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Just a month left - Advice needed

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Just a month left - Advice needed

by mriiidula » Thu Sep 15, 2011 12:38 am
Hello everyone!

So basically my exam is exactly one month away. I'm currently halfway through MGMAT's Word Translations book, and it's the last strategy book I have left (I've already finished going through books for verbal).

I've done many problems in verbal and I'm getting almost 100% correct in SC, couple of mistakes in CR and about 75% correct in RC. My timing is awful in RC but brilliant in SC, so on average timing isn't much of an issue. In math, I've gone through some problems; problem solving is doable for me, but I'm not able to answer any DS question correctly, unless it's a ridiculously easy problem.

I have one month left and I'm panicking! Any suggestions? I've not taken any full length practice test yet; I took the GMATPrep 1 at the beginning of my prep and scored a 600 (Q43 V27). I'm scared to take a test until I finish the Word Translations book. And what can I do about DS? I'm currently on an internship so I'm not able to devote more than 2 hours a day on weekdays and approx. 4-5 hours on weekends; I could devote more on weekends but I get distracted quite easily.

Any advice would be much appreciated. I'm aiming for a top score obviously.
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by sam2304 » Thu Sep 15, 2011 1:17 am
Firstly you can finish your Word translation book and all the related OG problems. Then the mock tests 10/14 days before the test. Retake the one you finished already. Make sure you reach your target score in atleast one of the tests and do not skip the essays. Make use of the test to gauge your weak areas. Solve more problems/repeat problems/review them if necessary. If you maintained notes, error logs, flash cards for missed concepts and list of wrong problems which you solved review them the whole last week. Give priority to both weakness and strengths. Since you mentioned about MGMAT books have a glance through the advanced problem sets again if possible. They are quite good.

Coming to your DS part try to follow linear approach while solving the problem. DS questions are mostly to find a value or yes/no type. Be clear with what is being asked, if its find a value then we should get only one particular value there cannot be more than one, if its yes/no - it should be either one and not both. The first time i tried solving problems i was barging the problem with all the information in the question and the statements. I messed up, the only answer choices i ended up were C or E. So try rephrasing the question first. It is more important to know what is asked and what is needed to solve. Go through the statements one by one and try to solve. Follow the A D, B C E order. While solving problems make flash cards for shortcuts like if x^2 < x then 0 < x < 1. For percentage increase/decrease you need both the original and the increased value. Is x < y - we need to know the signs of both variables. For absolute value problems you have to split up the eqns. So the statements should have something related to this. You will learn a lot of these shortcuts when you review a lot. So try to follow the AD BCE approach and review a lot to learn more shortcuts. Hope this helps :)
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by mriiidula » Fri Sep 16, 2011 12:43 am
Hello sam2304,

Thank you for your reply, and such a long one at that :)
Yea I'll focus on finishing the book first, and I also looked at some videos for Data Sufficiency that I hope will help. The find the value type questions are okay for me (time consuming, but doable), but the yes/no questions are where I always miss something.

Should I start taking practice tests from 1st October perhaps? That will give me 2 weeks of practice, and will also give me a week and a half to finish the book and do some problems.

Again, thanks for the response, and hope your prep is going well too. x
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by sam2304 » Fri Sep 16, 2011 6:41 am
Hi

Deciding when to take your mocks tests is your wish :) You will be stressed out if you take a mock very close to the G Day. Some people need the tempo till the end that they end up taking mocks till the G Day and some will wind up a week before to avoid last minute stress/panic and start reviewing. So that's completely upto you :) Basically if you have timing issues take more mocks else it is not necessary just doing problems and reviewing a lot will do.
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by Stacy Blackman » Fri Sep 16, 2011 8:02 am
Hi mriiidula,

If you haven't taken a look yet I recommend you visit MBA.com, where they offer 2 free official GMAT tests. These are very similar to the real test you will take on exam day.

We also have free GMAT tips here: https://www.stacyblackman.com/tag/gmat/


Hope this was of help.

Cheers,

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