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Balajikarthick1990
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GMAT PREP : 720 ACTUAL GMAT : 640 - Help required 03 Jul 2016, 01:28
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Your performance in the 3rd quarter of the Verbal section was way under your average performance in Verbal. Do you recall what happened there? One difficult Reading Comprehension passage, perhaps? Loss of focus?

Ya Honai,

I had a panic as well as some anxiety related issues. My first 10 questions consisted of 2 BOLD FACED CR and 4 question 4 para RC. I think these questions sucked my energy out and created an attack.

Actually you did pretty well on the 2nd set of 9 questions. Your performance dipped only in the 3rd set. I suspect something else happened. Do you recall anything? Were you tired or hungry or distracted? Be honest with yourself.
Show more

Hi Hanoi, Thanks. I don`t recall. I was bit tired. But still I don`t see any other distraction. But I was very nervous when I did my verbal section in comparison to my quant section (DS I scored a 51- since I am pretty strong basically in quant, I enjoyed solving quants and was able to walk in the shoes of the question setter. Tricks fell into place as expected). But in verbal being a non-speaker, that nuances (close calls between 2 choices) are difficult to zero in and the confidence that I possessed when i solved quants was relatively high in comparison to that in verbal.
I am completely honest and after having worked so hard day in day and day out after hectic office hours, I have no point in hiding anything,
Thanks
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Hi Hanoi, Thanks. I don`t recall. I was bit tired. But still I don`t see any other distraction. But I was very nervous when I did my verbal section in comparison to my quant section (DS I scored a 51- since I am pretty strong basically in quant, I enjoyed solving quants and was able to walk in the shoes of the question setter. Tricks fell into place as expected). But in verbal being a non-speaker, that nuances (close calls between 2 choices) are difficult to zero in and the confidence that I possessed when i solved quants was relatively high in comparison to that in verbal.
I am completely honest and after having worked so hard day in day and day out after hectic office hours, I have no point in hiding anything,
Thanks
Show more

Oh, I meant if you had to hold your pee, you wouldn't have to hide that. :)

I see. This may be a matter of endurance. Your performance rebounded in the last quarter, but this is attributable to questions being easier.
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Hi Hanoi, Thanks. I don`t recall. I was bit tired. But still I don`t see any other distraction. But I was very nervous when I did my verbal section in comparison to my quant section (DS I scored a 51- since I am pretty strong basically in quant, I enjoyed solving quants and was able to walk in the shoes of the question setter. Tricks fell into place as expected). But in verbal being a non-speaker, that nuances (close calls between 2 choices) are difficult to zero in and the confidence that I possessed when i solved quants was relatively high in comparison to that in verbal.
I am completely honest and after having worked so hard day in day and day out after hectic office hours, I have no point in hiding anything,
Thanks

Oh, I meant if you had to hold your pee, you wouldn't have to hide that. :)

I see. This may be a matter of endurance. Your performance rebounded in the last quarter, but this is attributable to questions being easier.
Show more

ha ha definitely not that reason hanoi...thanks for your help. What do you feel. I have 45 days to my retake. What should I do?
Thanks
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Balajikarthick1990
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Hi Hanoi, Thanks. I don`t recall. I was bit tired. But still I don`t see any other distraction. But I was very nervous when I did my verbal section in comparison to my quant section (DS I scored a 51- since I am pretty strong basically in quant, I enjoyed solving quants and was able to walk in the shoes of the question setter. Tricks fell into place as expected). But in verbal being a non-speaker, that nuances (close calls between 2 choices) are difficult to zero in and the confidence that I possessed when i solved quants was relatively high in comparison to that in verbal.
I am completely honest and after having worked so hard day in day and day out after hectic office hours, I have no point in hiding anything,
Thanks

Oh, I meant if you had to hold your pee, you wouldn't have to hide that. :)

I see. This may be a matter of endurance. Your performance rebounded in the last quarter, but this is attributable to questions being easier.

ha ha definitely not that reason hanoi...thanks for your help. What do you feel. I have 45 days to my retake. What should I do?
Thanks
Show more

Hard to tell. The report shows that you were not able to answer many questions of above-medium difficulty level. The good news is that you seem able to answer easy questions consistently, making few errors. The bad news is of course that you don't seem to be capable, at the current level, of answering harder questions. On the flip side, there is a lot of space for improvement.

You should re-take, but you'll have to make sure you either enroll in a good course, or hire a capable tutor. Either way, your understanding of the test will need to be dramatically improved for you to have a shot at 700. You will need something or somebody that can take you to the next level.
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GMAT PREP : 720 ACTUAL GMAT : 640 - Help required 03 Jul 2016, 07:38
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Ok here's my take on your situation.

I am going to focus exclusively on Verbal, since this is your primary weakness.

First of all, I notice that you studied a lot the day before the test. I don't know if this is something you've always done for your big exams, but if I were you I wouldn't. The times in the past when I failed a big exam, I studied hard the day before the exam. Big mistake on my part. The GMAT is not a memory-based exam; it is an analysis-based exam. Memorizing notes and rules only carries you that far. What you really need to learn is how to think critically, and critical thinking is not a skill that can be improved in one day. Rather, the day before the battle should be relaxing day whose purpose is to refresh your mind and get it in the best shape for the thinking test the next day. Cramming rarely ever works. For the GMAT, almost never.

Secondly, I see that your momentum was not kept up throughout the 75 minutes of the Verbal section. Specifically, you tripped big time in the 3rd quarter and did almost no better than random guessing. I suspect this was because the scare from facing the unfamiliar types of questions earlier in the section could not escape your thoughts and slowly tired your brain out. You seem to have recovered a bit in the final quarter; perhaps your brain was so tired at this point that it actually forgot about the scare and was redirected to solving the tasks at hand. Big takeaway from this: do not let hard questions bug you. Ever. There are bound to be curveballs thrown at you on the test day, no matter how prepared you are. You cannot solve all of the problems. Pick your battle. If a problem seems hard after you think it through, following your normal approach, it probably is. Simply guess and move on. The next problem seems hard too? Guess an answer choice, and move on again. Another hard problem? Guess again. Guess what? You've just guessed 3 questions. 3 out of 41. Big deal. Doesn't matter. Carry on. Even the greatest warrior comes into the battle expecting a surprise enemy.

Thirdly, did you notice how little time you spent on average on Verbal questions? This phenomenon was likely caused by the fact that you spent too much time on experimental questions, leaving little time to questions that actually counted. Of course you did not know when taking the test whether the question you were working on was real or experimental, but you stayed disproportionately long on the experimental questions which were likely harder than real questions. This demonstrates a lack of the ability to gauge the difficulty of each question. Again, pick your battle. A problem seems hard after you apply your usual method? Guess and move on. Chances are, that problem does not count one bit.

Fourthly, you are weak in Critical Reasoning. You need to get better at this, much better. I notice that you consider yourself good at predicting the answer without looking at answer choices. So don't use the process of elimination if you find an answer that matches your prediction. Use the process of elimination only when you cannot find an obviously correct answer choice; otherwise, you'll miss the point of pre-thinking. You also mentioned that you had difficulty solving some bold faced questions. This tells me that you have trouble following an argument. Do this. Every time you face an argument, try to identify the conclusion and the premises right away, and then analyze how the conclusion flows from the premises combined. Separate premises from background information; do not get the two mixed up. Bold faced questions should be easy, because you are supposed to understand the structure of the argument regardless of what question is asked of you.

Now, should you re-take the test? I don't know. You'll need to improve a lot to attain your target score of 700. I don't know you enough to tell you with confidence whether you'll be able to get there, and if you are, whether the time and effort spent will be worth it. I feel that if you can easily fix the first 3 problems I brought up, you'll already be near the 700 level, and if you also improve Critical Reasoning by following the method I outlined, that may be sufficient to carry you over the 700 threshold. You need confidence and consistency, and both of these qualities will come from a good understanding of the exam and of your own capabilities. Study well, know your strengths, admit your weaknesses, and be prepared to be a high achiever but not a perfectionist.

Hope this helps.
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HiLine
Ok here's my take on your situation.

I am going to focus exclusively on Verbal, since this is your primary weakness.

First of all, I notice that you studied a lot the day before the test. I don't know if this is something you've always done for your big exams, but if I were you I wouldn't. The times in the past when I failed a big exam, I studied hard the day before the exam. Big mistake on my part. The GMAT is not a memory-based exam; it is an analysis-based exam. Memorizing notes and rules only carries you that far. What you really need to learn is how to think critically, and critical thinking is not a skill that can be improved in one day. Rather, the day before the battle should be relaxing day whose purpose is to refresh your mind and get it in the best shape for the thinking test the next day. Cramming rarely ever works. For the GMAT, almost never.

Secondly, I see that your momentum was not kept up throughout the 75 minutes of the Verbal section. Specifically, you tripped big time in the 3rd quarter and did almost no better than random guessing. I suspect this was because the scare from facing the unfamiliar types of questions earlier in the section could not escape your thoughts and slowly tired your brain out. You seem to have recovered a bit in the final quarter; perhaps your brain was so tired at this point that it actually forgot about the scare and was redirected to solving the tasks at hand. Big takeaway from this: do not let hard questions bug you. Ever. There are bound to be curveballs thrown at you on the test day, no matter how prepared you are. You cannot solve all of the problems. Pick your battle. If a problem seems hard after you think it through, following your normal approach, it probably is. Simply guess and move on. The next problem seems hard too? Guess an answer choice, and move on again. Another hard problem? Guess again. Guess what? You've just guessed 3 questions. 3 out of 41. Big deal. Doesn't matter. Carry on. Even the greatest warrior comes into the battle expecting a surprise enemy.

Thirdly, did you notice how little time you spent on average on Verbal questions? This phenomenon was likely caused by the fact that you spent too much time on experimental questions, leaving little time to questions that actually counted. Of course you did not know when taking the test whether the question you were working on was real or experimental, but you stayed disproportionately long on the experimental questions which were likely harder than real questions. This demonstrates a lack of the ability to gauge the difficulty of each question. Again, pick your battle. A problem seems hard after you apply your usual method? Guess and move on. Chances are, that problem does not count one bit.

Fourthly, you are weak in Critical Reasoning. You need to get better at this, much better. I notice that you consider yourself good at predicting the answer without looking at answer choices. So don't use the process of elimination if you find an answer that matches your prediction. Use the process of elimination only when you cannot find an obviously correct answer choice; otherwise, you'll miss the point of pre-thinking. You also mentioned that you had difficulty solving some bold faced questions. This tells me that you have trouble following an argument. Do this. Every time you face an argument, try to identify the conclusion and the premises right away, and then analyze how the conclusion flows from the premises combined. Separate premises from background information; do not get the two mixed up. Bold faced questions should be easy, because you are supposed to understand the structure of the argument regardless of what question is asked of you.

Now, should you re-take the test? I don't know. You'll need to improve a lot to attain your target score of 700. I don't know you enough to tell you with confidence whether you'll be able to get there, and if you are, whether the time and effort spent will be worth it. I feel that if you can easily fix the first 3 problems I brought up, you'll already be near the 700 level, and if you also improve Critical Reasoning by following the method I outlined, that may be sufficient to carry you over the 700 threshold. You need confidence and consistency, and both of these qualities will come from a good understanding of the exam and of your own capabilities. Study well, know your strengths, admit your weaknesses, and be prepared to be a high achiever but not a perfectionist.

Hope this helps.
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That was really insightful; Thank you so much.
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GMAT PREP : 720 ACTUAL GMAT : 640 - Help required 06 Jul 2016, 00:01
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It's very obvious from your score that your nemesis is the Verbal section. You have little improvement in the Quant section so I would devote 90% of your attention to the Verbal instead.

Now some more things:
- Critical Reasoning: You were in the 25th percentile. This is an area where you should be focusing hard on. The good news is that this section requires a certain way of thinking and once you can see it from that perspective, the questions should be easy. I didn't study too much for this so it is hard for me to give you study tips but here is my general thinking when tackling such questions.

What are they actually asking? What is the point being made? How valid is the argument? Take this sample question:

On the basis of the Big Bang theory scientists predicted levels of Helium-3 in the universe that are ten times greater than the levels actually observed. According to the original model, Helium-3 is produced when low-mass stars burn up hydrogen and become ‘red giants’, as well as being produced in the Big Bang itself. Researchers have now produced a new model in which the Helium-3 produced by a red giant is pushed to the star’s interior and burnt up. Hence the Big Bang theory is no longer undermined by Helium-3 data.

The two portions in bold-face are related to each other in which of the following ways?

A. The first highlights an observation that tends to undermine a particular theory. The second is that theory.
B. The first is a fact that undermines a theory. The second is context for accepting that theory.
C. The first points to an inconsistency in a particular model; the second is the author’s main conclusion.
D. The first is a challenge to a classic theory; the second resolves that challenge.
E. The first is a position that the author does not accept; the second is the author’s position.

To answer this question properly, you need to identify the point being made in the question. The question simply states that scientists predicted that Helium 3 would be in much greater quantity in the universe than was actually observed. This put a bit of a doubt on the big bang theory. However, now they have a new explanation wherein most of the helium was burned off within the stars so only a bit of it is present. This means that the big bang theory makes sense again. You NEED to be able to paraphrase this in your head. Get used to it. Get used to translating all this information in your head by simplifying it. The essence of the argument here is the big bang theory and how the Helium 3 levels initially observed didn't make sense.

Now on to the answers.
A. The first highlights an observation that tends to undermine a particular theory. The second is that theory.
First half of this is true. It states the Big Bang theory is undermined by the discovered Helium 3 levels. The second half is not. The second half explains recent advances that explains the relationship and thus, solves the earlier problem. Cannot be this one.

B. The first is a fact that undermines a theory. The second is context for accepting that theory.
First half is sort of true. Helium 3 levels initially observed do undermine the BBT. The second is again, sort of true but not quite. By context, they mean the circumstances or the event itself has changed when it really hasn't. Keep this one in mind. Give it a maybe.

C. The first points to an inconsistency in a particular model; the second is the author’s main conclusion.
First half true again as it points to the inconsistency in the observed Helium 3 levels and the BBT. Second half isn't. Yes, it is a conclusion but this is a generic statement and the second half is not the author's main conclusion. This could have been a potential pick if B didn't exist. B is a better answer. Say no to this one.

D. The first is a challenge to a classic theory; the second resolves that challenge.
First half certainly true, He-3 levels challenged the theory. Second half ALSO true. It explains why that's the case and thus, resolves the argument. Strong contender for correct answer.

E. The first is a position that the author does not accept; the second is the author’s position.
First half untrue, author simply states the general scientific view on the issue. Same with second. Would be wrong to assume what the author's real position is on the issue.

So you only have two choices, B or D and D is a far better answer. All I did there was paraphrase the argument in my own head and establish what is actually being said. The first half of the question tells you about an inconsistency between the noted and expected He-3 levels and how this undermines the BBT. The second half tells you that this inconsistency can now be explained by the excess He-3 being burned off and thus, solves the dilemma.

The ideal way to get better at these is just to read and practice such questions. Your AWA section will also help since you are effectively doing the same thing there - picking apart an argument. Here is what I would do: find some 6.0 level AWA essays and read them. Also read any critical reasoning sections from Manhattan Prep and then just practice. I used Kaplan and Manhattan to do so and recommend them to you.

Practice for a few hours everyday for the next couple of weeks and you'll get way better at these. Once you learn how to think in a certain way, the answers will come by easy.

Good luck!
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GMAT PREP : 720 ACTUAL GMAT : 640 - Help required 08 Jul 2016, 13:21
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I had a similar issue !!from 740 in preps to 640 in actual test ..on the test day I was on until first 15 questions in verbal post which I was shaking lost confidence and knew my score would be pathetic ...Preparig for another shot


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GMAT PREP : 720 ACTUAL GMAT : 640 - Help required 15 Aug 2016, 22:19
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Balaji are you from chennai? How did your re-take go? How is the chennai test centre? Aur conditioning, ear plugs, noise levels, lighting, are seats separated by sort of wall like separators?

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GMAT PREP : 720 ACTUAL GMAT : 640 - Help required 16 Aug 2016, 00:18
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Senthil7
Balaji are you from chennai? How did your re-take go? How is the chennai test centre? Aur conditioning, ear plugs, noise levels, lighting, are seats separated by sort of wall like separators?

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Yes everything was fine in chennai except the head phones are a bit heavy. Had absolutely no problem

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