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13 Jan 2025, 13:02
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carcass
This is an excellent conversation, and now that I'm thinking about it, it's probably something I should have discussed more explicitly in the text of the study plan.
A few thoughts on when (and how) to introduce time pressure:
- The single biggest GMAT score-killer is careless errors. Sadly, that's just a natural byproduct of adaptive testing: if you miss easy questions, the algorithm will start to believe that you don't deserve to see hard questions, and your score will suffer disproportionately.
- If you introduce time pressure (either practice tests, or arbitrary time limits on homework sets) too soon, you risk developing bad test-taking habits -- you might start rushing through, and that can create bad habits that ultimately destroy your score. Once you develop those bad habits, they're outrageously hard to break.
- So here's the punchline: it's best to introduce time limits only after you stop making careless mistakes. If you don't make boneheaded errors, it's probably fine to start introducing time limits early in the process. But if you're sloppy, the time pressure will just make an already-apocalyptic problem worse.
Does that make sense? Again, the study plan might be better if it included more explicit guidance on this point, so I'm all ears if anybody has ideas on how best to include those.
Thank you, everybody!
13 Jan 2025, 13:40
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kirtigautam
This is a great question, and I'm not sure that I have a great answer.
In theory, you definitely want to have a solid command of basic arithmetic and algebra before you go too deep into GMAT-specific stuff. The tricky part is that it's hard to define exactly what that means. You might, for example, FEEL like your quant brain has become weak, but maybe your skills are still good enough -- even if they could use some sharpening over time. In that case, there's really no need to do anything before you jump into the study plan, including the practice test.
If, on the other hand, you can't solve basic algebra questions (a system of simple linear equations, or a straightforward quadratics factoring question), that's a different thing. In that case, it might be worth jumping into a textbook or watching some videos on basic algebra (perhaps via something like Khan Academy) before you start working on GMAT-specific questions.
If you're not sure, give the Week 1 homework a shot, and see how it goes. Use the benchmarks in the study plan to help get a sense of whether you're in real trouble -- if you're nowhere close to those benchmarks, it might be worth working on some basics before continuing.
I hope that helps a bit! For some reason, my hunch is that you're not doing as badly as you fear, but I could be completely wrong.
13 Jan 2025, 13:53
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meganmulroe
Thank you for the kinds words about the videos! I'm glad that they've helped a bit.
Those links look like they're working properly when I click on them, but please let me know if there's a glitch that I'm missing. If the links are correct, you'll see a bunch of different forum threads, each of which begins with a quant question. The idea is that you can do 25 (or however many) of those, and you'll face a nice variety of questions within a specific topic area.
You could also use the GMAT Club Forum Quiz to accomplish the same goal, but a bit more elegantly.
I hope that helps a bit, and have fun studying!
