GMAT Strategy

I have identified sentence concurrently complete a MGMAT quant book a week which will bring me to roughly 6 weeks for total review before taking another CAT and reassessing? Critical Reasoning and Reading Comp I am already scoring in the mid 600's while for Sentence Correction I am in the 600 range flat.

A few other items for consideration. Completed the MGMAT FOM and FOV books as I scored a terrible 520 on my 1st CAT. After review of the foundations I shot up to a 570.

Any feedback on this study plan.

Hi schelljo.

Working on SC sounds like a good idea. Beyond, that it's a little challenging to evaluate your plan without some more information.

Having said that, I can say that I wonder if you are being too general in your approach to increasing your quant score. It seems that via using your past CATs you could determine what areas of quant you need to work on most to achieve a higher score. If some of them stand out more than others, which likely is the case, then maybe a more targeted approach would make more sense than the general approach to quant which you have described.

Also, your approach sounds a little book heavy, as if you are studying for a math test or an English test rather than honing your skills at playing a reasoning game, which is basically what the GMAT is. So maybe you should supplement your reading with more game playing, by using a question bank such as the quant questions offered on Bellcurves.com, the question bank offered by Veritas, or the questions offered by Magoosh.

Also, along those same lines, probably you should be using practice tests more often than once every six weeks, both in order to get practice at playing the game that you are seeking to learn to play, and as a means of assessing where to focus your preparation. In addition to the GMAT Prep tests, there are decent practice tests offered by certain companies, such as Veritas and MGMAT.

Even if you want to focus mostly on SC at this point, you could be using question banks and practice tests to continue regularly practicing CR and RC and figuring out how to getting more points in those categories too. If you can already do pretty well with CR and RC, maybe you can get to the point of doing extremely well with them and get a high verbal section score.

Maybe that will help.

Still, I am curious what quant and verbal sub scores you achieved on your recent practice test. Maybe if you provide that information, I, and others, could give you some more ideas.

Hi schelljo,

As Marty pointed out, your approach sounds a bit book-heavy. While you'll get a lot of great practice with the concepts and sets of practice questions, there are a number of test-taking strategies you won't learn by using books alone. Most of the online resources available offer free trials, so take advantage of them and see what works best for you. To help you get started, here's a link to try Economist GMAT Tutor for 7 days: https://bit.ly/1bPAHuW. You'll notice that in addition to walking you through all the concepts you'll need to crack the GMAT, the adaptive technology will customize a study plan specific to your needs.

Best,
Rich

Hey all. Thanks for responding. My first CAT was a 520. Rich, I started studying 3 months ago but have been in the hospital twice which almost really killed a month for me and in all honestly I was able to fully recover just recently. I am targeting a GMAT date of October which leaves me 3 months of study. When looking at my most recent CAT 570, the sub scores were V 29, Q 38. I think I will adjust my plan to take a CAT every 2 weeks and rest assured that each night I will be targeted OG questions or sets. Any thoughts that can help?

That is a solid plan. One word of advice is to not look for huge leaps in your score each successive CAT. First, there is statistical variance and second, there is a lot of material. So, patching up a few weaknesses that you find in a CAT will help, but that CAT may also not 'find' all of your weak areas. Stay diligent and 3 months is plenty of time for you to reach your goals.

Rich-

Thanks much for taking the time to respond. I'll keep with this plan and we will see how the first CAT goes. My goal is to earn a score that ensures I am competitive at the following schools,

Wharton
UNC
Emory
Duke
Columbia

Based upon the averages for these schools I am targeting a 720 but would be happy with a 700+. In terms of CATS's, I have allready bought the 6 MGMAT tests as well as the extra tests from GMAC. Hopefully this will last me for a while.

Thanks for your time and any feedback is appreciated.