Is OG enough to get 700+

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Is OG enough to get 700+

by GMAT? » Mon Dec 03, 2007 4:53 pm
Hi all,

GMAT in 6 weeks.

Is it sufficient to go through OG 11 and OG verbal and maths books, and OG 10 to get 700 plus.

I have got the Kaplan and Princeton books, but do not want to waste time if going through OG10 and OG11 plus OG maths and verbal books in detail will be enough. Why bother with the Kaplan and PR books given that OG has enough questions and will be most representative of the actual exam.

I am resitting the GMAT. Scored 620 the first time round.

Plan is to do the 2 GMATPrep test plus the 4 PR ones and 4 Kaplan ones.

Thank

Any advise really apprecited.

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by beatthegmat » Mon Dec 03, 2007 11:18 pm
OG should definitely be the centerpiece of your studies, but it's worth going through PR and Kaplan to understand test taking strategies.

Check out some of the resources here, https://www.beatthegmat.com/resources.html. There's a lot of info there to help you structure your prep during your limited time period.

Good luck!
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by mayonnai5e » Tue Dec 04, 2007 1:40 am
As Eric mentioned, the third party books are good for learning the strategies for certain topics. The official guide books contain many real, retired problems, but they are lacking in strategies for attacking question types.

If you already know the strategies for each topical area (e.g. you know all the different types of CR questions and what to focus on for each type and how to find the answer), then by all means skip those books and dive right into the OG material. You mentioned you have taken the GMAT before so you may already know these strategies, but if not, I would strongly suggest going through at least one of the Kaplan and PR general books first before diving into OG materials.

You can also follow the resources link shown above, but keep in mind the materials found online are not as well organized as what you would find in the Kaplan or PR book.

Good luck.
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by Stacey Koprince » Wed Dec 05, 2007 1:10 pm
Basically, the OG is enough if you are studying in the right way. If you are not studying in the right way, then it doesn't matter what you're using. Just doing the OG questions (even multiple times) is not necessarily enough unless you are also figuring out:
- multiple ways to approach the problem - both "official" ways and "test-taking technique" ways
- the best way for you (combining both efficiency and accuracy - remember, you only have 2 minutes per problem, on average!)
- how you will recognize what to do with a particular problem, and how you will recognize that a certain way is likely to be the best way for you
- how to make an educated guess
- what traps exist and how to avoid them
- what shortcuts exist and how to spot them
- what to do when you don't know what to do
- what mistakes you made, why you made them, and how to avoid making them again
- and so on

I can easily spend 20 minutes studying just one problem before I'm done extracting all of the lessons I can learn. If you can do the above effectively, then yes - the OG will be sufficient to get a 700!
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