Analyzing Your GRE Practice Tests, Part 4

by Stacey Koprince Oct 30, 2013

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Welcome to part 4 of the article series on analyzing your GRE practice tests. As we discussed in the first, second, and third parts of this series, we’re basing the discussion on the metrics that are given in Manhattan Prep tests, but you can extrapolate to other tests that give you similar performance data. If you haven’t already read those, do so before you continue with this final part.

In the first part, we discussed how to assess the data provided in the “question list”—the list that shows the questions you received and how you performed on each one. In the second and third parts, we analyzed the data in our Assessment Reports.

Today, we’ll do a final bit of analysis that will help us study all of these weaknesses that we’ve been uncovering.

Getting Started

You can do the following analysis on the one test that you just took, but I generally recommend running the Assessment Reports on your last 2 or 3 practice tests for this last step. Do this if you have other practice tests that you have taken in the past 6 weeks or so.

Two notes before we begin:

(1) When I refer to “percent correct” below, everything is relative to your own performance. If you answer 60% correctly but other categories are at 50%, then this category falls into “I get these right.” If you answer 60% correctly but other categories are at 70%, then this category falls into “I get these wrong.”

(2) The “too fast” and “too slow” designations are based on the timing benchmarks I gave you in the first part of this article series.

You generally want to place question types and topic areas into one of the following five groups.

Group 1: I get these right roughly within the expected timeframe.

These are your strengths.

Definition: Your percent correct is at the higher end of your range* and your average time is neither way too fast nor way too slow.

Going forward, these areas are not high on your priority list, but there may still be things you can learn: faster ways to do the problem; ways to make educated guesses (so that you can use the thought process on harder problems of the same type); how to quickly recognize future problems of the same type.

Make sure that you actually knew what you were doing for each problem and didn’t just get lucky! Finally, you may want to move on to more advanced material in these areas.

Group 2: I get these wrong roughly within the expected timeframe.

These are possible weaknesses.

Definition: Your percent correct is at the lower end of your range and your average time is neither way too fast nor way too slow.

These areas indicate a possible weakness in content or methodology, but check the difficulty levels. Perhaps you just happened to get a couple of really hard ones in the same category.

First, figure out why you got each question wrong. If it was 700+, you got another lower-ranked question of the same type right, and you were fine with these on your last test, then your fundamentals may be good, and it may be time to lift yourself into the toughest areas for this particular question type or content area.

Alternatively, maybe you did know the material but you made careless mistakes. If so, start learning how to minimize those kinds of mistakes.

Finally, something in this category may indicate a fundamental weakness. Is the material something you already studied or something you should know? Return to it. Have you not studied it yet? Time to start. Is the material commonly or rarely tested? Prioritize the commonly tested material first. As needed, return to the relevant sections of your books.

Group 3: I get these wrong way too quickly.

These are possible weaknesses.

Definition: Your percent correct is at the lower end of your range and your average time is too fast.

Are these really weaknesses or were you just going too fast (and, naturally, making more careless mistakes)? Why were you going too fast on these?

If you chose to rush because you knew you didn’t know what to do (in other words, you deliberately made a guess and moved on), that’s fine. Decide now whether you want to study this area further. You probably don’t have time to study everything and we all have certain weaknesses that probably won’t get a lot better. It’s okay to decide that you’re not going to study some particular area—as long as it’s not an entire question type or overall content area.

If you chose to rush because you thought it was easy and then you made a careless mistake, see the previous section on minimizing errors. And remind yourself not to sacrifice a correct answer just to save 15 or 30 seconds!

Alternatively, if you sped up because you were worried about time, then you may need to fix your timing problems elsewhere in the section.

Group 4: I get these right way too slowly.

These are weaknesses.

Definition: Your percent correct is at the higher end of your range and your average time is too slow.

It doesn’t matter that you answered them correctly! They’re costing you points elsewhere in the section—possibly more points than you earned by getting the too-slow ones right.

Figure out why the timing is higher and how you can do these more efficiently. If the timing is just a little bit too high on one problem of that type, that may be okay—perhaps the problem is extra difficult and long. If you’re consistently going long, however, then perhaps you don’t know the best way to solve the problem, in which case figure out (a) the best solution, or (b) the best way to recognize that this problem requires a certain set of steps, or (c) both. Also realize that, sometimes, the “solution” is simply to guess more quickly and move on. Sometimes, it’s better to get something wrong in 2 minutes than right in 4 minutes (because of the consequences elsewhere in the section).

Don’t forget to make sure that you really did know what you were doing on the ones you got right; if you guessed correctly, then move questions from this group to group 5.

Group 5: I get these wrong way too slowly.

These are weaknesses.

Definition: Your percent correct is at the lower end of your range and your average time is too slow.

These are the biggest weaknesses, obviously. Get them wrong faster. Seriously—you’re getting them wrong anyway, so start by just taking less time to get them wrong! Use that time on questions from one of the first three groups, where additional time is more likely to make a difference.

What is slowing you down? Figure that out and that will tell you what to do next. You may need to review the material from your books, or do more practice with problems of this type, or find more efficient ways to solve, or learn better how to recognize questions of this type, or be quicker to make an educated guess and move on.

One More Thing: Frequency

For all of the above, don’t forget to think about the frequency with which the material is tested. If something is a great weakness of yours but is not frequently tested, then make that a lower priority than something that is a medium weakness but is really tested a lot. (If you’re not sure what is more or less frequently tested, get onto the forums and ask.)

Take-Aways

(1) It’s critically important to evaluate your performance across all three main axes at once—percent correct, timing, and difficulty. It’s not enough to look only at percent correct. A timing weakness is as much of a problem as an accuracy problem—perhaps more. If your timing is bad enough, that can kill your accuracy.

(2) Split out the data into the 5 major groups described above. Groups 2, 3, and 4 typically represent your biggest opportunities to improve (though that doesn’t mean you should ignore groups 1 and 5).

(3) Use the forums! When you discover certain weaknesses, ask the forum teachers for their advice about how to remedy those weaknesses. Post specific problems, discuss what you did, and ask for advice about how to solve (or how to solve more efficiently), how to guess more effectively, or whatever is relevant for you. ?

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