![\"gmat](\"https:\/\/www.manhattanprep.com\/gmat\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/18\/2020\/03\/mprep-blogimages-wave1-55-4-e1584711744637.png\")
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I got a really interesting question from one of my students this week: \u201cWhat do you look for in our GMAT review logs?\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n <\/p>\n Backing up a bit: I teach GMAT classes. Every week, my students do GMAT practice questions for homework. Instead of asking them to turn in their scratch paper, I ask my students to create a spreadsheet where they log every one of these practice questions, which I call a \u201creview log.\u201d In addition to logging the quantitative data (problem number, time spent, right vs. wrong, etc.), I ask my students to write notes in three different categories: (a) \u201cWhat went well?,\u201d (b) \u201cWhat didn\u2019t go well?,\u201d and (c) \u201cWhat do I want to remember for next time?\u201d I also tell them that any discussion of accuracy or time is irrelevant unless it\u2019s tied to content, so for example, \u201cI got this problem right\u201d is not an acceptable answer to \u201cWhat went well?\u201d On the other hand, \u201cNoticing that I could divide both sides by x since I was told x\u22600 allowed me to get this problem right\u201d <\/span>is<\/span><\/i> a very good answer.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n There\u2019s one other thing I look for too though, and it\u2019s a little less obvious. I look for <\/span>future applicability<\/b> of the notes. This is probably best demonstrated through example, so let me give you a fairly straightforward example of a sentence correction problem that I\u2019ve pared down to two choices instead of the usual five:<\/span><\/p>\n Xavier drove to the <\/span>store and bought<\/span> the last bunch of bananas in the produce section.<\/span><\/p>\n (A) store and bought<\/span><\/p>\n (B) store, buying<\/span><\/p>\n Not much suspense here: (A) is the superior option. And because you likely came up with that answer quickly, you may be tempted to also make your notes quickly and be done with it. But before you move on, remember to think about future applicability. To help explain what I mean, I asked some of my students to write a review log entry on this problem. Here were their notes:<\/span><\/p>\n Student #1: \u201cI noticed the difference between using \u2018and\u2019 and just using a comma, and the \u2018and\u2019 was better. I have definitely seen differences like this before, so I will make sure to keep an eye out for and vs. comma in the future, since it was helpful in this problem.\u201d<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n Student #2: \u201cI correctly thought about meaning while doing this problem. The word \u2018and\u2019 in the first choice is creating a list of things that Xavier did, while the word \u2018buying\u2019 starts a modifier. I know that comma + -ing modifiers are usually adverbial. So I tried to figure out whether this is a list of things that Xavier did, or whether buying bananas describes how Xavier drove. It\u2019s definitely the first, not the second, so (A) is correct. Next time I see \u201cand\u201d vs. comma + -ing, I will check whether the list or the modifier makes more sense to use in that situation.<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n A couple comments: first, Student #2 did not just pull all of this info directly from her brain. She actually <\/span>asked for a copy of the \u201cAll the Verbal\u201d book<\/a> that we provide our course students<\/span><\/i> while she was working so that she could look up the \u201cModifiers\u201d subchapter where -ing modifiers are discussed, a subchapter that she had clearly seen before. She wanted to make sure she was remembering the rule correctly before committing it to her spreadsheet. Second, there\u2019s nothing incorrect about student #1\u2019s notes: everything he wrote is true, and he is right to say that this kind of difference between answer choices will probably show up again.<\/span><\/p>\n All that said, you can probably see where I\u2019m going with all of this. The last thing I did as part of this exercise was give each student a second problem:<\/span><\/p>\n Yvonne kicked the <\/span>football and launched<\/span> it 50 meters down the pitch.<\/span><\/p>\n (A) football and launched<\/span><\/p>\n (B) football, launching<\/span><\/p>\n Which student do you think got it right?<\/span><\/p>\n Go read student #1\u2019s notes; nothing there prepared him for this second problem. In fact, he got this one wrong, because he just figured that the version with \u201cand\u201d was right the first time, so he just went for that one again. Student #2, on the other hand, thought about the meaning being created by each choice, and noticed that the phrase \u201claunching it 50 meters\u201d actually <\/span>is<\/span><\/i> additional info about Yvonne\u2019s kick, and <\/span>is not<\/span><\/i> just an additional item in a list of things that Yvonne did. And by the way, if you\u2019re an American like I am, you might not know that much about this kind of football, so that phrase after the comma is helpful because it makes it clear that 50 meters is a very strong kick (i.e. a \u201claunch\u201d). So (B) is the better choice here, which student #2 realized because her notes from the first problem had <\/span>more future applicability.<\/b><\/p>\n The takeaway here is that every GMAT problem you study needs to prepare you in some way, however small, for a future problem that you\u2019ll actually see on the real test, and if it doesn\u2019t, you\u2019ve wasted your time. I won\u2019t lie to you: creating notes with future applicability takes extra work. You have to read problem explanations multiple times. You will have to use your books as reference tools. You will probably spend 5 times as long reviewing the problem as doing the problem in the first place. You won\u2019t get through nearly as many problems each day. But the future applicability of your review process is what really makes a difference on test day, and it\u2019s what I look for in my students\u2019 review logs every single time.<\/span><\/p>\n NEXT:\u00a0<\/strong>Getting Past a GMAT Score Plateau<\/a><\/p>\n You can attend the first session of any of our online or in-person GMAT courses absolutely free! We\u2019re not kidding. <\/i><\/b>Check out our upcoming courses here<\/i><\/b><\/a>.<\/i><\/b><\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" I got a really interesting question from one of my students this week: \u201cWhat do you look for in our GMAT review logs?\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":25,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[52871],"tags":[233,57775,57776,53314],"yst_prominent_words":[57773,57763,57771,57760,53635,53821,57769,57770,57200,53704,57754,57759,57774,57755,56704,57758,57762,57761],"class_list":["post-18727","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-gmat-strategies","tag-gmat","tag-gmat-practice-questions","tag-gmat-question-strategies","tag-gmat-questions"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.manhattanprep.com\/gmat\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18727","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.manhattanprep.com\/gmat\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.manhattanprep.com\/gmat\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.manhattanprep.com\/gmat\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/25"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.manhattanprep.com\/gmat\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=18727"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.manhattanprep.com\/gmat\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18727\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":18729,"href":"https:\/\/www.manhattanprep.com\/gmat\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18727\/revisions\/18729"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.manhattanprep.com\/gmat\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=18727"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.manhattanprep.com\/gmat\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=18727"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.manhattanprep.com\/gmat\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=18727"},{"taxonomy":"yst_prominent_words","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.manhattanprep.com\/gmat\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/yst_prominent_words?post=18727"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}GMAT Practice Question 1:<\/b><\/h3>\n
GMAT Practice Question 2:<\/b><\/h3>\n
\n![\"ryan-jacobs\"](\"https:\/\/cdn2.manhattanprep.com\/gmat\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/18\/2018\/02\/ryan-jacobs-e1501597417957-150x150.png\")
Ryan Jacobs<\/a>\u00a0is a Manhattan Prep instructor based in San Francisco, California.<\/strong>\u00a0He has an MBA from UC San Diego, a 780 on the GMAT, and years of GMAT teaching experience. His other interests include music, photography, and hockey.\u00a0Check out Ryan\u2019s upcoming GMAT prep offerings here<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n