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Re: The more I study the worse I get ,esp Verbal [#permalink]
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It's definitely important to take hold of your timing. Your comment on how many problems you think you got wrong indicates that you are focusing too much on the idea of getting them all right. That isn't going to happen. Sure, at 27, you are missing 20+ questions, but it's important to understand that at the higher levels, you are going to miss nearly as many! What's important is that you have very strong accuracy on the easier problems; then you can choose your battles on the harder problems. You need to go into the test knowing that you're going to miss around 40% of the problems on verbal. That way, you can focus on which problems you're going to do, and which problems aren't worth your time. This can mean outright skipping ("This CR looks confusing--I'm going to drop this one.") or simply moving on instead of getting stuck ("I know it's either A or C on this SC, but I don't know why I should choose one or the other. Another minute isn't going to help.")

It may help to run a comprehensive assessment of your MGMAT problems. Look at your accuracy and timing at each verbal difficulty level (this is the 3rd of the 5 reports). Are you spending a really long time on the 600-700 & 700-800 level problems? What kind of accuracy are you getting for your investment?

For SC, you may also want to look at the kind of eliminations you're making. How often do you eliminate the right answer early in the process? Sometimes we start by choosing an issue and picking a side ("Hmm . . . between 'hover' and 'hovering,' I think 'hover' works better."). However, we don't always have a clear reason for that choice. It's important to start with the eliminations that you feel most confident about (i.e. where you can cite a clear and compelling reason for the elimination) before making those more intuitive judgment calls. Then, when you're reviewing your work, delay looking up the answers. Go back and spend more time comparing the answer choices, and justifying your decision on each split. You can learn just as much from the problems you get right as from the problems you miss!
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Re: The more I study the worse I get ,esp Verbal [#permalink]
Thanks a lot for your reply.To be honest you are right that I do focus on getting maximum problems correct ,but I try not to over run the time limit of 2 to max 2.5 min/question. It will take some time to adjust to the fact that I can or rather will miss 40% of these questions on verbal. I just reviewed the assessment report for the last 2 mocks that I gave.

CR--300 TO 500 & 500 to 600 questions with 100% accuracy average time for questions I got right--1:23 min. 700 to 800 level questions accuracy is 81% , timing on correct questions 1:59 min and incorrect questions 2:26 mins.

RC--500 to 600 & 600 to 700 level questions accuracy of 75 and 80 respectively along with timing of 0:47 for correct answers and 1:55 for incorrect answers. 700 to 800 have accuracy of 73% timing of 2:57 for correct answers and 1:40 for incorrect answers.

SC -just got 1 question (600 to 700) level got it right in 0:40 mins and got the rest 700-800 level questions --59% accuracy, timing for correct 1:16 mins and 1:46 mins for incorrect answers. Thanks again for your inputs will keep these in mind and put them to practice while preparing.
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Re: The more I study the worse I get ,esp Verbal [#permalink]
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That looks pretty good, and from those numbers it looks like you are actually missing less than 40%. If you PM me your info (name or email), I can look you up in the system and see if I notice anything interesting.
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Re: The more I study the worse I get ,esp Verbal [#permalink]
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Okay, a few observations:

1) You are missing 25-39% of the verbal questions on your most recent tests. The 25% is at the extreme end, where you were scoring 95th percentile on verbal. That's a really high-level performance! The trick now is to determine to what extent you are able to replicate that on the real thing. Is it possible that some of your success came from the fact that these were retakes? For instance, were some of the reading passages familiar? This can make a big difference, even if you don't remember the answers. (On one test, you nailed an entire short passage in about 3 minutes!)

2) If the data from these recent tests is accurate, then SC is your weakness. If everything on the test felt fine, that's a problem in itself. If you are scoring around 60% accuracy, you should know that there are problems you aren't getting. You need to spend some time going through your completed SC thoroughly, with an eye to spotting issues that you didn't notice the first time. What are the issues that you aren't spotting on the first run-through? How can you train yourself to see them quickly?

3) You also seem prone to go overtime on SC. When practicing, try to hold yourself to 1:30 or less. Focus on issues that you can make a confident choice about, and then if you still have more than one answer left at 1:30, guess and move on.

4) Although your CR is stronger than your SC, don't spend 3 minutes on it! In fact, CR is a great way to pick up some time. If you find yourself significantly behind the clock, look for a CR that looks particularly complicated and drop it outright--2 minutes in the bank!

5) If you feel that your recent tests do reflect your actual ability, then you need to focus on not changing anything on test day. Often, we respond to the pressure of test day by changing our strategy, just like a stock trader who swears he will sell at a certain point, but can't bear to do it when real money is on the line. Any change you make at the last minute is likely to be a change for the worse! Find strategies and approaches that work for you, and make sure that your behavior on test day is consistent with your behavior on your practice tests.

Good luck!
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Re: The more I study the worse I get ,esp Verbal [#permalink]
Thanks for reviewing my mocks. RC passages that are technology/science/medicine related are easy to solve for me that has been a consistent trend with mock cats and OG 12 , OG 11 , OG verbal so 3 minutes is the average for these short passages.
What usually happens during the mock or on test day is that if the last passage [b/w 31-41 question] is very complicated & long or dealing with sociology/literature I tend to get it wrong or spend extra time on it.

SC has been a weakness, I tend to over shoot the ideal 1.5 min limit.I will try n work on that (esp chapters like modifiers, comparisons)

CR is in between SC n RC , I have to learn to guess quickly and move on.



The retests could have inflated my scores a bit( even if you don't remember the questions, you may have an advantage) so I won't mind assessing myself 20-30 points below that score.Even on the mock which I took the first time these timing & error trends remain consistent .

Completing the last 10 questions on time has usually been a issue. So I need to really guess and move on quickly.

Really appreciate your advice and inputs.
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Re: The more I study the worse I get ,esp Verbal [#permalink]

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