Kaplan's SC & few things more

I'm not going top write a lot, but a quick note -- I've just complete a quick quiz from Kaplan's book on Sentence Correction (50 questions).

My results were rather poor this time -- about 70% correct still. While I didn't improve my concentration issue, I also found myself having weak skills in this section (even when sometimes it seems easier).

Most of the time the questions were okay, but I didn't really like the explanations (too much and broad words, too little samples) and I found those explanations to work very bad for non-native English speaker like I am.

I think I have to agree with many other reviewers who said that verbal piece is very poor in Kaplan's book. I still have to see the math one.

On the other note, I have printed a 14 days free coupon for 24 hour fitness gym, so I'm planning to activate it within next few days and get back my everyday gym habit.

I've also spent some time looking around gyms nearby, that actually suck big times here, in Northern California. I keep remembering my bad and ugly LA Fitness gym in Pasadena, which charged me twenty something a month with no contract, had three levels of gym machines, sauna, steaming room and few more gyms in driving distance (~5-10 miles) with pool, basketball court, racket ball (wrong spelling?) rooms and few more bonuses on the top.

While I thought LA Fitness to be rather moderate gym, here, in Northern California, it would be cream on the top of all. Unfortunately, LA Fitness has no network in this part of California.

I looked at Bally's, Fitness 19, 24 hour Fitness, Equinox, local YMCA and few more. Ugh, didn't like anything (or didn't get a match price-wise ;).

However, have to choose, so the cheapest solution is getting a prepaid certificate for 24 hour fitness. It's still about 5-6 miles away from my place, and while there is one close by, but it's a Super-Sport one. This actually one more ugly thing about gyms here. This is one level several years old and absolutely unremarkable gym with no pool and very poor amenities is charging fifty something per month, while regular one can be bought for twenty something (and I'm not talking about Costco's certificates out there!).

Whatever, we'll see what I'll end up with. :)

Tomorrow is Reading Comprehension section.

Verbal

Well, let me make it straight. Now I know for sure -- I don't like the verbal section of GMAT.

It doesn't make me happy.

While I scored into middle third according to warm-up section of Cracking the GMAT, I decided to start with the first bin, instead of the second one. (Better more then less.)

You know what? I didn't mention any difference. The first bin felt pretty hard for me. Sometimes even really weird.

I made a few "educated" guesses, completed it rather quick, despite on the noise and overall distraction of TV and constantly beeping email coming in (yes, I receive a lot of emails on the weekend, too).

So well, what made me even more surprised is my result, which was about 90% of correct answers.

If you'd ask me about that -- I would say I made at least 30% of mistakes. However, I didn't.

So what could be my options to improve myself in the verbal part of GMAT? Still don't have a good answer for that.

Reading helps, however, to what extent? The texts posted in the GMAT are pretty weird and unlikely to belong to my list of readings. Other then that, I didn't mention any improve in my results.

From what I heard, Manhattans' Sentence Correction is very good. I have plans to acquire this book as soon as I'll finish with my official guides and one more (I guess Kaplan's one). I'm also thinking about Kaplan 800, however, I'm little bit concerned on some reviews saying that the questions in it not that good like even the free ones from mba.com.

I also have a set of printed material from my friends, with some sample questions and tests to go through. However, I'm not very fond of solving problems, that I can't get an explanation for. It will take more time, which I'm pretty limited for anyway.

P.S. Found a nice image to accompany this post. ;)

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. :)

Sentence Correction

Finally, thanks God, I can face some interesting topics in Cracking GMAT. The Sentence Correct section it is.

While I had no chance to invest a fair amount of time into it, yet, I've already noted some interesting moments.

1. They do not say that you can't use your ear. Just don't do this first. The first step is visual spotting for errors.
   
2. They structurized errors spotting a lot. There is nice list of major errors featured on GMAT exam on pp.233-250. Very well organized.

For non-native speakers (as I am) I found a pretty nice pronouns matrix on p.234. Native speakers might find it too basic though.

Also, I found the most of sample questions described so far to be fairly easy. Of course, they give you an idea what type of error is there, but once you know that, I found it very easy to find the right answer. I did very well on this.

More to go, stay online. Hopefully I'll find an extra hour or two tonight to work some more on this.

GMAT SC

I just finished my GMAT Sentence Correction part and (sadly) should say that this is still one of the hardest piece to be done and, I guess, the least coachable one as well. I had the highest deviation of my correct percentage rates for the questions from this section.

Here comes the final difficulty equation for the GMAT sections:

CR < RC < PS = DS < SC

Okay, so I'll take a day or so for AWA theory practice and will start working on different techniques of "cracking the GMAT".

GMAT Sentence Correction

There is one thing I can tell you for sure - Sentence Correction (SC) part is going to be the toughest one for the exam.

First of all, it took me 44 days to complete 17 questions. Well, I'm kidding. ;) I just got absorbed by my move from Pasadena to Millbrae, and had no chance to invest time for study during this period. However, after finally sitting down, I found myself scoring 5, which is Below Average by the books scale.

And, you know what, I'm not sure about any single answer in the part. It wasn't a "Russian roulette" for me, but it's more like what sounds right and what's wrong with almost no science and theory behind.

This is something I need to invest the huge amount of time to. But right now I'm turning the page, it's number 107 now and we'll see what it works out to.