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Apr 2808:00 AM PDT
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Whether you are just beginning your MBA journey or fine-tuning your path to a 700+ score, GMAT Day is designed to give you a competitive edge.
29 Dec 2015, 15:52
Kudos
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Dear GMAT Club Members,
this is my first post here
My goal is to have Q51 (minimum Q50) and V40 (minimum V35). I am non-native speaker from Europe. I was always good in maths, but not so much on the fields connected with languages and linguistic. I just need more time than others to learn these things.
I have the GMAT Exam on 11.01.2016. I have been studying since September, but I made a big mistake that I was not using this forum in the beginning. I thought that preparing to the GMAT is like to any exam from mathematical subject at university or in highschool. I used Crack the GMAT , learned some grammatical rules, repeated mathematical equations from highschool and went on to practicing with checking mistakes (unfortunately not very carefully). It was a mistake! I noticed it after two months during which I used some valueable resources (some free practice exams, OG exercises) close to my GMAT Exam scheduled date (14.12.2015). I decided to postpone it for 50 dollars, because I did not see the sense to take it, while I felt that I need a lot to practice in both Quant and Verbal. My best result in PrepExam was 650 (Q47, V32) at Kaplan and I knew that I am not satisfied about it. I trained maths from the books from my highschool, read Atlas Schrugged (I am still reading, it is sooo long
) and articles from The Economist, Forbes, HBR and FT, purchased MGMAT SC and Advanced Quant and received PowerScore CR from my friend.
I feel that I improved my skills in maths and my English needed on the GMAT. Furthermore I learned many new concepts about SC. However I do not see a big improvement in CR. Before postponing my first exam it was my best part in Verbal. But I have not finished PowerScore and probably I will not do it (I do not have time).
Later I was practicing, but knowing that I do not have much time, I was doing it how it was possible (checking right answer and writing somewhere what was my mistake).
Today I took my last GMATPrep exam (I wasted the first one in the end of August...). And I do not know what to do now.
Condititions of the GMATPrep
Unfortunately, it was impossible for me to find a silent place to take this exam outside my home. The maximum what I could do was going to do it in the room, in which I am very rarely. The exam started at 9:30 AM - exactly the same time of my real GMAT Exam on 11.01.2016.
AWA and IR
I did not practice AWA a lot before, I thought that it is about writing a short text. Later I saw on GMATClub that essays are much longer and they must be written in the certain pattern. Is it OK to firstly write down the main concepts that I have and later write the whole essay on the computer?
I do not want to spend much time on IR. My results are between 5 and 10 (but I have never studied to this part). In Bunuel's post in IR Forum there are a lot of materials. Do you recommend any of them (or maybe another resource) to study to IR very quickly? This is not very important part for me, but I would like to have a decent result.
Quant
I had 50. This is not an accident, because on 25.12 in the GMATClub Test I had the same result.
11 mistakes which I had (1 was a shot to gain some time, what later turned out not to be necessairy) is a lot for the person who has Q50. I read how GMAT works, so in the beginning of Quant I am extremely focused and I spend more time on questions. That is why I made the first mistake in 5th question and next one in 12th question.
I saw in analysis that:
- as I said 1 mistake was a shot that I did without reading
- 10 wrong answers are from 9 fields of Quant, so I do not see any special topic in which I am very weak
- I classified to silly mistakes only 3 out of 10 mistakes that I made
- from 7 left 2 were typical DS mistakes that I did not finish the problem, but based the solution on my intuition thinking that the answer is obvious (somehow silly too)
- in the rest (5) I did not understand the concept, the question (really, there were 2 questions like this) or made a substantive mistake (I thought that 0 can be multiple of a number)
- I did not have any question that I did not know how to solve. There were only questions that I was solving wrong.
I noticed that from the middle of the exam I became less focused. I am not so careful as before.
Do you have any idea what can I do to improve my Quant to 51?
Verbal
And this is my main problem. First, I got 29... Second, what is even worse, I did not finish the exam on time! The time finished when I was about clicking the last answer. So I got the penalty and do not know what actually my result is. NEVER AGAIN!
The reason, why this happened is my main worry now... It was as someone took energy from my brain and did not allow it to work. I knew it from the first excercise. I could not even read... I was fighting with myself rereading sentences again and again... and I am even surprised how much of them I had correctly. My result here (and the reason for it) is also not an accident, because the same happened on the GMATClub Exam, on which I had Q50 V...9 (has anyone had such result in the history of GMAT?
)
Later I analyzed my mistakes (18) and:
- 5 were shots (3 RC - I did not read the long passage... usually I spend a lot of time on this and I knew that I am late, 2 CR with boldface fragments). Is it good to omit the whole passage, if we do not have the time?
- 1 was without the answer (the last one)...
- I did not know 3 answers (even later when I was analyzing them)
- 1 was clear 50/50 (2 options left) that even later I had the problem to know which was the correct one
- the rest (8) were stupid, silly mistakes, which normally I solve... I did it later without looking at the answers. Someone can tell that it was easier, because I had one choice elliminated, but sometimes my answers were ridiculous...
Apart from shots I had 2 mistakes in RC (out of 3 completed passages), 7 mistakes in SC (always was my worst field), 3 mistakes in CR (in the end from 33rd question).
The thing is that I know there is always something to improve in the knowledge and material... But my main problem now is my brain stamina. More exactly during verbal part from the beginning I feel as my brain is fed up, can not get more. I do not understand what I read, I can not think. The only thing that I dream about is finishing the exam. My brain just suffers, but it is not a pain. It is like an old computer with no space on its hard disc. And this feeling raises.
I am really disappointed, because when I study to GMAT I do it in the blocks, which last 1:20 h and have 10-20 minutes break (except a lunch break)... I did not finish that I will meet such problem, but I would prevent it.
Please, help me. I really do not know what to do. How to train... How to get rid of this?
Has anyone heard about such problem? What can I do? How can I improve my verbal?
I would be very grateful for any help.
Thank you!
this is my first post here
My goal is to have Q51 (minimum Q50) and V40 (minimum V35). I am non-native speaker from Europe. I was always good in maths, but not so much on the fields connected with languages and linguistic. I just need more time than others to learn these things.
I have the GMAT Exam on 11.01.2016. I have been studying since September, but I made a big mistake that I was not using this forum in the beginning. I thought that preparing to the GMAT is like to any exam from mathematical subject at university or in highschool. I used Crack the GMAT , learned some grammatical rules, repeated mathematical equations from highschool and went on to practicing with checking mistakes (unfortunately not very carefully). It was a mistake! I noticed it after two months during which I used some valueable resources (some free practice exams, OG exercises) close to my GMAT Exam scheduled date (14.12.2015). I decided to postpone it for 50 dollars, because I did not see the sense to take it, while I felt that I need a lot to practice in both Quant and Verbal. My best result in PrepExam was 650 (Q47, V32) at Kaplan and I knew that I am not satisfied about it. I trained maths from the books from my highschool, read Atlas Schrugged (I am still reading, it is sooo long
) and articles from The Economist, Forbes, HBR and FT, purchased MGMAT SC and Advanced Quant and received PowerScore CR from my friend. I feel that I improved my skills in maths and my English needed on the GMAT. Furthermore I learned many new concepts about SC. However I do not see a big improvement in CR. Before postponing my first exam it was my best part in Verbal. But I have not finished PowerScore and probably I will not do it (I do not have time).
Later I was practicing, but knowing that I do not have much time, I was doing it how it was possible (checking right answer and writing somewhere what was my mistake).
Today I took my last GMATPrep exam (I wasted the first one in the end of August...). And I do not know what to do now.
Condititions of the GMATPrep
Unfortunately, it was impossible for me to find a silent place to take this exam outside my home. The maximum what I could do was going to do it in the room, in which I am very rarely. The exam started at 9:30 AM - exactly the same time of my real GMAT Exam on 11.01.2016.
AWA and IR
I did not practice AWA a lot before, I thought that it is about writing a short text. Later I saw on GMATClub that essays are much longer and they must be written in the certain pattern. Is it OK to firstly write down the main concepts that I have and later write the whole essay on the computer?
I do not want to spend much time on IR. My results are between 5 and 10 (but I have never studied to this part). In Bunuel's post in IR Forum there are a lot of materials. Do you recommend any of them (or maybe another resource) to study to IR very quickly? This is not very important part for me, but I would like to have a decent result.
Quant
I had 50. This is not an accident, because on 25.12 in the GMATClub Test I had the same result.
11 mistakes which I had (1 was a shot to gain some time, what later turned out not to be necessairy) is a lot for the person who has Q50. I read how GMAT works, so in the beginning of Quant I am extremely focused and I spend more time on questions. That is why I made the first mistake in 5th question and next one in 12th question.
I saw in analysis that:
- as I said 1 mistake was a shot that I did without reading
- 10 wrong answers are from 9 fields of Quant, so I do not see any special topic in which I am very weak
- I classified to silly mistakes only 3 out of 10 mistakes that I made
- from 7 left 2 were typical DS mistakes that I did not finish the problem, but based the solution on my intuition thinking that the answer is obvious (somehow silly too)
- in the rest (5) I did not understand the concept, the question (really, there were 2 questions like this) or made a substantive mistake (I thought that 0 can be multiple of a number)
- I did not have any question that I did not know how to solve. There were only questions that I was solving wrong.
I noticed that from the middle of the exam I became less focused. I am not so careful as before.
Do you have any idea what can I do to improve my Quant to 51?
Verbal
And this is my main problem. First, I got 29... Second, what is even worse, I did not finish the exam on time! The time finished when I was about clicking the last answer. So I got the penalty and do not know what actually my result is. NEVER AGAIN!
The reason, why this happened is my main worry now... It was as someone took energy from my brain and did not allow it to work. I knew it from the first excercise. I could not even read... I was fighting with myself rereading sentences again and again... and I am even surprised how much of them I had correctly. My result here (and the reason for it) is also not an accident, because the same happened on the GMATClub Exam, on which I had Q50 V...9 (has anyone had such result in the history of GMAT?
)Later I analyzed my mistakes (18) and:
- 5 were shots (3 RC - I did not read the long passage... usually I spend a lot of time on this and I knew that I am late, 2 CR with boldface fragments). Is it good to omit the whole passage, if we do not have the time?
- 1 was without the answer (the last one)...
- I did not know 3 answers (even later when I was analyzing them)
- 1 was clear 50/50 (2 options left) that even later I had the problem to know which was the correct one
- the rest (8) were stupid, silly mistakes, which normally I solve... I did it later without looking at the answers. Someone can tell that it was easier, because I had one choice elliminated, but sometimes my answers were ridiculous...
Apart from shots I had 2 mistakes in RC (out of 3 completed passages), 7 mistakes in SC (always was my worst field), 3 mistakes in CR (in the end from 33rd question).
The thing is that I know there is always something to improve in the knowledge and material... But my main problem now is my brain stamina. More exactly during verbal part from the beginning I feel as my brain is fed up, can not get more. I do not understand what I read, I can not think. The only thing that I dream about is finishing the exam. My brain just suffers, but it is not a pain. It is like an old computer with no space on its hard disc. And this feeling raises.
I am really disappointed, because when I study to GMAT I do it in the blocks, which last 1:20 h and have 10-20 minutes break (except a lunch break)... I did not finish that I will meet such problem, but I would prevent it.
Please, help me. I really do not know what to do. How to train... How to get rid of this?
Has anyone heard about such problem? What can I do? How can I improve my verbal?
I would be very grateful for any help.
Thank you!
30 Dec 2015, 06:11
Kudos
Bookmarks
That was a pretty thorough review of your situation. It's clear that your main problem is stamina during the verbal section. I like that you have made some efforts to build your stamina by working in long blocks, but I would recommend changing that up a bit. That is a long time to study without a break so likely your study sessions are suffering a bit - I would recommend no longer than 45-60 minutes per session.
As far as building up your stamina for the exam, I would recommend approaching your study like a runner would prepare for a marathon. Runners don't run a marathon each day in preparation for the race; they run varying lengths each day to help build up their stamina.
You need to get really good at becoming hyper focused on Verbal during shorter sessions - 30 to 45 minutes. Give yourself some successful verbal session where you complete 5-20 verbal questions and remain highly focused and on-time throughout. Once you have success in shorter sessions you can apply the same principles to longer sessions...
KW
As far as building up your stamina for the exam, I would recommend approaching your study like a runner would prepare for a marathon. Runners don't run a marathon each day in preparation for the race; they run varying lengths each day to help build up their stamina.
You need to get really good at becoming hyper focused on Verbal during shorter sessions - 30 to 45 minutes. Give yourself some successful verbal session where you complete 5-20 verbal questions and remain highly focused and on-time throughout. Once you have success in shorter sessions you can apply the same principles to longer sessions...
KW
