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Strategy for a GMAT scheduled on 13th May - Target: 750+

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Strategy for a GMAT scheduled on 13th May - Target: 750+

by Magellan » Sat Mar 22, 2008 6:54 am
Hello all,

I will take the GMAT on 13th May and would like to have your comments on my strategy for preparation. I will update this page as my preparation evolves.

Context
I am a 24 years old french speaking person from Belgium. I have a master in business and a strong quant background as well. I am working a lot during the week and will be only able to free some time to study during the WE.

I took 10 days of vacation before the day of the test. Therefore, between today and 13th May, I have 24 free days that I can partially devote to studying the GMAT. I plan to study 4-6 hours a day during D1-14 and then study 8 hours/day the 10 days before the actual test.

My goal is to score a 750+

My strategy so far
I have the followings book: OG, Kaplan premier, Kaplan 800. I plan to purchase Manhattan SC as well.

So far, I went through the Kaplan (took me ~4days) and did a first MGMAT test and scored the following: 680 (Q47, V35)

My scores (% correct) were:
- PS: 50%
- DS: 60%
- CR: 43%
- SC: 60%
- RC: 58%


Plan for the coming weeks
As I said, I have 24 spare days to dedicate to GMAT

D1-D4: Kaplan 800
D5: MGMAT test + review
D6-D8: OG
D9: MGMAT test + Review
D10-D12: Manhattan SC
D13: GMAT prep test + review
D14-D24: unallocated yet...

Given the fact that english is not my mother tonge, I will focus more on the verbal because I think most of my potential is there.

Questions for you
- Do you have comments on my strategy?
- When do you think it is best to take the preparation tests?
- What other books should I purschase? Should I maybe also buy the other verbal books from Manhattan?
- Is 680 a good starting point? Do you think it is feasible to go up to 750+?

Thanks a lot

Magellan
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by pissantvache » Tue Mar 25, 2008 7:21 am
I think you probably don't need the other books (definitely not RC, and probably not CR), but it probably would help to take a look at the strategies they use in those.

One thing you're going to want to do is continually review earlier material. If you haven't looked at a subject for two or three weeks, just a cursory glance at the review book will be immeasurably helpful in cementing the subject matter.

Concerning SC, speaking french natively will definitely help for verb tense and verb mood (especially the subjunctive; most americans can't do that naturally), but you'll suffer in idioms. I would recommend writing flash cards (by hand) with examples and spending about an hour a night even during work going over them, since idioms will be fairly tough for you. Other issues like parallelism and comparisons shouldn't be any easier or harder than for native speakers of english.

RC will perhaps be a little difficult, so I would recommend diagramming since, if you're like me, I skip over without noticing sentences that I don't immediately understand.

CR will be similar, but perhaps easier on the whole because there isn't such a preponderance of large and annoying words in the prompts.

For both RC and CR, i think the most important thing to do is find a method that works for you, whether that's from MGMAT or someone on the forum or whatever, and then stick to that. take notes and review them, or read the answer choices back into the question stem or whatever, but just be sure to be methodical and scientific in your examination of the questions.

Other than that, I would probably take a practice test every couple of days in the lead up to the test, since that will help your stamina and make you keep applying concepts that you may have forgotten. I would also say to save the GMATPrep tests for a little bit later, since there are fairly marked differences between them and the MGMAT ones, and it's important to understand close to the test date exactly how the gmat itself works and looks and feels.
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by Magellan » Tue Apr 01, 2008 1:47 am
Thanks a lot for your answer that helps me a lot.

pissantvache wrote: RC will perhaps be a little difficult, so I would recommend diagramming since, if you're like me, I skip over without noticing sentences that I don't immediately understand.
Could you clarify that? What do you mean by "diagramming"? You mean taking notes or drawing a little diagram if relevant?
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by Magellan » Sun Apr 06, 2008 7:50 am
Over my the last 7 days of studies, I went through the Kaplan 800 and focused on the verbal section. I was quite confident that I improved a lot on my CR/SC/RC after that. Quant felt easy (I hit 80% on PS and 70% on DS).

I did another MGMAT full of confidence and I scored only 640 (Q46, V32).

Here is a table that summarizes my performance over the two tests. I am pleased with my PS & CR performance that overall improved but dissapointed by my results in DS and SC.


I think I did the following wrong:
- I was less focus than the previous one. I took it in a relax way, full of confidence, aiming at 700+... I am happy the result reminded my that you have to be at 100% all the time.
- I have difficulties to focus on the screen, especially for the verbal part of the test. I have to find a way (maybe the one suggested by Mayonnaise) to overcome this. I am sure that my SC score suffered a lot from this.

The result also raised some questions:
- I don't know exactly how the score adapts. Is it really worth it paying more attention to the first 10 questions? Why did the test ask me 300-500 questions but not the previous time? Because I failed more in the first 5 questions?
- I suck at "analyse of an arg structure". Do those questions actually exist on the GMAT? Where to find materials to improve on those?
Last edited by Magellan on Sun Apr 27, 2008 6:10 am, edited 1 time in total.
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by Magellan » Sun Apr 20, 2008 6:49 am
My preparation is evolving. As anticipated, I have less time to dedicate to the GMAT but I work on it 6-8hours/day each day of the WE.

Recently, I went through the Sentence Correction book of MGMAT which was very very good. I practiced some exercices from the O.G. (let's say 10 questions of each question), memorised a lot of idioms. I felt very confident again as my hit rate in SC (questions from O.G.) was ~75% and above 80% in quant.

Today, my plan was to take my first GMATPrep test. However, this morning I felt ver very tired and a bit hang-over from yesterday. After some hesitation, I decided to take it anyway. During the test, I felt I was doing very bad, followed my gut feeling for multiple questions and ended the Verbal section with 4min to go. I thought my score was going to be very bad but I had the pleasant surprise to see I scored 720 (Q48, V40)...

So, I am more confident than ever. I feel my preparation in verbal is starting to pay back. I need to fine-tune my quant to hit consistently 48-50. I still have 14 days free before the D-day and it seems that my 750+ target is now reachable!

I will keep you posted...
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by Magellan » Sun Apr 27, 2008 6:00 am
Last week was a very bad week at work. I had to work a lot and decided to take a relax week-end in terms of GMAT. I took two tests over the WE.

I re-took GMATPrep 1 and was surprised to see some repeats. I was not focused and wondering if the right way to do a re-take was not to fully uninstall the program. I finished the quant section with 10 minutes to go but had to guess 4 out of the 5 last questions in verbal. I scored a 710 (Q44, V42) with a lot of careless mistakes in Quant.
--> Improve time management in both sections, stay focus during test!

Today, I took a PowerPrep test and scored a 750 (Q49, V42). I am now convinced my verbal improved and that I can hit 50 in Quant...

I have still 12 days of preparation before my test, I am still confident I can break the 750 on the test!
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Deception

by Magellan » Sun May 04, 2008 7:23 am
I am now on vacation for the next 10 days and I will do the test on 13th May.

Over last 4 days, I went through toughest questions of the official guide 10 with a strong focus on verbal. I was very satisfied with my scores (80% in SC and 85-90% in CR) and felt I really improved vs. before.

This afternoon, I took a PowerPrep test full of confidence and scored only 720 (Q50, V38).

My debrief is the following:
- Quant: I will almost completely stop practicing quant as I have scored 48/44/49/50 in my last 4 tests. I am now confident when attacking each question and have no doubt I will be able to score well on the D-Day.

- Verbal: Very surprisingly, I was convinced to do well during the test but scored only 38 whereas I scored 40/42/42 on my last 3 tests. I did 4 mistakes in SC, 2 in RC and 1 in CR. I have seen quite a lot of repeats of questions I already did when practicing with OG10 in SC and it made me loose my focus I think… I will continue to work on verbal in the coming days and do another test (probably a MGMAT) in a couple of days. I hope this experience will not repeat during the real GMAT...
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by jamess » Sun May 04, 2008 6:38 pm
Given your strong quant background, I would suggest you to first gain a perfect score in it, 51.

Then spend time on verbal.

Btw, quant boosts your score more than the verbal. see below link for explaination.
Check out <a href="https://gmatadvice.blocked">gmatadvice.blocked</a> for useful tips to ace the GMAT.
<a href="https://gmatadvice.blocked/2008/04/ ... tml">ebook on critical reasoning</a> launched.
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by Magellan » Mon May 05, 2008 7:47 am
Thanks for your reply jamess. In fact, I will continue to work on geometry that I have identified as my only weakness in Quant....

Today, I did two tests because I wanted to regain confidence in my verbal abilities. I also want to practice full tests in thelast days before the real test in order to learn automatism and get used to focus 3 hours in a row.

I first did a MGMAT CAT. Quant section was just a joke. Questions take sometimes 4 minutes to solve and I had to guess 4 out of the 5 last ones. Overall, I scored 700 (Q43, V41). Key take-away is that I definitely improved in verbal (41 vs. 36/34 in the two previous tests) but I do not want to do MGMAT anymore. It is good practice but I fear it will not reflect, especially in quant, the right level of difficulty. It does not help you to build momentum/automatism as you do in GMAT Prep.

I then did the GMATPrep 1 for the third time and scored 770 (Q50, V45). I saw some repeats, especially in verbal, but I rarely could remember the answer and had to solve the whole problem again. I hope real test will be like that one... :)

One week before the test and I really hope I will reach my 750+ target…
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by Magellan » Tue May 06, 2008 7:21 am
Today, I practiced AWA in the morning and took GMATPrep 2 for the first time in the afternoon. I scored 700 (Q45, V40).

My debrief:
- Qant: I did a lot of careless/stupid mistakes. I am not overly concerned are those are probably due to my lack of focus during the test.
- Verbal: I scored 85% in RC, 78% in CR and 50% in SC!!! I think the outcome is clear: I have to improve there. I don't know how I could do so many mistakes as I am scoring 80% in OG questions.

I also think I start to be completely obsessed by the GMAT. I can't stop thinking about it and I go thourgh big up (yesterday after 770) and down (after the 700), sometimes within a single day. I need to cool down, practice maybe less in terms of hours/quantity of exercices but increase the quality.

Advice/remarks are welcome
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by Magellan » Sun May 11, 2008 1:40 am
Hello,

Over the mlast days, I practiced SC a lot. I did mostly questions from OG. I think I improved a bit since my hit rate is now consistently above 80%.

I did another GMATPrep two days ago and scored 750 (Q49, V44). I think that 750 is a true reflections of my GMAT abilities. I still did 3 careless mistakes in quant. I should really be careful on the test day. My time management has really improved. Taking a lot of tests pays back.

I am now in the last 3 days before the test. My plan is to really slow down in terms ot study time. I will review materials, do basic exercices to build confidence and relax as much as I can.

This forum has been very helpful over the course of my preparation. So, whatever the result, thanks a lot. I will keep you posted with my final result.
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it is may 14... what are the results?

by dan_phila » Wed May 14, 2008 5:56 am
i hope you did ok..
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by Magellan » Wed May 14, 2008 8:12 am
Not really: https://www.beatthegmat.com/beaten-by-gm ... 10776.html
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Sorry about your subpar performance

by wizardofwashington » Wed May 14, 2008 11:18 am
Sorry to hear about your D-Day experience. I think you must retake, given the potential to perform at a higher level and evidence in your practice tests. I think you will do much better the next time around. Do give it a shot.
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by Magellan » Thu May 15, 2008 2:08 am
Yes, that is my plan! Thanks for the support! :)
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