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Serious help needed

by subhasis8877 » Wed Apr 08, 2009 9:17 pm
Hello all,
I have started my preparation one month ago. My GMAT date is July 15th.I have following Books
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OG 11
Princeton Review Craking GMAT
OG Numerical
KAPLAN Premier Edition 2008-2009
KAPLAN Numerical workbook
Powerscore CR Bible
Manhattan Sentence Correction Book
800 Score Numerical and Verbal practice tests
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I have started my preparation with Princeton review to get familiar with Gmat questions. Then I jumped into KAPLAN Premier edition. I studied the theory of each topic as well as done around 20 problems from KAPLAN. Then I moved to OG 11 for practising. I found that I was getting stumped in RC and CR.I always choose the wrong answer.

I have done almost 75% of the OG problems. Finally to test my GMAT score, I have appeared for one GMAT prep practice test. I scored 482(devasted).....

I have analyzed the questions. Found the following problems i faced

1. Problem Solving : Quite Good at various topics. But still Improvement needed in Geometry and Probability. Basically need to work out some hard problems which are not there in OG 11.

2. Data Sufficiency: Need to work hard on this. I have done some careless mistakes. Among the questions, i went wrong in Numerical section, 90% are DS problems.

3.SC Problems : I have done some careless mistakes. I have tried again for those problems after the test, I have done 90% correct. Basically need to remember all those I have studied.

4.CR Questions: This is 50% correct. Need to improve a lot in this. I know the concepts given in Powerscore CR bible. But not able to apply those to the problems due to Time.

5. RC Questions : Completely stumped. I am not able to understand the passage, although i have taken a lot of time to go through each and every sentence. This is basically because of my poor vocabulary skills.
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I have started my preparation again with the following strategies.

1st April to 1st may
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First Two weeks : I will go through KAPLAN Quant workbook completely and Study Manhattan sentence Correction Book and CR Bible
and will try to remember those concepts and formulae.

Rest of the weeks for that month :Practice KAPLAN Premier and OG again with carefully going though each and every explanations, keeping time in mind.
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1st may to 1st june
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1st and second week: Planning to buy Manhattan Question Banks and Challenge series.Please give comments whether i should go through these or not.Will go through that. And also cover two Kaplan GMAT full length tests. I will try to go through LSAT CR and 1000 RC. Please suggest where to practice.
Rest of the weeks : LSAT CR and 1000 RC and Manhattan Question bank and two more KAPLAN GMAT tests and will also go through GMAT 800 book depends on my score in the tests.If I score more than 600 then only I will go for this book.
1st june to 1st july
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Practice and practice and go through Power prep tests and Manhattan series of tests. Finally end with GMAT prep tests.


Please suggest how to improve CR and RC. I am poor in vocabulary skills. I just don’t understand the words in RC and sometimes in CR.How to improve my vocab skills with in my above study schedule.
Is it Good for going through Manhattan Question banks?
Is it good to go through LSAT CR and 1000 RC ? If yes, I desperately need the explanations. Where will I find those?
People say,Kaplan’s explanation to LSAT CR is good . Where will I find it ?

Also please suggest, Am I going in a right track?
Finally, I want to ask one question Is GMAT is a dream for me, only because I am poor in English Language? I am too tensed. Please help
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by VP_Jim » Thu Apr 09, 2009 3:56 pm
Have you already taken a practice test to determine where you start? If not, I'd suggest getting a baseline score to see what you need to do in your preparation.

In all honesty, I think you're working with too much material. Prepping for the GMAT (I've said this before in other posts, but I'll say it again) is really about QUALITY, not quantity. A lot of the concepts that you learn stays the same, so once you're familiar with a problem type, you'll be able to apply it to similar problems you come across on the actual test. However, in order to really LEARN a problem type, you need to try to take the time to analyze each problem that you're studying, so you know WHY you answered the problem correctly (or incorrectly).

Since the GMAT assumes a certain command of the English language, even though getting a great score on the exam is not impossible (I've taught quite a few students where English is not their first language), you do have a bit more work ahead of you. Unfortunately, a good knowledge of vocabulary comes from practice and memorization. I'd recommend perhaps taking an English class at your school or getting a private tutor. Also, definitely start practicing reading every chance you get; the Wall Street Journal, New York Times, dense reading materials, and etc etc are all good fodder for practice.

Good luck!
Jim S. | GMAT Instructor | Veritas Prep
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by MICHAEL S » Sat Apr 11, 2009 10:16 pm
Hey Jim,


One thing that I'mhaving issues with is that with the GMAT Prepsoftware, after taking a practice test, it shows you all of the answer's that you got wrong. BUT...It doesn't not show yuo how you arrived at the answer? At that point for me, I find it difficult to find the exact problem within any of the books that I have!

BTW... Just wondering, are you familiar with the "Bob Miller's Math for the GMAT?" If you are, what do you think about it?

Michael
MICHAEL S
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by VP_Jim » Sun Apr 12, 2009 7:04 am
I've never heard of that book, so I can't comment.

As for the GMAT Prep tests, it's true - they don't have explanations. Try searching this forum for them, however. Many people have posted questions from the GMAT Prep tests, and many others have posted explanations!
Jim S. | GMAT Instructor | Veritas Prep
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