GMAT Strategy

Hey guys,

I've been preparing for Gmat since the past couple of months now. Out of that, I've been giving it full time since May after taking break from my work. Today I sat to give my first mock test from Manhattan Gmat site and scored a 520 (Q32/V30). Pretty devastated considering that am aiming 700 and have just over a month to go. (My date is on 19th July). With the amount of time already given, I was expecting to reach a level of 600 at least so that I could give more tests in the last month and get my score to improve from thereon. However, considering this score, it seems that I still need a lot of work to be done at the conceptual stage itself!

As of now, I have just completed Kaplan 2009 edition, Maths Bible and some basic Ad hoc material for Quant & Verbal as practice. Am currently doing the Maths & English Review books after which I intend to start the OG. I was planning to finish all this by around 20 June and then keep a month only for tests.

Is this the right approach considering the time and score or do I need to practice more? Also, is one month going to be enough to crack 700 ? For me, a good score is not an option but a necessity thus am willing to push my exam dates and extend my leave also if required. Just need a right direction to put in the efforts which I cant seem to find now.

Your suggestions will be of great help!

Thanks

520 practice test score is far from ready. You should provide a list of materials you are studying and maybe someone can offer their opinions on the books.

Harsh25 wrote:Hey guys,

I've been preparing for Gmat since the past couple of months now. Out of that, I've been giving it full time since May after taking break from my work. Today I sat to give my first mock test from Manhattan Gmat site and scored a 520 (Q32/V30). Pretty devastated considering that am aiming 700 and have just over a month to go. (My date is on 19th July). With the amount of time already given, I was expecting to reach a level of 600 at least so that I could give more tests in the last month and get my score to improve from thereon. However, considering this score, it seems that I still need a lot of work to be done at the conceptual stage itself!

As of now, I have just completed Kaplan 2009 edition, Maths Bible and some basic Ad hoc material for Quant & Verbal as practice. Am currently doing the Maths & English Review books after which I intend to start the OG. I was planning to finish all this by around 20 June and then keep a month only for tests.

Is this the right approach considering the time and score or do I need to practice more? Also, is one month going to be enough to crack 700 ? For me, a good score is not an option but a necessity thus am willing to push my exam dates and extend my leave also if required. Just need a right direction to put in the efforts which I cant seem to find now.

Your suggestions will be of great help!

Thanks

You should have done ALL questions in the 12th edition of OG before even bother writing the GMAT, if you are aiming for 700+. There are 800 questions in the 12th edition of OG - do you have time for that before you write the GMAT? In addition, you need to be timing yourself when you do the OG questions to ensure you do not exceed the allocated time for Quantative questions (around 2 minutes), and Verbal questions (around 1:45 minutes).

I would reset your GMAT testing date if you haven't commited time to completing the OG questions - unless you are that smart that you can skim through OG questions and still score 700+ (yes, there are such students but they are extremely rare to find).

If you do all 800 OG questions and you are planning to write the GMAT again, you have extra questions in the OG Verbal and OG Quantitative to practice from.

Please note that Adcoms will see all your GMAT scores from the last 5 years. It will not look good on your application if you take the GMAT too many times: in a nutshell, don't write the GMAT if you're not prepared.

Thanks for the reply

As of now, I have just completed Kaplan 2009 edition, Maths Bible and some basic Ad hoc material for Quant & Verbal as practice. Am currently doing the Maths & English Review books after which I intend to start the OG. I was planning to finish all this by around 20 June and then keep a month only for tests.

As mentioned above, I would definitely be doing the OG and the Maths Review books before I start full fledged tests. I should be able to complete the above well before 3-4 weeks from my exam date. Post that, I was planning to give around 15 tests on every alternate day till my exams.

Question is, will OG be sufficient ? Or should I practice more from other material and cut down on tests in my last 3 weeks ?

Harsh25 wrote:Thanks for the reply

As of now, I have just completed Kaplan 2009 edition, Maths Bible and some basic Ad hoc material for Quant & Verbal as practice. Am currently doing the Maths & English Review books after which I intend to start the OG. I was planning to finish all this by around 20 June and then keep a month only for tests.

As mentioned above, I would definitely be doing the OG and the Maths Review books before I start full fledged tests. I should be able to complete the above well before 3-4 weeks from my exam date. Post that, I was planning to give around 15 tests on every alternate day till my exams.

Question is, will OG be sufficient ? Or should I practice more from other material and cut down on tests in my last 3 weeks ?

If you complete all the questions in the OG, you need CAT practice. Even if you time yourself when you practice the OG questions, nothing compares to an actual CAT - you need to learn how to manage your time on a CAT. IMO, time management skills for the CAT can easily make a 50 to 100 point difference in your score.

Nothing beats GMAT Prep - that is the best CAT period. Unfortunately, there are only two GMAT Prep tests and the questions can repeat if you take the GMAT Prep tests for a second time. Thus, you need to strategically determine how to best utilize GMAT Prep.

As for the next best CAT to GMAT Prep, I found the Manhattan GMAT CATS not too bad. I would say the quantitative questions in the Manhattan GMAT CAT to be quite close to the actual GMAT. Unfortunately, Manhattan GMAT CAT's verbal questions are slightly different than the actual GMAT questions at times.

If you complete all the OG questions, start practicing some CATs up to your exam date. Reserve the GMAT Prep exam(s) for the week before your exam date - the GMAT Prep is the last CAT you want to practice before the actual exam. If you think you can get your target score the first time around, you may want to do both GMAT Prep exams. If you think it will take you multiple tries to get your target score, you may want to reserve the second GMAT Prep exam for the next try.

Yeah. I plan to do that only. I too think that practice tests should really help coz in the mock test for which I got 520, I couldn't complete either of the section. Had to guess last 4-5 questions in both after leaving last 2 questions in Maths.

Will be starting with the OG from tomm and plan to give tests the last one month.. Will be giving Manhattan, Princeton, Kaplan and the Gmat prep in that order.

Lets see how it goes. Thanks a lot for your suggestions!