GMAT Strategy

nimish_rulz wrote: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

OH MY GOSH these are hard. Good grief - some of them are making my head spin off. With only a day of studying to go, I don't even want to introduce some of these into my brain! If there are any particular ones you'd like to work through, though, let me know.

Hey man!
Sorry for not replying. I wasn't around. GOOD LUCK WITH YOUR EXAM AND ALL THE BEST FOR CRACKING IT.
Let me know how it went.
I really hope you get more than 700 well I am quite confident that you will and I ll pray for you.


Good luck once again!
Nimish

nimish_rulz wrote:Hey man!
Sorry for not replying. I wasn't around. GOOD LUCK WITH YOUR EXAM AND ALL THE BEST FOR CRACKING IT.
Let me know how it went.
I really hope you get more than 700 well I am quite confident that you will and I ll pray for you.


Good luck once again!
Nimish

Thanks Nimish! And thanks for your support and setting this string up. I'm excited - I feel prepared. And I'm walking in there with the intention of expressing what I know, period. I can't do more than that, can I?? So I will do the very best I can, and whatever score I get, I get. Thanks for your encouragement and faith in me!

And I'll always take prayers - thank you! Off I go!!!
All the best,
Mercedes

Good Luck Mercedez. Awaiting to hear your howling success .

~R

WOO HOO! I'm DONE! I got a 640 - a score I feel I can be really proud of. I got a 42 on Quant - the highest yet. Yet my brain kind of turned off - I could feel myself spacing out a little during verbal - and I got a 35 on Verbal. I've done better, yet I'm not beating myself up about it. I did the best I could. I studied hard. I was prepared. And under the testing circumstances and time constraints, I believe it to be an accurate picture of my skills. Okay then! Time to celebrate!!

I want to send a HUGE shout out and thank you to the builder of this forum, first and foremost, because these resources have been invaluable. And thank you, Nimish, for the cheers on the home stretch. I'll still be rooting for you, and will support you however I can.

Best regards
Mercedes

WOO HOO!!!!

rajmirra wrote:Good Luck Mercedez. Awaiting to hear your howling success .

~R

Thanks Rajmirra!!

Wow!!!! Thats good. I remember you telling me that you were aiming for 650 and you got it dead right. Brilliant Man. I just wanted to know how many tests did you do and what were the scores. Also, how was the AWA section? Were you prepared for it. And how did you find the questions hard or easy compared to OG? And as much as you can abt the questions which you can remember. Did you find any questions similar to the mistakes I made???

Btw I gave my first mock test Manhattan GMAT Prep scored 600(Q 44 and V 30) I could have got 5-6 more questions correct in Quantitative if only I had read the questions correctly and not made the silly mistakes. Well, Verbal I am still worried about need to work hard on it for the remaining days. And also if you made any notes or material used for verbal section and you can share would be much appreciated.

Enjoy your freedom....and good luck with your application.

Hey Congratulations. Its party time.

~R

nimish_rulz wrote:Wow!!!! Thats good. I remember you telling me that you were aiming for 650 and you got it dead right. Brilliant Man. I just wanted to know how many tests did you do and what were the scores. Also, how was the AWA section? Were you prepared for it. And how did you find the questions hard or easy compared to OG? And as much as you can abt the questions which you can remember. Did you find any questions similar to the mistakes I made???

Btw I gave my first mock test Manhattan GMAT Prep scored 600(Q 44 and V 30) I could have got 5-6 more questions correct in Quantitative if only I had read the questions correctly and not made the silly mistakes. Well, Verbal I am still worried about need to work hard on it for the remaining days. And also if you made any notes or material used for verbal section and you can share would be much appreciated.

Enjoy your freedom....and good luck with your application.

Hi Nimish

Thanks for the cheers! It feels great, yet I actually miss the studying. Can you believe it? I'm a born student!! =)

Way to go on the Manhattan Prep test. Good solid practice score. That was my first practice test score, too. I know - it's the careless errors that are the doozies. I said many a time, "If only I would have read that again..."

The GMATPrep exams are the BEST practice exams in terms of similarity to the real thing. The questions seemed slightly harder on the real thing, although it may be because I was answering harder ones correctly before I would head the other direction on the "tree." The format is dead on - there were no surprises when I went in to take the test. Looks exactly like the GMATPrep. Have you taken those already? There are two, on www.mba.com. I can't remember if you said you had.

The questions you sent me were WAY harder than what I saw on the real thing. Again, it may be that if you're nailing every question out of the gate, you'll get to those level of questions. Yet I didn't see it. I got Q42 (66th percentile) so that will give you an idea of my level.

The thing I noticed most about the real test questions was that they were worded a bit more tricky than the practice questions. For example, a weaken question in CR or RC was worded more subtly so I didn't automatically know it was a weaken question. Quite a few of the CR questions were, "which of the following would make the most sense as the end of this argument (or end of this sentence)?" Didn't see so many of those in the practice runs.

The RC questions were harder on the real thing than in the practice tests. The articles themselves were easier to read - more applicable to every day life as opposed to ceramic cups carbon dated to 5,000 B.C. The answers seemed to be a little closer together so the right answer didn't pop out at me. Be sure and read the answers really carefully - all of them.

In terms of the AWA, the topics were basically in identical form to those topics listed in the OG. Nothing new there. I did feel prepared and felt good about my essays. Will be interesting to see my scores on the official report. I think I did better on the Issue than the Argument. One way I prepped was to have a basic skeleton of an outline ready to go so I wouldn't be fumbling for words in the intro and conclusion paragraphs. I also spent some time taking five minutes per topic in the back of the OG and prepping how I would in the actual test. What are the cons, pros, complexities, my opinion, the type of reasoning - all of it. I'd simply do the 5 minute prep and only timed myself for a 30-minute essay a few times. It got me thinking and my juices flowing, so by the time of the test yesterday I had some good ideas rolling around.

I took a total of seven practice tests, with my scores running from 550 to 640, and anywhere from 29-37 on Verbal and 31 - 42 on Quant. My final was 35 on Verbal and 42 on Quant. So my last practice exam really matched closely what I ended up getting on the test. And again that feels great because I believe it to be an accurate representation of where I am in conjunction with the time constraints involved. Good stuff. I can't tell you how helpful it was in terms of nerves to have taken all those practice tests. Just felt like old hat yesterday and I could concentrate on the test itself.

I hope that helps! Let me know if you have any additional questions.
Warm regards
Mercedes

Hey man thanks for the useful insight
I took another manhattan test today, Scored 620
Q46 and V30

I think I did better in quantitative was expecting around 48 but anyways still haven't reviewed my mistakes as i have Been busy with my project most of the day.
Verbal was funny though I guessed all the Reading Comp. Questions as I didn't have much time to finish the test and finished the test in 35mins. Got loads wrong in RC(i think all except 1or 2 out of 12) But I did try and to all the CR(10Correct 4Wrong) and SC(7Correct 8 Wrong) questions properly but still not properly enough as I was very sleepy started the verbal section at 1 45 at night.
I need to work slightly harder for Quant. And I am sure I can touch 51. Verbal on the other hand will be the area in which I am going to spend most of my time in the remaining days especially the SC and RC sections. Will keep taking the tests till the end of this week. And next week will do GMAT prep 2 tests and just hardcore revision of whatever I have done dedicating 2 days to Quantitative Section , 2 days to SC and 2 days to RC and CR. Or may be a slight mix. This week I am trying to finish Kaplan 800 so that I can deal with those Difficult Quantitative Questions.

Oops forgot about the essays need to adjust that somewhere as well.
Anyways, will keep you updated.

Congrats on getting your practice test score up - WOO HOO! Keep it going! I can feel your study mojo coming back on in full force - way to hang in there!

Sounds like you have a great study plan. Now if only you can do it before 2:00 a.m....

Best wishes
Mercedes

Mercedes, Nimish,

Guys you are just amazing, i dive into GMAT practice questions every night thinking I am the only one in the world who is crazy enough to set for 4 hours right after work just trying to achieve a good score, and then I log in to your thread and get a huge portion of motivation reading your posts before I dive back to the OG !!!

Im setting for the test on April 30th, so I still need your motivation for another month so don't stop posting even if you are done. Don't give up on us guys. Mercedes, Congrats for the 640, that's great. I need a 600 to meet my conditional MBA offer. I have done four tests till now. MG: 620 MG: 570 Pr: 550 and today MG 590. I am really pissed as am confident I can score higher. I have a month to go now. I managed to raise my V from 24 to 34 on average, Q keeps swinging between 34 and 47 !!

I am done with my SC preparation, CR and RC I don't think I will do more, I just need now to adapt my self to the timing of the exam as I do not mind the 34 V score.

Can you advise what to do to raise my Q in the coming month. Nimish you are in need for every minute before u set for the exam, so Mercedes, can you shed light on how your Q preparation were one month before the test. Specially on adapting you self to the timing, I am always left with 5 to 6 questions to guess in the last 1 minutes in the MG tests, and they seem to lower my score as they start giving me 600-700 bin questions for them and then 500-600 since I get them wrong one after one with my bad luck in guessing, I would answer them right I have time...Typical !!! so do you really used to guess or POE the question if takes more than 1.5 minutes to figure out your way, as I spend 4 min some times on 1 question... is this wrong, how wrong!! How about the first 12 questions, do I really need to give them more time, did it prove to be right.

Any tip would be really appreciated.
I've got Kaplan, Kaplan 800, OG, Pr, and MG for SC books, I checked a good portion of the Pr book, but other than that just practice on questions and tests, any particular sections you advise to cover. What did you find as the most useful source (I want to check the flashcards posed on the forum within the coming two days too)

Sorry for the long post, but I'm seriously inspired by your excitement and motivation

THANKS,
Masri

Hey Masri, Welcome to the thread. Well I would say you have enough time don't worry about the timing just yet, review the questions properly once you finish the test. Manhattan Gmat prep Quantitative section is fairly long but good test of difficult questions. I would say don't ever spend more than 2.5 - 3mins in a question 4 mins is too long. Max. 20-25 seconds to read the question 35-40 seconds to make equations or to get the gist of what the question is asking and try solving. If however you are not able to come up with good solid equation or interpretation of the question use the remaining 1 min for back solving, plugging in options starting from middle. Given your score in Quantitative I feel you know what is tested on GMATs quantitative section and if you have fair idea of the formulas used, I would say start with Kaplan800 its a great book(Only for quantitative as for now), also try downloading the errors I committed if you feel like its mostly the errors I committed in DS but from various sources including all the OGs(10,11 and quantitative review).

Also, I would advice you to split your week in a way that you devote maximum time to the Verbal considering its your weak area(spend around 4-4.5 days)(I hate verbal i am very weak in it you still managed 35 which is brilliant) and around(1.5-2 days to quantitative section). On last day of the week(assuming sunday) take out all the mistakes you have committed and go through it followed by a full length test. Your aim now should be to improve your verbal score as I am pretty sure you can get 51 in Quantitative by just working 2 days in a week.

You have plenty of time to crack this test and don't aim for 600 just because thats the condition your school asked you to meet. Instead aim for 700+(Who knws you might need your score again in 3-4years time) as I am pretty sure you can do it with the amount of time in hand and the scores already achieved by you.
Also, OG is your Bible especially for Verbal you will get 60-70 percent of the questions in the test of similar difficulty level. Its only for more than 650 level you should consider other material so for verbal just stick with OG try finishing it twice before your test.

Hi Nimish,

I must say, this has been the best reply I got on Beat The GMAT so far, not only because it's full of tips, but this is the motivation I was looking for :D:D. You are right, it's just that it's 600 that I need for my business school, but I am aiming much higher.

I think you are right regarding the Q/V split in studying time, I think I will give 2.5 days for Q and 3.5 days for V and last day for mistakes and full test. I already used the same approach to revise the questions I get wrong, surprisingly we have lots of common mistakes (I checked your files)

I think the most important at this step is to improve my timing during practices, I liked the 65@Q6 - 55@Q11 - 45@16 ......check points approach, I shall try this for my practices on Friday as it's 4.00 am at my end now :S but could not wait till tomorrow to check your reply.

lsn, for your verbal, have you checked the MG SC. i followed beat the gmat tip of having it, and it's absolutely AMAZING, i read every section, did the OG verbal review questions matching every section, marked the ones i got wrong, did them again, and started practicing on the OG 11th general review (the orange one) before start having my 34 V scores, they used to be 25 and 26. If you already have it, read it again and again, I am confident it will boost your V... it's great for non native English speaker with its simple rules... it's no rocket science.

Finally, how about giving attention to the first 12 questions, is it really a myth? Have you tested that with your GMATPrep practice tests?

I'll follow your advice for Q and start looking at Kaplan 800

It's two weeks to go for you, what's your plan?!!

Sam

Past is: Behind Me---Future is: Secure---Present is: An Aim To Crack The GMAT. So I say lets DO ITTTTT!

Plan is simple- Get my ass comfortable and sit on the study table for as long as possible and keep revising. Well, I haven't been in touch with Verbal recently especially the SC. Last day for maths today so getting all the books out of the way(Kaplan800 and Manhattan 3 guides which I have) and then I ll be back to SCs and RCs, I got exhausted revising so took a break for around 10 days so Verbal rusty now From tmrw(thursday till sunday) I am just going to work on my SCs and RCs as these are 2 of the weakest limb in my GMAT preparation so far. I am descent with CR and Ok with PS but DS i need to get better. Yes, I have revised from Manhattan SC just recently got the new edition so will have a look at it.

My plan for verbal is simple finish OG 11 twice before the exam along with the mistakes I have made especially the SC and RC.

All the questions are of Equal marks so you should spend equal time on it, As getting the string of questions wrong at the end is gonna hurt your score badly. Say for example you end up spending 65mins for the first 30 Questions, you will only have 10 mins for the next 7, the chances are you will hurry through the last few questions. Imagine these scenarios:

You get Q 31 wrong (before this you were at 700-800 level since you solved most of the questions correctly)
Q32 again will be 700-800 level but if you get this wrong your level will go down to 600-700, but if you get it right you will again get a 700-800 Q which will be difficult hence you ll need more time.
Getting Qs wrong in a string will have this effect
Q31 wrong 700-800
Q32 wrong 600-700
Q33 onwards random guessing will mean, correct still at 600-700
Q34 wrong 600-700
Q35 wrong 600-700
Q36 wrong 500-600
Q37 wrong 500-600 final score

Remember Probability of guessing a right answer from 5 answer choice is 1/5 ppl will bad luck can take it as 1/10 and ppl with good luck 2/5.

Other thing I want to mention here is which you might have not noticed anywhere else is THE MIDDLE QUESTIONS
Q10-Q27 try using only 1.5 mins for these Qs

Reason:
33% questions of each section on GMAT are experimental questions. Your score is not affected if you get them wrong. SO, it’s really important that you do well on all non experimental questions.
As we all know getting the questions wrong initially makes your score topple(as we know first 1/3 Questions are very imp to boos your score)
However same applies for the last 1/3 Questions as many ppl will be running out of time thus will be unable to finish it or get it wrong hence they lose considerable points. BUT REMEMBER GMAT STILL Has 33 percent of questions in your test which doesn't count. Now read this carefully:

Where are these experimental questions?: GMAT places these questions to gauge their relative difficulty level so test makers will place these questions around the areas where it’s more likely to receive average attention on the test – neither too much so not at the beginning nor at the end – so not at the end.

Here’s where most of the students may get it wrong. We try to take care of first 10 questions of each section because 95% chances are there that they will not contain experimental questions. However, because of improper time management students rush through last 5-10 questions. BUT, there are 95% chances that the last 5-8 questions are NOT experimental questions and if you get anyone of this wrong you will be penalized.
The reason I can say this is:
I know after doing many CR’s, you will want to deny this argument by finding some assumption But do the following:

o Take old PowerPrep as a part of your practice.
o While taking test, make sure you number each question of both sections on your scratch pad.
o PowerPrep tells you that it omits all the experimental questions from review section. So, after the test, when you review the answers, please observe which questions are omitted. You will find that first 5-8 questions and last 5-8 questions of each section will stay there whereas the questions from middle will disappear. This observation strengthened my theory that last 5-8 questions hold high importance too.
GMAT notifies you that if you don’t answer all the questions then it penalizes you. Now if it wants to penalize you then it would not include experimental question in last few questions of each section, will it? I hope this make sense J


Maths: Avoid mistakes on first 7 questions and last 7 questions (31st to 37th)

Verbal: Avoid mistakes on first 8 questions and last 8 questions (34th to 41st)