by Guest, Jul 15, 2010
The following is a guest post by Komal, one of the five Giant GMAT Giveaway winners for Beat The GMAT. For her prize, Komal chose the Kaplan GMAT Premium Online Course and she has written a candid debrief of her experience so far. This is the fourth of five articles Komal will write for the Beat The GMAT community providing a straightforward and inside look into her GMAT prep with Kaplan. Here are some of Komal's impressions of the course to date.
Hey Guys,
Described below is my review of yet another two sessions of my Kaplan GMAT Premium Online Course:
Session 6 Math Formulas and Geometry
The first half of this 16-lesson session covers all the primary math formulas that show up on the GMAT while the other half of the session covers the common shapes and figures that show up on the geometry portion of the GMAT.
In the first lesson, Averages and Weighted Averages were explained briefly followed by a solved example of each. Then, I got a lesson on basic Rate & Speed formulas in a simple and straightforward manner. A 6-minute mini-lesson on Multi-Part Journey formulas followed this lesson emphasized that the difficulty in formula questions doesnt stem from the formulas themselves but from ineffectively organizing your work. This was by far the biggest take away from these lessons for me.
Combined Rates/Combined Work formulas & Simple Interest/Compound Interest were also covered in the following two lessons. Lesson 7 dealt with Overlapping sets including the three approaches for solving questions on these types of questions.
My Overall Impression:
- Learning/Memorizing these neatly organized formulas will help me save a lot of time and fruitless effort on test day.
- No amount of learning/memorizing these formulas are going to help unless I do tons of practice on how to apply these formulas in different scenarios and questions.
The Geometry Lessons focused on common geometrical concepts that show up the most on the GMAT. Topics covered included an introduction to lines and angles, Properties of Triangles and 'special case' triangles, Triangles Pattern Recognition Polygon formulas, Volume and Area of Solids, and finally, Coordinate Geometry.
The Geometry Lessons were well organized and made the subject fun! These lessons put to rest my confusion I normally have about volume, area, perimeter formulas of different polygons, etc. I usually mix these formulas up and cant seem to remember which formula goes for which polygon. That used to happen a lot to me. But the simplicity and sequence with which these formulas were explained helped me remember them rather easily.
Session 7 Advanced Critical Reasoning and Issue Essay
The advanced CR section of this session basically builds up on all that is taught in Session 3 (see my debrief on Session 3 here) but it goes more in depth and focuses on some common patterns that emerge in CR. Lessons 1 and 2 were basically introductions. Lesson 3 started with three special cases of Critical Reasoning questions. Lessons 4, 5 and 6 were continuation of the three special cases of CR questions and explained strategies on how to identify the Assumption, Strengthen or Weaken CR types - this was followed by a Quiz and then a Quiz Review.
Next the Issue Essay was introduced and a chapter focused on Organizing the Issue Essay was provided. There was also a short recording on tips for writing GMAT essays. I felt that the Issue Essay section on the Kaplan Method and Template was very basic and to the point.
In contrast, the advanced CR section was great, an absolute must for people who find it difficult to detangle arguments into its three components: Conclusion, Premise and Assumption. The strategies and tips for CR questions were absolutely amazing, straightforward and easy to apply.
Have I hit a plateau?
As for the two CATs I took after these two sessions, well I am very disappointed. I had almost a 100-point dip in CAT 5 but raised the score a bit more in CAT 6. Once again I was in a hurry to take the CATs right after completing the sessions without finishing off the required assignments and homework. The experience left me sad but I need to learn from it.
Applying the concepts taught in the sessions and practicing a lot is absolutely essential if I want to break this pattern of scoring low in CATs. I have definitely learned my lesson. I hope to do better in the coming weeks.
Bye for now
