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Organizing help

by jayjones25 » Mon Mar 09, 2015 5:38 am
Hello all,

I am just beginning by GMAT experience and I want/need some help organizing everything. The set of materials I have are presented below:

1. The official guide for GMAT review 2015 bundle
2. Cracking the GMAT Premium (Princeton)
3. Kaplan GMAT Premier 2015
4. Veritas 6 week course (still have all the on demand videos and course work)


My biggest problem is organizing everything and seeing what I should focus on first (text book wise). My early thoughts would be to use the official guide to brush up on old topics and then switching to Veritas to understand their strategies and then use Kaplan/Princeton for additional problems. My course does not start until mid-July so I will have a lot of time in preparing for the GMAT (Ideally I would want to take the first one in September).
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by Brent@GMATPrepNow » Mon Mar 09, 2015 9:33 am
You might consider signing up for Beat The GMAT's free 60-Day Study Guide (https://www.beatthegmat.com/mba/gmat-guide). Over 40,000 Beat The GMAT students have already done so.

Each day, you'll receive an email with a series of learning activities that guide you, step-by-step, from Day 1 to test day. Although the Guide doesn't specifically reference your resources, you can use it to ensure that you cover everything that the GMAT tests.

Here's an outline of all 60 emails: https://www.beatthegmat.com/mba/gmat-guide-outline

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by [email protected] » Mon Mar 09, 2015 9:49 am
Hi jayjones25,

Is there any particular reason why you scheduled your Course for July (as opposed to starting it now or in the nearer future)? I ask because a Course would likely provide you the organization and structure that you're looking for.

Since you're just starting out, it would probably be a good idea for you to take a FULL-LENGTH practice CAT to establish a 'baseline' score and so you can get an immediate sense of your strengths and weaknesses. You can download 2 CATs for free from www.mba.com. A FULL CAT takes about 4 hours to complete, so make sure that you've set aside enough time to take the CAT in one sitting. If you want to do a little studying to familiarize yourself with the overall material first, then that's okay, but taking that first CAT is an important part of the overall process.

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by Brent@GMATPrepNow » Mon Mar 09, 2015 9:53 am
As Rich points out, it's important to take a practice test early in one's studies. In fact, in BTG's 60-Day study guide, students are directed to take a full-length practice test on Day 3 (once you've familiarized yourself with the GMAT).

If you're interested, I wrote an article on the importance of taking a practice test early in one's studies: https://www.gmatprepnow.com/articles/tak ... st-already

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by jayjones25 » Mon Mar 09, 2015 10:13 am
Thank you both for the replies, I have signed up for the 60 day beat the gmat. My reasoning for the class in July is that it was the only class that I could attend that was in person that fit my schedule (only 3 were offered).
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by VivianKerr » Mon Mar 09, 2015 10:47 am
To be honest (and again, this is entirely subjective), but I'd ditch Cracking the GMAT from Princeton entirely, and I'd use the problems from Kaplan GMAT Premier 2015 only as a supplement.

The Veritas course will be great and give you excellent structure. In terms of books, I'd HIGHLY recommend MGMAT. I don't work for them, but in my opinion they are some of the best GMAT books out there, especially MGMAT Sentence Correction and Number Properties. Anyone serious about the GMAT who isn't using at least those two books plain isn't serious about the GMAT. :-) The reason for this is their thoroughness, clarity, and index to corresponding Official Guide problems.

I'd also recommend you HEAVILY emphasize official problems. By the time you take the test, you will have wanted to complete every question in the Official Guide (and probably done most problems more than once), as well as taken the GMATPrep CATs 1, 2, 3, and 4 at LEAST once (if not twice). Veritas will give you some good strategy and excellent practice material as well, but NOTHING beats official material. I'd suggest you to one CAT a week, Error Log your incorrect questions, and then tackle 3-4 individual concepts per week (see attachment for an idea of what concepts the GMAT tests). Aim to "dive deep" into a limited number of concepts and MASTER them, rather than just haphazardly answer tons of random problems.

Above all, REVIEW your incorrect questions in a thorough manner, understanding exactly WHY you got them wrong, and what the TAKEAWAY is for each question. This is why the Error Log is so important -- you'll be taking a variety of CATs (GMATPrep, Veritas, and probably some MGMAT), so you'll need to create your OWN spreadsheet to collate all that data.

Be sure to regularly incorporate pacing exercises, both concept-specific and mixed-concept, in your study sessions. You don't want the only time you work under pacing pressure to be when you're doing a full-length GMAT CAT. Sentence Correction success lies in high achieving accuracy in a short amount of time. Start with the "Level 1" pacing drills as described below, then move on to the higher levels once your accuracy is above 80% at each level. For example, if you tried to complete Level 6, you shouldn't move on to Level 7 until you were able to get 8/10 or more questions correct in 20 minutes on at least three separate occasions.

Level 1 - 5 questions in 12.5 minutes
Level 2 - 10 questions in 25 minutes
Level 3 - 5 questions in 11.25 minutes
Level 4 - 10 questions in 22.5 minutes
Level 5 - 5 questions in 10 minutes
Level 6 - 10 questions in 20 minutes
Level 7 - 5 questions in 8.75 minutes
Level 8 - 10 questions in 17.5 minutes
Level 9 - 5 question in 7.5 minutes
Level 10 - 10 questions in 15 minutes
Level 11 - 5 questions in 6.25 minutes
Level 12 - 10 questions in 12.5 minutes
Level 13 - 5 questions in 5 minutes
Level 14 - 10 questions in 10 minutes

Once you're able to complete a wide variety of Sentence Correction questions in less than 1 minute per question with above 80% accuracy overall, you're much less likely to lose accuracy during a full-length CAT!

Hope this helps -- you've got a good amount of time, so I'm sure you'll be able to get the score you want with the right plan. :-)

Good luck!
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by manyaabroadtpr » Tue Mar 10, 2015 9:47 pm
Hi jayjones25,

To get started you must take up a mock test. This will not only familiarize with the test pattern but also help you to identify your strong and weak points. Based on this analysis, you will have to make a smart study plan yourself which helps you cover all basics and then leaves you with ample time to attempt as many mock and full length practice tests as possible.

As you have mentioned that you have sufficient time, it would be best if you start reading articles, science journals , business tabloids and read them online and figure out for yourself if you can understand the language and the main idea present in the passage. This would improve your vocabulary on the GMAT.

Refer to the below link for best books for gmat preparation.

https://blog.manyagroup.com/detail.html?authorid=59

All the best.
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