760 (q49 V44)

[friendlydragonca]

I have been studying for the GMAT for the last 2 months, and just finished writing it this morning.[dance] I don't know what feels better: seeing that '760' flash across the screen, or knowing that the GMAT ordeal is behind me. I am still pretty wired about the result - I was aiming for about 700 or so.

 

I have been studying for the GMAT for the last 2 or 3 months, and have been lurking on this forum for about a month. Naturally I have formed some opinions on how best to prep for GMAT, so here they are. Sorry if my thoughts are a bit disjointed - I am still feeling a bit wired:

 

First of all I just want to say, the sysadmin, Erin, knows what he is talking about. Pretty much all the advice I have read from him on this board on prepping for the GMAT was on the money. Much of what I did was based on his advice. My thanks to him, and also to my fellow Canadian, Ursula, for generously sharing her advice and experiences with us all. Much of the advice I provide below as already been mentioned by these two folks.

 

If you remember only one thing about this post, remember this: To do well on the GMAT:

 

1. get the ETS Official Guide for GMAT (OG)

 

2. do all the questions, or as many in the book as time permits

 

3. read the explainations in the [tooltip=Official Guide]OG[/tooltip] as to WHY the answers are right or wrong (don't just check what the right answer is, read why ETS thinks it is right or wrong - the GMAT is, stricty speaking, not a test of how well you understand reality, but rather how well you understand ETS' perception of reality).

 

I think the above is mostly an issue of available free time and discipline. I am currently "between jobs", and have been so since May, so I was able to commit more of my time to GMAT prep than someone working or studying full-time. Still, if doing well on the GMAT is really important, consider taking a month or two off work or school, and use it to spend some quality time with the [tooltip=Official Guide]OG[/tooltip]. Of course, this is not feasible for many of you. As an alternative, I would suggest you start prepping for the GMAT 4 to 6 months in advance of taking it, and getting in a steady routine of studying the [tooltip=Official Guide]OG[/tooltip] as much as your free time permits. Also, know that you need to be mentally fresh to study the GMAT properly - it is very mentally intensive working through the problems. If you are a morning person, like me, take an hour in the morning before work or school to study rather than an hour in the evening when your mind is wasted.

 

As Ursula suggested in one of her posts, there is no substitute to putting in the study time.

 

Some other remarks about the GMAT:

 

- before working on the [tooltip=Official Guide]OG[/tooltip], I bought and went through the Princeton Review and Kaplan books. They were both pretty good, worth the time and money I spend on them. They give a good intro to the GMAT and suggest some useful strategies in doing the problems. However, their practice questions were not so great. I don't fault them for this, it is just VERY difficult to make good questions (as Erin has said in this forum). I would use these prep books to learn the stragegies, and practice them on the [tooltip=Official Guide]OG[/tooltip] questions.

 

- I downloaded the Powerprep software and did the two practice tests. The first test (did it about half way through the OG) I got 660 (Q44 V37), the second test (after doing all of the [tooltip=Official Guide]OG[/tooltip], 3 days before the real GMAT), I got 760 (Q49 V44). It would seem that the PP tests are pretty good predictors of the real score, but I really did expect that my real GMAT would be lower since I was being given questions I had not seen before. It could be I was lucky on the real GMAT or unlucky on my 2nd PP test. Anyway, the PP software is certainly worth downloading, and you should do both of the practice tests in order to get a feel for what the real one is like, as well as to get the timing down (see below).

 

- The GMAT is, as we all know, a race against the clock. It is not something that most of us are used to doing in our regular lives, and I spent quite a bit of effort to develop a sense of timing when working on the [tooltip=Official Guide]OG[/tooltip] questions. What I would do is run a stopwatch while working on a set of problems. At the end, I would figure out how much time I had taken. After a while, I was able to average 2 min. per math and 1:45 per verbal question that the GMAT allows you. This is important not only to know when to give up on a difficult question, but also to know when you can afford to take a few seconds extra to check over your answer to see if you made any careless errors or stepped into one of ETS' traps. Note - their traps are not subtle or obscure, but one tends to fall into them if they are tired or rushed.

 

- One of the keys of doing well in the Verbal section of the GMAT is to "Get in the head of" the ETS folks who write these questions. This is why it is important to read the answer explainations in the [tooltip=Official Guide]OG[/tooltip] for the verbal Qs. For each question, one answer is right and the other 4 are wrong, but you need to know WHY exactly ETS thinks so. I found I was able to do the verbal questions more quickly after I developed a sense of this, of how ETS likes to structure a question, and prepare a set of possible answers for it. It is kind of a zen-like thing, I guess, hard to put into words.

 

- I note with interest that my Quant score is 90 percentile and my Verbal score is 98 percentile, yet the overall 760 score is 99 percentile. I am not sure of this, but it suggests to me that a lot of GMAT candidates are quite a bit stronger on one part of the test than the other. If this is your case, perhaps it would be better to spend a greater part of your study time on the weaker of your two areas. I think a 10 percentile gain on your weak area is worth more a 10 percentile increase in your strong area in terms of the overall GMAT score.

 

- According to the GMAC web site, the standard error of measure is 29 points. I interpret this to mean that that difference between a 660 and a 720 could be due to luck. I can easily see how luck enters into the GMAT - for example guessing randomly on a tough question without spending any time on it, and getting it right. Or, if you guess wrong, the question could be experimental, and not count in the score. Or maybe you get a scientific RC passage in an field that you are familiar with. In my opinion, it is not worth obsessing over 10 or 20 points on a GMAT - I am sure grad school admissions staff don't.

 

 

OK, there is a bottle of scotch in my house that is calling my name. Think I will go have a belt or two to celebrate and calm my nerves down a bit. I will add a few more observations in a day or two, or whenever the hangover wears off.

[jamesbond007]

Hi friendlydragonca,

 

Absolutely stunning performance and too great score. Bravo! Heartiest congratulations!!! [clap] [clap]

and indeed, what a great post this is!

All your suggestions are encouraging and practical. We will wait for more suggestions and hence no more questions till then. I hope you will do that as soon as possible (when you'll come out of scotch hangover. :D Just kidding, pl. don't mind).

 

 

Thanks very much for all your advices. :cool:

Jamesbond007

[friendlydragonca]

Well, I had a good night's sleep, and my hangover is not too bad, so I will continue on with some more remarks about the GMAT while the experience is still fresh in my mind:

 

- Like most other people I am sure, I found the DS more of a challenge than the PS part of the quant section. No doubt this is due to the fact that we have all done lots of straight math question during our time in school, but not DS problems. You need to brush up on general math concepts for all the quant section, but you also need to practice the DS questions and get into a routine that you follow every time. I found that early on in my studies, I was getting too many DS problems wrong because of carless errors, like determining that both 1 and 2 were insufficient by themselves, but failing to check if both were sufficient together.

 

I found the last 50 or so problems in the DS section of the [tooltip=Official Guide]OG[/tooltip] to be very challenging, and it did make me nervous about the Quant section of the GMAT, but from what I read on this board, other felt the same way. Don't let this rattle you too much, just do the problems, and take your time reading the explainations in the [tooltip=Official Guide]OG[/tooltip] - read it until you are 100% sure you understand what the answer is and what the relevant math principles are.

 

- Another key to success on the GMAT is reducing the number of careless errors that you make. For example, one of the steps of a math problem in the GMAT is to multiply 9 X 100. A very simple calculation by itself, but I calculated it to be 9,000, and of course got the question wrong. I made this mistake because my attention was focused on other steps of the question. In time, I learned to reduce these silly errors by slowing down slightly, staying focused on the immediate task at hand, and writing down the intermediate steps of complex problems.

 

Another example of a careless error is where the question contains a 'NOT' or 'EXCEPT'. Say, if a CR problem says that all choices weaken the arguement EXCEPT the one you need to pick, sometimes I would pick out the first answer choice that weakens the argument, and move on. Again, with practice, you can reduce these kinds of goofs. I would suggest that in the example above that you say 'not weaken' in your mind as you read throungh each of the 5 answer choices, but whatever you do, get into a routine and do it every time.

 

- With the RC questions, sometimes the strategy guides advise you to skim over the passage. They say you don't have time to read each detail. In fact, I read every passage I was given (4 of them) on the GMAT. I trained myself to read them quickly and keep track of the discussion. Also, at the end of each paragraph, I took a few seconds in my mind to summarize what it was about. This worked out OK for me, but I do understand that other people may read and comprehend differently. What I would suggest is to try out a few different RC reading methods on the [tooltip=Official Guide]OG[/tooltip] problems, find what works best for you, and drill with this method on the rest of the [tooltip=Official Guide]OG[/tooltip] RC problems.

 

- With the RC questions, when you get a question about a specific part of the passage, you should find and re-read the part, but you should also read the sentence below and after it. If the part is at the start of a paragraph, re-read the last sentence of the preceeding paragraph. I found that these sentences above and below the part in question would often contain clues on how to answer the question.

 

- With any "inference" or "suggest" question, you really need to get a feel for what ETS consider is inferable. It is probably more obvious than what you or I would generally consider. I found that I had a tendancy at first with inference questions to read too much into what the passage stated, see a connection to one of the answer choices (where one did not exist in the eyes of ETS, unimaginative though they may be), and get it wrong. Again, you being testing on ETS' perception of reality here.

 

- When you are working on the [tooltip=Official Guide]OG[/tooltip] problems, use a wood pencil and sheets of blank scrap paper to work out the problems. This is what you get in the real test, so it is best to get used to using them. I haven't used a wood pencil in over 20 years, so it took me a few days to get used to using one. It may seem like a small things, but I can't write as small with a pencil as I can with a pen, so I needed to learn to write a bit larger. And make sure you stock lots of scrap paper - I must have gone through several hundred letter-size sheets in the last 2 months studying for the GMAT.

 

- I am a Native English speaker, and figure I know American English as well as any literate North American adult. I first assumed with the SC problems, I could just pick the sentence that 'sounds the most right' to me. I soon found out it isn't that simple. Native English speakers can rely on their instinct for some of the simple SC problems, and can use it to quickly eliminate some obviously wrong choices and thus use the extra time to evaluate the remaining choices. But there were quite a few SC sentences in the [tooltip=Official Guide]OG[/tooltip] sounding awkward to me but were correct, and some that sounded just fine but were wrong. I think ETS is pretty anal with their grammar, but I suppose they have to be to make the GMAT challenging.

 

- For the quant section, you should know all the math definitions COLD. For example, know that zero not a positive integer, but it is an even integer. I know most of them already, but I got burned a few times in the [tooltip=Official Guide]OG[/tooltip] especially with the DS problems, because I was not sure about certain properities of numbers. It seems that ETS likes to test you on possible misconceptions about numbers, like zero being positive or not.

 

- Last point I want to make is, there were times when I would get a bit frustrated with the GMAT, when I would miss 3 or 4 questions out of a set of 10, or I would pick an answer choice that I was 100% sure was right, but in fact it wasn't because I overlooked or misunderstood some little fact. It seemed to me like I was playing a game with the ETS question-writers, and they had an insurmountable advantage over me.

 

But in time I came to understand that the contest was more even-handed. At the end of the day, the question-writers have to give you 5 choices, 1 right and 4 wrong, and they have to be defendably right or wrong, defendable so that a resonably intelligent person, given time to examine the question, could not deny that the choice is really right or really wrong. Moreover, the questions cannot be so difficult that it is not feasible for a reasonably intelligent person to solve it within the time contraints of the test.

 

So, if you are a reasonably intelligent person, it is theoretically possible for you to score 800 on the GMAT. The reason why an 800 is so rare is due to our human frailities: carlessness, ignorance of a common principle of math or grammar, temporary mental block, mental fatigue, not understanding the exact meaning of a word, losing focus of a task at hand, etc. Studying for the GMAT is all about controlling and reducing these shortcomings. Once we do this, it is we test-takes who have the edge over the ETS test-writers for most of the questions they give us. We will still miss a few of the questions now and then, but so what? You can blow several questions on the GMAT and still get over 700.

 

OK, I've rambled enough. Good luck to everyone who is studying for the GMAT, and please feel free to post questions on this thread.

 

The Friendly Dragon

[Erin]

Awesome insights, and congrats on your amazing score. Should help you a lot in the admissions process.

[jamesbond007]

Hi Friendly Dragon,

 

It seems that you have spoken my language, my thoughts. Absolutely simillar things happened with me during entire practise. This post will certainly give a relaxed time for all GMAT aspirants.

Since my exam is scheduled in next 2-3 days, I donot have much questions about this exam.

Keep adding your thoughts, which I found highly practical and useful.

All the best for your admission process!!!

 

Thanks and Regards,

Jamesbond

[friendlydragonca]

Good luck with the test, Mr. Bond.

 

If you will indulge me with one more rambling about the GMAT:

 

There is a lot of advice about what to do the day before the GMAT, and the day of the test as well. Some people advise that on the day before, you do not study at all, just take it to rest. I have a slightly different take on this. What I did the day before is do a last minute review of math and grammar concepts for about 2 or 3 hours. Then I ran the Powerprep and started on of the practice tests. I skipped past the essays and started the multiple choice. However, I did not do all the questions - I just did the first 20 in each section. Moreover, I did not try to complete the questions at normal test speed (2 min for math, 1:45 for verbal). Instead I took 3 or 4 min. per question.

 

My reasoning was, to keep my mind "in the groove" for doing the GMAT, I need to do some study the day before the test. But I did not want to wear myself out mentally, so I did the review and questions as a relaxed pace. It seems to me that the mental effort of the GMAT comes in large part from the time contraints.

 

The other aspect of my preparation for GMAT was controlling my nerves. I was moderately nervous about taking the GMAT, so after I had finished my final study session the day before the test (at about the middle of the afternoon), I really made a conscious effort not to think about the test at all. I went for a walk, watched TV, read a book, and tried to dismiss the test from my mind.

 

The day of the test, I was feeling somewhat nervous, but again as I went to the test centre, I consciously tried not to think at all about the test. This somewhat helped to calm my nerves, at least enough so that my nerves did not interfere with my mental abilities.

 

What I did the day before and the day of the test certainly worked for me, but everyone is different, so you really have to know yourself to decide how to handle this. Some people are blessed with ice water in their veins and don't seem to need to worry about nerves. But whatever kind of person you are, it is worth taking time to think about how to handle the pre-test prep for the GMAT. We have all taken lots of tests in our lives, so think back on what works for you.

 

Friendly Dragon

[Truthman76]

I have a question here Friendly dragon, having studied Math in different language than English and i have been outside the high school for over 11 years now, I found that my main weak point which is obvious will be on PS section, while with DS and the Verbal section I will just need alot of practice and i will be fine, do u think the 3 books (OG, Princeton and Kaplan) would give me enough info to get a good result on the PS, or anyone would suggest something else for the preparation for the PS and math in general.

 

Thanks alot guys, this forum is awesome.

 

Ray

[friendlydragonca]

Hi Ray,

 

At the start of my GMAT studies, I was considerably weaker in the quant section (both PS and DS) than in the verbal section. It had also been a long time for me since I had done much of the basic math that is tested on the GMAT. I think a lot of people on this forum are in the same boat; if you consider what the verbal and AWA sections test, well, we all have been reading and writing English a lot since we finished school. Most of us do it as part of our jobs, or just a part of our daily lives (e.g. reading newspapers and/or novels). But how many of us factor quadratic equations, simplify fractions or calculate the slope of a line on a graph at home or at work.

 

Fortunately, the math in the quant section is relatively simple; we may do poorly on it at first just because we are rusty. What I did was go through the math reviews in the [tooltip=Official Guide]OG[/tooltip] and in the Kaplan and PR strategy books. I think if you spend a few hours a day on this for a week, this is enough of a refresher. Then, of course, you need to work through all the quant problems in the [tooltip=Official Guide]OG[/tooltip] in order to be able to apply the math principles under GMAT test conditions.

 

I mentioned this in an earlier post, but to elaborate on it here: one of the problems I found with doing the quant questions was making careless errors. In a PS question with 3 or 4 steps, I would understand the concept correctly and start doing the steps to solve it. But I would rush a bit and make a silly arithmetic error along the way. This would result in my final answer being wrong. In a high school test, I would get part marks for this because the teacher would be able to see my intermediate work. Unfortunately, the GMAT is an all-or-nothing proposition.

 

One of the important reason you need to do all the [tooltip=Official Guide]OG[/tooltip] questions is to discover if you are prone to making these careless errors, and if so, train yourself to slow down and check your work. You need to get a feel for how accurate you are in doing basic calculations on pencil and paper, to get a feel for how fast you can do these calculations without sacrificing accuracy.

 

Friendly dragon

[Truthman76]

Friendly dragon,

 

I am just writing to say Thank you, I am going to follow all the steps u mentioned, cause I cant afford missing my goal here.

 

Wishing you all the best with ur graduate program and everyone here,

 

Ray

[justjuhi]

Hi Friendly Dragon,

Just went through your thread. ..I have about 10 days to go for GMAT....I am all nerves now..I just did not have anytime, since I am working. I gave PP tests about ten days back..I got a 720 on each of them...

After giving these tests now I am going through [tooltip=Official Guide]OG[/tooltip]...I thought [tooltip=Official Guide]OG[/tooltip] was good till I reached the last set of questions in each section...I always time myself while solving these questions...Now in last sets I am not only getting a lot of them wrong but also overshooting time...I am very panicky now..

My major weakness is verbal..please tell what to do...

 

Juhi

[friendlydragonca]

Hi Juhi,

 

First of all, to address the issue of nerves: if you scored 720 on the PP tests before looking at the [tooltip=Official Guide]OG[/tooltip] questions, you are way ahead of the vast majority of people taking the test. The first time I took the PP, I got 660, and this was after going through half the [tooltip=Official Guide]OG[/tooltip] (so some of the questions were already familiar to me, which would tend to artifically inflate my score a bit).

 

I assume that you feel nervous because of what is at stake - for the GMAT, this is about getting into a good MBA program. Consider that you are scoring quite a bit above you will need to obtain this objective. So, try to think that this objective has already been met, so you are now aiming for a score well above 700 just for your pride. This is how I felt when I was studying for the GMAT. I was 100% sure I would get the score I needed to get into the MBA program I wanted, so I felt the stakes were not so high, and thus there was no reason for me to get nervous. At this point the GMAT became a bit of a game where I would shoot for the highest score I could get just for my pride (well, also for bragging rights among a few of my friends!). So, if you can get yourself in this frame of mind, hopefully you won't feel so nervous.

 

If you still feel too nervous, there is always the "ball of ice" theory.(read this in a book a long time ago) In 5 billion years or so, the sun will exhaust its fuel, so the earth will become a giant ball of ice. There will be no life here, nothing, nada. And, this will happen whether or not you blow the GMAT out of the water or go down in flames on the day of the test. So why get nervous about it, eh?

 

OK, back to the real world - here is what I suggest you do to prepare for the GMAT:

 

- Make as much free time as possible from now until the test to study. Consider taking time off work if your boss will allow. This is not only to make more time, but also conserve your mental energy for the GMAT rather then using it up on the job.

 

- Since your weakness is verbal, spend the majority of your remaining study time on it, but not all your time. You still need to do some of the quant problems so that the math concepts and problem solving apporaches stay fresh in your mind.

 

- You need to try understand why you are getting a lot of the [tooltip=Official Guide]OG[/tooltip] questions wrong. Do the question in the [tooltip=Official Guide]OG[/tooltip], and once you have picked your choice, immediately check the answer in the back of the book. If you got it wrong, read the explaination CAREFULLY as to why it is wrong. Make SURE you understand why the right answer is right and the wrong answer is wrong, you may need to re-read the explaination a few times (especially with the SC). I recall that Ursula said she would keep a log of the questions she got wrong and why she got them wrong (misunderstand question, carelessness, misunderstand concept, etc.). I did not do this myself, but it sounds like a good idea to me. Hopefully, a pattern will emerge that will allow you to understand why you are missing a lot of questions. Once you know these reasons, keep them in mind as you do more [tooltip=Official Guide]OG[/tooltip] questions.

 

- You also need to deal with your timing problem. If you are consistently overshooting the time allowed, there is of course a danger that you will get to the end of a GMAT section and find that you have one minute to answer 5 or 6 questions.

 

In terms of training myself for timing, what I did was, now and then, to take a block of 10 questions from the [tooltip=Official Guide]OG[/tooltip] and do them all while running a stopwatch. I would then see if I was doing the questions too slowly on average or not. (i.e. you need to be able to do 10 verbal question in 17:30, or 10 quant questions in 20:00). Note that I say "on average". There are some questions I could solve in under a minute with very high confidence that I had got it right - this allowed me to spend a bit of extra time on the tough questions. But the most important skill to learn is to sense when you have spent 2.5 to 3 min. on a question, have not solved it, and don't have any reasonable prospect of solving it. At this point, take a guess and move on. I found with all verbal questions, at worst I could narrow it down to 2 or 3 choices, so given decent luck, the 2.5 to 3 minutes was not a total waste of time.

 

OK, I hope this advice helps. I just want to repeat: if you are getting 720 on the PP, you are in very good shape, so there truly is no reason to panic. There is a a 100% chance the world will turn into a ball of ice, but also a 99.9% chance you will get into a quality MBA program.

 

Regards,

 

Friendly Dragon

[damit]

dragon I must say you are quite friendly indeed! Thanks for the great advice!

[jamesbond007]

Firendly Dragon,

 

What a nice advice and great post! Once we think of the world is becoming a ball of ice, we should, probably, spent more time with our family than on GMAT study, isn't it? Well just kidding. But your advice will be a great help in relaxing a GMAT aspirant.

 

 

Juhi and other GMAT test-takers,

Please keep one thing always in mind. NEVER EVER GET PANIC WHILE SOLVING THE TEST (and also in the life) . To become the panic is to fall into the trap of ETS. They want you should become panic and thats the way the test is created.

Simply concentrate one problem at a time. While solving RC, keep watch at clock. But don't think about any other thing in this world. This will lead you no where. While solving your test, think that you have no one in this world watiing for you after the test, you have to do nothing after the test, no one is going to ask you how much you have socred or even if unfortunately you scored less than you thought to be, no one is going to blame you or criticize you. So why to worry?

Do not discuss about your GMAT exam with your family and friends, who don't know anything about GMAT.

Get sound and proper sleep (atleast 8-9 hours) before GMAT day. Start practicing to sleep early and wake early, otherwise if you are not habitual of waking up early in the morning, you will not able to concentrate in exam, if it is scheduled at 9 AM. GOOD SLEEP is probably more important thing than any other thing apart from test preparation. This will give better concentration and more strength to fight against panic situation.

STOP the GMAT study after 4 - 5 PM on the day before GMAT day. Simply read novel or news paper.

If you have prepared to score 700+ in the practice tests and learned to relax in highly pressurized and tensed situation then your final score will be 30-40 points more than your peak practise test score.

:tup:

 

ALL the best

James

[justjuhi]

Thanks a lot Friendly Dragon for the great advice...I have taken an off from office, my boss didn't seem happy but GMAT wouldn't be happy otherwise...

 

Actually I am worried because of my scores in the practice tests lately:

600 - Kaplan

690 - ARCO

640 Princeton test 3

 

Earlier, like I said, I had 720 on PP and 740 in princeton.

Kaplan I understand is tough is not representative of how you score on the real test but Princeton?? If anyone has given this test please tell me something about its difficulty level..

 

And Thanks James..I have already started getting up early to practice for the real day..It sure is difficult getting up early, all of a sudden..

[spiderman]

hi juhi,

 

princeton 3 - math is defintely tuffer than test 2. verbal seems to be of the same level.

[friendlydragonca]

foruJustJhui,

 

I used the Kaplan and PR books to help learn GMAT strategy, but did not bother taking their practice tests. The reason for this is that I had a sense that their questions had a somewhat different flavor than thoes appearing in the [tooltip=Official Guide]OG[/tooltip], so their tests would not be as likely to simulate thoes on the reat GMAT

 

You may wish to take a look at the thread Practice Tests vs. Real GMAT

you will see that, while the PP is not always an accurate predictor of your actual GMAT score, it is better than anything else.

 

If you are scoring 720 on the PP, I really do think you are in good shape to get 700+ on the real GMAT, in spite of what you are getting in the other practice tests.

[Manx]

You know I cam across this thread just now and believe me , the insights presented here are awesome. The problems which people have and present here are common to so many of us who study and prepare for this in isolation. Just re-assures you that you are not a dim wit who has put his head on the butchers table.All the best to all.

[ice t]

friendly dragon, you mentioned this:

 

- With any "inference" or "suggest" question, you really need to get a feel for what ETS consider is inferable. It is probably more obvious than what you or I would generally consider. I found that I had a tendancy at first with inference questions to read too much into what the passage stated, see a connection to one of the answer choices (where one did not exist in the eyes of ETS, unimaginative though they may be), and get it wrong. Again, you being testing on ETS' perception of reality here.

 

My main weaknesses on the gmat are these questions in RC and the Sc in general. For these do you have any advice as to how to decifer ETS inferences I always seem to make my own as you say.

 

Also, any tips on SC all the grammar rules are killing me. Thanks!

[friendlydragonca]

Ice T,

 

Regarding inferences:

 

In general, you just have to go through a lot of RC passages in the [tooltip=Official Guide]OG[/tooltip], do the inference questions, and hopefully develop a sense for what ETS thinks is inferable. You of course should read the explainations for all [tooltip=Official Guide]OG[/tooltip] questions, but in addition, you may need to spend more attention on the inference questions. For example, after doing an inference question and reading the explaination, re-read the part of the passage where the inference was made (the explaination will mention what part this is). Take a bit of time to digest this - consider how direct the inference is to the stated facts. Hopefully you will develop a gut instinct as to what ETS considers to be inferable.

 

Something else you may want do: look at the 5 choices with an inference question. Use process of elimination to quickly eliminate choices that are clearly wrong (actually, I use POE for all verbal questions). Hopefully, you have 2 or 3 choices remaining. One is correct, of course, but the remaining one or two are wrong, but not obviously wrong. Spend some time with these choices. Think about whether they are traps set by ETS to mislead the unwary, or perhaps they are an inference that is mildly plausable but just too weak to meet ETS's standard. Keep in mind that part of the skill of writing the GMAT is to be able to quickly and accurately identify and eliminate wrong choices. The faster you can pick out traps and weak inferences, the more time you will have to spend studying the remaining choices. The is a big plus with the RC questions, because you often need these precious seconds to hunt through the passage and re-read the parts that are relevant to the question.

 

 

Regarding SC:

 

I have mentioned this before, but I think the best way to study for SC is to review basic grammar, do the SC questions in the [tooltip=Official Guide]OG[/tooltip], and read the explainations carefully in the [tooltip=Official Guide]OG[/tooltip] for same. If you feel that you need more advanced help, check out the SC thread in TestMagic. Spidey recently posted his SC notes, and obviously had put a lot of effort into them - check them out.

[ice t]

thanks for the tips, i will be going over those notes very in depth soon.

[abhishek_jha]

Friendly,

Many congrats on your stellar performance and thanks a lot for sharing your wonderful insights with us. I think getting a V44 is phenomenal, and it makes me think you must have aced your RCs. I'm having slight problems with RCs in terms of time. Even though I have a good reading speed and tend to follow a similar approach as yours, of reading the entire passage once, I keep lagging. I guess, as per your advice, I'll try to employ other strategies and see what suits me best.

I agree with you that DS is the most difficult - and specially those related to inequalities or numbers/factors.

Did you get any bold faces ? And did you do any spl preparation for those ? I'd also like to know that when you made scratch notes for RCs, did you actually refer back to the notes for answering questions ?

 

TiA - Abhi

[friendlydragonca]

Did you get any bold faces ? And did you do any spl preparation for those ? I'd also like to know that when you made scratch notes for RCs, did you actually refer back to the notes for answering questions ?

 

When you say bold faces, do you mean questions with the word EXCEPT in them? The one's where 4 of the statement are true, correct, present in the passage, etc. and you have to find the one that is not? I did not do any special prep. for these questions, but as I recall, I would take more of a guess at answering them, since they are clearly more difficult and time consuming. For example, I might be sure about eliminating 2 choices, moderately sure about eliminating a 3rd one, and be left with 2 choices. At this stage, if I felt I had spent too much time, and didn't want to hunt over the entire passage to eliminate one of the 2 remaining choices, I would take a guess and move on. The 'skill' in this case is knowing when it is not worth spending the time to be 100% sure of the answer to a question.

 

About scratch notes: actually, I did not take any of them. What I would do at the end of each paragraph was to take a few seconds to summarize it in my own words, and perhaps decide how it related to the previous paragraph. I found I was able to keep track of the flow of the essay well enough this way so that I could answer the questions. But keeping notes may be better for you - everyone reads and comprehends differently. Perhaps you can try my method, and if it is not working well, then make very brief scratch notes. You have to experiment with this on the RC passages in the [tooltip=Official Guide]OG[/tooltip], see what works best. By the way, some stragegy books recommend skimming the passages. I tried that and was not satisfied with the results.

[comrade]

Hi Everybody...Have been passive in the forum for a long time. I gave my sixth practice test today. I remember the first time i took my PP1 i scored as miserable 550. But today i took PP2 and scored 680. Exciting part is that i scored 50 on quant & dissapointing part is that i scored ONLY 31 on Verbal. I know that if i improve in Verbal, i can easily score a 700+. i haVE STUDIED og (rc 1/3RD ONLY). But still i do most of the SC questions wrong. CR questions i did 90% correct.

How should i improve SC. After studying [tooltip=Official Guide]OG[/tooltip] also, i face difficulty in SC. I always feel that i am marking the right answer, but end up losing on it.

 

If anyone has Kaplan Verbal workbook, suggest me if i should do that. Actually my mind has gone brain dead now doing all this GMAT stuff.

 

Take Care

[abhishek_jha]

>>

When you say bold faces, do you mean questions with the word EXCEPT in them?

>>

They are questions like these:

http://TestMagic.com/forums/showthread.php?t=12636

[rosalie127]

This forum is great! I was so depressed after taking the test last monday, but I booked another test for Oct4th. I bought the [tooltip=Official Guide]OG[/tooltip] and the PR, now I am better equipped.Thanks soooo much for all your postings, questions and answers. I have already been given a conditional offer by a business school in London to begin my MBA this fall, and I depend on increasing my score in order to do so. My goal is 665, I am a native Spanish speaker, so it's a bit tough, specially all the verbal section. But I've subscribed the cnn.com and the NYTimes.com, they send me e-mails everyday, it's been ver helpful. My test is in 3 weeks and I am very stressed, because I have the "I need to do this right this time" pressure constantly on my mind!!!!!!

The school actually saved me the place and asked me to give the GMAT another shot. It's increadibly amazing considering it's a very strict school. But I realy need to improve my score, which was completely devastating!! I will follow all your advice. Thanks again.