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1 month away

by luiscarlos59 » Sun Mar 27, 2011 8:49 pm
Ok so im 1 month away from taking the test. I have been studying for 3 months, i have finished the official guide and have taken princeton tests and gmatprep test and i am not getting the score i am looking for.
I have been doing and doing problems but i am changing my strategy to focus now on my weaknesses.

Im kindly ask for your advice on what study plan to do now that im 1 month away.
I want to know how often to take gmAt tests in this 4 more weeks and how many problems to do per day..

Thanks for your help.
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by Spike142 » Sun Mar 27, 2011 9:18 pm
So that we may help you please inform us on what you have studied. Material in all, every book, guides, etc. literally everything

If you are only studying from one source I hate to inform you on this but you might not have armed yourself completely. This test requires one to study the Test from all different angles to see which strategy works best with what kind of problems.

Also you might want to hold off on the GMATPrep tests to once a week and no more. Try to mimic the test environment as much as you can. This might help, the next test you need to take is the Manhattan free CAT test. This test tells you what are you need to work most on. When you look back through the questions you missed look at each question to see where you went wrong. Also keep an error log when studying with the OG this has helped me ten fold!

Worst come worst you might have to reschedule the test at the worst, its really not so bad.
If your going to make the conscious decision to something, then you gotta either do it or not do it - it's as simple as that - Travis Rice
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by luiscarlos59 » Mon Mar 28, 2011 6:52 am
I have finished the Official Guide 13 th and the Princeton review class book. Including the OG error log.

I have the kaplan premier, kaplan verbal and kaplan math workbooks left. So my idea is to focus on weaknesses based on the error log and do the problems from kaplan..

Do you think it can be done in 30 days? Considering a 3 - 4 hrs of daily study plus the CATs on weekends..
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by Spike142 » Thu Mar 31, 2011 10:43 am
Honestly it all depends on how retain the knowledge that you read and take notes on. A lot of the members on the forum will tell you that is takes roughly 2 weeks or more for a lesson, chapter, etc. to actually sink in and understand. Also you will read alot of the top scorers suggest no more that 2 hours a day. I personally don't believe that, then again I am younger than most members here, and still attending school. So I feel like my endurance to study for long periods of time is much higher than the average member.

Kaplan books are suppose to be great resources for studying. I personally have not used them, but from what I understand they are amongst some of the top books to pick from, while studying for GMAT.

Keep drilling using the OG review, combined with your error log. Remember do not memorize how to do a specific problem you have logged, but rather memorize the steps to solve it. This way you will allow you to apply it to the test.

Also go ahead and get yourself some flash cards they are free on the web either here at BTG or through Manhattan GMAT:
BTG: https://www.beatthegmat.com/mba/free-gma ... flashcards
MGMAT: https://www.manhattangmat.com/gmat-flashcards.cfm

I use the MGMAT because they seem to be a bit more difficult. do these for at least an hour a day. Focus on those weaknesses and you will be on track to improving your score, but don't forget to keep your strengths fresh you wouldn't want to forget them on test day!

Best of luck bud, your doing just fine and remember to think: Just how proud you are where you are today versus where you have started.
If your going to make the conscious decision to something, then you gotta either do it or not do it - it's as simple as that - Travis Rice
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by luiscarlos59 » Sat Apr 16, 2011 5:05 pm
Update.. i moved the exam date +1 week because of some agenda problems.

I have been studying focusing on my weaknesses. On my first week I studied 100% number properties from Manhattan guides. Took a gmat prep and scored 590. My score improved!

Second week I studied 100% sentence correction and my score remained almost the same..

Third week i studied 100% bank quizes from Kaptest making different problems .. and my score went down to 550.

I am feeling that my pacing is going down, I am having problems to remember how to solve some kind of problems and I am getting more nervous..

I dont know if by studying only one kind of problems maybe I am forgetting about the other kind of problems. Also because I have not practiced the problems with the same pace as for example making 37 problems without interrumption, my pace is going down..

Can anyone give me any advice...
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by luiscarlos59 » Mon May 09, 2011 8:11 pm
Sorry for my spllig errors im writting it via my iphone

Ok so i took the exam today and i sucked bad! I got on my gmat preps 590 560 510 and 640.
I really can tell you that i got like 4 questions that appeared on my other gmatpreps and that helped me increase my score.

One thing is that i never practiced doing a CAT with the AWA essays i always thought i shouldnt waste one hour of my time in something i can study at the end!
Another point is that i timed myself using a chrongraph instead of a timer so i was accostumed to see time going up instead of down so on the real exam i was a bit confused on how i was with my timing. Another issue is that i didnt practiced reading comprehemesion that much because i thought there were no strategies to read a paragraph.

So the first Cat question really blowed me it was very difficult and i couldnt solve it and it took me about 4 min. At the end of about 4 questions i had taken about 16 min
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by luiscarlos59 » Mon May 09, 2011 8:25 pm
At this point my mind is starting to get nervous bu i dont know why i didnt speed up myself.. Suddenly im on question 28 and i have about one min left for each question so i panicked and started to speed up without Actuay paying Good attention to the questions so my mind went crazy and just couldnt concetrate anymore.

On the break i went to theWC and when i came back the examen hadready begun so i was 2 min behind and this things play a lot of things in your mind so i startes to get nervous again and when i came to the first RC story i just couldnt read it it was so complicated and confusing!! It was like ready hfufjdjdjjdjddjd nothing!
So this is what started to make my mind block. I found the CR very difficult compared to gmatprep or kaplan. They were very tricky and took a lot of my time to answer them so the same thing happened i was left with about 10 questions with about 1 min for each so i just couldnt concentrate as well.

I studied for 3 months and of course i have thought of throwing the towel but i know i can get a good score i feel like crap now like i am so dumb compares to other students but inside of me i know i can get a 650+ score easily so i am rescheduling to taking it again in one month

I will study more on my timing/ pace, doing complete Cats (4hrs) and focus on verbAl

The problem is that i dont want to do the OG again bexause i already know the problems and im left with the kaplan books only..
But for Cats i will try with manhattans
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