GMAT Strategy

How have you been studying for SC so far? What resources have you been using to teach you the actual grammar (the OG books don't really have the best explanations and don't actually teach you the basic grammar)? And when you sit down to study, what do you actually do - HOW do you try to learn and practice SC?

Okay, part of your problem was that you weren't doing the AWA on your practice tests. You were prepared for a 2.5 hour long test, and then suddenly you had to take a 3.5 hour long test, with the verbal as the last 75 minutes of that. Your performance during that last hour is going to drop.

From now on, always do the essays - it's important to build your stamina!

It would be a good idea for you to identify some sources that will help you to learn what to do with CR and RC. Ask people / look in a book store and decide what book(s) you like best.

You can get some new official questions by using OG12 (just published a few months ago). A lot of the questions are the same (as in OG11) but there are some new ones. You're not actually done studying from OG10 / OG11, either - you still have some learning to do if you can't articulate:

- why each wrong answer is wrong
- why someone would be tempted to choose that wrong answer
- why the right answer is right
- why someone would be tempted to eliminate that right answer

Be able to explain this for every single problem. If you're not sure, search here to see if the problem / particular answer choice has already been discussed. If it hasn't, post yourself and ask!

Also, if I were to show you a particular difference in answer choices but NOT show you the full problem (or even the full answer choices), would you be able to tell me which rule is probably being tested? You can probably do this for some things right now (eg, "has" and "have" would be a pretty straightforward split), but you can also probably get better at this. The splits, or differences in the choices, are the major clues that (should immediately) tell us what rules we need to think about / apply for that choice. That will help with both your speed and your accuracy.

For SC, try this exercise: approach these as you would a math problem, to some extent, where you see certain "symbols" and that causes you to categorize the problem in a particular way. The "symbols" you'll see are the differences in the answer choices, and those "symbols" should be your immediate clue that a particular rule is being tested.

Keep a log in a file or notebook and make two columns. On the left-hand side, write down the name of a particular grammar error (eg, subj-verb agreement). On the right-hand side, write down what the splits tend to look like for that type of error (eg, nouns that sometimes include "s" and sometimes don't; verbs that sometimes include "s" and sometimes don't).

Sounds good except for one possible thing. I don't know when you're planning to take the test again, but I'd do practice tests every 2-3 weeks until the final 2 weeks before the official test, when I'd do them once a week. Practice tests don't actually do much to help you learn while you're taking them (though, of course, you can learn a lot by reviewing a practice test). You're just trying to perform by showing what you already know. So a higher ratio of training time to full performing time until you get closer to the performance itself!

Well, I obviously like my company's books, but I try not to recommend them directly, because I also have an obvious conflict of interest.

The key is to find books that
(a) cover everything you need to know for the various parts of the GMAT,
(b) other people you trust have used and recommend, and
(c) you have looked at / researched and think they'd be good for you and your learning style

If you took the GMATPrep test within the last week, use it to determine as much as you can about your strengths and weaknesses across several axes: content (math and grammar), question type (both the 5 overall categories, and the different types of questions within those categories - eg, RC inference), and timing.

This is going to be a bit difficult with GMATPrep because that test doesn't give you any data to assess your performance.

Alternatively, take a practice test from a test prep company (make sure that company's test gives you lots of data about your performance. At a minimum, you need data on: what you got right vs. wrong, per-question difficulty levels, per-question timing data.

Use that data to figure out what your weaker areas are and use this forum to figure out which of those weaker areas are also the most commonly tested on the exam. That's where you start. You will need to identify specific books / resources that help you get better at whatever those weaknesses are. OG is good for practice once you have learned things, but it does not actually teach you how to get better.

You don't mention your goal score. Just keep in mind that you should be scoring close to your goal score on your last 1 or 2 practice tests (taken a week or two before the official exam). If you are still far from your goal score on those practice tests, then you will likely have to postpone your exam (assuming you want to have the best possible chance of reaching your goal score).

Congratulations - fantastic job! Good luck with apps