GMAT Strategy

This is my first post (hopefully of many) on this forum! I'm going to start studying for the GMAT on the 5th of febr and I'll take the test on the 5th of april. Because there is quite a delay for shipping books to my country, I would like to order them as soon as possible. Thus this post.

I've found this forum via the blog of Eric and would like to thank him for this great initiative! I've been reading here a lot and found really valuable information on strategies and resources. I've tried to come up with a list of books that would help me for my prep, hopefully i'll get some comments before I start buying. My budget is limited (I'm an undergrad student and have to pay for this myself), but I want to spend enough money to be the best prepared as I can get!

GOAL
My goal is definitly 700+ because I would like to do the NYU Stern' MBA and/or work for firms like BCG. I've heard that these strategy consulting firms also look at the GMAT, is that true?

ABOUT ME

Weakness:
- English: Writing is really bad as you may have noticed: This must be one of the firsts english texts I've actually written myself. But contradictionnary, I think my general Voc/RC/SC skills are not worse than other non-natives at the beginning of their prep (if I can believe the DT test of OG, which I scored great without the time limit). But the AWA is going to be hard, not sure how I'm going attack this (Maybe a couple of sessions with a teacher to discuss the practice essays I'll write).
- Speed: I'm a slow thinker in general. I spend an average of 5 min / question on the DT Quant section. I had to dig deep to find my math fundamentels, but still: even when I'll have mastered the theory, time wil be a big issue. As everyone is advising, practicing on pacing (after mastering the fundamentals) will be the focus of my study.

Advantage:
- 'PS mind': I've always found myself a logical guy with a 'problem solving mind'. Subjects like math, statistics or writing arguments have never been a problem. But I know GMAT is all about speed, so this does not really make things easier for me, I guess.
- Time: I have 2 months available for studying. I would like to study an average of 4h/day but if necessary, I can do up to 7h/day (average). I'm sure that would put me way above the average GMAT student/fulltime worker. But I realize that my goal of 700+ is not going to be easy at all (why would I do better than 90% of potentional MBA (aka smart) students??) That's why I'm taking this test now I have the time (not really a class-attender).

BOOKS
That being said, here is the list of books I'm thinking to buy:

- 3x OG
- Complete MGMAT set (8 books + OG explanations)
- Powerscore CR: everyone is talking about this book, but isn't useless if I'll already have the MGMAT CR?
- Veritas RC: I'm sure I need to practice a lot of RC and I've heard this book has good questions. Anyone suggesting a better/extra one for RC questions?
- What can I do for AWA? I saw a book on amazon with essays on every possible subject, but it has bad comments and looks out of date. Would this be usefull (meaning: worth the money) to compare my practice essays with?

OTHER
- ofcourse I'll also use all the free flashcards (but I think making my own will be better for me) and CAT's (after studying).


Any suggestions? I'm not going to take a course. But I really want my resources to be enough for 700+. The only thing between me and 700 should be myself and my motivation (but reading the stories really helps my motivation!)

Welcome to beatthegmat! Believe me,joining this community is the best step you could have taken in your journey to your dream score.
Based on your post, I can say that your writing skills are fairly good. There's no major flaw there.
You seem to have the right set of books ,though you may wanna see 1-2 more . I think that MGMAT Maths books are quite good ,however for Verbal their SC book is good. CR and RC are just average.However, since you have already ordered all 8 MGMAT books, you may wanna use MGMAT CR book only ,instead of spending more money on Powerscore CR Bible,though I found CR Bible better than MGMAT CR Book.

I don't think you should be worrying much about AWA and would not recommend buying any book. Keep on reading quality articles in newspapers,magazines. Apart from that
By the way,as you said that you are not very good at either Maths or Verbal,so you may wanna reconsider your decision to take the GMAT within 2 months since you're targeting 700+. People do get amazing score in less than 2 months too, but the ideal time is supposed to be 100 days .That ensures that you're sufficiently prepared to take the bull by horns.

First off do not buy an AWA book with essays for every topic!! There are over 250 topics released by GMAC and perhaps the worst thing that I can imagine is reading an essay for each. What would one do on test day? Try to remember what was in these essays? This is a very bad idea.

Let me tell you what really helps with AWA, an understanding of how to put an essay together. A focus on things like using proper signposts as you write so that you give the reader a sense of organization to your essay. The ideas can be filled in with whatever makes sense to you. It is a sort of paradox of the AWA that you have to write your essay with good ideas and examples - but that good ideas and examples are really whatever you believe in. It is not important that you memorize a list of the five best examples to give for topic #137 (whatever that one says) but rather that you have a template that you can work with no matter what the essay is about.

If you are going to memorize something, memorize a template with your favorite transitions and signposts and fill in the examples as you come up with them.

You will not be getting an AWA book with your MGMAT materials. And I think that for you this is an important topic to cover. Not only do you want to make a good showing on the AWA, but this writing section, which comes first, can really influence what happens in the Quant and Verbal. If you have a bad AWA you could have negative thought process in the rest of the test, if you work too frantically during the AWA, your mind might not transfer to Quant very well. You want to have the confidence to work efficiently and calmly on the AWA.

Two resources will help you out. First is the OG 12 (or 11). There is some discussion of the AWA and there is a list of all of the topics that were active when the book was published. This will give you a shallow level of understanding but at least is better than most other resources.

Second, if you want to get a deep understanding of the AWA, you can choose the Veritas AWA book. It has the full list of topics, it has some sample essays, but more importantly it has a thorough discussion of what is expected on the AWA and templates for the issue essay and the argument essay.

Here is a link to the reviews of Veritas AWA on Amazon. A couple of people wanted the AWA section of the book to be longer (there are other Verbal questions included as this is part of a three-hour Veritas lesson, but they found what was there to be very helpful) https://www.amazon.com/Analytical-Writin ... 34YBU7ZLXB

In addition, I will be making some postings on AWA in the near future (certainly before you take your test). So be on the look out for that.

To summarize, if you are confident in your AWA strategy then I recommend that you can go with just the OG 11 or 12 and do some practice essays. If you are concerned then it may help you sleep at night to have a structure for the essay ready for test day.

Continued...

I am glad to see that you are getting the materials all at once. Given your time frame and the shipping times you mentioned you are right to get it all now rather than book by book.

Here are some thoughts:

Have you thought to buy just the OG12 and the Verbal Review 2nd edition and the Quant Review 2nd edition? If you buy all three OG (10, 11, and 12) you will find considerable overlap. Only 1/3 of questions are different from OG 11 to OG 12. There is no overlap between the three books most recently released (OG 12 and 2nd edition verbal and Quant Review). Also, the older OG questions might now appear on the GMATPrep practice test.

It is a good idea to get some additional practice on Reading Comp and critical reasoning. If you do stick to your hours per day schedule you may get through all of the critical reasoning and reading comp that you have and you do not want to run out if you still feel that you need to practice.

For reading comp, some sources tell you that to improve reading comp you should read other materials - various magazines etc. But I think that is a VERY long term strategy. I would recommend this approach if you would take the GMAT in April 2012 but not in two months of studying!

Instead you will need to do passages! Veritas Reading Comp has been recommended as you mentioned due to the quality and quantity of practice passages and questions. There are 23 passages in the book and a total of 96 questions. You will find that many of these passages are longer or more difficult or both compared to the OG12. This is important because I found that very few passages in the OG 12 are actually both long and difficult and many students report that the passages on the actual test are tougher than those in the OG.

One other book that I would recommend that you get for the verbal section is a book of the 10 Official LSAT tests. I have found that many of the questions posted on BTG that students debate and work though turn out to be LSAT questions. The old LSAT tests are a great source for Critical Reasoning and Reading Comp and are cheap. You can probably get one used for less than $10 US. 10 tests will give you another 500 critical reasoning and another 280 reading comp questions.

I have written several postings on using the LSAT to study for the GMAT if you would like to look through these. The first 3 talk about how to using the LSAT for GMAT study for critical reasoning and reading comp. The next 7 are examples of Reading Comp and Critical Reasoning from the LSAT.



https://www.beatthegmat.com/using-the-ls ... tml#298945

https://www.beatthegmat.com/lsat-to-stud ... tml#315876

https://www.beatthegmat.com/lsat-to-stud ... tml#322872

https://www.beatthegmat.com/cr-weakening ... tml#296163

https://www.beatthegmat.com/lsat-problem ... tml#316526

https://www.beatthegmat.com/lsat-problem ... tml#317459

https://www.beatthegmat.com/lsat-questio ... tml#319855

https://www.beatthegmat.com/lsat-problem ... 72345.html

https://www.beatthegmat.com/lsat-problem ... 72380.html

https://www.beatthegmat.com/lsat-reading ... 71360.html

Finally...

I agree with eternal_optimist that you are looking at a very ambitious deadline and that you will have to be quite focused in order to pull this off. Also, I am not sure that you need to wait until Feb 5th to get started.... In your case time might be of the essence. Here are a few ways for you to get started now.

First, there are certain things that I would wait to study. I am sure everyone else has their own ideas but I would wait to study Sentence Correction and Data Sufficiency until you have the books in your hands. These are very technique-driven and are unique to the GMAT so it may be best to start those off with the right techniques and not have to, say, re-learn. I might say that "Data Sufficiency is like a broken bone, you want to set it right the first time so you do not have to re-break it."

Second, the other three subjects you can get a start on now, Using Beat the GMAT forums.

Problem Solving: There are so many different subjects that can come up in Problem Solving and you can bet that there are many questions from each type (Arithmetic, Algebra, Geometry, word problems, etc.) posted to the problem solving board. Problem solving is pretty straightforward and the discussion board is so populated by experts that no question goes without at least one expert reply. I think that since your mind works in this way anyway that you might choose to get started on problem solving right away. Try the problems on the problem solving board and be sure to ask questions if you have any. If someone gives you an exceptional response to one of the questions you ask you hit the "thanks" button on their posting to thank them.

Reading Comprehension: This can be a little hit or miss, that board is not as active the others and some people do not format the passages very well so that they can be hard to read. Still it might be worth trying some if you get tired of the other two subjects.

Critical Reasoning: Here is an area where you can get started now - like you can on problem solving! You are likely to learn a lot and if you form any particular bad habits they are more easily corrected than with Sent Corr or Data Suff. Here are some postings that I have written that will help to get you started with Critical Reasoning.

Hope this helps! Enjoy!

Critical Reasoning Posts:

Original Questions:

https://www.beatthegmat.com/bold-faced-e ... tml#293014

https://www.beatthegmat.com/bird-feeders ... tml#292587

https://www.beatthegmat.com/salt-water-p ... tml#291765

https://www.beatthegmat.com/waves-on-the ... tml#290932

https://www.beatthegmat.com/cold-climate ... tml#288243

https://www.beatthegmat.com/hardiness-zo ... tml#288241

https://www.beatthegmat.com/horses-hoove ... tml#289122

https://www.beatthegmat.com/grade-inflat ... tml#289908

https://www.beatthegmat.com/stock-market ... tml#291213

https://www.beatthegmat.com/computers-as ... tml#302237

https://www.beatthegmat.com/nuclear-powe ... tml#296304

https://www.beatthegmat.com/artificial-s ... tml#309781

https://www.beatthegmat.com/bold-faced-f ... tml#307471


How to Approach Different Question Types:

Inference/ conclusion question:

https://www.beatthegmat.com/how-to-appro ... tml#319885

https://www.beatthegmat.com/gmatprep-mus ... tml#314342

https://www.beatthegmat.com/zoos-t72940.html

Plan question:

https://www.beatthegmat.com/businesses-t ... tml#313911

https://www.beatthegmat.com/strenghtenin ... tml#313159

Assumption question:

https://www.beatthegmat.com/nuclear-powe ... 29-15.html

https://www.beatthegmat.com/an-odd-cr-fr ... 68008.html

https://www.beatthegmat.com/reduce-fatal ... 68915.html


General Posts:

https://www.beatthegmat.com/using-signal ... 71164.html

https://www.beatthegmat.com/bold-faced-f ... tml#307471

https://www.beatthegmat.com/control-alar ... tml#305090

https://www.beatthegmat.com/the-soviet-b ... tml#304739

https://www.beatthegmat.com/the-last-out ... tml#304425

https://www.beatthegmat.com/bold-faced-q ... tml#294134