Materials and Roadmap for a newbie

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Materials and Roadmap for a newbie

by gmatnoobie » Tue Jan 10, 2017 12:02 am
Hi everyone. I am planning on starting my studying for the gmat this week and just wanted to get some more insight/opinions on materials as well as a methodology for studying. Currently, I have the official gmat books as well as the Manhattan Prep collection.

I have heard that the premium version of Magoosh is a very useful resource for learning the material. Can anyone give their thoughts on Magoosh? Is it recommended that I get Magoosh or are the materials that I already have sufficient?

And lastly, does anyone have any recommendations in terms of a roadmap for studying? I have stronger verbal skills than quantitative skills so I will most likely be spending more time studying the quantitative portion but I am a bit lost as to the order of content I should study.

Any insight is appreciated. I thank everyone in advance for their responses!

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by [email protected] » Tue Jan 10, 2017 2:07 pm
Hi gmatnoobie,

Since it sounds like you're just beginning your studies, then it would be a good idea to take a FULL-LENGTH practice CAT Test; you can download 2 for free from www.mba.com (and they come with some additional practice materials). If you want to do a little studying first, so that you can familiarize yourself with the basic content and question types, then that's okay - but you shouldn't wait too long to take that initial CAT. That score will give us a good sense of your natural strengths and weaknesses and will help provide a basis for comparison as you continue to study. A FULL CAT takes about 4 hours to complete, so make sure that you've set aside enough time to take it in one sitting. Once you have those scores, you should report back here and we can come up with a study plan.

I'd like to know a bit more about your timeline and goals:
1) What is your goal score?
2) When are you planning to take the GMAT?
3) When are you planning to apply to Business School?

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Rich
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by ceilidh.erickson » Tue Jan 10, 2017 2:39 pm
Students often make the mistake of overloading themselves with too many study materials, and they become overwhelmed. If you have the Manhattan Prep books and the OGs, that's more than enough to work with!

Here's what you should do:

1. Take an adaptive Practice Exam (CAT). If you bought the Mprep books, you'll have access to our entire suite of practice exams. Don't prep first - just dive in and take the test, accurately timed.

2. Analyze the practice test you've taken in a lot of depth. Which areas were you weakest? Strongest? Fastest? Slowest? Decide which topics and question types need more of your time and attention. Be very aware of timing issues as well.

3. Study topic-by-topic, going chapter by chapter in the Mprep guides, then practice each topic with OG problems. For example, read the chapter on SC subject/verb agreement, then go do a set of 8-10 problems in the OGs that relate to that subject. You can find problems by topic using GMAT Navigator: https://www.manhattanprep.com/gmat/stor ... navigator/
Do this for each chapter in the Quant and Verbal strategy guides. Aim to do this in 8-10 weeks.

4. Make sure you are tracking all of the OG questions you do, and timing yourself while you practice. Hold yourself to strict 2-min time limits per question! (I highly recommend using Navigator to track your OG problems)

5. Alternate between Quant and Verbal. Don't just focus all on quant! A lot of students make this mistake. You can't get a top score by only focusing on quant. You might think your quant score from the 1st CAT is lower based on percentiles, but this is probably a misinterpretation: https://www.manhattanprep.com/gmat/blog ... mat-score/

6. Keep a detailed record of the mistakes you make in addition to just tracking right and wrong answers, so you can locate patterns in your errors: https://www.manhattangmat.com/blog/index ... -studying/

7. Take a practice test after 4 weeks, then every 2 weeks after that. Increase to a test every week for the last 2 weeks before your real exam.

8. Practice your skills with random timed sets out of the OGs once you've covered all of the content in the strategy guides . Set the timer for 20 minutes, for example, and do questions 1-10. The OG problems generally get harder as the question # increases (within a given question type), so questions 1-10 will be easier on average than 101-110. Start in the middle of the section if you want more challenging questions.

9. Analyze your data from the random sets and practice tests, and go back to any topics that need extra work.

10. Take GMATPrep CATs. Download the software from mba.com and take these tests as the last few before the real test. They won't have answer explanations or metrics, so we recommend using Mprep CATs for most of your study time, and saving these for last. (They're less helpful for analysis, but arguably most predictive of your real score, since they're written by the actual test-makers).

Good luck!
Ceilidh Erickson
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Harvard Graduate School of Education

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by Bara » Wed Jan 11, 2017 1:09 pm
All suggestions are great and I mostly agree with them. YAY!

I'll add a few things to throw into the mix.

1. Who are you when you go into the test? How have you felt/how do you feel. Tests are NOT only about what you know, tests are also about how you take the test. Your mental game should be part of your prep. Are you focused? Calm? Confident? In Flow? If not, how will you get there? This is a very important aspect to address, especially if you have one iota of fear, nervousness, self-doubt, self-effacement, anxiety etc., on how you perform, and the statistics prove (as does our work with thousands of students over the past 20+ years), that when you go into a test feeling on your game you'll perform at least 12% higher. I've seen it much higher - - one student 230 points increase...just getting into the zone, no work on content. All work on mindset.

2. What is your reading speed? If you're at 150-250 WPM, you're reading too slow. Tests don't reward test-takers for mastering what you're read...it rewards you for answering questions correctly. AND the 80-20 rule applies. 80% of the answers come from 20% of what you read. If you have MORE time to critically think and go through questions and answers (more verbal than quant) to answer correctly, then you're on a better route to getting a higher score. Here we also see a 13% average increase, in Reading-specific questions, just by increasing reading speed (without compromising comprehension).

Any questions about these out-of-the-box but important aspects of test-taking, be in touch!

Good Luck!

Best,
Bara Sapir, MA, CHt, CNLP
Founder/CEO City Test Prep
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