer with the best meaning or construction (if the question is based on SVA, parellism etc I get them right). My weakness on SC is on big modifiers questions that is all underlined and on meaning/ construction questions;
on RC, if I had enough time I would get them right, but some times I just can't afford to spend more time
4) I usually guess entirely 2 questions on verbal because of lack of time; on quant I usually guess 2 because I really don't know how to solve them
5) Some times it happens ye

Thanks a lot! Best,


Nice point! What I will try to do then is the following: I'll time my questions to my average and try to do them. The ones that I couldn't I'll try again without restricting time to really understand them.

It really makes sense what you say about: "once you learn to see what you have to see and to execute well, you will naturally answer verbal questions in the time allotted"

I've noticed that the questions that I don't know how to answer on SC, I can't even answer them in 5 minutes. It's about understanding it throughfully and the you'll be able to thrive in time frame required

Thanks