Increased GMAT Performance

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Increased GMAT Performance

by Spring599 » Thu Aug 13, 2009 1:15 pm
I took the GMAT last year and scored a 640 (V36 Q42) with about 6-7 weeks of preparation. I only used the official guide and Princeton Review's Math Workout. Most of my prep was doing practice problems. With regard to quant, I did not feel like I had a good understanding of the underlying fundamentals. My only prep for verbal came from doing the practice problems in the official guide. I believe the majority of my errors came from SC. My strategy for SC was to choose whatever I thought sounded correct. Horrible strategy, I know. I was one of those kids who did not pay much attentioin in my MS and HS english classes, which is why I do not know the rules. On the other hand, I consider myself to be an above average writer (received a 6 on awa).

Anyway, I plan on retaking the GMAT this November (probably around the 15th), which gives me about 3 months. I have purchased the MGMAT math guides and MGMAT SC correction guides (do not feel like I have a problem in the other verbal areas).

Any advice on how to get started? How many hours should I study per day (I am free all day)? When should I start taking practice tests?

Also, I realize that this is an extremely difficult question to answer, but I'll ask anyway. By how much should I be able to raise my score given my previous score and time frame?

Thanks for the help.
Source: — GMAT Strategy |

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by Spring599 » Thu Aug 13, 2009 6:26 pm
Anybody?

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by DanaJ » Thu Aug 13, 2009 11:50 pm
You really need to invest in resources, honestly, for both quant and verbal. You could either buy a general guide for both sections (like Kaplan Premier) or separate guides. Using the OG for practice is good, but you also need a general strategy guide at least; you could also consider buying the two supplements for the OG.

I understand that Princeton's Cracking the GMAT has slightly easier questions, so you could start with that one. If you liked MGMAT tests, you could also check out their book series - especially the SC guide, which everyone on this forum considers to be a good book.

My personal opinion for SC: I myself thought that merely following "my ear" would suffice, but my hit rate increased dramatically after I documented the various errors I should be on the lookout for: parallelisms, verb-noun etc. I did this using Kaplan only, but you could also use MGMAT.

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by gmoney » Fri Aug 14, 2009 6:49 am
MGMAT SC Guide has done wonders to help me during my prep as others have also given it high regards