Analysis of GMAT 1- 670(Q49,V31) + GMAT 1 ESR & GMAT 2- 730(Q49,V40)

Hi,
An update:
I was able to learn from the mistakes I committed in GMAT 1 and successfully worked to correct them.
I took GMAT 2 on 4th of August and improved my score to 730 (V40, Q49).The ESR from GMAT 1 played a key role in this, I spent a lot of time in scrutinising the details of the report and worked diligently to particularly improve my RC skills.
I never lost the enthusiasm to prepare for the exam and infact was content with my GMAT 1 score, this also helped to improve my score.
I accepted the fact that I had not worked thoroughly on my verbal skills and that there were many areas in which I could work to improve my skill sets.

Please pay especial attention to your ESR and also analyse thoroughly your performance in GMAT mock exams.

Let me know if anyone wants any specific information from me, I will be glad to help

Best regards,
Rahul

congrats man...

I am stuck at V25
exam is next friday
Any advice??


Sent from my iPhone using GMAT Club Forum mobile app

Hi,

With only a week to go before your exam, it would be prudent on your part to stick with the methodology that works best for you, and there is little I can suggest. But at a broad level:

1. In CR, you should eliminate the three obvious incorrect ans and then drill down to the correct one. It is a known fact that in CR questions, two choices would be out the scope and, one choice would say the opposite of what is required. You should develop an ability to identify these wrong choices quickly. You should consider all info given in the argument and treat all premises and pieces of evidence as if they were true.

2. In RC remember that there are two types of question: 1. Those in which the ans will be given in some form in the passage and 2. Those in which the answer should be inferred (in this type the ans choice which has been worded to restate or rephrase information that was explicitly stated in the passage cannot be the right ans). A restatement is not an inference.

3. Be calm during the exam and try to conserve some time in SC and CR questions, so that you will have some more time to solve RC questions.

Best of luck.

BR,
Rahul

Thanks for sharing the experience, Rahul! Do you have the difficulty chart for Verbal and the timing charts as well?

Posted from my mobile device

Added the difficulty and timing charts as required.

BR,
Rahul

How did you prepare for CR and RC between 1st and 2nd attempt?

Hi,

As I have said in my previous posts, the first thing I did after my 1st attempt was to be at peace with my performance. I became proud of the fact that with 1.5 months of hard work I scored 670. No cribbing, no finger-pointing, no self-pitying and for sure no blame-game!!!

I did not subscribe to a course before my 2nd attempt, but I downloaded some additionalRC and CR questions from this forum ( the-most-comprehensive-collection-of-everything-official-cr-140375.html and the-most-comprehensive-collection-of-everything-official-rc-140373.html ) which I am also attaching in zip format with this post.Next, I identified the flaws in my approach and mentality to solve these questions. I practiced all the questions given in these pdf files.
I also used Aristotle RC 99 for RC practice(Solved the first 65 passages in the book), I found the book extremely useful. In fact, I had a tough time answering the questions given in the first 33 easy passages with high accuracy, analyzing my poor performance while solving those questions helped a lot to improve my performance.

RC

Primary flaw: Since I had only 1.5 months of preparation time, I was not able to give adequate time to RC. RC was the sub-topic in which I solved the least number of questions. My primary approach in RC was to " just wing it and go by instinct." Unfortunately, this is an extremely error-prone and susceptible approach. There were warning signs, but because of lack of time I ignored them, my scores varied a lot in RC sub-section in the four mocks; the range was from 27 to 40. In the main exam, the law of probability caught up with me; because of my inconsistency in solving RC questions, it so happened that I gave my worst performance on the day of Exam-1.

Hence, the most fundamental step was for me to develop an approach to solving RC questions, I quickly learned that the method where I could just skip the passage and directly go to the questions did not work for me at all!!!
My approach: Spend max 4 min in reading the passage, make short notes and then solve the problems. (Pretty standard approach). "Dictator" is a tool which I used to increase my reading speed.
Now, the mistakes I identified I used to make:
1. I would get confused between according-to and inference questions in spite of the fact that I very clearly knew their definitions and the differences between the two types. So through practice, I taught myself ->
In RC remember there are two kinds of question: 1. Those in which the ans will be given in some form in the passage and 2. Those in which the answer should be inferred (in this type the ans choice which has been worded to restate or rephrase information that was explicitly stated in the passage cannot be the right ans). A restatement is not an inference.

2.Sometimes I would understand the matter given in the passage entirely, make brief notes and then become over-confident. After that, I would answer questions from memory and not even go back to check if I was correct. This act was sheer arrogance on my part, and it took me considerable time and effort to fix this. See RC 1a, RC 1b and RC 1c attached in sequence.

3. At times I would encounter a tough question which would fluster me. In those cases, I would just stop, calm myself, close my eyes for 15 seconds, flush everything out of my mind and restart.

I will be honest; I had to train myself not to be overwhelmed by RC passages, keep my composure, be precise with the time I took to read the passage and to make notes, and not be in a hurry to solve the questions. I practiced a lot of RC questions working out the various types of question and the finer nuances of answering them and overtime I became pretty good at solving them; I did not do anything special- just practiced thoroughly and worked on correcting the mistakes I committed.

CR

In CR I had done reasonably well even in the main exam, and there were few loopholes in my understanding which I corrected before the 2nd attempt. Some of them are as follows:

1. We cannot be extremely stringent and act like a robot in answering a CR question, for example, see CR 1 attached.
2. I would sometimes contradict the evidence given in the question stem. For example, I had to teach myself that the correct ans in a weaken question would not deny the evidence. Also if the argument says that something can be done, then it can be done; I stopped bringing in my knowledge or opinion into the equation. I know this sounds like an obvious thing not to do but in spite of practice, I would sometimes deviate from the correct approach. See CR 2 attached.
3. I was heavily dependent on pre-thinking to solve CR questions, but at times pre-thinking would lead me to an incorrect ans. For example a-convenience-store-manager-noticed-that-a-cooler-which-had-133308.html
Pre-thinking prompted me to assume that something of importance took place today, and that is why the manager decided to take a new approach. This thought process encouraged me to look for something unique about the day's occurrence i.e. option B.
I fixed this by modifying my ability to look for the GMAT ans, not my ans. As in the above question, I would always read all the choices even if something I thought of came in an earlier choice (A or B) and then quickly confirm what the question is asking us to do: reinforce the evidence given or look for an assumption.

4. Sometimes I would just start off on the wrong foot and thus get a question wrong. So I began to put particular emphasis on identifying the conclusion and what was exactly being asked in the question. See CR 3 and CR 4 attached.
5. If I came across a question that I could have answered incorrectly under more difficult condition but got correct at that moment, then I would add that question to my error-revision log. See CR 5 attached.

In CR, I developed my ability to eliminate the three obvious incorrect ans quickly and then drill down to the correct one. It is a known fact that in CR questions, two choices would be out the scope and, one choice would say the opposite of what is required.

To summarize, I know it is likely that the info above may not apply to you at all, and the mistakes that I have detailed may not be the ones you commit, but my point is that the above sort of analysis helped me to improve my verbal score. I would complement myself for getting tough questions correct and be angry if I would make a similar mistake again; I critiqued my thinking and my approach to solving any question in depth and did not just keep on answering more and more questions without thorough analysis. I became my tutor; I critiqued my approach to solving each type of GMAT question in detail and fine-tuned it as much as possible. I spent a significant portion of my study time reviewing my performance and being my manager/teacher.

I made many such snapshots like the ones I have attached with the post detailing an error made, a flaw in my approach, something I could improve, a question in which I did well, or a trap to look-out for in future. I revised them thoroughly before attempt number 2.

Also, whenever I used to come across a difficult verbal question, solved either incorrectly or correctly with difficulty, I used to look on the net for Ron Purewal's explanation (Manhattan prep). Ron's answer always used to make sense to me, and I would add the question along with his explanation to my notes. See SC 1 attached.
Hope this helps. Let me know if anyone wants to ask a specific question.
Best regards,
Rahul

Do u have any practice set of questions for SC as well? Can you post it, if u r using any

Hi,

Attached the SC set of questions as well, I downloaded the pdfs from gmatclub only.

Also, one more observation:
I learnt from GMAT attempt 1 that during the final revision just before the exam by solving the same set of CR and SC questions again I impacted my preparation negatively.
Why? Because instead of solving the question from scratch my mind kept on trying to remember what I had selected as the answer when I solved the questions for the first time.
Hence, for my 2nd attempt I kept a set of questions aside that I would solve for the first time just before the exam. I used the questions given in Aristotle SC Grail for this purpose.
Please be known that Aristotle SC Grail has mixed reviews online but personally I liked it a lot and found the book particularly useful for a quick revision.

Best regards,
Rahul

Very good approach to improve . Thanks for sharing screen shot of your analysis of specifc questions

rahulprasad11,
how much time did you spend for preparation between attempt 1 and 2? Did you practice quant section between 2 attempt? If yes, how much time?

And the last question: where I can find explanations of Ron Purewal?

Hi,

I was advised after GMAT 1 not to exert myself too much, so I did take it a bit easy.
Please be known that I am currently a stay at home dad of an 18-month-old, so I had a bit more time to read than a working professional may have.

For the first 14 days after my exam 1, I did not study anything and spent most of the time calming myself down and doing stuff that I like doing e.g. played with my son a lot, planned a holiday and watched some TV series. The point is, I realized that for me having mental stability and being at peace would culminate in a better GMAT performance.


For the last 20 days before attempt 2 I was back in study mode, so at least 7 hours a day of study.
I did not study for Quant section to increase my score in that section specifically, but I did revise all my quant notes thoroughly and did use to practice 12 random maths questions a day.
My scores in the Quant section were very consistent, and I had scored a 50 and a 51 too, so it was not a section in which I spent too much prep time before attempt 2.

One more suggestion: I had four GMAT prep mock exams which I had given before attempt 1 with me. I did not believe that retaking them would serve me any purpose, so I bought two more mock exams from GMAC. But to practice solving questions at one go, I used to solve individual sections of those four mocks during my study time.

Ron's responses can be found on Manhattan prep's website.

Best regards,
Rahul

Hey I have one question. I am assuming that comments against each question were written you. Please confirm. These comments are indeed very comprehensive comments.
Would not it take very long time ?

Hi,

The comments are a mixture of the ones written by me or copied from Manhattan prep's website or copied from GMAT club or some other website.
It would depend on the situation.
For example, in the SC1 below, the comments have been copied from Manhattan prep's website, so I took only a small amount of time to create the screenshot.
I got the correct ans (by eliminating the other answers), as can be seen in the picture, but I was extremely unsure and could have very easily gone for choice A as well, hence decided to investigate further.

In CR4 below, I was irritated with myself to have answered the question incorrectly since I had not even understood the given argument properly. So I wrote the comment in the red box myself because I wanted to put special emphasis on this screenshot, the comment in the green box was copied from some website.

During the preparation for my second GMAT attempt, my emphasis was on quality rather than quantity, so I did spend a lot more time in analysing any mistake I committed and on preparing final revision notes for review rather than on solving more and more questions. Having a screenshot with all the info is quite useful, the screenshot puts all the information regarding a question at one place and thus while revising you do not have to go back to various sources for information again.

Also, in my previous jobs, the development and quality assurance teams used to interact with each other regarding bugs/defects in this way, so I am quite used to making error reports in this pictorial manner rather than maintaining error logs with the use of excel.

Best regards,
Rahul

Hey Rahul.. can you please share your notes (Verbal-RC CR SC) ( the notes which you have put in your debrief.. with your mistake etc) with me mmrigank at gmail dot com..
This will help me immensely.. Thanks

Hi,

Since you asked, I have emailed you the same but be careful when you go through them. Going through CR screenshots would be beneficial but in SC screenshots, there are some questions from the GMAC mock exams, if you also get the same questions in your mock test -> then your scores will get inflated.

Also, my aim of posting the screenshots was to give interested people a pattern matching and storing technique to fine tune their approach to solving questions. If you found what I posted helpful, then I would encourage you to develop a similar attitude as I did to critically analyze any mistake you commit and learn from the analysis done. Going through the errors I committed may not be too beneficial for you, those errors represent the gaps in my thinking process to solve CR-SC questions, and these gaps may not be same as yours.

Best wishes and regards,
Rahul

rahulprasad11 Rahul, I must say your posts on GC have been an absolute inspiration and I would like to show some gratitude for all your help in my studies. Hoping I can reach a similar 730 like yours as well. Thanks a lot buddy. Really appreciate it.