Flash Cards

Hi GMAT717,

Based on the information in your last post, I have a few suggestions for your continued studies:

1) If it's been at least a few weeks since you took your original CAT, then you should plan to take a new FULL-LENGTH CAT (with the Essay and IR sections) sometime soon (perhaps this weekend). Taking FULL CATs at regular intervals will allow you to catch/fix little issues with how you handle the full Exam as they come up (instead of leaving them all to the end of your studies). We also need to get a sense of your current skills in both the Quant and Verbal sections. Once you have that score result, you should post back here and we can discuss your studies going forward.

2) With a score goal of 600, you don't have to get ANY of the hard/weird questions correct, but you do have to minimize the number of little mistakes that you make (and really nail the 'gettable' questions). You should keep that in mind when you take your CATs - sometimes the smartest move is to 'dump' a hard question quickly and move on.

3) Raising a 440 to a 600+ will require some serious work on your part, but you're not going to pick up all of those points overnight. So remember to stay consistent with your studies. You still have plenty of time to study and improve.

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

Thank you Rich
I will take a CAT exam on Monday at the same time of the exam and let you know
Most probably it will be MGMAT exam.

Hey Rich,
I just finished the exam now
I got 530, Q39 V25, IR 2.4
The exam was the same conditions as the real one with the exception I did not wear the headphone this time.

I did not understand what the IR really was talking about, I do not have any background about it. I tried to solve it like the Mathematics.
I finished all the sections earlier than I should, Quant 56 Minutes, Verbal 54 Minutes, IR 24 Minutes, AWA 16 Minutes ( but I am sure I did not write a good analysis at all)

Most of my problems with the quant was that I forgot the rule that I should apply, like how to calculate the standard deviation, or how to calculate the slope. This was the reason why I was looking for flash cards that I check every night before going to bed.

As for the verbal, I just started with the basics of the SC and only started to practice the subject verbal agreement questions, also I know how to summarize the RC topic, I know nothing about the CR.

I know have almost 7 weeks until the exam. I am thinking of focusing the next 4 weeks for the verbal plus finishing the quant questions in the OG and QR, every day around 25 questions (15 PS/ 10 DS) mixed levels, in order to keep remembering the quant. I forgot lots of stuff I already studied 3 weeks ago.

As for the verbal I think of taking 10 days for SC, 10 days for CR, and a week for RC.

I would like to know your opinion about this plan, and what would you recommend for me in order to get my target score

You need only 600? IMO, you should aim for 650, a realistic and somewhat conservative goal. Your starting points for both sections are quite low, which makes it easy to boost your sectional scores significantly. You may already be at the 600 level.

What is your background in Math and English?

I am a non native speaker who didn't touch the mathematics for more than 15 years
I am done with the basics of the quant section and didn't start the verbal yet

Posted from my mobile device

Hi GMAT717,

Using this recent CAT score as a gauge, you could pick up all of the missing points that you're looking for in either the Quant or the Verbal (or a combination of the two). As such, with your study timeframe I think that your chances of scoring 600+ are quite good. Instead of focusing too heavily on one section or the other, you should plan to work on a bit of both during each week. You'd probably be surprised how many of the skills that you'll use to handle CR questions will often 'translate' into other areas (especially IR, but the basic note-taking skills are useful in RC and 'word problems' in PS/DS).

Since you've been studying for just one month, I suggest that you study as you see fit for the next 1-2 weeks, then take a new FULL-LENGTH CAT (with the Essay and IR sections). That score result will give us a good idea of how well your studies are going and what adjustments you might need to make going forward.

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

Hi Rich,
For the past 10 days I was kinda exhausted so I couldn't really study as I planned at all
I solved around 70 quant questions mixed from OG, egmat, and Gmat club. I got most of my answers wrong, some of them because of weak points and some of them I didn't expect them to be wrong (around 40% of my mistakes).
And I started the SC, finished the verb, sv, pronoun, but I can't work with the modifiers, I keep getting confused that I can't see that this clause modifies that verb for example.
Now since I am too late on my schedule, I thought of starting the CR and then go back to the SC later. Does that sound like a good idea?
Is there any advice to get over the SC obstacle?
I started to get anxious about my level going down now, I was excited that I got improved by a hundred points already in 3 weeks.
What should I do to get back on track?

Sent from my D6616 using GMAT Club Forum mobile app

Hi GMAT717,

In my prior post, I suggested that you study some more and then take a new FULL-LENGTH CAT (with the Essay and IR sections). Regardless of how well (or how little) you've studied over the last 10 days, I still think that you should take that CAT. We need a better sense of how much you might be 'forgetting' material that you've already practiced. You should also attempt to use the full amount of time in each section. Finishing the Quant or Verbal sections more than a few minutes early is almost never a 'good' thing - it usually means that you made some little mistakes and got some questions wrong that you should have gotten correct. It's okay if you honestly don't know how to answer a question (you can take a guess and move on), but if a question is 'gettable', then you can use the extra time that you have to do more work (or double-check the work that you did) and make sure that you're picking up those points.

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

Hi Rich,
I just took the exam. It happened that I pressed by mistake taking the exam without IR, so I took the IR from 800score section. The IR section was easier than MGMAT, and I got 4. I still did not do the IR except of some intro about graphs.
I took the rest of the exam from MGMAT, and I got 52, Q38, V24. which is lower one grade last exam.
I still have a problem with timing, I do finish early, even though I try my best to take my time.
I took 29 min in AWA, 29 min in IR, 62 min in Quant, and 45 min in Verbal. I almost skipped one reading comprehension I felt like I am totally lost in it.

Now I have one month exactly to go, I need to reach to Q40 and V32. What shall I do in the upcoming month?

Hi GMAT717,

Since you're still finishing the Quant and Verbal sections with so much extra time on the clock, I have to assume that you're essentially 'giving up' on questions if you don't immediately see how to solve them. You're going to find that many of the questions that you face on Test Day will require that you 'play around' with them a bit - take some notes, write down a formula, translate a sentence into an algebraic equation, etc. To raise your scores, you're going to have to do that work. It's okay if you look at a prompt and don't immediately see how best to approach it; it's NOT okay to just stare at the screen, rereading the prompt over-and-over and ultimately doing no work. The GMAT is a consistent Exam - the wording of the prompts is consistent, the concepts that are tested are consistent and even the types of wrong answers tend to be consistent. This is all meant to say that you CAN take advantage of all of those patterns, but you still have to do the necessary work to earn those points.

After reviewing this last CAT, how many of the questions that you got wrong did you think were 'gettable?' What type of work did it take to get them correct? THAT's the type of work that you need to be doing (and thankfully, you have lots of available time in each section to do that work).

1) Do you have the flexibility to push back your Test Date?

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

Hi Rich,
No I do not have any flexibility to change my exam date, if I did not apply this round I will not be able to apply again for family reasons.
I got 19 questions wrong in quant, maybe 9 of them can be "gettable" if i had more practice on them
I got 21 questions wrong in verbal, I believe I can work out more on the SC and CR questions, but the RC is not easy at all for me, if I did not get the passage then all its questions are gone.
what would you advise me to do?

If you don't understand Reading Comprehension passages, your problem is with English reading comprehension. What do you think is the main reason you are not able to comprehend those passages? New words? Long sentences? Complicated structure?

Either way, you need to get better at English. I don't think there is a way to get around that. I strongly recommend that you start reading stuff in English. News articles, business journals, books, whatever you can find. Also, look up words, in your practice questions, that you did not understand and could not reason out. If you did not understand certain passages, read them now, slowly, so that you can understand them.

Do you have somebody that can help you with English?

Your main problem with Quant seems to be your weak foundation in math, besides your weak comprehension of questions due to your English. Math is much harder to improve than English, in my opinion.

Do you have somebody that can help you with math? The only way to get better at math in a month is to attempt questions and have somebody check your approach and explain to you what the optimal approach is and where you went wrong in your solution.

Like RichC, I really think you should push back your exam date, even by merely 2 weeks. Also, you probably need an English tutor and a math tutor unless you really think you can study these skills on your own and make tremendous progress in the next 4 weeks. Tutors are probably expensive, but since you're running out of time, hiring tutors may be a nessary move. Re-taking the test is not cheap, either. Time or money - you cannot have both.

Posted from my mobile device

I don't have a problem with the language, I do have a problem with certain topic. Once the topic has to do with a boring topic specially history I get lost. And I can't focus even though I am writing down the ideas. I can get every word I just can't focus to get the idea.
As for the maths, I do have someone who can help me with it.
As for pushing the exam this is not possible. If I pushed it I won't be able to apply anyway so it's useless. I only have one shot for this application.
I just need to jump up to 600 nothing more.
So I guess it's a good idea to read more history topics, as well as solving more maths problems. What else should I do?

I'm afraid it is not only history passages that you have trouble understanding; the fact that you get most of your Verbal questions wrong suggests that you are giving up on other passages as well.

It is essential that you be able to read with focus for 75 minutes continously regardless of the topics. You should go back to the passages, in either CR, RC, or SC, that you had trouble understanding and read them again. If you still don't understand them, read again till you do. Understanding what is being talked about is the first step in approaching Verbal questions.

Making it a point to always use proper grammar in forum posts would also be helpful.

Since you already have a math assistant, make sure he is competent and reliable and understands your needs. Try to get a really good one since you won't have a second chance to take the test.

Posted from my mobile device

Hi GMAT717,

I'm going to reiterate a point from one of my earlier posts:

With a score goal of 600, you don't have to get ANY of the hard/weird questions correct, but you do have to minimize the number of little mistakes that you make (and really nail the 'gettable' questions). You should keep that in mind when you take your CATs - sometimes the smartest move is to 'dump' a hard question quickly and move on.

When it comes to RC, you can still correctly answer some of the questions even if you don't completely understand what the prompt is discussing. While understanding every idea in an RC passage would be ideal, even if you don't understand most of what you're reading, there must be SOME WORDS that you DO understand. You should focus on those words and ignore the others. As an example, if you were dealing with a wordy, technical science prompt, you should be able to recognize the organization of the prompt and jot down these basic notes:

Par. 1: The author says that this <complex science concept> is accurate.
Par. 2: Here's an example of how a scientist proved it.
Par. 3: A different scientist disagrees with the first scientist for 2 reasons.
Par. 4: The author says the second scientist is wrong because of <science reasons>.

With just these basic paragraph notes, I bet that you could correctly answer half of the questions that came with that prompt.

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