DS and timing Help!!!

Question

Ok so I'm looking for my weak areas among the problems that I have been solving. I have decided that my major weakness is two things. First and foremost, by timing is horrible. On mock test sessions, I'm running out of time with around problem 31 to 34, making me guess for the remaining questions. That is not educated guessing either, its flat out select an answer and beat the countdown kind of guessing. My second well, is kind of odd. From the questions I have logged and from the ones I have missed it looks as if divisors and percents are my weakest areas. However after further investigation, it is only with the DS problems. I'm getting the majority of PS questions in both areas correct, however in DS its almost always incorrect. Then going WOW i suck at DS, I looked at my timing. The problems I take in excess of 2 mins, are all DS questions.

Does anyone have a concrete way of adapting to this problem? That is, has any found a study plan to focus on DS questions specifically? What about timing? I have to admit I have been more worried about the content of the questions vs. the speed in which I complete them. The GMAT is just a few weeks away, and i'm running out of time. VERBAL is killing my scores, and time is having an effect on my Quant.

Any suggestions?

garimavyas · Answer

thats a very interesting problem to solve :p . did you go through mgmat strategy guides ? try following bunuel on this forum

hurleycr · Answer

Yes I'm using MGMAT... But its not about doing the Math. Its more about deciphering statements/stem not so much so for doing the Math, I'm pretty OK with doing the Math for most mid level problems. Its the time it takes me to get what I need to out of the statements, and the fact that I misinterpret what its states or asks for.

Verbal kills me because I Zone out. In Math there is things to do, write, manipulate. In Verbal, specifically SC, I can feel myself zoning out and just using my ear.

Verbal kills me because I Zone out. In Math there is things to do, write, manipulate. In Verbal, specifically SC, I can feel myself zoning out and just using my ear.

samidh · Answer

Hi Hurleycr,

I can give you one small tip, you might find it useful...

Pick up the newspaper everyday, and go through the editorial section, especially articles from areas ( eg politics etc) which  DON'T  intrigue you. Try to set a definite time limit for yourself, depending may be on the length of the article, & try and increase your speed every two days.

This will not only help build your patience, but your reading speed would increase and also your understanding of long and boring passages would improve. Give it a go, and check on the results a week later.

parker · Answer

Hi Hurley,

Congrats on making it this far down the road, with the end in sight. Here are a couple of suggestions given your time constraints (with apologies if you already do some of these things! I don't know your study background so am going to err on the side of going overboard):

If most of the problems you are missing AND overtime on are DS, then you need to cut yourself off for DS earlier! The GMAT is not a traditional test, and embracing the oddity of the way it is adaptively scored (and accepting that even really high scorers miss CONSIDERABLE numbers of questions) will give you permission to cut and run on certain questions. As you shift to a heavier load of OG drills/process rather than content (a key step as you get closer to your test date), don't just focus on getting questions right-- focus on identifying questions that you would *probably get wrong and therefore shouldn't waste your time on.* Remember also that a huge chunk of the questions are experimental, so wasting a lot of time on a question that's really rough may yield you zero points anyway!

As for DS and SC eye-glazing, the fix is the same-- having a concrete, repeatable process for each. Do you do splits and re-splits for SC questions? That will help prevent the words-flying-in-your-face approach. Do you list ABCDE out on your scratch paper for the verbal section and cross choices off physically as you identify errors?

For DS, do you grid answer choices? One of the hardest things to conquer for DS is the format, and making the way you process that format automatic (via grids) can really help. Most of the major companies out there will tell you to grid AD/BCE or BD/ACE (you may already know this process, but if not a quick search on these forums will fill you in)...I know some students, especially students who are strong in math, are resistant to these practices, but taking these seemingly simple steps can break down doors. They seem obvious, but they're important. The test is intense, so you want your pen and paper to do all the lifting they can, and conserve your brainpower for higher-level functions. Gridding on DS questions will also serve you really well in situations where you decide that it's in your interest to guess--often, especially on 700+ questions, one of the statements is significantly easier than the other and you can cross of 2-3 choices and choose from the rest without having to stop to think about which choices are left...they're right there on your paper!

As for the larger timing issues-- practice, and practice setting limits for yourself. Timed drills from the OG, cross-training between different question types, etc. See what forcing yourself to guess at 2 min (or even at 30 sec or 1 min on questions that you are pretty sure you wont' get) will do-- it may not effect your accuracy at all, but allow you the time to finish.

Good luck!

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DS and timing Help!!!

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