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My climb out of the abyss (490): an ongoing diary

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My climb out of the abyss (490): an ongoing diary

by UPGRAYEDD » Sun Oct 11, 2009 4:22 am
I took the GMAT yesterday(10/10). My two practice scores before I took the test were 540 and 590. My plan was to go in with a good attitude and hopefully I would leave with a 600.

Everything was going okay until I started the quant section. I wasted 5 minutes on the first question and in the end couldn't answer it, tried to move on and never really recovered. My score ended up being a 490. :shock:

I'm not giving up yet though. After finding this site today I've decided to create a proper study plan. I will use this thread to document it. Because if I don't write about it I tend to put things off and forget them. I also hope to attract some good advice from people reading my plan.

So here is my basic plan as of today.

Target : 620 (Average GMAT for the school I am trying to enter)
Wildest Dreams : 700
Time to study : 69 days, a little under 10 weeks

Resources
Quant : The MGMAT Quant books minus the geometry book.
Verbal : The MGMAT SC correction book only
General : The OG 10 and 11th edition, practice tests, possibly kaplan

Plan

Right now I'm looking for advice on making a plan. Should I break down my study into weekly blocks or should I rotate my study by the day?

For example

Quant - 2 Weeks
SC - 2 weeks
CR - 2 weeks
Quant - 2 more weeks

Or is it better to do this plan?

Monday - SC and basic quant
Tuesday - SC and Fractions
Wednesday - SC and Word problems
Thursday - CR and Inequalities
Friday - SC and math from OG11

Any advice on that?
Last edited by UPGRAYEDD on Sun Oct 11, 2009 4:30 am, edited 1 time in total.
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by UPGRAYEDD » Sun Oct 11, 2009 4:26 am
Saved for future updates.



Day 1 : Getting everything prepared. Quant books haven't been delivered yet so I'm just going over the math review in the official guide. Been taking notes and consulting an old college algebra text for review problems.

Been working on the plan a little more. Deciding to do a mix of block and rotating. When my SC book comes in I want to spend at least two weeks every day in that. But at the same time I will also study from a different quant book every day. Probably will spend 2 hours on SC and 1 hour on rotational quant.

After the two weeks I will reduce SC to 30 minutes a day and up my quant times and start introducing CR.

I will also take a different practice test every Saturday and will skip studying on Sundays for a break.

Day 2 : Finished taking notes on the math review in OG11. Later in the day took a timed test of 20 problem solving questions (25 minutes). Scored 70% on it. The misses were results of not reading questions correctly.

SC book was delivered. It's a bit bigger than I thought it would be. I'm going to go through it chapter by chapter highlighting important points. I will use a spaced repitition flashcard program to keep my flashcards managable over the next 2 months.
Last edited by UPGRAYEDD on Tue Oct 13, 2009 5:19 pm, edited 3 times in total.
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by dmateer25 » Sun Oct 11, 2009 4:53 am
Hi UPGRAYEDD,

Welcome to beatthegmat! I believe that your second approach would be the best study plan. By rotating your study each day, you are keeping all of the topics fresh in your memory. If you try to do it in blocks, then you will most likely forget the first section that you studied by the time you are ready for the GMAT.
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