Need serious help .. 3 months of prep .. no outcome:-(

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Junior | Next Rank: 30 Posts
Posts: 18
Joined: Mon Jun 09, 2008 1:24 am
Hi Every One,

I have been preparing really hard since the last 3 months of my life sacrificing fun time, office work, family and friends but it really hasn't paid off. I have tried all .. reducing the number of question I solve daily, taking off days, concentrating on my mistakes, focusing on my timing issue .. Everything, but still am unable to find an optimal solution.

Some time I get 90% accuracy in CR with proper timing (2min/question) and the next days my performance goes way off, 30-40% accuracy with 3-4 mins per question.

It would really appreciate if some one like Stacey Koprince, Ron Purewal, Eric or Mayo could help me out. I am in really trouble and badly want to beat the gmat, but am not able to do that. I am sorry, I am really emotional right now, and all this is due to the fact that my 3 months of extensive studying hasn’t paid off.

I will start from the point where I started, I didn't gave the diagnostic test right way rather I first completed the PR book. Then I took my first test, this was paper based and untimed, I scored around 580. My quant section has always been strong and I can easily score 40 + except the fact I have some timing issues. Verbal has been heck of a problem for me since day 1, especially RC and CR. Since English is not my native language it had to be weak but I didn’t expected it to bee too far below. Amazingly I always did well on SC.

Then my prep moved a step forward and I completed Kaplan premier and Kap 800 books. These books added more to my miserly, slowing my timing further down. Then I worked with the Powerprep bible for CR but this didn’t help me either. During this time I also gave a Manhattan GMAT exam scoring 560, 90 min for each section. Still the same output, quant was good above 40 and verbal extremely poor.

During the last month I had been doing problems from the OG11. Each question I got wrong the first time I went back and tried to solve it on my own without looking at the answer and then looking at the answers for all the one’s I got wrong, just to learn from my mistakes. I had 90% accuracy for PS(timed), 89% DS (timed), 75% CR(2.7 min/question), 70% RC(2.5 min for passage + 2.5 min per question) and 80% SC (1.5 min per question). I solved the entire OG but my timing didn’t improve for RC and CR. For CR I had to study the stimulus and conclusion again and again for getting what the question is stating. Similarly I took a lot of time to answering the questions in RC and had to read the passage again and again to understand what the author is saying.

I gave a GMATPrep test after completing OG11 to see where I stand and what happened when I ended the test, I saw a 270 score in front of me…….. AHHHH .. I guessed on the last 10 questions of quant portion and 15 question of verbal. My strongest section, “quant” also suffered from the timing issue but. I don’t know why this happened as I solved the entire OG with 2 mins/question.

I took few days off prep and went out with friends, spent time with family. Last week I came back to studies again. I analyzed my mistakes again, solved the question again which I got wrong in OG11. Read a lot post which could motivate me from this website specially Mayo, Ursala’s and Eric’s. I then moved on to OG11 Verbal book (Purple one). Solved 40 SC questions last Monday with 90% accuracy (timed -1.5 mins/question). Yesterday I wanted to do 30 CR questions. But I was only able to do 20 of them. Out of which 6 were correct the first time and 14 wrong. Out of 14, I got 5 correct the second time I looked at them without consulting the answer. And moreover all these question took me an average 2.7 min per question.

Now this is the point where I am currently standing, I am really confused as what should I do. Should I purse to study the way I am doing now or leave it for a month and come back fresh, make a new start. I really don’t know. I am really very de-motivated right now. Can any one suggest me what should I do to improve. I so want to beat the gmat but am unable to do. It would be great if some one could suggest me whether I should continue studying and follow some what different plan or leave studies for some time may be a month and make a new start. One thing that is bothering me is that if a make a fresh start, I would be redoing all the questions and they wont be as beneficial for me as they could have been the first time I tried to solve them.

I am sorry for such a long post but I badly need help. I look forward to you suggestions.


Thanks

Adil