Reading Comprehension

Done with the set of 50 questions quiz on Reading Comprehension.

The questions are okay. I tried to keep 80-90% success rate over the track, however, the uncomfortable place which I used to work at added some discomfort and I missed the set of several questions in the end, getting down to ~75% of correct answers.

I still don't know how will this adjust to a real score. My originally idea was that scoring 65%+ on both verbal and math can be matched to high 600's or low 700's. Never got any confirmation for that, yet. ;)

Overall RC questions come easy when they're talking about something you can absorb (say, business topics), and come pretty bad when they're up to bacterias, molecules or other shit. (I never liked chemistry in school.)

So well, half of the book is done, but I still kind of miss the feeling of learning something new. Just 150 sample questions and that's it. The next part is math, but it feels like it's not going to be any better.

Now off-topic note. I can't stop wondering how low can be the price of vacation booked some time in advance.

The moderate room at South Lake Tahoe, CA in the middle of August could be booked for less then $145/5 weekdays, very close to the lake, cable TV & Internet, microwave & fridge, air conditioning, with pool & SPA on-site and continental breakfast included. Damn, that's hot. The room is good for 2 adults, sharing one king bed. If you're lucky, you might find a deal for two queen size beds for the same price (or close).

To compare, I recently talked to a friend of mine in Ukraine, who was struggling to book a "room" in Crimea (on Azov sea). The owners charged him ~$12/day per person, and the "room" is to be shared between 2 adults, more like a big-box-type-of-container, featuring nothing but two full-sized beds and few steps between them to "get up and out". The luckiest ones will get a fan in the room.

Nice.

Morning hour for GMAT

I was able to find some time in the morning to move forward with my GMAT preps.

Finishing with the Sentence Correction section of Cracking the GMAT I found minor errors paragraph also interesting (p.251). It also has a comparison quantity matrix, which was pretty much something new to me — I don't remember anything of that.

The next part of the book was devoted to Reading Comprehension. It's a good intro to the exam, but not much new ideas, though.

Few of main points follows:

1. You should always read the first sentence of paragraph, as it's always a key to entire one.
2. A very nice list of trigger words on page 265. And another nice list of ying-yang words on page 266. That's what I can a trick. They structurized the approach of solving a problem and giving you tools for that. I don't know if I can remember this, though. But I'll try to use the book as reference while practice, and hopefully, I will learn them.
3. Process of Elimination (they often call it POE and I always forget about it) — I found it to be the weirdest thing for Reading Comprehension. It doesn't make any sense for me. I mean, you can always eliminate wrong questions, but I was supposed to see some theory behind that. None found.
4. Reading Comprehension section really requires some silence around. I'm not the most noise-sensitive person, but even a working TV in the other room adds a huge pile of distraction.
5. I really got stuck on page 278 in the sample question with answers like scornful and denunciatory, dispirited and morose, critical but respectful, admiring and deferntial and uncertain but interested. While I can logically eliminate some of them (2), I have problems choosing between the rest (3). I need some more practice here.
6. It's recommended to take 3-5 notes while reading the passage. It's something that you need to develop by practicing, from the other side, I'm a little bit concerned about how will it be on the real exam, when you're kinda limited in paper size.

The next part of the book is Critical Reasoning. Actually, as the book authors say, we'll see the most questions on SC, the less or RC and even less on CR. So it looks like the priority of CR is the lowest one.

TEchnically, the whole section on Critical Reasoning was great (pp.283-315). I mean, a lot of interesting and nice tips and tricks. (Fortunetly, as I wasn't very happy about the book at all.) They did a great job on structurizing the problem.

I also liked that they described three main parts to an argument:

1. Conclusion. Something that author wants us to accept. Look for it in the beging and end of the passage. Normally, you'll be able to nail it down very quickly.
2. Premises. Evidence to support conclusion.
3. Assumptions. Unstated ideas or evidence without which the conclusion might be invalid.

On the other note, the real life is different from class room and as you can see on my example (which is not the best one for sure :) it's pretty hard to keep the stable schedule, especially when you cannot invest significant time into it and you're being "attacked" from other sides of your life. However, I am sure that I can make over it. Bear with me. :)