Manhattan books strategy

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sieken: Senior | Next Rank: 100 Posts; Posts: 40; Joined: Sun Jun 19, 2011 6:50 amFollowed by: 2 members; Thanked: 5 times

by sieken » Wed Jun 29, 2011 2:32 pm

Hi All,

I'm really excited to start participating in the community here at beatthegmat.com. I've been a lurker for a while now, and I'm getting geared up.

I wanted to ask some advice: I picked up the 8 pack of Manhattan books, PR Cracking, All 3 OGs and the Kaplan 800. I'm currently taking the "completionist" approach by going through the Manhattan books two at a time (verbal and math) and after the first 4 chapters of quant and 3 chapters of verbal (books 1 and 6, numbers and critical reasoning), I'm pretty bored. I feel I know all this stuff already. I scored a 600 on my practice test.

Should I keep doing problems out of the other books and go back to Manhattan on the areas I get stuck at, or should I invest the month (hopefully less) in systematically working through Manhattan, then moving on to the problems?

Source: Beat The GMAT — GMAT Strategy | Wed Jun 29, 2011 2:32 pm

arun@crackverbal: Master | Next Rank: 500 Posts; Posts: 234; Joined: Fri Jun 10, 2011 8:50 amFollowed by: 60 members; Location: Bangalore; Thanked: 47 times

by arun@crackverbal » Thu Jun 30, 2011 11:14 am

Use just 1 set of books from 1 test prep company. The reason I am saying this that a lot of times the strategies might be different. So a PR cracking book and a MGMAT book might be radically different in their approach to (say) number properties. So remember the old adage about too many cooks spoiling the broth.

The 3 OG books with the MGMAT series should suffice at this point. My recommendation is to skip through them and take about 10 tests (6 MGMAT + 4 GMATPrep) over the next 2 months. That way you have a test every weekend. Something to look forward to - prepare harder, and try to score more on each test. You can "cheat" by skipping stuff you are sure about. That is fine

If you are really bored you can always come over to the forums and give company by posting questions, and answering problems.

Arun

Founder of CrackVerbal - India's fastest growing GMAT Prepration and MBA Admissions Consulting Company. https://gmat.crackverbal.com

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sieken: Senior | Next Rank: 100 Posts; Posts: 40; Joined: Sun Jun 19, 2011 6:50 amFollowed by: 2 members; Thanked: 5 times

by sieken » Thu Jun 30, 2011 12:55 pm

Thanks for the reply Arun. I've also come to realized the strategies are a different by book. I went through the PR book first and I feel like they're setting you up to get some problems wrong and be okay with it, kind of like teaching "controlled falling" instead of flying. I took my first MGMAT test this morning and I didn't do as well as I've done before, but it's motivated me to keep going with those books since my issues were all over the board. - Aaron

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