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NicoFalcon
- Junior | Next Rank: 30 Posts
- Posts: 23
- Joined: Wed Dec 10, 2008 6:36 am
- Thanked: 1 times
Hi there, greetings from Buenos Aires! I`ve been around a while and would like to thank everyone for the precious insight that can be found everywhere in this site. That same insight I plan to leverage on...
I`ve ended my "orientation period" as I came to name the month or so I spent learning the bases of GMAT and building my quant base. In this period I`ve relied on some "math refreshment" books ("Kaplan GMAT Math Workbook" and "The Ultimate Math Refresher", both recommendable) and chose Princeton Review`s "Cracking the GMAT 2009 Ed" as my GMAT strategy foundation. After going through those I decided to take OG Diagnostic Test and GMAT prep1 in order to see where I`m standing.
Just took GMAT prep 1 today and got Q42 V38. Not amazing but not bad neither, I think that should translate to somethig like 630-640, not far from my 660-680 objective. After taking the test I realize my objective should be something like Q44 V40, based on the following facts I put together after analyzing my Diagnostic Test and GMAT prep1 results:
Quant:
My hit rate for Quant was around 60% (25/37 in GMP1), which I think leaves a lot of room for improvement. This is certainly true if you take into account that 40% of the questions I got wrong were because of careless mistakes (mostly partial answers or losing my north in the middle of the problem). My stats for GMP1 said that I got a 85% success rate for PS, but a miserable 55% for DS. The fact that confuses me is that most of my DS I got at the end of the test, which I assume are the harder questions and also the ones done under the most stressed part of the test. But I must improve DS since 45% fialure rate is inadmissible and also because DS is a great time saver.
Verbal:
My hit rate for Verbal is almost 80% (32/41). Opposite to Quant, I think there is little room for improvement in this section, since I have read Verbal gets really hard to improve after 40, in fact you can notice a huge jump in percentile between 38 and 41 in Appendix A from the OG. There are some facts that may probe me wrong, however. My performance in the section can be opened in the following: RC 95%correct, CR 80% and SC 65%. I think it`s useless (or at least not cost effective) to try to improve my RC, CR has some room for improvement, but clearly SC is the verbal section with the most potential (and the one I hate the most also).
So based in the above stated, I`m planning the following:
Quant: two weeks. One week each DS and PS. Improve my concetratraion hability. Resources: OG, Q OG. Do all questions, re do the ones I get wrong.
Verbal: two weeks. One week doing the harder qestions from OG and V OG for RC and CR, and one week (two weeks?, god I hate SC!) SC doing every question OG, V OG and Manhattan SC Guide (which I bought in advice knowing my hatred of grammar).
After those 4 weeks, take GMAT prep2 or MGMAT CAT(free). If everything goes as planned, register for the exam, start doings CAT like crazy while re visiting difficult questions from OG, V OG and Q OG.
Any input about strategy/ resources is welcomed!
Cheers
I`ve ended my "orientation period" as I came to name the month or so I spent learning the bases of GMAT and building my quant base. In this period I`ve relied on some "math refreshment" books ("Kaplan GMAT Math Workbook" and "The Ultimate Math Refresher", both recommendable) and chose Princeton Review`s "Cracking the GMAT 2009 Ed" as my GMAT strategy foundation. After going through those I decided to take OG Diagnostic Test and GMAT prep1 in order to see where I`m standing.
Just took GMAT prep 1 today and got Q42 V38. Not amazing but not bad neither, I think that should translate to somethig like 630-640, not far from my 660-680 objective. After taking the test I realize my objective should be something like Q44 V40, based on the following facts I put together after analyzing my Diagnostic Test and GMAT prep1 results:
Quant:
My hit rate for Quant was around 60% (25/37 in GMP1), which I think leaves a lot of room for improvement. This is certainly true if you take into account that 40% of the questions I got wrong were because of careless mistakes (mostly partial answers or losing my north in the middle of the problem). My stats for GMP1 said that I got a 85% success rate for PS, but a miserable 55% for DS. The fact that confuses me is that most of my DS I got at the end of the test, which I assume are the harder questions and also the ones done under the most stressed part of the test. But I must improve DS since 45% fialure rate is inadmissible and also because DS is a great time saver.
Verbal:
My hit rate for Verbal is almost 80% (32/41). Opposite to Quant, I think there is little room for improvement in this section, since I have read Verbal gets really hard to improve after 40, in fact you can notice a huge jump in percentile between 38 and 41 in Appendix A from the OG. There are some facts that may probe me wrong, however. My performance in the section can be opened in the following: RC 95%correct, CR 80% and SC 65%. I think it`s useless (or at least not cost effective) to try to improve my RC, CR has some room for improvement, but clearly SC is the verbal section with the most potential (and the one I hate the most also).
So based in the above stated, I`m planning the following:
Quant: two weeks. One week each DS and PS. Improve my concetratraion hability. Resources: OG, Q OG. Do all questions, re do the ones I get wrong.
Verbal: two weeks. One week doing the harder qestions from OG and V OG for RC and CR, and one week (two weeks?, god I hate SC!) SC doing every question OG, V OG and Manhattan SC Guide (which I bought in advice knowing my hatred of grammar).
After those 4 weeks, take GMAT prep2 or MGMAT CAT(free). If everything goes as planned, register for the exam, start doings CAT like crazy while re visiting difficult questions from OG, V OG and Q OG.
Any input about strategy/ resources is welcomed!
Cheers
