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Target 750+ but hazy understanding of areas to improve upon

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SyedSan
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Target 750+ but hazy understanding of areas to improve upon [#permalink] New post   28 Nov 2011, 11:59
I took my first mgmat test last week and the score was 700(50Q, 36V) with 7 of 12 worng in RC & 1 of 14 wrong in CR so I worked continiously on RC while touching SC/CR intermittently. After a week that is last sunday(27th) I took my 1st GmatPrep test and score is 710(50Q & 36V)with 5 of 14 wrong in CR and 1 of 12 wrong in RC.

Now, I'm a little confused; which section should I focus on?

Point to note here is I've been studying RC continiously for last 2weeks and have been studying SC in parallel sometimes; I was preping CR too but quite less as compared to RC or SC. What I'm trying to say is I see there is a corelation between amount of time I have spent in RC, SC and CR in last 2weeks to the number of questions I have gotten correct in respective sections last sunday.

Should I practice more on all three sections & then take test? Also, my understanding is that CR is a very conceptual section, so scores shouldn't have gone down because of less practice?
It may be that my CR score has gone down mostly because of long paragraph; I'm generally good at CR but not good on CRs with lots on info in long passage.

Another thought is, I shouldn't waste a lot of time in the difficult questions that I have been solving lately, just solving those silly/moderate questions correctly will do my job - I mean if I could get those 2 CR-silly & 2SC-simple correct then my score can reach 740-750(40/41V, 51Q)

Any help/thoughts on my condition guys would be extremely appreciated. I have sometime before the final test but my concern is more because of not having much idea about the area to work on.

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ChrisLele
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Re: Target 750+ but hazy understanding of areas to improve upon [#permalink] New post   07 Dec 2011, 16:24
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Hi SyedSan,

You bring up some interesting points. There is definitely a correlation between the amount of time you study on a section and an improvement in score. However, just because you ended up committing more time to a certain question type does not mean your score will go up. Correlation is simply a general relationship over a broad sample size.

In your specific case, I would recommend targeting your weakness within each section. For instance you mention you struggle with long paragraph CR questions. Do your best to find these types of questions and practice becoming better at them. Sometimes ‘better’ simply means faster. It can also mean spending less brainpower answering long CR paragraphs correctly – you will want all the brain reserves possible.

Finally, I would definitely recommend practicing easier problems as well. By practicing only with difficult questions you can overanalyze easier prompts or simply make careless errors. Taking high-quality CATs can help you gain a better sense of how to manage your time and deal effectively with easier and more difficult questions.

Of course don't forget to keep up with the RC. And, if possible, see if you can identify any weakness within RC (the way you did with CR). Targeted RC practice has a much higher correlation with improvement. And, in your case, a better chance at cracking 750.

Good luck!
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Re: Target 750+ but hazy understanding of areas to improve upon [#permalink] New post   07 Dec 2011, 18:50
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Syedsan,
If you're scoring sometimes well, sometimes not - you're confidence on attack strategies is not fully there. You need to mix up the questions and not just focus on RC and then take the test. You need to jump from SC, to CR, to RC. The moment you switch from one type of question, your mind should be able to tweak and focus immediately on the relevant strategies for that section.

It seems the issue is related to "exam time" pressures and you'll do better when you've solidified your attack strategies.
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SyedSan
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Concentration: General Management, Marketing
Schools: Johnson '16 (A) Duke '16 (WL) Tuck '16 (I) CBS '16
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Re: Target 750+ but hazy understanding of areas to improve upon [#permalink] New post   07 Dec 2011, 19:36
ChrisLele wrote:
Hi SyedSan,

You bring up some interesting points. There is definitely a correlation between the amount of time you study on a section and an improvement in score. However, just because you ended up committing more time to a certain question type does not mean your score will go up. Correlation is simply a general relationship over a broad sample size.

In your specific case, I would recommend targeting your weakness within each section. For instance you mention you struggle with long paragraph CR questions. Do your best to find these types of questions and practice becoming better at them. Sometimes ‘better’ simply means faster. It can also mean spending less brainpower answering long CR paragraphs correctly – you will want all the brain reserves possible.

Finally, I would definitely recommend practicing easier problems as well. By practicing only with difficult questions you can overanalyze easier prompts or simply make careless errors. Taking high-quality CATs can help you gain a better sense of how to manage your time and deal effectively with easier and more difficult questions.

Of course don't forget to keep up with the RC. And, if possible, see if you can identify any weakness within RC (the way you did with CR). Targeted RC practice has a much higher correlation with improvement. And, in your case, a better chance at cracking 750.

Good luck!


Thank you so much Chris for giving thoughts and replying.

Now that you have mentioned, I feel that I'm weak at RC-main point questions. but I won't generalize so at this time....will do some(10 or so) questions and try to pin point the weaknesses.

And as per your suggestion I've been working on CR long passage question.
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SyedSan
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Joined: 04 Mar 2011
Status:If u've ego, u've reached ur limit; if ur humble u've no limit.
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Posts: 55
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Location: United States
Concentration: General Management, Marketing
Schools: Johnson '16 (A) Duke '16 (WL) Tuck '16 (I) CBS '16
GMAT 1: 720 Q50 V37
GPA: 3.1
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Re: Target 750+ but hazy understanding of areas to improve upon [#permalink] New post   07 Dec 2011, 19:39
gmatpill wrote:
Syedsan,
If you're scoring sometimes well, sometimes not - you're confidence on attack strategies is not fully there. You need to mix up the questions and not just focus on RC and then take the test. You need to jump from SC, to CR, to RC. The moment you switch from one type of question, your mind should be able to tweak and focus immediately on the relevant strategies for that section.

It seems the issue is related to "exam time" pressures and you'll do better when you've solidified your attack strategies.


Thanks a lot for replying; I completely agree with you that I need to mix things up. Somebody on some other site also recommended to me that I mix things up specially RC & CR as the approaches towards these two are quite different.

To avoid exam pressure, I have been trying to increase my speed and although, I finished Verbal section with 7minutes remaining in my previous test, I scored the same marks 37 in it -strange ain't it?
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Re: Target 750+ but hazy understanding of areas to improve upon [#permalink]
07 Dec 2011, 19:39

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