Final weeks: calculation/silly errors and speed :!:

Question

Hi everyone,
I was wondering if you could help me. 
I'm now in the final three pre exam weeks and I'm having two specific (but not independent) problems:

1. I'm making between 3 and 6 calculation or silly (e.g. incorrectly copying the information of the question to my paper) errors in a full exam and this is killing my score
2. I currently do not have the speed to finish the complete exam in time. With the above mentioned results, I'm currently able to do ~30 questiones in the 75 minutes

To give you some background, I've been studying for some time now and I feel I have a good understanding of all the topics although everyday I learn a new rule or trick to solve some questions in an easier or faster way.

I'm currently doing around 50 questions per week plus one or two full quant exams with all 700+ level questions.

How can I best reduce this type of errors and my overall speed in the time I have left?

Thanks in advance for the help

KarishmaB · Accepted Answer

First ensure that you understand the concepts very well by going through books/posts (whatever you need). See some examples of how people solve these questions using the 'logical approach'. Try and practice it on some similar questions. Try to put your pen/pencil away and focus on each line of the question at a time. Try and work out what the line tells you. By the time you read the question stem, you might have the answer in your head or some manipulation might give it. Try to do all this without writing anything. It is going to be a pain in the beginning since you would not be use to solving without writing everything down. Also, some questions will involve some calculations which you might want to do on a piece of paper. But one sheet of paper should be enough for 20 questions. If it isn't, that means you missed out on the direct approach and are using way too much time. 
For starters, when you come across a question in which you take a lot of time, put it up on this forum. You will get 1 min solutions to most such questions.

KarishmaB · Answer

The only method of reducing the silly errors is by putting in more time. Double check whether the numbers you have copied down are correct and once you get your answer, check whether it makes logical sense. But timing is already an issue in your case. You can increase speed in 2 ways: 1. Practice enough so that a question for which you take 2 mins, you start taking 1.5 mins. 2. Change your whole thought process and solve questions in half a minute each. But needless to say, this is harder to do. Most Quant questions can be solved logically instead of mathematically. If you focus on the logical methods, you wont need to write down much either. Most of your answers will come orally. But learning how to do this is a time consuming process. Anyway, I would suggest you to look for alternative solutions for every question where you spend more than 2 mins. Put the question up on the forum and you will get quick-fix solutions to it in no time. Also, don't linger on a question for long. Check out this post for some timing strategies: https://www.gmatclub.com/forum/veritas-prep-resource-links-no-longer-available-399979.html#/2010/10 ... for-field/

GMATPASSION · Answer

I am suffering from same problem. Even I feel I know the subject but still cant reach that 27-28 correct in a test. how do i beat it. I have been practicing for quite sometime now.

htbreme · Answer

Thank you for the reply and the blog post VeritasPrepKarishma.
I'm re doing all the questions I did wrong or those for which I spent more than 2 minutues in order to recognize better ways of approaching them and to recognize the most common errors I usually do.

As a result of this I recognize that many of the questions can be solved a lot faster if you take a logical approach, what is the best way to develop this logical method? Although is time consuming it can considerably help

Thanks again and cheers

htbreme · Answer

Great!
I can do that in some questions and I'm defenitly noticing that the amount of pages/lines is reducing.
Since your las message I've been trying to avoid the "formal"/"calculation" approach for a more concenptual approach and it defenitelly helps. I'll try to improve it as much as I can for this exam and, if needed, I will perfect it for the following retakes.

Thanks a lot for the help

EMPOWERgmatRichC · Answer

Hi All,

Pacing problems do not exist on their own - they are the results of OTHER problems. One of the big 'issues' that impacts BOTH pacing and silly mistakes is a lack of note-taking (or inconsistent/disorganized note-taking). Thus, it's important to practice proper note-taking in all areas of the Exam; you really should NOT be doing work in your head. Once you get used to just writing everything down (and labeling your work), you'll find that you'll be solving questions faster AND catching/fixing the little mistakes before (or as) they happen.

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

BrentGMATPrepNow · Answer

If silly mistakes are hurting your score, then it's important that you  identify and categorize  these mistakes. Some examples might include:
- sloppy writing causes a 7 to mysteriously turn into a 1
- you forget that a question is an EXCEPT question.
- you fail to notice crucial information such as   x is an integer   or   w < 0  .
- you calculate Pat’s  current  age when the question asked for the Pat’s age  5 years from now .
- and so on

Once you have identified the types of mistakes that YOU typically make, you will be able to spot situations/questions in which you're prone to making errors.

I write about this and other strategies in the following article:  https://www.gmatprepnow.com/articles/avoiding-silly-misteaks-gmat

Cheers,
Brent

bumpbot · Answer

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Final weeks: calculation/silly errors and speed :!:

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