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1 Month Away - How to Study?

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1 Month Away - How to Study?

by gmatwhiz902 » Sun May 25, 2014 11:47 am
Hi all,

Over the past 2 months, I've worked my way through the comprehensive set of MGMAT Quant guides and am currently in the middle of Sentence Correction (this is the only area of verbal I seem to have much difficulty with)

I have taken the first 3 MGMAT tests and took my first GMAT Prep test today and scored 720 (Q48;V41). I am aiming to score in the 730 - 750 range on the real thing.

What should I focus on over the next month to achieve my goal? I know most of my time should go into Quant as this is my weaker area, but what specifically should I do (take a bunch of practice tests, review content, do practice problems?). Should I be practicing with advanced material from MGMAT/Kaplan or using the OG Questions (these seem easier to me, even though they are technically real GMAT questions).

My scores to date are as follows:

MGMAT 1: 630 (Q37;V38)
MGMAT 2: 650 (Q42;V37)
MGMAT 3: 640 (Q42;V36)
GMAT Prep 1: 720 (Q48;V41)

All tests were taken under test conditions w/ CR and Essay (except first). I found the GMAT Prep test to be significantly easier than MGMAT, especially the quant.

Thanks for your help!
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by [email protected] » Sun May 25, 2014 5:08 pm
Hi gmatwhiz902,

The line between a 720 and a 730-750 is remarkably thin, so you have to take a good look at the questions that you got wrong and figure out WHY you got them wrong. Any mistake that you would call "silly" or "your fault" is something that you need to fix. In the Verbal section, you need to include all of the questions that you "narrowed down to 2, but still got wrong"; figure out what you missed (why you picked the incorrect option) and fix that error too. At that high of a scoring level, there's no room for any inconsistency or goofy mistakes, so you have to be rigorous with your notes and organization too.

With the time you have remaining, I'd suggest that you stick to 1 FULL-length practice CAT per week. Your overall "routine" seems to be working, so you should continue to do what you're doing.

GMAT assassins aren't born, they're made,
Rich
Last edited by [email protected] on Mon May 26, 2014 10:55 am, edited 1 time in total.
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by gmatwhiz902 » Mon May 26, 2014 9:00 am
Thanks a lot, Rich. This is extremely helpful!
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by varung79 » Mon May 26, 2014 11:13 am
Rely heavily on OGs and GMATprep test 2. Analyze your GMATPrep practice test thoroughly and see if you got any easy questions wrong. I would end up my final GMATPrep practice test a week before my test and review it thoroughly before I go to the test!
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by gmatwhiz902 » Mon May 26, 2014 2:45 pm
Thanks Varung. Do you really think OG is the best source of practice questions? Only the last 20 - 30 questions in each section seem to be of a reasonable difficulty level.
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by [email protected] » Mon May 26, 2014 5:26 pm
Hi gmatwhiz902,

When you mention "reasonable difficulty level", do you mean "hard"?

The adaptive nature of the GMAT is such that you won't really see that many questions that you will consider to be "really hard." I'll bet that you don't see more than half-a-dozen questions per section that you find really difficult (and that's at the high end). A layered question or a long prompt is not necessarily going to be difficult, it's just going to take longer to read and organize. Be mindful of what you focus on during this last month. Pounding through lots of difficult questions will probably not have the positive effect that you think it will.

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by gmatwhiz902 » Tue May 27, 2014 8:47 am
Hi Rich,

That's right. I figure the best way to learn from my mistakes is to make as many of them as I can so I can learn as much as possible. By that logic, it seems to make sense to work on challenging material where I will make mistakes more frequently.

That being said, I can see the value in working on less difficult questions where I may be more prone to making careless mistakes - as these are likely more easy to correct. Is this where you were going..?
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by varung79 » Wed May 28, 2014 11:54 am
Hi gmatwhiz902,

Yes, for sure, OG is the best indicator of what you may actually face on the real test.

If you have practiced with OG13 and still feel that only last 20 to 30 problems are tough, you may consider purchasing supplement guides from MBA.com along with question pack that is an update for your GMATPrep software, including 450 questions(though few Qs are repetitive - not quite sure). You may find this stuff quite challenging!
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by [email protected] » Wed May 28, 2014 4:48 pm
Hi gmatwhiz902,

Yes, it's far easier to fix silly mistakes or "coin-flips" in the Verbal section than it is to try to solve increasingly difficult questions in either section. As a gauge for how this issue affects your performance, you should do a full review of your last couple of practice CATs.

For every question that you got wrong, write down WHY you got it wrong. Note if the question was something you could have gotten correct, but didn't (for whatever reason...silly mistake, misread the question, missed something, 50/50 and you guessed wrong, etc.) or if it was just too difficult/tricky. I'll bet you find far more questions that fall into the first category than the second. If you continue to make those same silly/minor mistakes, then your chances for a higher score decrease.

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Rich
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by gmatwhiz902 » Wed May 28, 2014 8:26 pm
Thanks, both.

These are great points and I will be sure to heed your advice!
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