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25 Nov 2018, 12:36
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Hi everyone,
I just took my first GMAT Prep test and got a result that has me feeling both excited and tremendously nervous at the same time. I've basically used a combination of Veritas Prep and Magoosh, along with the MGMAT Advanced Quant book (only MGMAT book that I've used).
GMAT Prep #1: 730 Q45/V45/IR5
The good: First off, I was floored by the verbal score. I never scored above a 41 on Veritas for verbal and never cracked the 700 level (hit 670, 680 and 690 in 3 of the 5 tests I took). Some of the harder questions just seemed to follow rules I knew, here (kudos to both Veritas and Magoosh for calling out some exact concepts that were tested). I had already made improvements in verbal solely by reviewing incorrect sentence correction questions that I got wrong in practice tests (I got a V36 on my very first Veritas test). I honestly thought a V42 was the highest I could get on test day, but now I guess know that I can possibly do even better than that.
The bad: The quant. I'm aiming for a Q49 and I just can't seem to get there on full practice tests. I've hit up to a 49 recently (and have one 50 as my all time high) on GMAT Club tests - Three of my last five GMAT Club tests were 48/48/49, all of these with some mistakes that I knew I could improve upon with additional study (eg known weaknesses, careless mistakes). I've since put in some additional study. Veritas tests and the actual GMAT prep, apparently, I just can't seem to score as well. I struggle with time pressure more with Veritas (and now apparently GMATPrep). The questions on both Veritas and GMATPrep feel a bit longer to me (which is a big issue for me), and some of the GMATPrep exam questions felt quite abstract.
I'm planning on reviewing at least all of the GMAT Club questions that I got incorrect, as well as all of the "Very Hard" questions from Magoosh. Outside of this, I'm flummoxed on what to do next. I feel like I know have a good grasp of the fundamentals, but the timing is starting to become a major impediment. I've done substantial amounts of practice and am honestly starting to feel a bit burned out and defeated, here, as I feel that there's no concept that's out of my range. I actually honestly expected to hit a Q49 on a practice exam far faster
The ugly: IR. Same issue with the math but amplified even further. Some of the questions I feel like I'm still processing and 1:30-2:00 have gone by, and there's only an average of 2:30 a question. I have done very little prep for IR outside of doing the section on the practice tests that I've taken. Any advice here, other than reviewing old tests? I've watched all the Magoosh videos that give an overview of IR, but that's about it.
I'd greatly appreciate any and all advice that I can get, here. My goal is a 720 with no lower than a 48Q. I am really hoping to have the exam completed at last on Dec 21 (the only test date available that I can make work during my vacation). My Magoosh and GMATClub memberships also expire on Dec 23. Also, I am going on vacation beginning on Dec 18, and I will have a few days to do nothing but rest and prepare, if I choose to take the test then (which is why I'm leaning towards it).
I just took my first GMAT Prep test and got a result that has me feeling both excited and tremendously nervous at the same time. I've basically used a combination of Veritas Prep and Magoosh, along with the MGMAT Advanced Quant book (only MGMAT book that I've used).
GMAT Prep #1: 730 Q45/V45/IR5
The good: First off, I was floored by the verbal score. I never scored above a 41 on Veritas for verbal and never cracked the 700 level (hit 670, 680 and 690 in 3 of the 5 tests I took). Some of the harder questions just seemed to follow rules I knew, here (kudos to both Veritas and Magoosh for calling out some exact concepts that were tested). I had already made improvements in verbal solely by reviewing incorrect sentence correction questions that I got wrong in practice tests (I got a V36 on my very first Veritas test). I honestly thought a V42 was the highest I could get on test day, but now I guess know that I can possibly do even better than that.
The bad: The quant. I'm aiming for a Q49 and I just can't seem to get there on full practice tests. I've hit up to a 49 recently (and have one 50 as my all time high) on GMAT Club tests - Three of my last five GMAT Club tests were 48/48/49, all of these with some mistakes that I knew I could improve upon with additional study (eg known weaknesses, careless mistakes). I've since put in some additional study. Veritas tests and the actual GMAT prep, apparently, I just can't seem to score as well. I struggle with time pressure more with Veritas (and now apparently GMATPrep). The questions on both Veritas and GMATPrep feel a bit longer to me (which is a big issue for me), and some of the GMATPrep exam questions felt quite abstract.
I'm planning on reviewing at least all of the GMAT Club questions that I got incorrect, as well as all of the "Very Hard" questions from Magoosh. Outside of this, I'm flummoxed on what to do next. I feel like I know have a good grasp of the fundamentals, but the timing is starting to become a major impediment. I've done substantial amounts of practice and am honestly starting to feel a bit burned out and defeated, here, as I feel that there's no concept that's out of my range. I actually honestly expected to hit a Q49 on a practice exam far faster
The ugly: IR. Same issue with the math but amplified even further. Some of the questions I feel like I'm still processing and 1:30-2:00 have gone by, and there's only an average of 2:30 a question. I have done very little prep for IR outside of doing the section on the practice tests that I've taken. Any advice here, other than reviewing old tests? I've watched all the Magoosh videos that give an overview of IR, but that's about it.
I'd greatly appreciate any and all advice that I can get, here. My goal is a 720 with no lower than a 48Q. I am really hoping to have the exam completed at last on Dec 21 (the only test date available that I can make work during my vacation). My Magoosh and GMATClub memberships also expire on Dec 23. Also, I am going on vacation beginning on Dec 18, and I will have a few days to do nothing but rest and prepare, if I choose to take the test then (which is why I'm leaning towards it).
30 Nov 2018, 18:19
Kudos
Bookmarks
Hi cecilpaladin32,
I’m glad you reached out, and I’m happy to help. First off, nice work with the 730! I realize that your quant is not where you want it to be, but 730 is a fantastic score.
Now, let’s address your quant issues. Clearly, you believe timing is your major issue, right? When it comes to timing on the GMAT, you must understand that as with any activity in life, your GMAT timing improves as your knowledge, understanding, and skill 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 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 a 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? Or are you able to quickly recognize that using the “5 x 2 pair rule” will allow you to efficiently attack the problem? (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.
The million dollar question is, HOW can you improve your quant skills? To improve from a Q45, you need to go through GMAT quant carefully to find your exact weaknesses, fill gaps in your knowledge, and strengthen your skills. The overall process will be to learn all about how to answer question types with which you currently aren't very comfortable and do dozens of practice questions category by category, basically driving up your score point by point. For example, if you find that you are not strong in answering Number Properties questions, then carefully review the conceptual underpinnings of how to answer Number Properties questions and practice by answering 50 or more questions just from Number Properties: LCM, GCF, units digit patterns, divisibility, remainders, etc. When you are working on learning to answer questions of a particular type, start off taking your time, and then seek to speed up as you get more comfortable answering questions of that type. As you practice, do a thorough analysis of each question that you don't get right. If you got a remainder question wrong, ask yourself why. Did you make a careless mistake? Did you not properly apply the remainder formula? Was there a concept you did not understand in the question? By carefully analyzing your mistakes, you will be able to efficiently fix your weaknesses and in turn improve your GMAT quant skills. Number Properties is just one example; follow this process for all quant topics.
Each time you strengthen your understanding of a topic and your skill in answering questions of a particular type, you increase your odds of hitting your score goal. You know that there are types of questions that you are happy to see and types that you would rather not see, and types of questions that you take a long time to answer correctly. Learn to more effectively answer the types of questions that you would rather not see, and make them into your favorite types. Learn to correctly answer in two minutes or less questions that you currently take five minutes to answer. By finding, say, a dozen weaker quant areas and turning them into strong areas, you will make great progress toward hitting your quant score goal. If a dozen areas turn out not to be enough, strengthen some more areas.
So, work on accuracy and generally finding correct answers, work on specific weaker areas one by one to make them strong areas, and when you take a practice GMAT or the real thing, take all the time per question available to do your absolute best to get right answers consistently. The GMAT is essentially a game of seeing how many right answers you can get in the time allotted. Approach the test with that conception in mind, and focus intently on the question in front of you with one goal in mind: getting a CORRECT answer.
In order to follow the path described above, you may need some new quant materials, so take a look at the GMAT Club reviews for the best quant courses.
You also may find it helpful to read this article about
how to score a 700+ on the GMAT.
Please reach out with any further questions.
Let’s do this!!
I’m glad you reached out, and I’m happy to help. First off, nice work with the 730! I realize that your quant is not where you want it to be, but 730 is a fantastic score.
Now, let’s address your quant issues. Clearly, you believe timing is your major issue, right? When it comes to timing on the GMAT, you must understand that as with any activity in life, your GMAT timing improves as your knowledge, understanding, and skill 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 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 a 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? Or are you able to quickly recognize that using the “5 x 2 pair rule” will allow you to efficiently attack the problem? (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.
The million dollar question is, HOW can you improve your quant skills? To improve from a Q45, you need to go through GMAT quant carefully to find your exact weaknesses, fill gaps in your knowledge, and strengthen your skills. The overall process will be to learn all about how to answer question types with which you currently aren't very comfortable and do dozens of practice questions category by category, basically driving up your score point by point. For example, if you find that you are not strong in answering Number Properties questions, then carefully review the conceptual underpinnings of how to answer Number Properties questions and practice by answering 50 or more questions just from Number Properties: LCM, GCF, units digit patterns, divisibility, remainders, etc. When you are working on learning to answer questions of a particular type, start off taking your time, and then seek to speed up as you get more comfortable answering questions of that type. As you practice, do a thorough analysis of each question that you don't get right. If you got a remainder question wrong, ask yourself why. Did you make a careless mistake? Did you not properly apply the remainder formula? Was there a concept you did not understand in the question? By carefully analyzing your mistakes, you will be able to efficiently fix your weaknesses and in turn improve your GMAT quant skills. Number Properties is just one example; follow this process for all quant topics.
Each time you strengthen your understanding of a topic and your skill in answering questions of a particular type, you increase your odds of hitting your score goal. You know that there are types of questions that you are happy to see and types that you would rather not see, and types of questions that you take a long time to answer correctly. Learn to more effectively answer the types of questions that you would rather not see, and make them into your favorite types. Learn to correctly answer in two minutes or less questions that you currently take five minutes to answer. By finding, say, a dozen weaker quant areas and turning them into strong areas, you will make great progress toward hitting your quant score goal. If a dozen areas turn out not to be enough, strengthen some more areas.
So, work on accuracy and generally finding correct answers, work on specific weaker areas one by one to make them strong areas, and when you take a practice GMAT or the real thing, take all the time per question available to do your absolute best to get right answers consistently. The GMAT is essentially a game of seeing how many right answers you can get in the time allotted. Approach the test with that conception in mind, and focus intently on the question in front of you with one goal in mind: getting a CORRECT answer.
In order to follow the path described above, you may need some new quant materials, so take a look at the GMAT Club reviews for the best quant courses.
You also may find it helpful to read this article about
how to score a 700+ on the GMAT.
Please reach out with any further questions.
Let’s do this!!
30 Nov 2018, 19:42
Kudos
Bookmarks
cecilpaladin32
The official practice tests are reliable, but I'd wait for at least one more data point if I were you. And maybe 3 more GMATPreps in total before the actual exam (not just non-official practice tests). Once you start taking more of these tests, you'll get a better idea of how much your scores can vary.
As for IR, yes, the 2:30 looks tough, but remember that you don't have to worry about finishing the section, and that it's okay to guess on a tough question so that you have enough time for an easier question.
