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Finishing OG11 - What book next?

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Finishing OG11 - What book next?

by CappyAA » Tue Jun 17, 2008 6:08 am
Hey everyone - my first post here! So happy I found this fantastic forum!

Anyways, I'm taking the GMAT in 3 months. I started studying using OG11 about 2 weeks ago. I took my diagnostic test and my weak areas are SC and CR. I'm strong in all the quantitative areas (Engineering undergrad major). So basically I'm just starting with these areas I'm weak in and doing all the problems in OG11.

However I should be done with the book within the next 2-3 weeks so where should I go after here? The only other book I have currently is Kaplan's 800 GMAT book, but I wanted to save that for the last 2-3 weeks prior to the GMAT as those are strictly hard questions. So what book should I get next to prepare?

Any advice is appreciated!
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by VP_Jim » Tue Jun 17, 2008 8:45 am
I highly recommend the OG GMAT Verbal Review book if you're just looking for more practice! The questions should not overlap with those from OG11, in case you're wondering.

Good luck!
Jim S. | GMAT Instructor | Veritas Prep
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by CappyAA » Tue Jun 17, 2008 9:56 am
Oh great - I was worried about that. I'll definitely get that then.

Is there any brand in particular that you'd recommend after I exhaust all the official GMAC material? I've heard mixed opinions about Kaplan, Princeton, and Manhattan.
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Post OG11

by shahab03 » Tue Jun 17, 2008 11:40 am
I would suggest that you move onto 1000 series. if you havent dont that then do sets.
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Re: Post OG11

by lunarpower » Wed Jun 18, 2008 2:49 pm
shahab03 wrote:I would suggest that you move onto 1000 series. if you havent dont that then do sets.
the 1000 series aren't the greatest things in the world. most of their best problems are copied from other sources anyway (including official problems), and many of their own problems are just BAD.

if you're too focused on trying to do as many problems as possible, from as many sources as possible, you won't get the most out of your review. in fact, if you think you can get through the whole OG in 3 weeks, i can guarantee that you're studying with too much breadth and not enough depth.

following are some comments i posted on another thread about the same idea. rather than link to that thread, i'll just copy and paste:
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absolutely right.

one thing i've observed often with students who have completed lots and lots of practice material, but who haven't seen any real progress, is that they just do tons of problems 'rapid fire' style, without trying to notice the ways in which the problems are interrelated.

a very, very thorough review of a single problem can take ten minutes or even longer, depending on the nature of the problem. if it's a number properties problem, with lots of subtle signals as to the content being tested (i.e., if you have to recognize that the problem is about, say, primes / divisibility / pos-neg-zero, even though those actual words aren't in the problem statement itself), you might take even longer.
here's the kind of thing you want to do when you review a problem:
* make sure you look for the SIGNALS and CONNECTIONS BETWEEN PROBLEMS.
do not think of the o.g. as a random collection of hundreds of problems to solve individually. instead, think of it as a NETWORK of problems, all related to each other, from which your job is to draw the CONNECTIONS. see, here's the deal: the actual problems themselves are unimportant, because you know you're not going to see those actual problems again. it's the GENERAL IDEAS AND SIGNALS appearing in the problems that matter, because those are the things you're looking for when you see problems on actual tests.
after you solve problems, then, take some time to look back at similar-looking problems (or problems on which you used similar strategies, even though the problems themselves may not have been similar-looking), and see if you can EXTRACT GENERAL PATTERNS OF STRATEGY for those problems. this is the real point of practicing: you come out with techniques that you can use on FUTURE problems. (you should not take too much time teasing out the specifics of any one problem, because, remember, you're never going to see that specific problem again.)

if you're looking for all these things, then you may find that the o.g. and quant supplement alone present more than enough material for a long period of review.
Ron has been teaching various standardized tests for 20 years.

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by CappyAA » Wed Jun 18, 2008 5:11 pm
Thanks lunarpower - that actually makes a lot of sense. I just ran across the notecards in the sticky that I'm in the process of copying now, so hopefully that'll be helpful. I guess I'm getting ahead of myself. I will continue plugging away at the OG and pick up the verbal supplement and worry about it when I've exhausted these books.
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