4 DAYS TO GMAT!!!!

Question

Hi Experts,

I have been preparing for GMAT since the last week of April 2016 and my actual GMAT is scheduled on 10Sep2016 at 9AM.\
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Following are my MOCK test scores during various phases of my preparation:
 
01May2016 - MGMAT CAT1 - 560 (Q39 ; V29 ; IR4)
12Jun2016 - MGMAT CAT 2 - 670 (Q46; V35; IR 3.5)
01July2016 - MGMAT CAT 3 - 700 (Q49 ; V36; IR 3) 
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Please note that while i took the first and second CAT fully timed the last MGMAT CAT i took the quant section for 100 minutes instead of usual 75. But I took the other sections within stipulated time period. As for "Pause" , i did pause only once during a verbal question barring which I did not pause anywhere else though I ended up missing 2 questions on the last MGMAT CAT dated 01July2016.
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After another month-lond prep + practice I took up the GMATPrep CAT 1 this morning to simulate examination conditions (no pausing, exactly same time for breaks, IR, AWA etc) and scored as follows:

31July2016 - GMATPrep CAT 1 - 720 (Q50 ; V38; IR8) with 9 incorrect in Quant and 13 incorrect in verbal. 
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I have attached the GMATPrep results from today's CAT I took. I have 40 more days to the actual GMAT and I intend to ignore the remaining 3 MGMAT CATs and instead complete the remaining 5 GMATPrep CATs (exam packs 1 and 2) by taking them 1 a week. 
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What do you think would be the best way to retain whatever I have learned, what other things need to be done to get my target score of 720 or above on actual GMAT?
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My  Current Regimen  leading up to today's test is as follows:
1. I practice a mixture of problems from GMATPrep QP1 ,GMATCLUB tests and Manhattan Advanced MGMAT Quant book around 20-30 a day in the mornings.
2. During by break of 30-40 minutes at office I practice around 6-7 CRs, 6-7 SCs and 2 RCs on Wiley Website(From the OG or verbal OG) or alternatively practice these on GMatPrep.
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 Issues and Guidance Needed:

1)I have noticed an unexplained loss of accuracy on CR as i do practice them everyday from the OGs. I also find an unexplained loss of accuracy on very few areas of Quant but that can be fixed with the plethora of practice resources at my disposal. However, I would like to focus more on the Verbal part and go for a 40+ score on the real G-Day. 
2) Considering I have not practiced more than 24-30 quant questions a day and equal number of verbal, I find myself running out of time after the 26/27th question in quant and after 35 questions in verbal. Any suggestions to practice on the timing aspect as well?
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Any other appropriate and additional suggestions are much appreciated.

HiLine · Answer

What was your CR sub-section score from your last attempt? You may need to seriously brush up on your CR skills if you've never risen above the low 30's.

Senthil7 · Answer

HiLine,

I do not know as MGMAT does not show such details. however it does show CR was around 56-57% in terms of accuracy! Yes when i do CR as standalone I tend to do reasonably well, but in in the mixture, I am unable to get it done as I somehow feel confused in the thick of things!

HiLine · Answer

Since CR is your obvious weakness, you should focus on bringing your CR level to the 40's before doing anything else.

Senthil7 · Answer

Thanks HiLine. As already said in the thick of things, I get lost at times that every answer appear close enough while a close look after the test using the usual methods (outlined by PowerScore CR that I used) lets me close in atleast 2 options. However, under examination conditions that i took this in, I am able to perform well on most of the areas except CR :-(

! Need to seriously improve on that.

GMATPill · Answer

With critical reasoning, you may find mental / visual diagrams helpful as you piece together the question. For example: https://www.gmatpill.com/criticalreasoni ... Estate.mp4

Senthil7 · Answer

Thanks GP.
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HiLine,

Do you think practicing LSAT CR in addition would be of any help? If so how to buy these e-book or online versions of LSAT CR?

In this test that i took from GMATPrep I did find a CR question that had a boldfaced portion but the question was a hybrid between boldface and parallel reasoning!

HiLine · Answer

Your issue is the lack of a consistent approach to CR questions, not a lack of difficult questions to practice. You don't need to master a peculiar type of questions to hit 40. Instead, you should focus on figuring out question types with which you are familiar which make up about 95% of questions. You probably would benefit from having someone help you develop an effective system rather than practicing more with an ineffective approach. It's quality that counts.

himpuju · Answer

Senthil7 , I guess you have figured out that your performance in CR during the tests were not up to the mark even though you are doing quite well during the practice sessions. As you have already gone through the PowerScore CR Bible, I would suggest when you practice CR questions, you try to consciously categorize CR questions as suggested in the book and apply the suggested approach. If you are already doing this then do that in a timely manner. Say, take 10 CR questions and try to answer them within 20 minutes. Please note the time taken for each question and go through every answer explanations in detail giving special attention to questions that you did not answer correctly or took a long time. Irrespective of the answer, check for each question whether the approach taken by you matches with the answer explanation or not. Once you do such practice for quite a few sessions, try to emulate this technique during the exam as well. Try to analyse the answer explanations of every CR question in the first such exam. The problem with GMATPrep is that it does not have the answer explanations. But you can search the questions in this forum for explanation. Thereafter from the second test onward you can search for only incorrect or time taking questions.

For the timing issue, you should try to practice guessing consciously. Do this in your practice exams as well. Try to answer the first 10 questions. Thereafter if you are getting tough questions that are time taking then guess them without wasting too much time and move on. If you have devised a guessing technique then use it in your exam and practice session, otherwise guess whichever seems close enough to you. But do this before you have lost too much time. Please remember you should never be 3 minutes out of your target time for any part. You should note your target times for each 10 question section before you start the exam. Give some buffer to the first part as that is the most important section. Remember, there are 2-3 experimental questions in each 10 question part in actual GMAT and total 9 in quants and 11 in verbal. If the question is too tough to handle then it can be experimental as well. If you figure out in the first minute itself while answering a question that the question is too tough for you and can take even 3 minutes or more, it's ideal to guess, rather than wasting time as it may still be a experimental question. Even if it is not a experimental question, GMAC will not penalize you much as this was a difficult question

Hope this helps. Let us know how it goes.

HiLine · Answer

This is a crucial note. Can you give an example of how you can determine in the first minute whether a CR question can take upward of 3 minutes?

himpuju · Answer

HiLine , this was not about CR, this was about general strategy around timing as Senthil asked for some guidance there. There is probably 1% chance to find such a CR question, but there is certainly a fair chance for quants and SC if you are doing well.

In my GMAT, I got a probability question where I had no idea which formula to apply (probability was my weak area) and I tried to figure out the combinations manually. After the first minute only I understood that it will take me at least 5 minute to find out all combinations as with my method I was about at the 10% mark. I did some educated guessing and moved on. Similarly in the verbal part somewhere between 15-20 questions, I got a long 3 line SC where almost the whole sentence was underlined. In the first minute I could not find any obvious mistake in the sentence and could not figure out the meaning confidently as it was too convoluted. I just selected option A (the original question as I could not find any obvious mistake) and moved on. I knew it would take at least another 2 minutes for me to solve such a SC from my practice and exam session experience. Even then there was no guarantee that I could have answered it correctly.

So it will vary person to person and according to the situation. If a question is from your weak area and you cannot make anything substantial out of it in the first minute, it would probably be better to make a guess. Similarly, if you are in the question 20 mark in verbal, you are probably running on reserve fuel and if you get a long SC or CR where you don't have any idea about it after the first minute, then it is better to make a guess. You will know from your practice session experience how much time on average you generally take for such a question. If it is around 2 minutes then you know that you need to spend another 2 minutes to find the answer. With the stress of actual GMAT or after spending already 3.5 hours for the exam it may take you even more time and then there is no guarantee that your answer will be correct.

I could certainly see my point might not have been clear earlier. I hope I could make it clear now.

Senthil7 · Answer

Today i took up GMATPrep CAT 2 at the same time as my test (9AM), timed, with AWA and IR. 
I scored a 730 (Q49 ; V40 ; IR 8). Attaching screenshots.
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Last time i scored a Q50 and V38. From the analysis my performance in terms of number of questions i got 9 incorrect in Quant in both the tests but scored a 50 in first CAT and now scored 49 probably due to the algorithm's logic.
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In the first CAT I scored V38 with 13 incorrect but a V40 with only 9 incorrect (in spite of getting 4 more correct than previous attempt the scored went up to only 40.
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A little less than 30 days to go by when I plan to take up the remaining 4 GMATPrep CATs - Exam Pack 1 and Exam Pack 2. 
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Hoping to continue my usual practice with GMATClub Tests, Advanced MGMAT Quant (manhattan) and GmatPrep QP.
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For verbal i have just bolstered my daily practice which has improved my speed especially in reading comprehension and I have started to eliminate incorrect answers when I find questions tiring me down. this has helped to an extent so far. 
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I realized that verbal intensive practice has helped me in this exam that i scored decently without seeing any repeats. However, I am gunning for Q50/51 for which some more practice is required probably!
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 Would it be advisable to download all the GMATprep Questions - Quant and verbal and start practicing them now as I understand that these 1000+ questions will not form part of the questions I would see on Exam Pack 1 and 2 CATs.  Please advise

Senthil7 · Answer

I noticed all the IR questions on GMATPrep CAT 2 were same as those in GMATPrep CAT2. How is this possible?
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Also the the timer information in the screenshot for Verbal shows that i did not finish that section due to time constraints lol! I struggled to complete quant but i completed verbal with 1 minute remaining comfortably. Not sure if this is a bug in GMATPrep. However, why did the IR turn out to be the same?

Senthil7 · Answer

Today, I took up the EXAM pack-1 GMAT Test3 in which i scored a dismal 660 (IR6, Q48, V34). I am attaching screenshots for suggestions. As you can see my scaled score in RC is 30 and when i check the incorrect questions, I had answered only 3 incorrectly in RC out of the 12-13 questions I got! Unexplainable! Please help!

Break-Up of incorrect:

Quant :- 13 incorrect out of total 37 questions - Q48!

Verbal :- 11 Incorrect out of total 41 questions - I do not understand this because in my first GMATPrep test I got 13 incorrect yet managed to score V38 but with fewer incorrect questions I have secured only a score of V34!.

Senthil7 · Answer

I finished reviewing all my answers

Quant :- of the 13 incorrect, 7 were oversight / very silly errors!

Verbal :- of the 11 incorrect, 4 were oversight / silly errors. Nevertheless, the correlation between number of questions and scaled score of 34 is mind boggling! I secured V38 with 13 incorrect on my first GMATPrep!
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Just wondering if GMAT algorithm is biased when calculating verbal score depending on number of questions we get right in RC?

chaitanya87 · Answer

It is not biased. You didn't post how many questions were wrong in the first 10 for both verbal and quant . That may give you a picture. Also accuracy gives only half picture, but ability along with accuracy gives you a complete picture. You may got few difficult questions in the EP1. Again it was decided on your performance in answering the first 10 or 20 questions.

Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

Senthil7 · Answer

First 10 questions of Quant --> 2 incorrect
First 10 questions of verbal --> 3 incorrect
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Detailed break-up as follows 
  Quant

Questions 1-10 :- 2 Incorrect
Questions 11-20 :- 4 Incorrect
Questions 21-30 :- 3 Incorrect
Questions 31-37 :- 4 Incorrect

Verbal

Questions 1-10 :-3 Incorrect
Questions 11-20:- 3 Incorrect
Questions 21-30:- 3 Incorrect
Questions 31-41:- 2 Incorrect

Of the above,
Critical Reasoning - 4 Incorrect
Sentence Correction - 4 incorrect
Reading Comprehension - 3 Incorrect.
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I just wonder if I just had a bad day as I have never before scored a 660 in any CATs I have taken 1 month after commencing preparation!

chaitanya87 · Answer

Don't believe in bad days without ruling out other causes. Did you see any repetitive questions when you take the GMAT Prep 1 and 2 exams? 
We need to rule out inflated score as well. Also , from the incorrect questions, were there any 2 consecutive wrongs from same sub-section(CR,SC and RC)? 
For example : in the verbal part, from 1-10, you answered 3 question wrong. Are they consecutive and do they belong to same sub-section?

If the incorrect questions are at random places, then in this test you were given less difficulty questions. That should explain the paradox.

Senthil7 · Answer

1. The first 3 i got wrong were not consecutive in serial number however all of them were CRs.
2. I just read this post by Shadowfax on a similar concern expressed by another person:
interesting-observations-in-gmatprep-218582-20.html#p1686545

and it appears that setting a "level" early in the exam is important to maintain it. Getting 3-4 questions wrong in the first 11 or so, according to the above post and many others on this forum, may result in such lower scores in spite of lesser incorrect questions.

3. No I absolutely saw no overlaps between GMATPrep1 and GMATPrep2! Even on timed MGMAT CATs I scored 670 and 700!
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Even yesterday evening I took up a GMATClub Quant CAT scored 49 and immediately practiced a set of 35 questions (CR,SC and RC together) from OG verbal (questions not seen or answered before) and got 85% of them right!
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I did infer that my Q48 could have easily been Q50 had i been a little more careful, a bad habit of hastily reading at times. However, I just wonder what went wrong with verbal!

chaitanya87 · Answer

In the RC, you got 3 questions wrong, but the sub-sectional score was less than that of CR and SC. Did you get the complete passage wrong?

Ignore the question. Read the OP of the link you pasted.

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