Need a diagnosis on careless mistakes syndrome. I don't know what 2 do

Okay, I have a few pieces of advice for you:

- Slow down and breathe. It's okay to take five seconds to gather your thoughts at the beginning of a problem. It's even okay to put your pen down for a second while you read. Never try to work fast on the GMAT - that's how you make careless mistakes. Try to work efficiently instead. If you're having to force yourself to go super fast in order to get through the problems, you have a timing issue and you should address it!

- Analyze your mistakes. The phrase 'careless error' is actually a pet peeve of mine, because it doesn't make it clear what the actual mistake was. People call a lot of things 'careless errors' that are actually much more interesting than that! There are definitely patterns in your careless errors. (For example, one pattern I've noticed in my own careless errors is that I miss constraints in the question when doing Data Sufficiency problems. Another one is that I sometimes 'lose' a decimal place or two when doing math with decimals). Once you know what your errors are, you can change your behaviors to attack them. To use my examples above: when I take the GMAT, I'm super strict about writing down every constraint in the DS problem on my paper, even if it seems silly. I also usually convert decimals into fractions; if it doesn't make sense to do that, I always loop back around and double-check the number of decimal places before picking an answer.

Thank you for your advice.

I will work on my methodology to approach the question and to keep the whole process under surveillance.

Honestly I know all the concepts, so this is not the issue here.. I really tend to get distracted on something else when I am writing down an equation etc so all these stupid mistakes slip through..

Is this a common thing? This sort of chronic mistakes?

Thank you for your feedback!

Dear iliavko,

My friend, I see that my brilliant colleague ccooley already gave some fine responses to the specific questions. I like what he has to say. I will simply add a few more general points.

One big idea for reducing anxiety, enhancing focus, and increasing flexibility and agility in thinking is the control of the breath. Reading what you have written, I am going to guess that you are a chronic shallow breather, breathing primarily into your chest. I am going to guess that taking a big belly-breath of air would probably feel a little awkward and unfamiliar. Right there, that's part of the problem. I am going to ask you to retrain yourself to breathe properly--you should feel a full slow breath all the way down to the hip sockets and all the way up to the shoulders--rounding the belly, expanding the chest, and pushing the shoulders apart. Part of the point of sitting in meditation is to practice breathing this way for half an hour, but you don't need a sitting practice to practice this way to breathe. I want you to go back to practicing slow deep breaths in all the in-between moments of the day: on an elevator or escalator, going to the bathroom, walking from one place to another, waiting in line, etc. Resist the temptation to plug your attention immediately into something electronic: instead, focus on improving your breath. If you need to, set an repeating alarm, to remind you to go back to the breath regularly. Do you want a GMAT score that's in the top 10% (i.e. +700)? Then, work to make the way you breathe in the top 10%.

I want you to practice this kind of breathing so it feels 100% natural and it is a total habit over the next month. If you simply can retrain the way you breathe, and do everything else you have been doing, then I think you will see a profound change in how you approach the GMAT.

You see, among other things, slow deep breaths turn on the Parasympathetic Nervous System, which is sometimes known as the "relaxation response." It turns down the activity of the Sympathetic Nervous System, which is designed for fight or flight. It's good to have the SNS engaged a little, just enough to keep us interested & excited and not falling asleep, but when the SNS is amped way up, that's called stress. High activity of the SNS kills higher order reasoning: this is precisely why some otherwise talented students report feeling "brain dead" when they sat for the real GMAT. You can read more details in this blog that gives a grave warning:
Lower on the Real GMAT than on Practice Tests
For more thoughts on how to lower stress and enhance the activity of the PNS, see:
Zen Boot Camp for the GMAT

BTW, if you can continue to practice the deep breathing and other stress reduction skills long term, beyond your GMAT, they have the potential to revolutionize your perspective on every aspect of your life. This is some powerful stuff!

I hope all this helps, my friend.
Mike

mikemcgarry

Thank you for your reply!

Today I did a few questions and again, 90% of mistakes were because 9/5 is 2, etc. I have to improve my concentration otherwise I stand no chance on the test. My problem is not GMAT or math skills, now I am sure of it.

Yesterday I started to read "Wherever you go there you are" by Jon Kabat Zin. I read thew few first pages and I really like the concepts he writes about! So I guess my "GMAT practice" for the next few weeks will be to read this book and try to focus on myself, try to get my mind under control for the time I am solving.

It's really unbelievable how easy it is to interfere with my mind when I am working on the problem. I see a "5" somewhere and a fraction that is supposed to be a 9/2 becomes a 9/5, this sort of stuff! But now I am much calmer because I acknowledge that I have this problem. And I know exactly what the problem is. I will also try different techniques to lower the distractions. I tend to write in a very disorganized way, equations from previous questions all over the place, etc. I need to get much more methodical about all of this.

There is nothing new for me to learn about GMAT, all further practice without working on my concentration is a waste of time.

Thank you for your advice and I will let you know if I got any progress with the mindfulness techniques!

Cheers!

Careless mistakes dont happen on their own. These are behavioral issues. Behavioral in terms of how do we react when we see a certain type of problem. You will have to do a deep analysis of these mistakes and map it with your thought process. Why did you chose a certain route to reach to the ans.? Do you repeat it always or you change it when you realize it's not going to work. Look at every step of the process. There will be few steps which will doom you to disaster. Hence, its important to course-correct those test taking behaviors which are stopping you to achieve a great score.

Hi!

I noticed both the examples you gave are word problems but I have 2 cents to answer on how I am trying to address my silly mistakes in non-word problems (i.e. equation based questions, such as inequalities and number properties).

Every time you have to find a value in a question, try out the following set

-4 (Negative integer smaller than -1)
-4/3 (Negative fraction smaller than -1)
-1
-2/3 (Negative fraction greater than -1)
0
2/3 (Positive fraction smaller than 1)
1
3/2 (Positive fraction greater than 1)
3 (Positive integer greater than 1)

This really helps me because I am otherwise short on concentration and tend to miss out important factors. In most cases you will have to test only a few of these numbers because of the question restrictions (look-out for these keywords integer OR fraction or negative or non-zero)

Another thing you could try (if speed is not an issue) is try to plug the answer back into the question and see if it makes sense.

I hope this helps.

Disclaimer: I am a fellow aspirant and no expert.