GMAT Strategy

I just got the 8 set Manhattan GMAT study guide and would like to know if there is a strategy to tackle to tackle those books?

It's 8 books so I was thinking about studying a chapter or two from 2 different books everyday.

How does that sound? appreciate your help

I have around 3 months to study/ 3 hours daily

deukoue wrote:I just got the 8 set Manhattan GMAT study guide and would like to know if there is a strategy to tackle to tackle those books?

It's 8 books so I was thinking about studying a chapter or two from 2 different books everyday.

How does that sound? appreciate your help

I have around 3 months to study/ 3 hours daily

Hi deukoue,

Did this plan help..? Have you given the GMAT yet..?
I also have 3 months and I'm done with 2 guides.
Any input at this stage will help!!

Best,
Mallika Hunsur

Brent@GMATPrepNow wrote:

mallika hunsur wrote: I also have 3 months and I'm done with 2 guides.
Any input at this stage will help!!

Best,
Mallika Hunsur

Hi Mallika,

Since you already have the MGMAT Guides, you might consider signing up for Beat The GMAT's free 60-Day Study Guide (https://www.beatthegmat.com/mba/gmat-guide). Over 40,000 Beat The GMAT students have already done so.
Each day, you'll receive an email with a series of learning activities that guide you, step-by-step, from Day 1 to test day. This will ensure that you will cover everything that the GMAT tests.

Here's an outline of all 60 emails: https://www.beatthegmat.com/mba/gmat-guide-outline

Cheers,
Brent

Hi Brent, Rich,

As of now, I'm almost done with the Quant MGMAT guides and plan on taking mocks soon.

One thing that's bothering me, is the Question bank that Veritas prep offers.
I happened to do a couple of sets on this and am now demoralized,becauseof my performance in Verbal as well as Quant!

I seem to be getting at least 9 out of 10 questions right while looking at the OGs..

Am I missing something here, or is it the Veritas' Qbank you think..?

I have 2 months to go before the D-day, and I am now thinking I chanced upon the Veritas Qbank at the wrong time

I have been doing the Mgmat guides- Chapter-wise, Problem sets and then go on to tackle the OG problems.

2 more guides to go before I attempt mocks- this was my initial plan.

Could you please provie your thoughts on what mocks and Q banks come closest to the actual GMAT..?


Appreciate any inputs!

Regards,
Mallika

[email protected] wrote:Hi mallika,

Since the original post was from June and the deukoue hasn't posted since, it's possible that we might not hear back.

The advice that I offered to deukoue applies to you to. Have you taken a FULL-LENGTH practice CAT yet? If so, then what were your scores?

GMAT assassins aren't born, they're made,
Rich

Hi Brent, Rich,

As of now, I'm almost done with the Quant MGMAT guides and plan on taking mocks soon.

One thing that's bothering me, is the Question bank that Veritas prep offers.
I happened to do a couple of sets on this and am now demoralized,becauseof my performance in Verbal as well as Quant!

I seem to be getting at least 9 out of 10 questions right while looking at the OGs..

Am I missing something here, or is it the Veritas' Qbank you think..?

I have 2 months to go before the D-day, and I am now thinking I chanced upon the Veritas Qbank at the wrong time

I have been doing the Mgmat guides- Chapter-wise, Problem sets and then go on to tackle the OG problems.

2 more guides to go before I attempt mocks- this was my initial plan.

Could you please provie your thoughts on what mocks and Q banks come closest to the actual GMAT..?


Appreciate any inputs!

Regards,
Mallika

mallika hunsur wrote:
As of now, I'm almost done with the Quant MGMAT guides and plan on taking mocks soon.

One thing that's bothering me, is the Question bank that Veritas prep offers.
I happened to do a couple of sets on this and am now demoralized,becauseof my performance in Verbal as well as Quant!

I seem to be getting at least 9 out of 10 questions right while looking at the OGs..

Am I missing something here, or is it the Veritas' Qbank you think..?

I have 2 months to go before the D-day, and I am now thinking I chanced upon the Veritas Qbank at the wrong time

I have been doing the Mgmat guides- Chapter-wise, Problem sets and then go on to tackle the OG problems.

2 more guides to go before I attempt mocks- this was my initial plan.

Could you please provie your thoughts on what mocks and Q banks come closest to the actual GMAT..?


Appreciate any inputs!

Regards,
Mallika

Hi Mallika,

You can use the questions from GMAC Verbal & Quant Review. Do online practice & take practice tests regularly to monitor your progress & don't save all the practice tests for later. You can take tests from Princeton Review & GMAT Prep.

Hope this helps.
www.manyagroup.com

[email protected] wrote:Hi Mallika,

Review is a big part of the study process, so when you get a question wrong, it's important to try to figure out WHY you got the question wrong. Was it because it was too hard or you didn't know the necessary content? Was it because you made a silly/little mistake? Once you define what's going wrong, you can focus on it and fix it.

Since you still haven't taken any practice CATs yet, I STRONGLY recommend that you take one soon. You need the data that comes from completing a FULL-length practice CAT so that you can assess your strengths and weaknesses across the ENTIRE Exam. Quizzes and practice problems are useful in building up your skills, but without CAT results, we don't even know what you should be focusing on just yet.

GMAT assassins aren't born, they're made,
Rich

Hi Rich,

I took a full length CAT yesterday and fared miserably.
I must say that I was not alien to any of the question types I saw, neither did I think that the questions were very difficult.
But I was hopeless on time in Quant- Could only attempt 22 out of 37 Qs and had no time for the last 5 Qs in Verbal.
I think at this time, speed is definitely an issue. Also, I think I got hassled pretty soon in the test and this kind of messed with my mental make-up, I ended up marking some answers wrong even though I had calculated them right on the scratchpad.
I got a 540[Q31,V32].
I am pretty sure any mistakes I made were because I was badly hassled.
What do you think..?How can I up my accuracy and increase speed..?
Most questions I get wrong because I might have over-looked some content or might have marked the wrong answer or may not have read through the questions carefully.Most of my mistakes fall in this bracket coupled with a lot of tension

I would really be grateful if you can give me any inputs.
Where do you think I might be going wrong, or how can I better my performance..?

Many thanks,
Mallika

[email protected] wrote:Hi Mallika,

Review is a big part of the study process, so when you get a question wrong, it's important to try to figure out WHY you got the question wrong. Was it because it was too hard or you didn't know the necessary content? Was it because you made a silly/little mistake? Once you define what's going wrong, you can focus on it and fix it.

Since you still haven't taken any practice CATs yet, I STRONGLY recommend that you take one soon. You need the data that comes from completing a FULL-length practice CAT so that you can assess your strengths and weaknesses across the ENTIRE Exam. Quizzes and practice problems are useful in building up your skills, but without CAT results, we don't even know what you should be focusing on just yet.

GMAT assassins aren't born, they're made,
Rich

Hi Rich,

I took a full length CAT yesterday and fared miserably.
I must say that I was not alien to any of the question types I saw, neither did I think that the questions were very difficult.
But I was hopeless on time in Quant- Could only attempt 22 out of 37 Qs and had no time for the last 5 Qs in Verbal.
I think at this time, speed is definitely an issue. Also, I think I got hassled pretty soon in the test and this kind of messed with my mental make-up, I ended up marking some answers wrong even though I had calculated them right on the scratchpad.
I got a 540[Q31,V32].
I am pretty sure any mistakes I made were because I was badly hassled.
What do you think..?How can I up my accuracy and increase speed..?
Most questions I get wrong because I might have over-looked some content or might have marked the wrong answer or may not have read through the questions carefully.Most of my mistakes fall in this bracket coupled with a lot of tension

I would really be grateful if you can give me any inputs.
Where do you think I might be going wrong, or how can I better my performance..?

Many thanks,
Mallika

Brent@GMATPrepNow wrote:

mallika hunsur wrote: One thing that's bothering me, is the Question bank that Veritas prep offers.
I happened to do a couple of sets on this and am now demoralized,becauseof my performance in Verbal as well as Quant!

I seem to be getting at least 9 out of 10 questions right while looking at the OGs..

Am I missing something here, or is it the Veritas' Qbank you think..?

Hi Mallika,

The OG questions are arranged in ascending order of difficulty. So, if you're answering questions from the beginning of the book, they may be a lot easier than the Veritas questions.

Take an official practice test: https://www.mba.com/the-gmat/download-fr ... tware.aspx

If you're interested, I wrote an article on the importance of taking a practice test early in one's studies: https://www.gmatprepnow.com/articles/tak ... st-already

Cheers,
Brent

Hi Brent,
I took a full length CAT yesterday and fared miserably.
I must say that I was not alien to any of the question types I saw, neither did I think that the questions were very difficult.
But I was hopeless on time in Quant- Could only attempt 22 out of 37 Qs and had no time for the last 5 Qs in Verbal.
I think at this time, speed is definitely an issue. Also, I think I got hassled pretty soon in the test and this kind of messed with my mental make-up, I ended up marking some answers wrong even though I had calculated them right on the scratchpad.
I got a 540[Q31,V32].
I am pretty sure any mistakes I made were because I was badly hassled.
What do you think..?How can I up my accuracy and increase speed..?
Most questions I get wrong because I might have over-looked some content or might have marked the wrong answer or may not have read through the questions carefully.Most of my mistakes fall in this bracket coupled with a lot of tension Sad

I would really be grateful if you can give me any inputs.
Where do you think I might be going wrong, or how can I better my performance..?

Many thanks,
Mallika

Mallika, you handle language well in what you are writing here. So it's intriguing that you are not scoring higher on verbal.

One thing that jumps out at me is that you said you got demoralized by your performance on the Veritas questions. You can't let anything demoralize you. You can learn to score 800 on this test. It's just a matter of developing some skills, and given at least the language skills you have demonstrated here, along with some of the things you have said, it sounds as if, along with skills, much of what you need to develop is confidence. So when you have trouble you need to somehow have that energize rather than demoralize you.

When I started doing coaching I worked with a bunch of SAT students. Some were scoring high already and some were scoring not so high. I was amazed at how clear it was that the ones who were scoring lower could by just changing some things score much higher, and I have seen someone's score jump dramatically just from changes in attitude and confidence. For one thing, if you are really getting answers right, and then marking them wrong, wow, there's a path to an easy score increase right there. That's great.

Then if you could just stay a little calmer, more points, work a little faster, a few more points. It all adds up and you score goes up nicely.

Anyway, did you do more Veritas questions after those first sets? Those questions are pretty good, and if you learn to do them you will have gotten pretty good at doing what it takes to rock verbal.

The Veritas CATs are also pretty good, some of the best out there, so you might want to try the free one first and consider buying more. By taking CATs one can get accustomed to the time pressure and the stream of questions and just by doing that you might solve some of the things you have mentioned. Imagine if doing GMAT questions were a job and you did it five days a week. After a while it would be no big deal and you would pretty much always get them right.

So that's the theme here. By developing skill and understanding, you can score as high as you want. So stay confident and keep figuring out how to do that.

Marty Murray wrote:Mallika, you handle language well in what you are writing here. So it's intriguing that you are not scoring higher on verbal.

One thing that jumps out at me is that you said you got demoralized by your performance on the Veritas questions. You can't let anything demoralize you. You can learn to score 800 on this test. It's just a matter of developing some skills, and given at least the language skills you have demonstrated here, along with some of the things you have said, it sounds as if, along with skills, much of what you need to develop is confidence. So when you have trouble you need to somehow have that energize rather than demoralize you.

When I started doing coaching I worked with a bunch of SAT students. Some were scoring high already and some were scoring not so high. I was amazed at how clear it was that the ones who were scoring lower could by just changing some things score much higher, and I have seen someone's score jump dramatically just from changes in attitude and confidence. For one thing, if you are really getting answers right, and then marking them wrong, wow, there's a path to an easy score increase right there. That's great.

Then if you could just stay a little calmer, more points, work a little faster, a few more points. It all adds up and you score goes up nicely.

Anyway, did you do more Veritas questions after those first sets? Those questions are pretty good, and if you learn to do them you will have gotten pretty good at doing what it takes to rock verbal.

The Veritas CATs are also pretty good, some of the best out there, so you might want to try the free one first and consider buying more. By taking CATs one can get accustomed to the time pressure and the stream of questions and just by doing that you might solve some of the things you have mentioned. Imagine if doing GMAT questions were a job and you did it five days a week. After a while it would be no big deal and you would pretty much always get them right.

So that's the theme here. By developing skill and understanding, you can score as high as you want. So stay confident and keep figuring out how to do that.

Hi Marty,

I know what you mean. I should not be suffering in Verbal, and I know with a little more care, I can increase my score there.
I think it is my pace in Quant and RC that is robbing me of precious time and also confidence.
No, I haven't tried Veritas prep after the last time I did some questions.
At this stage I think I have some Geometry left to do and also some Sentence Correction.
I also have IR and AWA to look up.
And I need to practise in parallel.
I need to hit 730 at least.
How long do you think I should give my prep at this stage..?
And what should be my strategy at this point..?

I am so thankful I took the mock yesterday, I was planning on pushing it to the next week.
But wow this is a reality check!

Many thanks,
Mallika