GMAT timing problem -not able to complete all the questions

I'm assuming your target score was 700

Ok Let's focus on your situation here
This might take you a while but I need to know every single material that you used and everything that you have left over to start again. You can certainly score a 650+ but for a 700, I might need to know more

I can suggest you a variety of material that you can get at a cheaper rate and will help you to score better, none of the material is my own. ALL the material from institutes that I've been through

Dera experts,

For long I have practiced, and now I have gathered courage to appear on the real GMAT. In last 1 week , I have given 3 Veritas mock tests. My score ranges from 620 to 650 -Q44/45 and V32/33. I am not able to manage time, invariably leaving 4/5 questions unanswered in both the section and because of time crunch another 3/4 questions just guessing. I need your suggestion on how to improve this. I am sure I can do better ,given I time the questions proeprly. Kindly suggest what I can do to improve.
I have given GMAT prep1 and same thing repeated.

Regards,
Arup

Posted from my mobile device

What is your core on official mocks
What section are you speaking of
Verbal or Quant or Both

Veritas score are usually less than your actual test scores
Even the official mocks are not a true indicator but close enough


Facing issue in both the sections - in quant and verbal. Official mocks it was 600


I'm assuming your target score was 700

Ok Let's focus on your situation here
This might take you a while but I need to know every single material that you used and everything that you have left over to start again. You can certainly score a 650+ but for a 700, I might need to know more

I can suggest you a variety of material that you can get at a cheaper rate and will help you to score better, none of the material is my own. ALL the material from institutes that I've been through[/quote][/quote][/quote]

e-gmat verbal and MGMAT SC guide I used. For quant, I used gmat club book and Princeton review. For CR, I have gone thru CR power score bible.

Regards,
Arup Sarkar

Hi Arup,

To start, each CAT is really a 'measuring device' - when used correctly, it will give you a realistic score and help define your strengths and weaknesses, but it will NOT help you to fix any of those weaknesses. To raise your scores, you have to learn the necessary Tactics and put in the proper practice and repetitions. The CAT will show you whether your studies are helping you to improve or not. As such, you really should not take more than 1 FULL CAT per week.

Before I can offer you the specific advice that you’re looking for, it would help if you could provide a bit more information on how you've been studying and your goals:

1) How long have you studied? How many hours do you typically study each week?
2) What is your goal score?
3) When are you planning to take the GMAT?
4) When are you planning to apply to Business School?
5) What Schools are you planning to apply to?

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

Hi Arup,

The first thing to understand is that timing on the GMAT, as in life, improves as your knowledge, understanding, and skills improve. Timing does not improve simply by “trying to go faster.” In fact, when people try to force speed before they’re ready to go faster, they tend to end up making a significant number of preventable mistakes. Sometimes these mistakes badly erode people’s test scores. In addition, when people rush learning -- a common pathology of those trying to force speed -- they actually never end up developing the speed they seek. One of the great paradoxes of learning is that to develop speed, a student must slow down to ensure that he or she masters the material. Consider the following examples, which hopefully will bring you some more clarity:

Imagine your goal were to run a mile in four minutes, a difficult feat even for professional athletes. So, you get yourself a running coach. You show up on the field and ask, “Coach, how do I get faster?” The coach responds, “Well, just run faster.” So, you try your best to “run faster,” but you can't; you’re running a 12-minute mile. Out of breath, you come back to the coach and say, “Coach, I stink. How do I get faster?” Again, he says, “Just run faster.” So, you try again, but this time you fall and skin your knees. You keep trying to run faster. On the tenth attempt, you pull your hamstring, falling to the ground in pain. Over your next four months of recovery, you ponder why you couldn't run faster.

That situation would be insane, right? No qualified running coach would ever provide you with that advice, because the coach would understand that no one gets faster merely by trying to run faster. Instead, the coach would set you up on a linear, comprehensive plan to make you a BETTER runner. He may have you run progressively longer distances at relatively slow speeds. He may have you run up and down the stairs at the football stadium. He may have you run up and down hills. He even may have you engage in strength training, yoga, or Pilates to make you a more fit athlete. After all of that training, he finally would bring you back on the field and time you running the mile. At that point, he’d coach you on how to push yourself through the pain of sprinting and help you to understand what a four-minute-mile pace feels like. He now could help you with those things because you would be in the necessary shape to be receptive to them. So, you begin your run, and BOOM! You run a 6-minute mile. What happened? Well, you became a better runner. You became a fitter athlete. You became stronger. Although you’re not yet at the four-minute-mile mark, your training has yielded considerable improvements.

Now imagine your goal were to play a complicated song on the piano. The tempo at which a pianist plays greatly impacts the way a song sounds. To make songs sound the way they should, often a pianist must play at a fast pace. But your experience with the piano is limited. Can you imagine trying to play the complicated song at full speed right at the outset? Doing so wouldn't be possible. Instead, you first need to master many aspects of the piano -- without really trying to get faster. In fact, you need to proceed slowly at first, sometimes very slowly. As you master the piano, you find that you’re able to play your song at progressively faster tempos. With time and dedicated, proper practice, you’re able to recreate the sound you seek. If in the early days of practicing you had tried to force speed instead of mastering your technique, you never would have gained that speed. You never would become truly accomplished at playing the song.

The process of getting faster at solving GMAT questions is quite analogous to the process of improving one’s running speed or ability to play the piano at the proper tempo! To get faster, you must get better. As you further develop your GMAT skills, you will get faster at a) recognizing what a problem is asking and b) executing the necessary steps to quickly attack the problem.

The key takeaway is that once your GMAT knowledge improves, better timing will follow. In fact, a great way to know how well you have mastered a particular topic is to be cognizant of your reaction time when seeing a particular question. For example, consider the following simple question with which many students who are beginning their prep struggle:

14! is equal to which of the following?

(A) 87,178,291,200
(B) 88,180,293,207
(C) 89,181,294,209
(D) 90,000,000,003
(E) 91,114,114,114

Upon seeing this question, what is the first thing that comes to mind? Grabbing a calculator to add up the values in the expression? If you are able to quickly recognize that using the “5 x 2 pair rule” will allow you to attack the problem quickly and efficiently (see the solution below).

Solution:

14! = 14 × 13 × 12 × 11 × 10 × 9 × 8 × 7 × 6 × 5 × 4 × 3 × 2 × 1.

Notice that there is at least one (5 × 2) pair contained in the product of these numbers. It follows that the units digit must be a zero. The only number with zero as the units digit is 87,178,291,200.

Answer: A

Although this is just one example of many, you see that you must have many tools in your toolbox to efficiently attack each GMAT quant question that comes your way. As you gain these skills, you will get faster.

You also may find it helpful to read the following article about How to Get Faster at Solving GMAT Questions

Feel free to reach out with further questions.

Good luck!

EMPOWERgmatRichC :

1) How long have you studied? How many hours do you typically study each week? 1 year
2) What is your goal score? 750
3) When are you planning to take the GMAT? Mid of September
4) When are you planning to apply to Business School? 2020
5) What Schools are you planning to apply to? ISB


Thank you for your reply.
When I see the answers , I realize the problem. Not that I don't know the problem, it is I cannot apply the skill. I miss the thing that the question is actually trying to test.
Sometime I cannot comprehend the question properly and most of the time I take way too much time but ultimately choose wrong answer. Not to repeat those mistakes what kind of practice should I put in?

Regards,
Arup Sarkar

ScottTargetTestPrep :

I really appreciate your detail analysis. I don't want to go too fast. I have waited for 1 year. Ready to wait for some time more.
The problem is that I don't have a proper routine. So not studying in a routine manner. One thing I feel I need to do is to create a routine. Concept wise I know things. I need to know how should I use them in test. When I see the answer I lament how could I miss this, but I believe this all to justify my mistake. I want to practice in a regular manner and to see my progress. I understand the problem I am facing is very common, and only I can understand it better. Still looking for perspectives from different persons as my vision is obscured.

regards,
Arup

Hi Arup,

Since you are not planning to apply to Business School until next year, you have plenty of time to continue studying and improving - which is good. Assuming that your practice CAT scores are an accurate reflection of your current skills, raising a score in the low-600s to the point that you can consistently score 750+ will likely require at least another 3 months of consistent, guided study - and you'll have to make significant improvements to how you handle BOTH the Quant and Verbal sections. Thankfully, the GMAT is a consistent, predictable Exam, so you CAN train to score at a higher level.

1) Going forward, how many hours do you think you can consistently study each week?

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

Apologize for late reply. I oaln to study 2/3 hrs daily basis. I wish to give exam.my September.

Regards,
Arup Sarkar

Posted from my mobile device

Not being able to complete every question is completely normal. Very few (practically none, I'd guess) of us are able to devote all the time we'd like to fully solving every single problem we see on the GMAT. I definitely can't - and I've gotten a 790. However, there's a big difference between not giving 100% of your energy to every question, and getting cut off at the end of the section.

Go into each section of the GMAT acknowledging that you can't give 100% to every single problem you see. It's just not really possible. But you also don't want to get cut off at the end of the section, because that's effectively the same as missing some easy problems that you could have definitely gotten right. So, what do you do? You choose to bail quickly on the problems you're least likely to get right. After all, if you have a 25% chance of getting a problem right after spending four minutes on it - versus a 20% chance of getting it right after 45 seconds, by guessing randomly - you should ALWAYS take the quick 20% chance, unless you're already WAY ahead on time. This means you should bail on problems DURING the section, BEFORE you get behind - and if you do get behind, fix it immediately by bailing on a problem or two as quickly as possible, instead of just hoping it'll work itself out by the end of the section.

This requires that you be at least somewhat aware of whether you're ahead, behind, or on time while you're taking the test. This is a simple method to use to track your timing: https://www.manhattanprep.com/gmat/blog ... nt-part-3/

Hi Arup,

To start, the 750+ score is approximately the 98th percentile - meaning that 98% of Test Takers never score that high (regardless of how long they study or the number of times that they take the GMAT). Thankfully, NO Business School requires a score that high - so it's important to realize that the score that you "want" and the score that you "need" to get into your first-choice School are probably not the same thing.

That having been said, if that is your Goal Score, then you are going to have to give yourself enough study time to hone the necessary skills so that you can consistently score at that higher level. Based on your CAT Scores, you will likely need several MONTHS of additional study time - but a Test Date in September would give you no more than about 5 weeks. There's no harm in taking the GMAT in September, but you would almost certainly end up having to take it again later, so you can save some money and aggravation by pushing back your Test Date.

1) Since you last posted, have you made any changes to your current study routine (such as investing in a GMAT Course or following a particular Study Plan)?
2) Assuming that you would be studying for another 2-3 months, how many hours do you think you can consistently study each week?

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