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using OG material now or later? timed or untimed?

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using OG material now or later? timed or untimed?

by mayonnai5e » Thu Jul 12, 2007 2:30 am
Hello again,

I have several GMAT prep books and was wondering whether it would be better to go through those books first before jumping into the OG11 or to go through the OG at the same time as the other material. For example, I could go through the Kaplan Math Workbook and for each math concept find matching questions in the OG11 to practice through. If I were going through Number Properties in the Kaplan book, I would search for Number Properties in the OG11 and do those problems along with the Kaplan provided problems. Currently, I have not done any of the OG11 even though I have almost completed the PR Math Workbook. It seems like this method of combining fundamentals with real problems from the GMAT would be more productive.

Also, should I do these problems timed? I have been debating endlessly with myself over whether or not to do all practice problems timed. My personal belief is that doing the fundamentals untimed and giving myself time to really understand the concept and the practice problems for that concept is better than just learning a concept and immediately trying to time myself. I have been practicing the fundamental ideas untimed first then redoing the problems a few days with a timer when I have a better grasp of the ideas and the problems have disappeared from my short term memory.

I'll also mention that timing has been one of my bigger weaknesses.

Suggestions? Comments?
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by Stacey Koprince » Thu Jul 12, 2007 1:19 pm
If you can, I strongly recommend finding OG questions that match the concepts you're learning and doing GMAT-format questions all along the way, rather than saving them for the end.

Generally, first study the concepts and practice questions from the non-OG books that you have. You don't have to do that stuff timed - just really learn it well. Then, find relevant OG questions and do those, but do those timed. One of the things you have to learn to deal with is figuring out very quickly what to do with a question (or, ideally, recognizing something that looks familiar from another past problem and applying the same concepts / principles / approach to the new problem).

When you finish that problem (again, TIMED), don't move on. You might spend up to 10 or 15 minutes going over that problem after the fact. If you got it right, did you get it right for the right reasons? Did you do it the most efficient way it could be done? If you got it wrong, why did you get it wrong? How can you get it right next time? Are there other ways to approach it? How would you make an educated guess? What are the traps? What can you learn from this problem that might apply to other problems you'll see in the future? Could you teach this problem to someone else? Etc. Most of the work comes in that analysis and study you do after the first 2 minutes are up - but you still have to practice that "here it is, I have 2 min, what do I do?" format because that's what the test is going to be like.
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by mayonnai5e » Thu Jul 12, 2007 2:27 pm
Stacey Koprince wrote:If you can, I strongly recommend finding OG questions that match the concepts you're learning and doing GMAT-format questions all along the way, rather than saving them for the end.

Generally, first study the concepts and practice questions from the non-OG books that you have. You don't have to do that stuff timed - just really learn it well. Then, find relevant OG questions and do those, but do those timed. One of the things you have to learn to deal with is figuring out very quickly what to do with a question (or, ideally, recognizing something that looks familiar from another past problem and applying the same concepts / principles / approach to the new problem).

When you finish that problem (again, TIMED), don't move on. You might spend up to 10 or 15 minutes going over that problem after the fact. If you got it right, did you get it right for the right reasons? Did you do it the most efficient way it could be done? If you got it wrong, why did you get it wrong? How can you get it right next time? Are there other ways to approach it? How would you make an educated guess? What are the traps? What can you learn from this problem that might apply to other problems you'll see in the future? Could you teach this problem to someone else? Etc. Most of the work comes in that analysis and study you do after the first 2 minutes are up - but you still have to practice that "here it is, I have 2 min, what do I do?" format because that's what the test is going to be like.
Excellent. Thank you for the great advice here. I haven't really done such in-depth analysis of the questions after I have completed. Generally, I look over the solution and see how it compares to my solution, but you have mentioned a plethora of other attributes that I can/should be looking at. Thanks again.
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