GMAT Strategy

Hi,

Many in this forum would have lost interest or probably tired of replying to such kind of post. The people with experience can only serve people without it. Hope you guys/gals would help me through

Yes, i am one among many suffering to sort out problems to get a good score in GMAT. The position i am in a score of 680-700+ would do world of good.

I started my preparation 1-1.5 months back. I started with OG diagnostic to check where i stand. The result was demoralising. Taking heart

1) I started my prep using Princeton material.
2) Initially planned to focus on quantz for a month and then verbal. On advice of my friend switched to Quantz a day and verbal the next day.
3) Frankly speaking, never sticked to my timelines. Missed days of preparation often.
4) Took GMATPrep test on advice of my friend, and got 480 if i am right the first time and from then on took few more after the clumsy preparations and got around 530 in my next attempts. I havent progressed at all. The score is stagnant at 530 for quite sometime now.
5) I have plans for my GMAT in the 1 week of Nov. ie. 3-Nov-2008. I relaize that the days are less and even after 2 months of brush up, i dont seem to progress even a little in the mock tests.

I have identified some weakness in the above time frame. But havent found ways to work on it.

1) Timing- I spend so much time on quantz and verbal. In all the test i have taken i have missed to even guess atleast 10qns.
2) PS seems to be fair enuf. But DS is hurting my quantz score most of the time. Co-ordinate geometry and probability often take me for a ride . In all test i have taken i get a score between 39-41 in quantz.
3) Have read through the Priceton material for SC's. Have read through OG for SC's. I dont seem to understand the trade. Though the material gives me informations and knowledge i am not able to Judge which rule is hurt in the given sentence.
4) Sticking to a serious schedule and practicing more and more of qns.
5) Not sure if i am equipped with the right materials. I have Princeton review and OG 11th edition.

I hope many here would had such problems and would have worked out there way to a good score. You advice could change things for me as well.

Thanks

You have the right materials; the OG, GMATPrep and PR are great. You definitely need to stick to a tighter schedule if you want to see improvement. I agree that you should mix up verbal and quant. Do enough practice questions for each type at a time so you can pick up patterns in your errors. Are you keeping an error log? That would help too.

You've got time to take a prep course if you sign up for one in the next few days...they usually last about 2 months. It sounds like that would be a good idea, since you're having trouble identifying how to get the right answer. The PR class has a math boot camp, which might help. (I did their online course.)

Hope this helps...

bilko wrote:You have the right materials; the OG, GMATPrep and PR are great. You definitely need to stick to a tighter schedule if you want to see improvement. I agree that you should mix up verbal and quant. Do enough practice questions for each type at a time so you can pick up patterns in your errors. Are you keeping an error log? That would help too.

You've got time to take a prep course if you sign up for one in the next few days...they usually last about 2 months. It sounds like that would be a good idea, since you're having trouble identifying how to get the right answer. The PR class has a math boot camp, which might help. (I did their online course.)

Hope this helps...

Thanks Bikko.
As mentioned i will have to stick to the strict timelines and start getting my error logs going. I will have give a quick look at if would wnat to go for any course. I might go for an online course if required.