Above show my scores on the Timed Hard Quant Sections. I took Practice tests 2 and 3 and had 11/12 (Medium), 11/15 (Hard) (169Q) on PT 2 and a 10/12 (Medium), 8/15 (Hard) (163Q) on PT3; here I got lucky on PT2 because I had seen some of the questions before and a little unlucky on PT3 because I made a few careless errors.
If aiming for as close to 170Q as possible (167+ at least). What more could I do to improve? I have 90%+ scores on the foundation quizzes and done a ton of isolated and combined strategy practice. In addition, moved up the progression scheme from untimed to timed as talked about by Greg. I only ask this because about a month ago I scored a 161Q on PP2 (First mock, I took the gregmat practice tests after this attempt to work on time management). Before PP2, I didn’t pay attention to time management and made a few careless mistakes. Any insight would be greatly appreciated!
I am not sure about a plan because I am not sure where the gaps are at this moment. The traditional path would be:
Foundations
Strategy (in isolation as well as in combination)
Untimed (Big Book > GregMat Sections > ETS Sections)
Timed (Big Book > GregMat Sections > ETS Sections)
Mock Tests
Having done all of these, how would you go about diagnosing where the gaps are? Perhaps time management was the only thing missing? Probably my question could be framed as: Is there anything that I am missing here?
Maintain a notebook where I list out all the strategies every other week and have about 5-10 ETS questions (current material) under each strategy category.
Untimed Practice:
Took big book sections untimed (average: 29/30; took about 6-7)
ETS Mixed Practice Sets from the ETS Quant Guide (Scores: 23/25, 25/25, 24/25)
Timed Practice:
Took Big Book Sections (up until test 10, average: 29/30 per section)
Maintain a notebook where I list out all the strategies every other week and have about 5-10 ETS questions (current material) under each strategy category.
Untimed Practice:
Took big book sections untimed (average: 29/30; took about 6-7)
ETS Mixed Practice Sets from the ETS Quant Guide (Scores: 23/25, 25/25, 24/25)
Timed Practice:
Took Big Book Sections (up until test 10, average: 29/30 per section)
ETS Official Guide 3rd Edition Practice Tests, Test 1: 25/25, 24/25, Test 2: 25/25, 23/25
Mock Tests:
161Q PP2, 169Q Gregmat Test 3, 163Q Gregmat Test 3
What do you garner from this?
Edit: Time management strategy:
For the second quant section: Roughly, I aim to be done with a first pass of the section within 13-14 mins (11-12 mins remaining) and recheck all my work within 4-5 minutes and then use the remaining 6-8 mins to work on tougher problems.
I think you’re doing a good job overall, but we can get better:
are you using the quant mountain as directed?
have you drilled each strategy as best you can? Deliberate practice?
can you make a strategy mountain that you recite more often in your own words?
are you reviewing all harder ETS questions to find a ~1 minute solution if you haven’t found one already?
can you do some official GMAT quant for increased exposure to hard questions?
For timing, I would refine it more (here’s my version):
First pass: if it ain’t easy, skip it. You might do anywhere from a handful of questions to most of the questions in this pass.
Second pass: do more questions, but stop working with 6-7 minutes on the clock in Q1 and 7-8 minutes on the clock in Q2.
Now, re-read all questions you’ve answered to see if you missed something. Not “re-solve”. Re-read.
With the remaining time (maybe 3-4 minutes), answer the questions you didn’t get to as best you can and guess on any you can’t do or finish.
The reasoning behind this is that invariably, people will say “I didn’t have time to review questions on the hard quant section” because of course their time was eaten up by 2-3 questions they had a tough time with. My protocol is designed to prevent that.
I tended to combine the strategy sessions, like whenever I move through an ETS set, I do them in multiple different ways seeing what way is the fastest. I used to drill strategies deliberately but after a point it just became tedious and there are only so many modern-day ETS questions I can drill and try out all the strategies on. But if you say there’s more to get from deliberate strategy practice, I can continue to drill them through the big book. For niche strategies I just use the questions in the videos to drill them from time to time. Plus, I ensured I did at least a few questions using every strategy.
I had all the strategies down in a flashcard app on my phone that I used to go through every week
The combined sessions (mentioned above) used to mostly yield a way that was the fastest/efficient vs another that wasn’t. I did notice these but didn’t specifically watch out for the time though.
Didn’t try GMAT stuff because I thought that questions on the GregMat site would have been hard enough. But you have a good point there, GMAC probably build more thoughtful questions that are amenable to strategy.
If you have any additional thoughts, please let me know and I’ll try that time-management strategy out for sure. Thanks!
