You can\u2019t analyze your timing until you know what your timing should look like.<\/p>\n
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Does anything stand out to you in image above?\u00a0 Why do some questions take you less than one minute, while some take more than three?\u00a0 We expect some variation across different questions \u2013 Reading Comprehension should take longer than Text Completion or Sentence Equivalence, and Data Interpretation questions (especially the first DI question) will usually take longer than Quantitative Comparison.\u00a0 But why are there such wide swings in question time within the QC question?\u00a0 And I can\u2019t help but notice that the two Discrete Quantity questions both took less time than the vast majority of the QC questions.\u00a0 Perhaps this is someone who is skilled in math, but doesn\u2019t yet truly grasp the logic underlying the QC questions.<\/p>\n
A review of QC as a question type is probably called for from this practice test.<\/p>\n
Another element of timing is more fundamental (and the above image captures this concept also).\u00a0 Do you know when to let a question go, guess, and move on to the next question?\u00a0 Any time you spent three minutes on a question, you had a problem letting go.\u00a0 Right or wrong, that question hurt you.<\/p>\n
Bottom line, when you analyze timing in a practice test, you want to see two things: 1) question by question timing \u2013 were you able to let a question go when needed, and 2) question type timing \u2013 do you have the desired timing for each question type?<\/p>\n
Now it\u2019s time to Generate an Assessment Report!!!\u00a0 (It\u2019s exciting because it\u2019s got three exclamation points \ud83d\ude42 \u00a0)<\/p>\n
Analyzing Accuracy by Question Type<\/strong><\/p>\n Take a few moments and see what you can find in the image above.\u00a0 Don\u2019t worry, I\u2019ll wait \u00a0\ud83d\ude42<\/p>\n Seriously, there\u2019s a lot you should consider here.\u00a0 If you haven\u2019t been looking for at least 5 minutes, you haven\u2019t spent enough time.\u00a0 And although I *said* this is the Accuracy analysis portion of this post, we\u2019re not done with timing.<\/p>\n First, let\u2019s talk good decisions vs poor decisions.\u00a0 Good decisions \u2013 on TC, you know when to get out of a question.\u00a0 Look at the Average Time Wrong vs Average Time right for the Harder and Devilish TC questions.\u00a0 That\u2019s what we want to see!\u00a0 This indicates you recognize when more time will\/won\u2019t pay off.\u00a0 (Maybe\u2026 more on this in a moment.)<\/p>\n So why aren\u2019t you making the same decisions in SE?<\/p>\n Finally, why, why, why are you spending five minutes \u2013 on AVERAGE across three questions \u2013 in RC?\u00a0 What\u2019s going on here?\u00a0 There\u2019s some leeway in RC, because of the time needed to read and process a longer passage, but not five minutes leeway.<\/p>\n On the Easier RC question that you missed, you missed it in one minute.\u00a0 This indicates you were confident in your answer.\u00a0 Confident in the wrong answer \u2013 somewhere in this question is a trap that you fell for, and you need to figure out what that trap was!<\/p>\n Back to the TC timing: one possibility is you know when to get out of TC, and that\u2019s why your wrong answers take less time than the right answers.\u00a0 Another, more disturbing possibility, is you\u2019re cheating yourself on TC time.\u00a0 How do I know this?\u00a0 Look at the variation between TC and SE accuracy \u2013 it\u2019s not huge, but the discrepancy is there.\u00a0 Why is TC accuracy lower?<\/p>\n Finally, the most obvious element of this analysis is that RC is your lowest accuracy.\u00a0 Time to go back and study!!!<\/p>\n Analyzing Accuracy by Topic Tested<\/strong><\/p>\n This issue cannot be addressed by looking at one image \u2013 you will generate an assessment report, and view the Analysis by Content Area and Topic.\u00a0 There are a few things you\u2019re looking for here.<\/p>\n First, and foremost, are you seeing accuracy and speed in topics you\u2019ve studied?\u00a0 If you haven\u2019t studied Geometry yet, who cares if your Geometry accuracy is 20%!\u00a0 But you\u2019ve spent two full weeks reviewing algebra, so why are you missing 2 out of 3 function\/formula questions?\u00a0 Bright side though, your accuracy in Quadratics is through the roof!!<\/p>\n Obviously that paragraph is a hypothetical, but notice two things: first, you need to decide which area(s) deserve your analysis; second, you need to look not just at the overall topic, but also at the subtopics.<\/p>\n You\u2019re looking for improvements and discrepancies.\u00a0 Which areas are strong?\u00a0 Which are weak?\u00a0 Do you have a mix of strong and weak areas in one major topic?\u00a0 These are all question you need to ask yourself.<\/p>\n BUT you need to take this with a grain of salt \u2013 don\u2019t neglect to consider the difficulty of the individual questions!\u00a0 Yes, maybe you missed 2 function questions.\u00a0 But they were both Devilish difficulty!\u00a0 You\u2019re not weak in this area, you just got hit by some of the worst questions.<\/p>\n Finally, don\u2019t neglect to examine timing in this area of analysis.\u00a0 Yes, you were accurate in Rates questions.\u00a0 But you spent 4 minutes on them.\u00a0 Time to study!!<\/p>\n Final Thoughts<\/strong><\/p>\n I hope you\u2019ve found this helpful.\u00a0 If you go back and look at my previous GRE blog posts, I think you\u2019ll notice that this post contains many, many more rhetorical questions.\u00a0 That\u2019s the point of practice test analysis.\u00a0 In the test, and when you\u2019re studying, the computer, or the book, or whatever study source you\u2019re using is asking you questions.<\/p>\n Analyzing your practice tests is the time for you to ask the questions.\u00a0 What are the weak areas?\u00a0 Strong areas?\u00a0 Why am I performing differently in Word Problems vs Geometry?<\/p>\n And there\u2019s one question you must ask, which I haven\u2019t addresses, simply because of how much space it would require \u2013 Are you seeing improvement???<\/strong><\/p>\n Every time you take a practice test, from the second practice test on to the last, look at the most recent test, do all this analysis.\u00a0 Then look at the test prior \u2013 what\u2019s changed?\u00a0 What has stayed the same?\u00a0 Have you improved in your weaknesses, and have strengths remained strong?<\/p>\n A practice test doesn\u2019t teach you anything in and of itself \u2013 but it tells you where you are, and where you\u2019re moving, and what you *should* be teaching yourself.<\/p>\n Good Luck!!!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" So, you\u2019ve taken a practice test!\u00a0 Maybe you\u2019re closing in on the score you want, or maybe you still have some distance left to travel.\u00a0 Regardless of which scenario applies to you, \u201creading\u201d your practice test data is an incredibly crucial element to GRE progress! I write this assuming I don\u2019t need to discuss looking […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":87,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6,8,1],"tags":[],"yst_prominent_words":[],"class_list":["post-8091","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-gre-strategies","category-manhattangre","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.manhattanprep.com\/gre\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8091","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.manhattanprep.com\/gre\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.manhattanprep.com\/gre\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.manhattanprep.com\/gre\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/87"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.manhattanprep.com\/gre\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8091"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/www.manhattanprep.com\/gre\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8091\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8103,"href":"https:\/\/www.manhattanprep.com\/gre\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8091\/revisions\/8103"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.manhattanprep.com\/gre\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8091"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.manhattanprep.com\/gre\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8091"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.manhattanprep.com\/gre\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8091"},{"taxonomy":"yst_prominent_words","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.manhattanprep.com\/gre\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/yst_prominent_words?post=8091"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"GRE](\"\/\/www.manhattanprep.com\/gre\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/19\/2015\/04\/gre-2-edited.png\")
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