GMAT Strategy

responses inline:

ameya85 wrote:Dear BTG Experts,

I need your opinion/suggestion on my GMAT prep.

I have started my GMAT prep. since last 3 weeks. I am using Manhattan Guides and I am just done with Number Properties guide. As you might have observed, my pace is little too slow because of the work load. But I manage to pull about 2hrs every day and some 4-5 hours on weekend.

it sounds as though you're studying every single day. if so, then that's bad -- you should be sure to take at least 1 day per week completely away from studying, for reasons that i outlined at the beginning of this post:
https://www.beatthegmat.com/confused-how ... tml#366523

also, you mentioned that your current pace is "too slow". this comment may or may not be accurate, depending on when you plan to take your exam; you haven't indicated any sort of planned exam date in your post. if the exam date is far enough from now, or if it's indefinite, then "too slow" is not really an issue.

when you go through those guides, you should also realize two other things:
1/ you should prioritize the "general" sections over the "advanced" sections, regardless of your current performance level. (the "advanced" sections are relatively unimportant; they contain rare topics that we've seen in one or two official problems, but that we've just included for the sake of completeness. ALL of the major quantitative topics are in the "general" sections.)
2/ the guides are the first step of a two-step process. specifically, the guides are meant to give you the foundational content knowledge that you need to attack the official problems -- but the problems in the guides (with a few exceptions) are not meant to be like actual gmat problems. once you have the foundational knowledge (first step), you will then have to concentrate on strategy (second step) to be fully prepared to answer the official problems.

I am planning to study all Manhattan Guides. I am also solving the problem sets in these guides so that OG12 and Quant2 problems are also covered. I am taking notes of the mistakes that I am making and also noting down if I leanred something new from it.

this mostly sounds good.

for verbal problems, especially CR and RC, make sure that you concentrate on the GENERAL functionality of the problems you are looking at. you aren't going to be able to come up with specific "rules" for specific situations that you might encounter in these problem types; therefore, you should restrict your strategy to more general observations. (an example of such a general observation is "RC inference problems require me to select a choice that must be true, if the information in the passage is true.")

I have bought Aristotle SC & RC books and Veritas Combinatorics & Probability book. I also have OG Companion book by GMAT Fix but not sure how much help will that be.

i haven't seen any of these books.

Now, the major question. I have not taken any full length test so far. I was thinking that unless I brush up my concepts taking diagnostic test will be of no help? If I make a mistake just because I haven't practices then I cannot conclude that I am weak at any particular section. Am I right here? I am sure you must have something to say on this to guide me. Should I take the GMAT Prep or any other test right now?

you shouldn't go crazy, but it would help you to take one diagnostic exam. as another moderator pointed out above, you could get at least a rough idea of your broad strengths and weaknesses.
there's also really no other way for you to acquire practice in the unique rhythm of this test -- 37 math problems in a row! 41 verbal problems in a row! you don't really get that kind of thing when you do individual practice problems as "homework".

I am using Manhattan OG Archer to track the timings. Right now I average 88% on PS and 64% on DS with avg. time being 1:21 & 1:01 respectively. Any comments on this?

if you had disproportionate difficulty with data sufficiency problems, then it's likely that most of your problems do not lie in the actual mathematics in math problems.
the DS problems on the whole tend to involve more basic math than do the PS problems -- so, if the math itself were the issue, you would probably have performed better, not worse, on DS.

instead, there are two most likely reasons why your DS performance was substantially worse than your PS performance, if that was indeed the case:

1) THE QUESTION FORMAT ITSELF
this sounds strange, but many -- perhaps even a majority -- of students who have overall trouble with DS haven't mastered the format itself, even after months of preparation. in other words, these students still don't figure out a few basics about the DS problems BEFORE STARTING THEM, such as "what would be sufficient?" and "what would be insufficient?" as a result, they wind up more or less wandering through the problem without much of a concrete goal.
to make sure that you have these basics down, watch the first part of the APRIL 14, 2011, lecture at the following link:
https://www.manhattangmat.com/thursdays-with-ron.cfm

2) TRAP ANSWERS
here is what's probably the single most useful piece of advice that i can give on the whole test:
on DS problems, *NEVER* pick super-obvious-looking answers, unless you are 100.0000000% sure -- and even then, still doubt these answers!
if you can get yourself to do this -- i.e., if you can get yourself to resist the temptation of obvious-looking answers, even if you have to guess one of the more non-obvious-looking answers completely at random -- then you may be able to pick up 40-50 points just from doing this (without any actual improvement in math).
pay attention especially when "C" is the trap answer. IF "C" SEEMS LIKE A SUPER OBVIOUS ANSWER, IT WILL BE WRONG in about 99% of cases.
note the following examples, all from OG12 DS:
#105
#107
#108
#117
#123
#136
#144
#149
#150
#154
#168
#173
in every single one of these problems, it seems "obvious" that (C) will solve the problem -- and note that (C) is wrong in ALL of them.


that's a start.

ameya85 wrote:Thanks a ton Ron!! I was eagerly waiting for you to reply and I must again appreciate that your analysis is truly exceptional. Especially DS part and trap answers. I just finished watching DS lecture and taking notes all along. After that I solved some 15 DS questions randomly picked from OG and I got 13 of them right!! I don't want to conclude anything out of this but one thing I can certainly say that asking 4 questions before starting with the DS question really made sense to me now. Really appreciate your guidance.

Thank you very much,
Ameya

glad to help.