How to Make the Most of Your Final 7 Days Before the GMAT - Part 2
In part 1 of this series, we talked about your new mindset for the last week: your goal is no longer to lift your score. Rather, your goal is to peak relative to your current scoring range. (If you havent already, read that first part now.)
Days T-minus-5 to T-minus-3: Review (Prioritize categories 3 and 4)
Total time: 2 to 3 hours a day.
Im not giving you a ton of time during this period. How can you possibly do a comprehensive review in just a few hours a day?
Actually, I want you to do a high-level review, which is not the same thing as a comprehensive review. Remember: your weaknesses are your weaknesses. Youre not looking to change that. So you dont want to tire yourself out in the last few days by trying to study every last thing that could possibly be studied. Thats not the way to peak on test day!
Heres how to perform a high-level review of the most important* question types, content areas, and strategies.
*Most important means the things that are most likely to be tested. Spend your valuable time reviewing the things that show up the most frequently in the Official Guide and on GMATPrep exams.
For instance, do review the general formulas for triangles, circles, and rectangles. Dont bother with 3-D stuff or weird shapes, such as pentagons or even trapezoids (unless geometry formulas are a strength of yours).
Do review the general rules for the most common types of modifiers: who, which, that, prepositional phrases, -ing modifiers. Dont review 200 idioms or really obscure rules (when do you use because vs. due to?).
(Note: I chose that particular example because I just cant seem to keep it straight myself, even though SC is a strength of mine. So I look for something else to deal with instead; SCs usually give us multiple errors! :D)
Here are the most important areas to review (because they are the most commonly tested / impact your performance across the broadest number of questions).
Timing
Overall pacing: How are you going to keep yourself on track during each section? How are you going to know if youre off track and need to take action (and what action are you going to take)?
Per-question timing: How much time is okay to spend on any one question? How far over time is it okay to go? At what point should you cut your losses? What clues should you use to know that you need to cut yourself off?
Quant
Overall: First, understand whats going on (if you dont, bail). Then, come up with a good plan (if you cant, bail). Only if you understand and have a plan do you invest the time to try to solve.
Problem Solving: Smart Numbers. Work Backwards. Estimation. Draw It Out. Test Cases on must be true. Use Theory to solve (often overlaps with Test Cases).
Data Sufficiency: How to lay out DS effectively. Test Cases, including using Theory where appropriate. Draw It Out multiple times (once for each statement). Prove Insufficiency.
Topic areas: Fractions, percents, and ratios. Exponents, linear equations, and quadratic equations. Algebraic translation / story problems, especially dealing with linear equations, profit, rates, and statistics. Average (arithmetic mean) and median. Triangles and rectangles / squares. Divisibility, primes, positive, and negative.
Note: our strategy guides discuss all of the strategies listed above under PS and DS; in most cases, an entire chapter in at least one book is dedicated to that strategy. For overall DS strategies, see the DS Appendix in any one of our quant strategy guides.
Also, you can review some additional topics of your choice beyond the ones I listed above, but make sure of two things: (1) that you do review the areas listed above, and (2) that you don't try to review every last possible topic area and risk remembering none of it very well. In general, review strengths and medium areas / mild weaknesses, not big weaknesses.
Verbal
Overall: Individual processes for solving SC, CR, and RC (including mapping for CR and RC).
SC: Sentence structure (including subject-verb agreement). Modifiers. Parallelism / comparisons. The other topic areas are a bit less commonly tested, so review according to your strengths and weaknesses: remind yourself of your strengths and tell yourself that you wont spend extra time on your weaknesses.
CR: Find the Assumption. Strengthen. Weaken. Inference. The other types are a bit less common, so again review according to your own strengths and weaknesses.
RC: Inference. Specific Detail. Main Idea. The other types are a bit less common; review according to your needs.
As you do the above review, make a short-list of flash cards, culled from your existing flash cards if possible, of items on which you want to be able to drill yourself over this timeframe. If needed, go ahead and make the flash card then and there. Be picky, though. Don't make 100 flash cardsonly the stuff thats most important for you.
I define "most important for me" as stuff that I know how to do but I haven't practiced in a while, so I'm in danger of forgetting, and areas where I'm prone to careless mistakesbasically, categories 3 and 4 from our list in the first part of this series.
You can do some timed practice sets during these three days, but youre doing so solely to practice your decision-making and to solidify your processes. When are you going to spend a little extra time? When are you going to bail? How do you want to write out the work for this problem to minimize careless mistakes? That sort of thing.
Do not use these practice sets as an excuse to then go study for hours and hours because you missed something that you think you should know how to do. Youll just tire yourself out and then you wont peak on test day.
Im going to say it one more time: the goal is NOT to fix any weaknesses in the above areas (beyond careless mistakes!). The goal is just to review so that you are able to hit peak performance on the things that you already know how to do.
Youre almost there! Join us next time, when we talk about the last two days!!