Test day heebie jeebies

Question

With test day nearing, I have encountered a new problem. On my latest mock exam, I would stare at a question which just would not compute. Some examples:

DS; x^2-y^2=?, where 2xy=60. Spent 5 minutes looking for a way to reach (x+y)^2, and could not connect the dots. Guessed. 
 DS; a(1+b)-c. "ab" and "a-c" were given. Spent 4 minutes on it without making the connection. Guessed. 
 RC; could not absorb the passage at all. Inner voice telling me to abandon the passage ASAP ended up drowning out my attempts to read it. Got half the questions wrong (despite consistently getting 20-streaks of RC sets 100% correct)

Bizarrely, all of these happened in the second half of quant and the first half of verbal (Q-V-I test order). I had not a single mistake in the first half of quant, nor in the second half of verbal. During this period my mind just stopped working. Time management suffered, too. 
For reference, I get Q50 every time, and have OG accuracies of RC 98%, SC 95%, CR 80%.

When I retried these questions a day later, I solved them instantly (these, plus two questions I had lost to time management). There were some CR questions that I absolutely did not understand even with the OE - but these are an acceptable loss. What's not an acceptable loss, though, is to make such preventable mistakes... and I worry this mechanism could repeat on test day. I took the mock at the same hour as my real exam. Does anyone know what the problem could be?

bb · Answer

Huh. Very odd for this to happen during the middle or late part of the section of the test. Usually these are things that tend to creep in because somebody did not warm up.

Another reason I can see is thinking too much about how the test is going. The best approach and the best strategy for the test is to take one question at a time. To only look at the clock three times during the test and do your best on every question.

I am surprised the bit you had for five minutes to spare on those questions….

Finally, my suggestion for you is to figure out the plan for situations like these. It’s not uncommon to not see certain things and then answer easily when you’re not attacking a question head-on. This is especially true for puzzles and tricky questions. You need to figure out how you can Stop attacking the question head on and change your attitude all within two minutes that you have for the question while being under pressure…. I put together a checklist for myself for verbal to run through different mistakes if I couldn’t identify one. What a checklist help?

Posted from my mobile device

GmatKnightTutor · Answer

Fair to say there is a difference between solving questions under timed conditions compared to untimed prep.

Ultimately, if you are getting a Q50 every time, that's a positive sign.

theGisforGorilla · Answer

That's just how I always did quant, I guess. Always spent 15 minutes on 4 questions (usually 3 mistakes), and 47 minutes on the remaining 27 questions (usually 1 mistake). There's always an extra-hard DS and a careless error between me and Q51. It's bizarre, though, how the first screen of the verbal section, an RC passage, just wasn't legible to me. I was looking at the letters but I didn't know what I had read, resulting in 4 guesses on the first 4 questions of verbal. I guess it's a good idea to start planning in case it happens again... do you recommend any materials for creating such a checklist? Timed or not, I had never had this catatonic state before. Were it not for that, I would've gotten a Q51. I hope my mind is sharper on exam day. That said, nothing is stopping me from getting a Q41 once the test day heebie jeebies kick in

MartyTargetTestPrep · Answer

Something about your internal ways of functioning is causing you to lock up.

I did a lot of inner work before taking the test, and that inner worked helped a LOT. So, it may make sense for you to some inner work to change what you have going on internally so that you don't experience these issues.

When you practice, what do you do if you don't know how to answer a question? Do you stick with it, even putting it aside for a few hours if you have to, or give up and look at the explanation. If you do the latter, consider sticking with questions for as long as it takes to come up with ways to answer them. Being in the habit of going from stumped to getting a question correct can be super helpful.

Also, since fear and anger can cause energetic blocks, you can work on going through life without ever putting yourself into a state of fear or anger. Work on being Zen and staying in flow at all times. By doing so, you'll become more likely to remain in flow throughout the test.

theGisforGorilla · Answer

In the past I would power through for 20 minutes if necessary, but this late into my prep I am exclusively doing timed OG sets. Whenever stumped I make a judgment call whether to keep going or guess and move on; and I retry the question (untimed) after finishing the whole set. Sometimes, I solve the question instantly during the retry, and these types of mistake are what I want to avoid the most: preventable mistakes. Often, all it takes is to turn the page and restart from scratch, including re-reading the stem. But - on the real exam - it may border on folly to restart from scratch after already having burned 3 minutes on a question. At least I'm not confident enough to do that.

If I fail on my untimed second try, then I can't be as mad at myself - the mistake was not easily preventable. This is especially true of CR questions (official practice test question spoiler warning:   ,  ) . In example 1, I eliminate all five answers even after reading the OE. In 2, I outright dispute the OA. I don't know what can be done about these other than to acquiesce to a low CR accuracy.

Indeed, the zen thing is a lifelong project. I thought I had it relatively under control until this most recent outburst. Are there any materials you'd recommend on this topic?

GmatKnightTutor · Answer

Just a quick tip to check out the Online Wiley version of the Official-Guide. You can create practice sets according to various specifications.

MartyTargetTestPrep · Answer

Look at this right here:

Getting mad at yourself is a huge source of mental blocks and performance issues.

So, learning not to do that any more will make a big difference.

I got many ideas from some of the Pathwork lectures, but using the ideas in those lectures is a pretty long-term project.

I think that, mainly, you can observe how you respond to issues and errors made by yourself and others and focus on responding in more positive ways. In other words, seek to be a more positive coach to yourself. Your energy will flow much better that way.

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