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BEST TIME FOR OG VERBAL REVIEW, QUANT REVIEW AND Q PACK 1

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BEST TIME FOR OG VERBAL REVIEW, QUANT REVIEW AND Q PACK 1

by dp26389 » Fri May 16, 2014 8:04 pm
Hi!
All GMAT aspirants must be aware that there are 3 main official sources for GMAT prep: The OG, OG for verbal review and OG for quant review. From what I have read elsewhere one must finish the OG before doing anything else. I have done this myself.

My question is should the verbal and quant review be left for the last few weeks of prep? Also should the GMATPREP question pack 1 be left for the last too?

Kindly give your feedback and also mention how many weeks before the exam should one start working on these 3 official practice sources.

Thanks!!
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by [email protected] » Sat May 17, 2014 12:27 am
Hi dp26389,

Most Test Takers use the OG13 because it's a big (and up-to-date) source for questions that once appeared on the actual GMAT. The subject-specific books for the Quant and Verbal are also good books, but I would not go so far as to say that they are necessary for anyone's studies.

If you've put in the proper time to learn the content that is tested, and the various tactics and strategies that can be used to answer those questions in an efficient way, then almost any combination of study resources COULD help you to hit your goal score.

To help you evaluate your study plan, here are the immediate questions that seem pertinent:
1) How long have you been studying?
2) How have you been scoring on your practice CATs?
3) What is your goal score?

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by David@VeritasPrep » Sat May 17, 2014 4:19 am
From what I have read elsewhere one must finish the OG before doing anything else. I have done this myself.
I disagree with this statement. Official problems are terrific problems for testing your strategies and for honing your skills, but you need to develop those strategies first!

I would recommend that someone new to the GMAT start with a good complete set of guides like the M-GMAT set or the (in my opinion) even more thorough Veritas Prep set of books. These books contain reviews of skills in math and verbal, they contain basic, essential strategies, and they contain advanced strategies. I have had people who were very good in math tell me that they only wanted to study verbal and then find that they learned more from the Veritas Prep math books than they ever dreamed they would. You do not know what knowledge you lack until you see it all gathered in a logical way.

Working with these books first is important because a student who has bad habits or techniques will merely reinforce those bad habits by doing hundreds of problems in the official guide.

Now if a student is not shooting for a really high score or is that rare person who somehow just naturally has good techniques then starting with the official guide is fine. You may be this person who just got nearly every OG 13 problem right as you went through, and learned from the ones that you missed. It is possible.

But most people are better off starting with the strategy guides that I mentioned and using the OG 13th and the GMAT Prep Pack 1 later to test their knowledge and hone their techniques.

Of the three resources I would say that the Verbal and Quant Reviews are the most expendable. The OG 13 is newer and the Prep Pack 1 is both newer and delivered on computer.

Unless you had remarkable success on the OG 13th edition problems (in which case you can take a GMATPrep test and schedule you exam), now is the time for you to get some strategy guides so that you can develop your techniques before you use the remaining official problems.

Finally, Rich has asked a great question, "have you taken a CAT test?" - either the GMATPrep or another practice exam? That will give you an indication of where things stand for you right now.
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by dp26389 » Sun May 18, 2014 12:25 am
Hi!
Thanks for the input :). I started my prep in feb and my test is scheduled on 17th June. Since march I have tried the following mocks:

GMATprep -660(q47 v34) (missed last 4 verbal qúestions)

MGMAT 1- 690(q45 v39)

MGMAT 2- 690(q45 v39)

MGMAT 3- 680(q46 v36)

My target score is 720.

From time to time I have taken tips from MGMAT strategy guides and I am using verbal online course from E-GMAT. I will try the 2nd gmat prep test in a few days and buy another 2 in exam pack 1. That's I wanted to try some official sources (mentioned in my post) before the mocks. I am repeating OG verbal questions via E-GMAT practice files.

How does my plan sound??
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by [email protected] » Sun May 18, 2014 1:58 pm
Hi dp26389,

Your practice CAT scores are remarkably consistent, which means that you're "seeing" questions in the same way from CAT to CAT. While these scores are all strong (they're between the 80th and 90th percentiles), you need to make some minor tweaks to what you're doing to raise your score into the mid-700s.

If you can answer a few more questions, then I'll be happy to make some recommendations:

1) Did you take the ENTIRE CAT each time (or did you skip the Essay and/or IR sections)?
2) When reviewing each CAT, how many times did you get a question wrong because of a silly mistake vs. how many times did you get it wrong because it was too hard?
3) How do you tend to perform on DS questions?
4) What is your "weakest" Verbal category?

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by dp26389 » Sun May 18, 2014 11:00 pm
Dear Rich,
Thanks a lot for the prompt reply. Here are the answers to the 4 questions:

1) Did you take the ENTIRE CAT each time (or did you skip the Essay and/or IR sections)?
Ans) I took entire cat each time. The breaks I took were of the same duration as the breaks in the real test.

2) When reviewing each CAT, how many times did you get a question wrong because of a silly mistake vs. how many times did you get it wrong because it was too hard?
Ans) QA: My target score is 49-50. I made 3 silly mistakes in the first 10 quant questions of the last CAT. I make such mistakes very often and I feel my pacing is the real culprit. I am very jittery at the start and try to do things too quickly. This results in lower percentile at the end of the first 10 questions. Pushing it up again is difficult and my percentile hovers around 67 %ile for the rest of the test. I feel that I am nervous at the start and it takes me a while to calm down. By then, the damage is done.

VA: My target score is 40. I generally don't make silly mistakes in this section. But when I do make one, it's usually due to missing some details in RC or CR.

3) How do you tend to perform on DS questions?

Ans)Till a few months ago DS was one of my weakest areas, mainly because of my haphazard approach. Since then I have adopted a standard approach and I have had some improvements due to this. However, I feel that my overall accuracy is still not that good. PLEASE FIND THE RELATED ATTACHMENTS.

4) What is your "weakest" Verbal category?
Ans) My weakest verbal category is CR: bold face,evaluate, conclusion and flaw in argument.
RC is better but inference and main idea need some improvement.
SC is the strongest of the 3. Topics I need to work on are idioms(English is not my native language) and comparisons.
Please find the the attachment.

I guess I have to work a lot in the coming days!! Once again, thanks for your help.
Attachments
qa 3 tests.JPG
MGMAT QA PERFORMANCE IN 3 CATs
qa last test.JPG
MGMAT QA PERFORMANCE IN LAST TEST
va 3 tests.JPG
MGMAT VA PERFORMANCE IN 3 CATs
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by [email protected] » Mon May 19, 2014 11:24 am
Hi dp26389,

To hit a Quant Scaled Score in the 49+ range, you really have to eliminate all the silly mistakes. You've properly defined your situation, so now you have to work to fix it. Generally, doing more work "on the pad" (notes, calculations, organized work, etc.) will help. While everyone feels the "time pressure", the truth is that you have enough time to do all the necessary work on the pad; you do NOT have time to stare (either at the screen or at the pad).

You're really close to your Verbal Scaled Score goal, so I'd suggest that you take a good look at all of your 50/50 questions (when you narrowed it down to 2 options, but still got the question wrong). You almost got those questions correct, but you missed something....figure out what that "something" is and build up a memory/sense of what the wrong answer typically "looks like."

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