Kadiatou wrote:Dear all,
I need advices for my GMAT preparation.
I plan to take the test in 3 months (by the end of May) and my target score is 750 (or around).
I bought the 10 books of Manhattan prep and the 3 books of the OG 2017
I've been studying the quant part for almost a month now using the OG but i felt like i'm not getting any better and i'm not sure i'm studying the right way
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I do keep track of my errors and try to identify my weeknesses then i work on the corresponding topic using the manhattan prep books but i feel like i'm not doing it correctly .
Lastly, i bought the magoosh gmat prep, i took the diagnostic test and i got really bad results
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Now, i want to start all over again but i need advices on how to study efficiently with all these materials (Magoosh, Manhattan prep books, 3 OG books). Should I study the Quant part and the Verbal part at the same time or should I work on one of them at a time? My materials give me access to full-lenght tests, when should i start taking them?
I plan to take two weeks off in may before taking the test but until then i can work 2hrs/day during the week and i am trying to manage my time to work more hours on the weekend.
Thanks in advance for your advices!
Students often make the mistake of overloading themselves with too many study materials, and they become overwhelmed. If you have the Manhattan Prep books and the OGs, that's more than enough to work with! You just need to be organized.
Here's what you should do:
1. Take an adaptive Practice Exam (CAT).
You didn't mention anything about practice test scores yet. If you bought the Mprep books, you'll have access to our entire suite of practice exams. Don't try to prep fully first - just dive in and take the test, accurately timed, to see what your baseline score is.
2. Analyze the practice test you've taken in a lot of depth.
Which areas were you weakest? Strongest? Fastest? Slowest? Decide which topics and question types need more of your time and attention. Be very aware of timing issues as well.
3. Study topic-by-topic, going chapter by chapter in the Mprep guides, then practice each topic with OG problems. For example, read the chapter on SC subject/verb agreement, then go do a set of 8-10 problems in the OGs that relate to that subject. You can find problems by topic using GMAT Navigator:
https://www.manhattanprep.com/gmat/stor ... navigator/ (call or email our Student Services if you have any trouble:
[email protected] )
Do this for each chapter in the Quant and Verbal strategy guides. Aim to do this in 8-10 weeks.
4. Make sure you are tracking all of the OG questions you do, and timing yourself while you practice. Hold yourself to strict 2-min time limits per question! (I highly recommend using Navigator to track your OG problems)
5. Alternate between Quant and Verbal. Don't just focus all on quant! A lot of students make this mistake. You can't get a top score by only focusing on one topic. You might think your quant score from the 1st CAT is lower based on percentiles, but this is probably a misinterpretation:
https://www.manhattanprep.com/gmat/blog ... mat-score/
6. Keep a detailed record of the mistakes you make in addition to just tracking right and wrong answers, so you can locate patterns in your errors:
https://www.manhattangmat.com/blog/index ... -studying/
7. Take another practice test after 3-4 weeks, then every 2 weeks after that. Increase to a test every week for the last 2 weeks before your real exam.
8. Practice your skills with random timed sets out of the OGs once you've covered all of the content in the strategy guides . Set the timer for 20 minutes, for example, and do questions 1-10. The OG problems generally get harder as the question # increases (within a given question type), so questions 1-10 will be easier on average than 101-110. Start in the middle of the section if you want more challenging questions.
9. Analyze your data from the random sets and practice tests, and go back to any topics that need extra work.
10. If your score isn't improving after you've covered the strategy guides and taken 3-4 CATs, it's likely that you're not approaching questions the right way. Consider hiring a tutor if it's in your budget. They can help you to identify your weaknesses and develop the right approaches.
11. Take GMATPrep CATs. Download the software from mba.com and take these tests as the last few before the real test. They won't have answer explanations or metrics, so we recommend using Mprep CATs for most of your study time, and saving these for last. (They're less helpful for analysis, but arguably most predictive of your real score, since they're written by the actual test-makers).
Good luck!
