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by ldoolitt » Mon Feb 08, 2010 6:32 am
I decided to start a log for my fiances studies. Her diagnostic test yielded the following:

Quant: 24
Verbal: 31

Overall 470

She needs to get above 600 to have any sort of a shot I believe. Her test date is the 13th.

My plan for this week (cram topics) is:

Monday: MGMAT SC
Tuesday: Math (equations, quadratics, exponents, roots, etc)
Wednesday: MGMAT SC
Thursday: Math (geometry)
Friday: MGMAT RC
Saturday: Math (ratios, percents, etc)
Sunday: Exam + Review

From there I'm just going to concentrate on giving her sample problems from OG12 and having her review specific chapters in the MGMAT math guides or the SC as needed based on her performance on the problems. We'll do 2 tests each weekend and get about 3-4 hours of study in each night with 6 hours each day on the weekend (for test + review)

I also have the CR bible in case she progresses really fast but she did well on the CR questions in her diagnostic (2 of the 3 that she missed were in the 700-800 range).

I'll continue to make daily posts and ask questions where appropriate. Wish her (and me) luck!

Thanks in advance for your help.

Luke[spoiler][/spoiler][spoiler][/spoiler]
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by Osirus@VeritasPrep » Mon Feb 08, 2010 6:35 am
I could be wrong. Everyone goes on and on about how valuable the Official Guide is, but I don't think its that valuable other than just practicing problems. The explanations are pretty terrible, and she won't learn anything from the explanations (with math anyway). I would only use the OG for verbal and use the Manhattan Guides for math, they have great in depth explanations.
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by ldoolitt » Mon Feb 08, 2010 6:42 am
osirus0830 wrote:I could be wrong. Everyone goes on and on about how valuable the Official Guide is, but I don't think its that valuable other than just practicing problems. The explanations are pretty terrible, and she won't learn anything from the explanations (with math anyway). I would only use the OG for verbal and use the Manhattan Guides for math, they have great in depth explanations.
From my experience (and I studied for 3 months so I had the time) the OG had the problems closest to those on the actual test. In fact I saw at least 2 problems that were almost replicas from the OG.

To hedge against what you said I'll be giving her explanations for all the math problems that she misses so shes not just going through the guide herself. But maybe a mix of OG problems and Drill questions from the MGMAT Math Founcations may be a better way to go?
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by Osirus@VeritasPrep » Mon Feb 08, 2010 6:48 am
I agree with you about the official guide containing problems similar to what she will see on test day. The problem is that the explanations won't be good and if she is attempting to learn the concepts from their explanations, then she will probably not learn the concepts. If you're there to explain everything to her, then she will be fine though.
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by money9111 » Mon Feb 08, 2010 6:53 am
...to get the best out of the MGMAT math guides, one must use the Official Guide. The problems at the end of the chapters do not suffice on their own. They cover a wide variety of topics that must be supplemented with the problems from the OG

Luke it's great to see you helping your Fiance out... I'm sure she'll do great
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by ldoolitt » Mon Feb 08, 2010 6:58 am
osirus0830 wrote:I agree with you about the official guide containing problems similar to what she will see on test day. The problem is that the explanations won't be good and if she is attempting to learn the concepts from their explanations, then she will probably not learn the concepts. If you're there to explain everything to her, then she will be fine though.
I'm going to give it a shot! It's been a while since I took the GMAT but I got a 49 or abouts on quant pre studying (those years of engineering paid off!) so I should at least understand the problem. Trying to explain it in a way that she can algorithmically do it on test day may be another story...
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by ldoolitt » Mon Feb 08, 2010 7:04 am
money9111 wrote:...to get the best out of the MGMAT math guides, one must use the Official Guide. The problems at the end of the chapters do not suffice on their own. They cover a wide variety of topics that must be supplemented with the problems from the OG

Luke it's great to see you helping your Fiance out... I'm sure she'll do great
Thanks money for the encouragement!

I agree about the OG. I think one of the biggest issues with just doing problems out of the MGMAT is that you always know the topic that is being tested. Having that mixed problem set forcing you to identify the underlying topic they are trying to test is crucial I think.
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by ldoolitt » Mon Feb 08, 2010 7:14 pm
Day 1

As I sit here watching her pour through the sentence correction guide and occasionally ask me questions, I think about how amazing it is to have such a passionate significant other. She's been studying since 5 (its after 9 here now) and is unwaveringly focused, determined to finish the MGMAT SC book this evening. Rapidly jotting down flashcards brings back memories of my own studies. But I digress...

She seems to be picking up the MGMAT stuff quicker than I thought which is great. She commented on how stupid the grammar focus is, which has probably been uttered by many other writers taking the GMAT. I'm going to give her a couple of questions of each type from the OG to lead off tomorrow's studies and we'll see how much she actually absorbed. Day 1 Complete!
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by qamar999 » Mon Feb 08, 2010 10:07 pm
i've taken up the MGMAT maths study guides and i've realised that the questions at the end of each chapter aren't as helpful as the ones at the end of the study guide. they put you in the right frame of mine to be prepared for the actual questions you'd face on the day of that test. however, the explanations in OG are just useless. they're not something you'd learn from. but i have an instructor with me who i go back to when the explanation doesn't make any sense.

being weak in the maths section and having done barron's, kaplan, princeton, i'd say the best is MGMAT by far. it addresses each topic and then goes on to give you "real" problems to solve. you finish one study guide and you'll have the feeling of mastering one concept if you do it honestly. i'm not even worried about taking 4-5 days to finish one study guide 'coz i know i won't have to spend more time on it later if i understand everything in it.
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by ldoolitt » Tue Feb 09, 2010 4:54 pm
qamar999 wrote:i've taken up the MGMAT maths study guides and i've realised that the questions at the end of each chapter aren't as helpful as the ones at the end of the study guide. they put you in the right frame of mine to be prepared for the actual questions you'd face on the day of that test. however, the explanations in OG are just useless. they're not something you'd learn from. but i have an instructor with me who i go back to when the explanation doesn't make any sense.

being weak in the maths section and having done barron's, kaplan, princeton, i'd say the best is MGMAT by far. it addresses each topic and then goes on to give you "real" problems to solve. you finish one study guide and you'll have the feeling of mastering one concept if you do it honestly. i'm not even worried about taking 4-5 days to finish one study guide 'coz i know i won't have to spend more time on it later if i understand everything in it.
Thats precisely it. I'm pretty good at explaining math problems in terms of the fundamentals so I think that we'll be good using the GMAT for general studies and the OG questions for drills.
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by ldoolitt » Tue Feb 09, 2010 5:10 pm
Day2

She says to me tonight after struggling with a basic equation problem "do you find it sexy when I stumble through numbers so gracefully?" Maybe you'd have to know Kim to find that funny but I just about lost it.

She seems to be doing well. I gave her some SC problems to lead off the night from the OG and she went 4/5. Admittedly they were at the beginning of the SC section so they were pretty easy. However she did them and could identify the type of problem it was in each instance and that is a big plus in my mind.

The math part is a bit of a struggle. She's scowling over a problem now that makes me think she is preparing for war or something. She is working her way through the drill problems for the first chapter of the MGMAT foundations covering expressions and equations. Its interesting what I take for granted. Day 2 KaPow!
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by qamar999 » Tue Feb 09, 2010 11:04 pm
i'm not sure if i should be putting this here but how yould you rate the difficulty of the maths questions in OG. the diagnostic tests seems a lil' difficult but the practice questions seem easier. or is it just the case with me?
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by ldoolitt » Tue Feb 16, 2010 9:03 am
DAY 8

Sorry for the lack of updates. There wasn't really anything interesting to post! She made it through all the guides EXCEPT the word translations and number properties. 5 hours a night she has been studying on top of a full time job and planning the wedding.

She took another diagnostic test last night and to my surprise...

Quant: 35
Verbal: 31
Overall: 550

An 80 point improvement, and an 11 point improvement in Quant. What was also REALLY encouraging was that half of her misses in the quant section were on topics covered in the word translations or the number properties. Its going really well.

We didn't focus too much on the strategy involved in the verbal section aside from SC. She did much better in SC but did far worst than she originally did in CR. I'm going to have her go over the SC book one more time (since its such a gem!) and then focus on CR as far as strategy. I don't think I had her do enough verbal problems which I think showed in the diagnostic.

From now on I'm going to split time 50/50 quant and verbal.

Any suggestions on studying for RC? That's probably my weakest area and the area I know least about.

Luke
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by Osirus@VeritasPrep » Tue Feb 16, 2010 9:07 am
I just took a weekend Veritas verbal class. Their reading comp strategy is the best in the business. I would suggest trying to find their Reading Comp guide if you can. I will post a summary of what I learned later on in the week though, if you want to look out for that.
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by ldoolitt » Tue Feb 16, 2010 10:01 am
osirus0830 wrote:I just took a weekend Veritas verbal class. Their reading comp strategy is the best in the business. I would suggest trying to find their Reading Comp guide if you can. I will post a summary of what I learned later on in the week though, if you want to look out for that.
I can't seem to find any of their guides as a breakout. They sell the set for like 450 on their site. Any ideas?
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