GMAT Strategy

nimish_rulz wrote:x+y+z=150 Given(We will call this as equation 1)
Now according to Statement 1
Ratio of most expensive book (x) to all the books (x+y+z) =2/3(this is my equation 2)
Equation 2 is x: (x+y+z) =2/3
Now using equation 1 in equation 2(replacing x+y+z with 150) as its given in the question, we get:
x/150= 2/3 => x =100 hence sufficient. As question wants the price of most expensive book that’s it.
And since x is the most expensive book you get your answer with the statement 1.
And statement 2 gives the relation between only Most expensive and the least expensive book. But you don't know anything about the medium cost book in statement 2 ratio is 20/3...20/3 of what only x+z so we still need the third variable(y) which isn't present, ratio can also be 3:2:1 so 2 is insufficent
answer is A

I actually pulled my question - you were too quick! I read it again and saw that I missed the word "all" and therefore the complete ratio. Thanks for your help!!

Hello again Just an update...Today I did OG 11 and OG Quantitative review 11 (only the DS questions). From OG 10 where my overall accuracy was around 70%(80% in the first 150-175 and only 60% in the last 75 Qs) Today to my astonishment my accuracy for the (200-230 Qs I did) was touching 90%....I didn't do the first 20Qs from Quantitative review and Q75-Q99 from OG 11 as I read through the questions and found it very similar to OG 10. OG 10 I still have to cover up the first 80 Qs as I haven't done those.

I have created a document with all the wrong DS Qs (Including Nova, OG10, OG11 and Quantitative Review)

Also I was able to solve most Questions in 15-20 Seconds and Max 1 min 30 secs(this is for DS ). As I did around 200 Qs today it didn't take me more than 3 hrs( I also was chatting on MSN in between). After that I got bored.
So from DS Sections
In OG's I am still left with:
OG 10- Q1-Q80
OG 11 - Q75- Q99
OG Quantitative Review- Q1-Q20

If anyone needs the document in which I have all the questions I did Wrong(Around 40 odd Qs) Please PM me.

Ok out of my mistakes most were from Absolute value Qs as I don't understand the explanations provided in the OG so need to work on that. I have ordered Number property Book from Manhattan.
Second weak area is my silly mistakes, not reading the questions properly.
Thirdly I would say some Qs of inequalities mixed with absolute values and a very few Qs from geometry.

Ok now next task is to revise and take notes of the mistakes I made and forget about DS for a bit(will solve all the Qs I got wrong with Kaplan 800)

Tuesday-Wednesday
Next Task is to finish the PS Q's. Although I don't know how difficult the Qs from OG are I was happy with what I achieved solving Kaplan Premier and Nova. I got around 80-85 percent accuracy from those 2 books. But still need to revise all the problems. I would say the weakest part In PS for me is Probability I get confused when to add and when to multiply so need to solve lots of Probability Qs. So will take up Manhattan Word Translation guide. and Number Percentage and Fractions for tmrw. In the meantime I will get my Number property book so will have go at it as well.

Oh...yeh...sorry about it. I wasn't able to sleep so logged on to the website to see if I had any PM's and to see if anything new was happening on this Thread. Anyways Hows the work coming along?

MercedesMW wrote:

nimish_rulz wrote:x+y+z=150 Given(We will call this as equation 1)
Now according to Statement 1
Ratio of most expensive book (x) to all the books (x+y+z) =2/3(this is my equation 2)
Equation 2 is x: (x+y+z) =2/3
Now using equation 1 in equation 2(replacing x+y+z with 150) as its given in the question, we get:
x/150= 2/3 => x =100 hence sufficient. As question wants the price of most expensive book that’s it.
And since x is the most expensive book you get your answer with the statement 1.
And statement 2 gives the relation between only Most expensive and the least expensive book. But you don't know anything about the medium cost book in statement 2 ratio is 20/3...20/3 of what only x+z so we still need the third variable(y) which isn't present, ratio can also be 3:2:1 so 2 is insufficent
answer is A

I actually pulled my question - you were too quick! I read it again and saw that I missed the word "all" and therefore the complete ratio. Thanks for your help!!

Great work, Nimish! You're on fire! WOW - 200 questions today. You are rockin' it!!

Yep - probability. I understand for the most part when to add (OR) and when to multiply (AND), yet it's when there are multiple moving parts and I need to come up with the denominator first, and then do a whole new set of probability using nCr or nPr for the numerator. That's where I start to slide...

I'd like to take a look at your document - realistically tomorrow - to work through them.

Sounds like you have a great plan for your studies. Way to go!

I have uploaded it on wikisend as well a free hosting site. You can upload and download material(only if you have a link) for free.
heres the link:

https://wikisend.com/download/945614/Quantative.zip

P.S.
There are some comments in 1 of the file...as I was making silly mistakes and was falling asleep so wrote to motivate me. Hope you won't find them funny lol

Hi Nimish

How's it going, friend? We're counting down the days, aren't we?

I have today and tomorrow, and then I'm taking Easter Sunday off. My test is 8:00 a.m. Monday - WOO HOO!!!

Question for you: I'm working on Math Bin 3 in Cracking the GMAT (Princeton) and I can't get to the same answer to which they've gotten. Please have a go:

If you're given an equilateral triangle and told the height is 1, and then you slice that triangle down the middle to get two 30-60-90 triangles, what do you calculate as your base?

They say square root of 3. I say square root of 3 OVER 3. What do you (or anyone out there) say?

Thanks!!
Mercedes

Dude I think you are right.

I am attaching a file which shows you all the special triangles and the ratio of their sides and angles.

As far as answer is concerned it should be 1/sqrt 3 or sqrt3/3 .

Hey dude,
My prep isn't going well. So far after my last update about DS Q's. I haven't done much. Thought about finishing all the PS questions in next 2 days but couldn't. I was just able to finish Manhattan Word Translation guide. Apart from that I have finished all the CR questions from OG10 with an overall accuracy of 77 percent( The last 30-40 Qs my accuracy went down considerably around 65 percent). Before the last 30-40 Qs I was averaging over 80. But need to work on it too. I was thinking about finishing RC questions from OG10 but have found that boring as hell so not a great deal of success with this either.
Any tricks to do this section will be helpful as I have been trying to take the notes but don't understand what to write and what not to write. I take too much time and either get most correct or most wrong its not stable(and usually don't find good reason why I picked up the answer). I always almost get the Q which asks you what the passage is about like does it state a theory backed byy examples or some other choices, always wrong.
I haven't looked at SC material for a week now, Planing to do that on Saturday and Sunday.
So all in all not going as I thought. My target was to finish OG 10 by the end of this week and also OG 11. But I haven't done much work in the past 10-12 days so need to bounce back quickly and make up for the lost time.

Best of luck with your preparations. I know you will do well.

nimish_rulz wrote:Dude I think you are right.

I am attaching a file which shows you all the special triangles and the ratio of their sides and angles.

As far as answer is concerned it should be 1/sqrt 3 or sqrt3/3 .

Thanks for taking a look! I remember reading in our BeattheGMAT Fearless Leader's blog that there were mistakes in these books. Looks like I found one!

Thanks again.

nimish_rulz wrote:Hey dude,
My prep isn't going well. So far after my last update about DS Q's. I haven't done much. Thought about finishing all the PS questions in next 2 days but couldn't. I was just able to finish Manhattan Word Translation guide. Apart from that I have finished all the CR questions from OG10 with an overall accuracy of 77 percent( The last 30-40 Qs my accuracy went down considerably around 65 percent). Before the last 30-40 Qs I was averaging over 80. But need to work on it too. I was thinking about finishing RC questions from OG10 but have found that boring as hell so not a great deal of success with this either.
Any tricks to do this section will be helpful as I have been trying to take the notes but don't understand what to write and what not to write. I take too much time and either get most correct or most wrong its not stable(and usually don't find good reason why I picked up the answer). I always almost get the Q which asks you what the passage is about like does it state a theory backed byy examples or some other choices, always wrong.
I haven't looked at SC material for a week now, Planing to do that on Saturday and Sunday.
So all in all not going as I thought. My target was to finish OG 10 by the end of this week and also OG 11. But I haven't done much work in the past 10-12 days so need to bounce back quickly and make up for the lost time.

Best of luck with your preparations. I know you will do well.

Don't give up on me, Nimish! We're in this together. Take it bit by bit - I hear you really looking at quantity - how many can you do - rather than breaking it down into quality. So let's say you don't get through a whole book of something, or a whole section of something. Let's just hang in on the RC and CR.

Do you know if you're a visual, auditory or kinesthetic learner? In other words, do you learn more when you can picture it, hear it or touch/feel it? Check out when you've been the most successful at learning something, and then let's apply it here. If you're visual, picture the story you're reading. Write a few HIGH level notes and picture the scene. Are you in a lab with scientists? Are you in a school district council meeting? Or if you're auditory, listen to the story in your head. Listen to the story being told - listen for tone and nuance. Still write a few notes down to remind yourself where to look in the story if necessary, yet listen to what's going on in the story. Finally, if you're kinesthetic or tactile, write more notes. Feel the pencil glide along the page as you pick up hints and cues of what's being talked about. Better yet, imagine yourself in the scene. What would you be identifying with? How would you be sitting? What would your body language be?

I say take a little while to evaluate how you best learn, and then let's start there. Forget about the quantity of questions for just a little while, and let's just hang here where you can give yourself lots of patience.

Recognizing that I'm a visual learner, I really attempt to picture what I'm reading. Writing charts/graphs of things helps me a lot - helps me to sort through details, for example. I write very little on my notes. A lot of what helps me, too, is looking very closely at the conclusion to see what's in it that wasn't in the premise. New ideas? Something doesn't sync up?

Let me know how I can support you.
Warm regards
Mercedes

I have been watching this thread for sometimes now. I am also having my GMAT by the end of the month. I have Manhattan GMAT CAT test and a GMAT PREP test remaining. I am planning to take one tomorrow. Which should I take GMAT PREP or MGMAT?

Thanks for your time!

~R

I would say take the Manhattan Gmat CAT first revise the mistakes you commit and then finally you can take the Gmat Prep test. I am saying that because the Gmat prep test will tell you the actual score you can expect on the Gmat Day and also it will be easier compared to Manhattan Gmat thus will give you some confidence.
But again get the tests out of your way 2 days before the actual exam and try revising the errors you have committed and mostly the ones which you have repeated.
Good luck with the prep. When is your exam btw????

rajmirra wrote:I have been watching this thread for sometimes now. I am also having my GMAT by the end of the month. I have Manhattan GMAT CAT test and a GMAT PREP test remaining. I am planning to take one tomorrow. Which should I take GMAT PREP or MGMAT?

Thanks for your time!

~R

I would suggest saving the GMATPrep for last, as it will be the most realistic - in terms of form, structure, etc. Best wishes!

Thanks guys. I have my game on March 31. I took the MGMAT and fell about 50 points. I didnt target too much. I was targetting a 650 and GMAT Prep 1 was 640. I am staying always on 35 with verbal but the Quants part seems to fluctuate from 35 to 45. Let me see what happens in a week. Goodluck for you both.

~R

I took the GMATPrep this morning - 640 - I'll take it! My very first practice test on 2/2/08 was 600, so I'm moving up!!

Yet there were a couple of questions that threw me for a loop - can't seem to get to the GMAT answer and would love to see how you work through it. I've attached the file with the questions.

Any insight would be greatly appreciated - thanks!
Mercedes