GMAT Strategy

Hello everybody.
I have been reading this forum since aprox 2 weeks ago. I have read almost every single intervention from the different members and now I start to understand why I failed to nail the GMAT. I am going to tell my distressing history so that I can have an input from the people who have beaten the GMAT so far. In the same way I hope this post could serve also as a model about what should NOT be done for all the people who are initiating their GMAT preparation. I really would appreciate if it is possible to have the comments form: “Ekta-Ngufo”, Erick, mayonnai5e and all people out there who would like to help me.

Before start, I can say that I am a not a native English speaker and I am not strong neither in verbal nor in Quant; However all my life I have been struggling with numbers. The first time I took the GMAT was in Dec 07, I scored 410 (V 24%- Q16%) and I had prepared my self during aprox 3 month. At that time I used 2 books: the OG 11 and the Kaplan premier program 2008. I also did the whole CD that came with the Kaplan premier program book and took the PrepCATsoft (In which I scored near the 400 range).
Base on the first result I decided to enroll in a Kaplan Classroom program (bad decision..). I took the whole course and I studied for other 3 month. I did every single problem that contained this course and I studied and made all the material from the course (There is a bunch of material). I took aprox 10 simulation CATs from Kaplan and I took again 2 PrepCATsoft. I also worked again with OG 11 (Even though I did not do the whole book…but I concentrated in the last 100 for every section).
For the last 4 kaplan test I scored in the range between 540 and 570. However, now in retrospective those scores were not representatives because for lot of questions that appeared in the KaplanCATs I already knew them, because I had worked with them in the CD that came with the Kaplan premier08 book. In the 2 PrepCATsoft I scored in the range between 470 and 490…. However I though at that moment that the results were not representative of my real performance (big mistake) and that I should considered the results obtained in the Kaplan test (big mistake).
The day of the test (April 08,after the 3 month of preparation) I was very nervous, I remember now that I was not even thinking, I could not controlled my self and as a result I scored a pathetic 330!!…… Imagine that… I could not believe when I saw the score and I almost died. I blamed that result to my nerves and I decided to take again the test for the next month. During the days before the third exam I worked with the Verbal OG and the QuantOG I made few more exercises and full length test from the Kaplan material. Even though I do not remember the scores of the simulated Kaplan test they were between the 500 and the 550 range. I took the third GMAT in May and scored a poor 490 (V24%-Q36%).
Because I was not satisfied with this result I decided to take another exam in Jun immediately after the May exam (BIG error). Even though I was not nervous as in the April exam I felt that for the May exam I was not peace at all and that this was the reason of not been able to break at least the 500 barrier. I decided for this last try not to study anything (Don’t ask me where I took that stupid idea) and just relaxed my self. The result a poor 440 (V 30%-Q21%)

Summarizing:
Dec07: 410 (V 24%- Q16%)
Apr08: 330 (V 5% - Q 25%) Who cares!)
May08: 490 (V24%-Q36%)
Jun08: 440 (V 30%-Q21%)
(Look the differences between the verbal and quantitative form may and June…I have no idea)....
Material Used: OG11, VerbalOG, QuantOG, Kaplan Premierprogram08 book, Kaplan classroom prep course.
Total preparation time: 6 month (First time:3 month) (second time:3 month)

Analyzing my mistakes:

o I did not try to find new techniques and new ways and I think this was what killed me. I made thousands of exercises month over month but not trying different techniques until I found the one that best worked for me but instead I made one exercise after the other with the same technique (or without anyone at all) which in conclusion I was not doing any improvement. ….That is why now I am looking for your help to understand what I am doing wrong.

o Something that now analyzing I remember was that I used to fail a same question several times. For example if I failed a question and I tried to make the same question or appeared after a while in a test I failed again.
o I think that I just practice and practice more worrying in quantity than in quality. I think I got obsessed to much with the GMAT. I used to study more than 4 hr in a row (I usually studied 5 hr) and now I think that the brain can not work and process information after to much time of studying.
o I think that OG and Kaplan were too complicated to work from the beginning and maybe that was a mistake. In the other hand I think that Kaplan strategies do not work for me. It is possible that for some people these strategies work but not for me and what I did is that I obligated and pushed my self to use these strategies even though they did not go with me and maybe that was my mistake. Now I think that I have to look for my own strategies, finding the way that allow me to answer the question but not imposing me strategies that just do not work for me or with I do not feel comfortable.
o Weakest areas: In general my weakness is Verbal.
Doing a more detail analysis of my weaknesses: RC (is the section in which I perform the poorest… I have retention & concentration issues, ), CR (After RC the weakest in verbal…sometimes I succeeded and others just didn’t) and DS (even though I really did study hard this part and focused my attention to try to improved it (reason why I think I got the 36% in May) I still make lot of mistakes, is like if I definitely I am not good for that…. I think that my problem is not anymore in the methodology of answering this kind of question but in the theory to be able to identify the answer. Maybe I am not thinking enough…..I do not know.

Now that you can have a better picture of my situation I ask for your help and support in order to suggest me how may I proceed. What should I do this time and how should I prepare my self? I am really confused and I do not know how I should tackle the GMAT this time. I just don’t want to buy a bunch of books for nothing.
In case of new material what books do you recommend me? I was thinking to buy Manhattan books and Princeton books, but I do not know if that is going to work or if that is what I should do…….due to the fact that I studied with lot of material from Kaplan but it seemed did not provide me any improvement. Maybe the problem was not the material but the way I used………????....However I won’t like to work with Kaplan material no more…………
Please help me to understand what should I do. My target score is 650 and I know I can do it. There is nothing impossible in this world and if I have to study 6 month, 1 or 2 years I will do it…..I know that I can do it….. I just need the right guidance. I am willing to do whatever it takes to achieve my dreams. Even though I can not tell you that I am happy for what have happened to me I do can tell you that now I am stronger and because now I understand the game I will beat the GMAT.

Postscript: I want to thank in advance to ngufo who has been supporting me since last week; Thanks ngufo.

Dear Daniel,

I am exactly as you were in the middle of your process

I thank you for sharing your scope and experience, very brave.

Best regards,

Lukacsdepereny

danielbm,

I've read your post and first off I'd like to congratulate you for not giving up! Now, I can relate to your situation as I also took the Kaplan course and found it not to be very valuable as it focused on strategies where the fundamentals was really my area of weakness. Based on your post and my experience here is my advice to you.

QUANT - I'm weak in Quant eventhough I work in Finance mainly because I do all my work in Excel/with a calculator and after I my first GMAT I recieved some advice that I should really go back and take a college math course to work on my fundamentals and I did. After graduating with honors in Finance / Accounting, I went back to college and took Pre-Algebra and it was worth every penny... There were times when I felt that the class was too simple, but it helped a ton to not question the fundamentals during an exam as you are aware most GMAT questions are fairly simple to answer if you are confident about the theory, etc...

Also, there are other GMAT prep courses such as Manhattan / VERITAS which appear to be more focused on the fundmentals behind problems versus just using a strategy so you may look into that as an option. I've signed up for the two day QUANT focus course taught by VERITAS and hope it helps.

VERBAL - I think VERBAL is my strength, but still scored a terrible 50% on my first GMAT as I didn't take enough time to understand how the GMAT was testing me. Often times I would pick answers to CR questions that seemed to be the most logical answer, but would be based on information outside of the passage. For me the gains from improvement came from quality practice... As you have noted, good GMAT study is about quality not quantity...

Practice does not make perfect, PERFECT PRACTICE makes PERFECT.

For RC, the thing I did was imagine that whatever subject was being talked about was something I was really really interested in. If the passage talked about a bird, then I would tell myself I needed to really know this information because I was going to go buy that mother f-ing bird later that day.... etc...

SC - Here is where I think you need to just see alot of problems and practice, practice, and practice. To this day I can't tell you what the rules are for any of the SC questions I get right or wrong, but I can pick out the ones that don't look right.

Material - Manhattan has good guides and they are more focused, I have both the SC guide and the Geometry book. For CR, I hear that the LSTAT guide to critical reasoning is really good, but I can't attest to that.

If you haven't done so you need to do more practice tests using the GMAT PREP software. Also, you can download the old PowerPrep tests, they are not adaptive, but they do give you explanations which can help.

Finally, I agree with you that it is not benefical to over study... I studied about an hour so so every night and 4-5 hours on the weekend, but I would also take breaks whenever I was feeling burnt out. Often times I would go back to a problem I was stuck on and solve it easily after a short break.

I hope this helps!

All the best!

D Terman

D-Terman; Lucas: Thanks a lot for your comments.
I have prepared and analysis of my weaknesses and the action plans to attack them.
I just would like to share with you and off course any advice, comment or suggestionis appreciated.
D-Terman I agree with you and what I think I should focus the most is to work in my fundamentals…here is my plan.

ANALYZING WEAKNESSES

In General terms

Improving the Basics
I have to work to improve my fundamentals: Reading skill habits as well as Math concepts. Regarding Math; even though I think my math knowledge is not so weak do to my background and what I did study in the previous attempts I definitely think that the best to do is to reinforce my Math’s basics. With respect to verbal I have comprehension&retention problems and due to this I used to read incorrectly a question. When I used to concentrate really hard and put the maximum attention to a question I remember that I performed better. I remember that I forced my self to better concentrate and to pay more attention when I was reading a question and when I did this I performed better.
Plan of action:
• Math:
o Do all the Math Bible - Princeton (Maths and main edition) and Theory from PREPSoft.
o Expend 15 min every day to work in mental math: Eg: doing up to 2 digit *,/ and 4 digit +, - in your head (ex: 27*32 = 864) as quickly and accurately as possible. (Objective: Get faster with greater accuracy.)

Verbal:
• Read 1hr of English every day over at least 2 month:
Pick up on article every day, from wall street journal, American science, cnn, anywhere that I like to read. And then after reading the whole article, just try summarizing it in my own words and write it.... When reading the articles DON'T just read them!! Read them critically! While you are reading you should constantly be asking yourself several things: "Main Idea?", "Scope?" - Why is the author writing? - What is being said? - How does the author accomplish her goal?
You will need to do these with the following goals in mind: Read faster, notice how they write, think of what ideas they are trying to present and why they are valid/invalid in your opinion.
• I did not focus in my weaknesses, is possible that I knew them but I did not try to fix them.
I did not track and follow my progress regarding my weaknesses. I just focus in doing exercises over exercises. I focused more in quantity than in quality. I knew the areas in which I perform poorly, but I did not stop to analyze how to overcome these weakness areas. Likewise I used to fail a same question several times.
Plan of action:
Track of my progress with logfile. Analyze once a week my progress and base on the results reformulate plan of study.

• I did not try different techniques and different ways. I guess I was just expecting to “Get it” without trying new ways; (I expected that just with practice I would improve the different sections of the exams……WRONG boy)
I think that OG and Kaplan were too complicated to work from the beginning and maybe that was a mistake. In the other hand I think that Kaplan strategies do not work for me.
Plan of action:
o To look for my own strategies. To find the way that allow me to answer the question but not imposing me strategies that just do not work for me or with I do not feel comfortable.
o To work now with other books different from Kaplan: Like: Princeton review and Manhattan .
o Keep participating in forum such as “I just beat the GMAT” and ask for what other GMAT takers are doing.




• When I got a question wrong instead or try to do it again I went to see the answer explanation in the book immediately and after that I did not try to do it again.
Plan of action :
o For every single question that I do wrong I will REDO IT AGAIN until I make sure I am comfortable with it. The question is: If someone was to give me the same question from the test that I wrote last week (that I got wrong), Am I 100% sure that I would get it right? If not then I am not revising enough… focus and REDOIT until I understand it.
o Understand the WHY..? Why I get WRONG the answer? Make sure any question I get wrong, I understand how to do it right. Don’t learn the answer, learn how to do it right.

• With respect to the TIMING issue…I timed my self when I did the exercises. I can say that I had this Timing issue always present in my head….However I did not re-do (do again) the exercises that took me more than 2 min again….for which now I think I was not doing anything…….
I usually tend to run out of time in the practice test in the quantitative section as well as in the verbal (Verbal in the last 10 and for Quant in the last 6….in average)
Plan of action:
Time my self in every question and track “times” in the logfile. For every question that I can’t do it in the time allotted (math:2min and verbal: 1.8 min) I will do it again until I mastered. I will start trimming once I feel that I have overcame my fundamentals.

• During the exam and even during the last weeks before the exam nerves won me the battle.
Plan of action:
Work in my nerves form the beginning. Read books, cool my self and take of on Sundays.

• My major weakness is verbal. RC is the one in which I do the poorly followed by CR. Afterwards came DS and I would say that in the same level SC and PS.
Plan of action:
RC: Work in fundamentals: 1hr of lecture daily.
CR: Practice and Practice…Look for my on way and technique.(Work with the critical reasoning Bible)
DS: Practice and Practice; Create flash Cards Look for my on way and technique. (Assure fundamentals: Math-Bible)
SC: Practice and Practice, Create flash Cards and Study the Manhattan GMAT book.
PS: Practice and Practice; Create flash Cards look for my on way and technique. (Assure fundamentals: Math-Bible)

• I used to study more than 4 hr in a row (I usually studied 5 hr) and now I think that the brain can not work and process information after to much time of studying.
Plan of action: Study maximum just 3 hr on weekdays, 4hr on Saturday and take off Sunday. Total time of study not more than 3 month.

• One of the things I can notice is that I have to better concentrate when I read. Usually when I put extra attention and the maximum of my effort in the moment of the reading I did better in RC and CR
Plan of action:
o Read CARREFULLY AND WITH LOT OF CONCENTRATION; Avoid to make a lot of careless errors because of lapses in concentration. This is the big challenge when it comes to CR: staying focused!
o Try to go into a passage with an attitude of excitement to learn about the information it contains. Strategy to help to maintain focus while reading.

Quantitative in General:
I used to make a good number of errors in situations where translation was the most important part of the question. I know I can do the simple algebra behind the question; but I think one of my problems was be able to put the words into algebra. I used to miss questions because I didn't translate them correctly, or maybe I even didn’t translate them at all.
Plan of action: Study and reinforce “translation” topic. Other areas to concentrate in: Rates, Ratios and Probabilities (Remember: “Rates and Ratios Are More Important Than Combinations and Permutations.......economize time study”.

DS: Since the beginning I noticed that in DS I performed the poorly in the quantitative section. I worked really hard in order to improve this section. I think it was the reason of getting a 36% in my may exam)….However this preparation was not maybe enough and I have to keep reinforcing this area….Perhaps that is the reason why I performed poorly in the last exam.
Plan of action:
Practice and Practice; Create flash Cards; Look for my on way and technique. (Assure fundamentals: Math-Bible)

PS
Practice and Practice; Create flash Cards look for my on way and technique. (Assure fundamentals: Math-Bible

Verbal in General:
Since I have Comprehension/Retention problems
I think I can salvage the most points by getting used to working with the denser reading passages and get comfortable extracting the point of technical jargon and abstract ideas.
Plan of action:
Fundamentals: Read 1hr of English every day over 1 month: Pick up on article, reading it critically and try summarizing it in my own words and write it.... When reading the articles DON'T just read them!! Read them critically!

RC:
IN RC either did quite well in a passage, or missed all the questions entirely.
Plan: Worrking with passages that I am not comfortable with and try to get used to muddling through the ones that are more complicated/more technical. On the passages I was comfortable with, my performance was adequate. So that If I can match this on the harder passages, I will be able to gain back a lot of points.
Plan of action: Fundamentals: Read 1hr of English every day over 1 month:

CR:
I am not sure about what happen with me in this section; however what I can point is:
-Was the second area after RC in which I performed the poorly, base on this I have to work hard in order to improve it.
-For some questions (I guess for the ones of easy level) I could find the answer but for others I just could not get it. Sometimes either I did quite well, or could not make them at all.
I noted that when I REALLY CONCENTRATE and tried to understand what the stimulus said I could saw the answer. It is like if sometimes I just read to read but….(Again comprehension and retention problems)
-Definitely Kaplan strategies of how to attack this section did not work for me…… conclusion-evidence-assumption……
Plan of action:
Practice and Practice…Look for my on way and technique.(Work with the critical reasoning Bible)

SC:
I think is the area in which I did it the best. I guess I just need to keep practicing.
Plan of action: Practice and Practice, Create flash Cards and Study the Manhattan GMAT book.

PREP MATERIALS & SCHEDULE

GENERAL STUDY PLAN (The order of the books count….Any suggestions??)

a-Clean up basics and fundamentals by doing all:
1-Math Bible
2-Princeton main edition.
3-Princeton Maths
4-Princeton Verbal

b-Once my basics are done; Get more practice with (NOT SURE) ??????? Please Help
Manhattan SC
The Critical Reasoning Bible

c-Finally when I have practiced enough and I am ready for the main goal - start with:
1-Official Guide 11th edition +Guide of this book from Jeff Sackmann
2-Quant Math Guide + Guide of this book from Jeff Sackmann
3-Verbal Guide.

It sounds like you have a solid plan of attack for your next GMAT. You're correct; analyzing problems is the key to improvement.

Since you've got a pretty good strategy already, I'll just add a couple things:

1. Maybe you should consider taking a prep course. You're looking for a 200-point improvement. This is a pretty tall order, and it would probably make things easier if you had some help along the way. I am partial, of course, because I work for a test prep company, but trust me: courses work!

2. Your weakness in quant seems to be that you lack fundamental skills (doing quick mental math, manipulating equations, etc.). I might advise that you take some time away from doing GMAT problems and just focus on doing math. You might consider taking a basic math course at a local college or buying a basic algebra workbook that has nothing at all to do with the GMAT. Once you've gotten the fundamentals down, then move on to the real GMAT problems, which you'd hopefully find much easier after some background study. I've had a few students who have really made big improvements in this way. If you're going to take a GMAT prep course too, I'd recommend brushing up on your math fundamentals BEFORE the course so that you get the most out of it.

Hello Jim; thanks so much for your support words.
I have been thinking in taking a prep course but as you said I have to wait to do that. This is not the right time; I have to work first in my fundamentals. I am going to wait for my evolution and base on that I will consider enrolling in a course or not. The thing is that I already took the Kaplan course and it did not work to well for me so that I will put this option in the outstanding points to see what happen. I may consider Manhattan or Veritas…. Because I am in Montreal the advantage is that I have Veritas in my city but not with Manhattan.
I am going to take your advice and I am going to work in my Math fundamentals. I do not know if the math bible is enough….. Because is really complete; but anyway I am going to take your recommendations and I am going to study with some basic material that I might get in my city library (like basic algebra, number properties and basic math operations….. …. I can tell you that is what I am exactly doing with my verbal…I am taking now some Reading comprehension courses to improve my reading skills.
Once again thanks for your post and I will be pendant in your interventions. I like the way you advice people. I think you are very professional, have experience and know about the subject; so thanks for your support in the community.

daniel originally wrote:

Hello AleksandrM;
I have been reading your interventions and let me congrats for your improvements. Base on your experience I would say that you are the right person to advice me. I really would appreciate if you may provide me some comments and recommendations. Following is my story… waiting for your post.
Best luck.

My reply:

The best way to improve is to do the following:

1) Get a basic math textbook at a library and in there find their explanations of basic equations, quadratic equations, linear equations, inequalities, linear inequalities, quadratic inequalities, equations with absolute value sign, inequalities with absolute value sign, equations with mutliple variables, equations with variables in the exponent.

2) Solve the problems in the OG at least three times over. Always compare what you do to what the book does. Really learn how they set up equations in both data sufficiensy and problem solving questions. 95% of your GMAT score on the quant section depends on your ability to translate words into equations.

3) Ignore probability and combinations and permutations. Instead, pay a lot of attention to problems that involve rates, time and distance, as well as rates, time, and work to be finished. Also, pay attention to problems with fractions. Fractions are usually used in problems that involve amount of liquids or some other unimportant material present in a jar, barrell, etc.

4) Really pay a lot of attention to problems that involve percents. This requires you to become very familiar with fractions and decimals.

5) The most difficult aspect of the quant section is number properties. This required a lot of time of me, and I had to spend about two months just really getting down the basics on these problems. These problems are very tricky and require you to really pay attention to what you are doing; they are especially tricky when put into a data sufficiency question.

On quant, I found the Manhattan GMAT books very helpful for getting down the basics. For practice, as I already stated above, I found the OG books the most effective.

For verbal:

1) Go through the Manhattan GMAT sentence correction guide and make a lot of notes to yourself. Then, just review review and review. It is critical that you really cut down the time you spend on these problems in order to create more time for the reading comprehension and critical reasoning problems.

2) On reading comprehension, learn how to move over information that is less relevant and pluck out information that is more important.

3) For critical reasoning, really analyze the explanations in the OG. Learn why one answer is better than another.

Other than that, just see my blog; you might find some useful information there. I have labels on the right hand side, where you can find verbal strategy, which includes lectures on the sentence correction and critical reasoning questions. I also have some quant problems where I provide a pretty detailed explanations about how I arrived at the answer.

Hope this helps.