GMAT Strategy

Hi all.

I have largely covered the Math content - still some areas I need to brush up on, but am getting there, and come test time I should be in OK shape.

I have completed 2 CATs so far,

Kaplan cat1 - 610
GMAT prep 1 - 580

I really need to push my score up to 620 at a minimum.

For the GMAT prep test (in the Quantitative section) there was at least 5-6 questions I got wrong, that I have not properly covered but should be OK come exam time.

In the verbal section i got 14 questions wrong and on review 11 were in SC, 3 in RC and 1 in CR. CR and RC come naturally to me, SC doesn't on the face of it!

Given I have 9 days and some potential improvement areas - namely SC and some Math topics, can anyone suggest an approach (given I have a short space of time) to give myself that 40 point lift based on my weaknesses outlined.....

Really appreciate the advice in advance.

I would buy the Manhattan GMAT Sentence Correction Guide and have it overnighted or buy the PDF from manhattan GMAT. If you get about half of those right, you will get your 620.

In terms of reading comprehension its important to remember the strategies that are employed by the makers of the test. For example basics of tone, etc. I liked this video https://bit.ly/8hjNCx discussing reading comprehension and I think there are probably more on YouTube, but I couldn't tell from the site where I found the link. Also for sentence correction it might be good to check out some flashcards for basic principals...but I'm not necessarily sure. I'm the opposite of you in that SC comes easily and the Math is a problem.

Hi - many thanks for the response.

SC appears to be the area that is pulling me down most- but on the face of it, it looks like a hard area to make improvement without committing all my time to it....

I actually have the MGMAT SC book and am a little overwhelmed with the content and actually applying lessons learned in the test proves difficult. Any suggestions on how to broach this area....maybe even an approach to tackle the book, mixed with GMAT OG etc and learn from lessons etc?

Flashcards sound like a good idea also....

Many thanks & I appreciate any further input...

I think the best thing that you can do to help improve reading comp is to go through each sentence and identify whether the subject is singular or plural. After you make this determination, determine if the verb is singular or plural and make sure they agree. If there are no subject-verb agreement errors, look for pronouns and discover if each pronoun has a clear and logical antecedent. If there are no pronoun errors, check for parallelism. If there are no paralellism errors, check for modifiers. If there are no modifier issues at this point guess, because odds are the problem is too complex for you to learn what you would need to in order to answer it correctly.

osirus0830 wrote:I think the best thing that you can do to help improve reading comp is to go through each sentence and identify whether the subject is singular or plural. After you make this determination, determine if the verb is singular or plural and make sure they agree. If there are no subject-verb agreement errors, look for pronouns and discover if each pronoun has a clear and logical antecedent. If there are no pronoun errors, check for parallelism. If there are no paralellism errors, check for modifiers. If there are no modifier issues at this point guess, because odds are the problem is too complex for you to learn what you would need to in order to answer it correctly.

i don't think this approach will work. Rocksteady will not be able to determine whether the s-v agreement errors/ lack thereof that he has found are indeed correct. I think the best approach, since your main problem area is SC, would be mgmat sc guide + og + og verbal review... this can be completed at a stretch.. 3 chapters/ day .. no need to do the advanced portion that is there in the 4th edition. If you complete this before your test date, then i would suggest going over it again.

rocksteady wrote:
Given I have 9 days and some potential improvement areas - namely SC and some Math topics, can anyone suggest an approach (given I have a short space of time) to give myself that 40 point lift based on my weaknesses outlined.....

Really appreciate the advice in advance.

Hi rocksteady,

I can't be sure about your given situation, but sometimes revisiting the fundamentals to see where there are flaws in your process is the best way to improve. I've included a few links below from Manhattan Review's youtube videos that may help you revisit some fundamental Sentence Correction issues.

Sentence Correction - Comparison
https://bit.ly/cgcRlY

Sentence Correction - Pronoun Tips
https://bit.ly/atfEWy

Sentence Correction - Parallelism, Prepositions
https://bit.ly/cVgHO2

Sentence Correction - Diction
https://bit.ly/dmcKIS

Let me know if you feel like you need any more help!

osirus0830 wrote:I would buy the Manhattan GMAT Sentence Correction Guide and have it overnighted or buy the PDF from manhattan GMAT. If you get about half of those right, you will get your 620.

well said. Very True..

Thanks for the advice guys....much appreciated.

Have a big slog up until the finish line (wed) .... but am keeping my head down and pushing on...

Cheers again.