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700 in 7 weeks - need advice

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700 in 7 weeks - need advice

by mece dominici » Tue Jun 26, 2012 9:38 pm
Hi all,

First of all, thanks to all of you for your very interesting contributions to this forum. After a couple of weeks lurking, I decided to ask advice from the community.

A few words of background: management consultant, will be taking the GMAT as part of an MBA application process. The objective is to apply in the first round (i.e. mid-end October 2012). I am from Europe, non-English native (Toefl = 111).

The business schools I target have a median GMAT around 710-720, and my GMAT exam is scheduled for 7 weeks from now. I took a GMAT Prep exam without knowing the test at all and without any preparation. I got confused by the result: 540 with Q30 (bad) and V34 (not so bad). The main issue was time management - I was 10 minutes short on the Q section, and finished the V section 15 minutes in advance...

I am very aware of the challenge here: getting a 700ish score with such a short deadline. Although my job is currently consuming most of my spare time already, I could dedicate 1h per day to the GMAT preparation during the week, plus 10h on week-ends. I also have 3 weeks of vacation late July that I can dedicate to the preparation.

To finish with, I already have OG 13th edition, MGMAT SC and NP guides.

So, here are a few questions:
- How achievable is the objective? Is the 7-week schedule too tight, or is it "just" a challenge?
- Are 1h per day + 10h per week + 2.5/3 weeks full time enough to master the concepts and have sufficient training?
- Am I fine with the material I have?
- How much time should I spend on reviewing the concepts vs. exercising? Should I mix both activities vs. doing the former before the latter?

Thank you for your much appreciated help!

Mece.
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by tutorphd » Tue Jun 26, 2012 11:13 pm
It is super tight not just 'challenge'. You will have to raise both quant and verbal singificantly, otherwise a score above 700 will require a super quant score which I guarantee you won't get in 7 weeks. GMAT at high quant scores is about math instincts and trickery that you can't develop in such a short time. It may seem achievable to you now but once you are in the higher percentiles, you will see it gets exponentially harder to move up by the same percentiles. The percentile scale is not linear at all.

The time you allocate won't be enough for both quant and verbal, it will be barely enough for quant.

I am a math tutor so I will focus on the quant only. You will have the cover the 5 quant MGMAT guides for maybe 4 weeks. In addition you will lack sufficient number of problems to exercise, that is if you have time to do it at all. The MGMAT books have only warm up problems, the OG is not enough at all, even supplemented with the Quantitative Review.

You can try to do it but be well prepared to postpone it for the next round. Allocate sufficient time, and get a good tutor that will provide you with sufficient number of practice problems in each topic. Solve each problem under timed conditions - 2mins, to get used to the adrenaline haste. Also practice CAT's.
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by NextGreatLeader » Fri Jun 29, 2012 4:38 am
Tutorphd, you mentioned that the MGMAT quant guides have only "warm up problems." Can you explain what you mean by that?
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by tutorphd » Fri Jun 29, 2012 5:07 am
Each section in a MGMAT guide has a short problem set, usually about 15 problems. These are good to introduce you to the concept but are not sufficient in number to properly train every angle of the concept at basic level nor have the style of the official problems that combine several concepts in unusual ways. That's why I call them 'warm-up problems'.

The MGMAT guides have advanced sections. The explanations there are good but again the problems do not train you sufficiently to apply them.

The MGMAT guides relegate the reader to official problems in the Official Guide and Quantitative Review which is OK. Even those do not have sufficient number of problems to train with. In my experience with students, to achive a good handle of a particular sub-topic, the student has to cover about 100 problems in that topic varying from very easy to very hard. What good tutors usually do is pull problems from various sources - I've found that Princeton Review books with problems immitate the official style problems very well, better than other prep companies. The PR books for GRE are also a good source for GMAT, taking into account GRE has some questions of different type - with multiple correct answers, data comparison etc.
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by sam2304 » Fri Jun 29, 2012 6:20 am
I would start off with MGMAT 8 strategy guides and the 6 tests. Take a test each week or once in 10 days. MGMAT tests are good for quant. They are good for verbal if you want to know your weak areas in CR and SC. RC style is not close to GMAT, it differs from person to person. For me, I hardly made 1 or 2 mistakes in GMATPrep RCs, while in MGMAT tests my RC accuracy was less than 30%. But their reports and other questions are of great help.

Start off reviewing the basics given in OG book. Get used to gmat style or if you already know your weak topics in quant then use the MGMAT strategy guide to learn those concepts.

Give an MGMAT mock.
Use the reports to find your weak topics i.e not just PS or SC but inequalities or probability in quant and SV error problems in SC.
Find the weak topics in all the sections - Work on improving them.
Start with strategy books.
learn the concepts.
Supplement it with OG problems.
Also you can choose problems by topic in MGMAT tests, use those as well.
Solve the problem in timed mode.
Take ample time to review.
Post the questions in forums like this or MGMAT. You will find expert solutions for every problem. Take notes or shortcuts or prepare flash cards.

All these will take almost 2 to 3 hours for one topic. Try to finish one section a day if possible or if you have more weak topics then take more time between your MGMAT mocks and try to cover all weak areas. With 1 test you won't get much topics to learn, but once you had taken two or three tests you will have solved atleast one problem in each topic and a overall report then give you a fair idea of your weak areas.

Once you complete 3 MGMAT tests, take a GMATPrep mock or you can even start off with that in the beginning, the only problem is that you don't have reports to find your weak topics. Taking GMATPrep mock in the middle is very important as none of the other test prep company mocks are close to GMATPrep, so their diagnosis might go wrong. In short, your diagnosis of weak areas in both GMATPrep and MGMAT should be in sync. Different prep company uses different style and none comes as close to GMAT particularly the verbal section. So its better to be cautious and not rely completely on other test prep companies for the entire preparation period. I found out the RC trouble mentioned above too late and that's why I am suggesting you this. Don't save it for last minute. After all the tests are useful only to improve your testing experience (stamina, endurance) and to know your weak areas. Proceed with MGMAT for another three weeks, if you know your weak areas, you don't need to take tests. Keep on improving. And the last 10 days before your actual test, take the another GMATPrep. See if you are close to your target score. Then start reviewing all the daily notes, you had prepared, mock tests and flash cards etc, tough problems. This will definitely help you reach your target score.

If you don't have MGMAT tests, then use GMATPrep. As I had mentioned above, you have to find your weak areas and categorize them yourself, which will be a tedious task. Each test can be taken many times. The first two tests will be very close to what you will be scoring in the actual test. Generally there will be a +/- 30 point difference between your GMATPrep and GMAT scores whereas it will be more than 50, when it comes to other tests. You can repeat the tests, the first repeats will be a good indicator, but score gets inflated in the subsequent repeats.

Try to improve both quant and verbal. Once you cross 35 in verbal its quite easy to reach 40 and beyond that it becomes difficult again. So try to reach 40 in both quant and verbal. Concentrate on your strength more (either quant or verbal) and improve the other. Do not leave out any section unprepared, that is a very bad strategy. Hope this helps !!
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by [email protected] » Wed Jul 04, 2012 12:03 am
Hey thanks for posting this. I found this to be amongst the best suggestions for a GMAT prep plan. I am myself in the midst of preparation and in a similar tight situation! Value this immensely.

Cheers,
Vicky
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by uhsa » Tue Aug 14, 2012 7:06 am
sam2304 wrote:I would start off with MGMAT 8 strategy guides and the 6 tests. Take a test each week or once in 10 days. MGMAT tests are good for quant. They are good for verbal if you want to know your weak areas in CR and SC. RC style is not close to GMAT, it differs from person to person. For me, I hardly made 1 or 2 mistakes in GMATPrep RCs, while in MGMAT tests my RC accuracy was less than 30%. But their reports and other questions are of great help.

Start off reviewing the basics given in OG book. Get used to gmat style or if you already know your weak topics in quant then use the MGMAT strategy guide to learn those concepts.

Give an MGMAT mock.
Use the reports to find your weak topics i.e not just PS or SC but inequalities or probability in quant and SV error problems in SC.
Find the weak topics in all the sections - Work on improving them.
Start with strategy books.
learn the concepts.
Supplement it with OG problems.
Also you can choose problems by topic in MGMAT tests, use those as well.
Solve the problem in timed mode.
Take ample time to review.
Post the questions in forums like this or MGMAT. You will find expert solutions for every problem. Take notes or shortcuts or prepare flash cards.

All these will take almost 2 to 3 hours for one topic. Try to finish one section a day if possible or if you have more weak topics then take more time between your MGMAT mocks and try to cover all weak areas. With 1 test you won't get much topics to learn, but once you had taken two or three tests you will have solved atleast one problem in each topic and a overall report then give you a fair idea of your weak areas.

Once you complete 3 MGMAT tests, take a GMATPrep mock or you can even start off with that in the beginning, the only problem is that you don't have reports to find your weak topics. Taking GMATPrep mock in the middle is very important as none of the other test prep company mocks are close to GMATPrep, so their diagnosis might go wrong. In short, your diagnosis of weak areas in both GMATPrep and MGMAT should be in sync. Different prep company uses different style and none comes as close to GMAT particularly the verbal section. So its better to be cautious and not rely completely on other test prep companies for the entire preparation period. I found out the RC trouble mentioned above too late and that's why I am suggesting you this. Don't save it for last minute. After all the tests are useful only to improve your testing experience (stamina, endurance) and to know your weak areas. Proceed with MGMAT for another three weeks, if you know your weak areas, you don't need to take tests. Keep on improving. And the last 10 days before your actual test, take the another GMATPrep. See if you are close to your target score. Then start reviewing all the daily notes, you had prepared, mock tests and flash cards etc, tough problems. This will definitely help you reach your target score.

If you don't have MGMAT tests, then use GMATPrep. As I had mentioned above, you have to find your weak areas and categorize them yourself, which will be a tedious task. Each test can be taken many times. The first two tests will be very close to what you will be scoring in the actual test. Generally there will be a +/- 30 point difference between your GMATPrep and GMAT scores whereas it will be more than 50, when it comes to other tests. You can repeat the tests, the first repeats will be a good indicator, but score gets inflated in the subsequent repeats.

Try to improve both quant and verbal. Once you cross 35 in verbal its quite easy to reach 40 and beyond that it becomes difficult again. So try to reach 40 in both quant and verbal. Concentrate on your strength more (either quant or verbal) and improve the other. Do not leave out any section unprepared, that is a very bad strategy. Hope this helps !!
When you say we should be doing a mock test at least once a week/10 days, do you mean the test for only those sections we have covered so far or the full test, whether we know the other sections or not?

To this date, I still don't know how to fill out the error report card or find your weakness card. Do we just go by the ones we have problem understanding or which problem we got the wrong answers?

Re: finishing a section a day -- Does that mean a "chapter" or the full "geometry" - which would be really tough!

You think 2 hrs a day (incl. weekends) for 3 month can help me get 700+?
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by sam2304 » Tue Aug 14, 2012 9:57 am
uhsa wrote: When you say we should be doing a mock test at least once a week/10 days, do you mean the test for only those sections we have covered so far or the full test, whether we know the other sections or not?
A mock test implies a full test with strict official conditions (AWA + IR + 8 min breaks), irrespective of what you know/don't know.
To this date, I still don't know how to fill out the error report card or find your weakness card. Do we just go by the ones we have problem understanding or which problem we got the wrong answers?
What materials do you use ? If you have access to MGMAT tests, then you can use the generate report option to know your performance across different sections through that, otherwise you have to manually find out how many mistakes you make in each section, then segregate them by topic and then prioritize them in terms of frequency and timing and then come up with the weak topics - this is a tedious process for which MGMAT reports are very useful.
Re: finishing a section a day -- Does that mean a "chapter" or the full "geometry" - which would be really tough!
A section a day implies, if you have identified one weak topic in each PS/SC/RC, then improve it, more than one topic, then take your own time to improve may be a day or two. The point is to ensure you make a considerable progress between two mocks, there is no use taking mocks every week if you don't identify any weak topics and work on them. You won't be seeing any improvement.
You think 2 hrs a day (incl. weekends) for 3 month can help me get 700+?
It depends on how quick you learn the topics, how fast you apply them and how fast you improvise and adapt them to suit both the GMAT's and your needs.[/quote]
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