GMAT Strategy

Hello Oxfordbound,
Have you already done all of the OG questions by topic area once? In general I think that it's best to go through all of the OG questions at least twice before worrying to much about practice tests. For me, I learned better by rotating through all of the subjects several times. It sounds like you are at the stage of learning where you know the material, but it just doesn't come to you very fast. The best solution for this is to do a lot of problems until you really have the material down and can recall information quickly. Of course, it wouldn't hurt to go back through the Manhattan guides if you don't remember some of the techniques, but once you have the general methods down you need to put them into practice- again, and again.

Once you feel comfortable doing questions in two minutes and have fairly good accuracy, then I would say that it's time to start taking more tests. I think students often focus too much on trying to do better on practice tests before they really have the material down, which in turn makes them depressed and less productive later on.

How are you doing on the verbal section?

Cheers
Dan

Hello again,
I wouldn't put off the SC book. There are a ton of SC rules to memorize, but one you get them down you'll be able to answer the SC questions faster and with greater accuracy. This in turn will give you more time on to focus of the RC and CR leading to an even greater percentage of correct answers on these areas. SC is key to the verbal section. Why not get a 42 or 43 on verbal?

If you keep doing the same OG questions and you've just memorized how to do them then you're studying probably won't be as efficient as it could be. What is really important is not so much the answers, but the thought process and the strategies you used to get to the answer. At the same time, it's good to review your questions until you have the correct methodology down.

Since it sounds like you've gone through some questions several time I would say it's time to move on to the rest of the questions in the OG. Once you've done all of the questions once, and have reviewed your wrong answers a couple times you may need to get some more practice questions (I think GMAT Hacks has a decent set that is split up by topic area).

If you don't find that the cycle strategy is working for you then you should probably change things up. However, I think the cycle method usually works best.

oxfordbound wrote:How I study is essentially to take a weakness area highlighted in the Manhattan tests and then study it for 2-3 weeks. This involves reading the entire book on that area, taking notes, doing all the problem sets and doing the OG questions for those areas. I then do a test.

this kind of thing is definitely part of a viable study strategy, but it can't be the whole strategy -- because this test is not just a test of objective content.

here's what i mean:
let's say that you miss ten problems about number properties. then, the way you're thinking here, it seems as though you think you could fix all ten of those issues just by studying the actual mathematics of number properties.
on a test like the gmat, though, this isn't true. if you missed ten number properties questions, say 5 PS and 5 DS, the following kind of situation is more likely:
-- of the 5 PS questions, you probably missed 2-3 because of the actual math content, and the others because you misread the problem, weren't organized enough, or didn't understand how to reinterpret or rephrase hints in the problem.
-- of the 5 DS problems, the number that you missed because of actual mathematics is very likely to be 0 or 1. when you miss problems in data sufficiency, the issue is almost always either (a) lack of focus on the correct information, or (b) lack of organization, or both.

so, the method above is likely to help you make some progress in PS, but it's likely to be ineffectual in DS.

for verbal, it depends entirely on how you think about the problems. if you are using the method above and thinking that you can master verbal by just memorizing a bunch of rules, then you will probably make negative progress!
see here:
https://www.beatthegmat.com/gmat-score-6 ... tml#415768

I JUST started timing my questions

not good.
there is a world of difference between "doing problems" and "doing timed problems". (think about, say, baking a cake in general, vs. baking a cake in 10 minutes.)

if you have been ignoring time management for the entire course of your studies so far, then you are going to have to get very, very serious about that.
in particular, you've probably built up an instinctual feeling that it's ok to sit there and stare at problems -- which will absolutely kill you once the timer starts to run.

My question is this, I have 15 chapters to review across three content areas (number properties, fractions, decimals and percents, word translations) - should I continuously focus on 1 area until I can do ALL the OG questions from that content area < 2 minutes, or cycle everything in order to retain that content?

well ... no one can, as you put it, "do ALL the OG questions from that content area < 2 minutes".

you have to realize that 2 minutes is an average! like all other averages, it implies a certain number of below-average quantities, and a comparable number of above-average quantities.
as an analogy, let's say that you paint houses, and it takes you 4 hours on average to paint a house.
would you expect to paint every single house in 4 hours or less? of course you wouldn't -- in the case of large mansions, this would be ridiculous, while in the case of small bungalows 4 hours would imply sitting around for half the time.

the same thing is true for gmat problems.
open your official guide (12th edition) to the problem-solving chapter, problems #163 and 164.
* #163 is a problem that no one will successfully finish in 2 minutes. just look at it! there's a huge amount of text for you to swim through and comprehend, and then, once you've achieved that comprehension, you actually have to do the algebra. obviously you still shouldn't take 10 minutes, but it's perfectly ok to take 3-3.5 minutes here.
* on the subsequent problem #164, no one should take more than about 30 seconds. people who know how to do the problem should easily be able to do the math within 30 seconds; people who don't know how to solve it should realize that they don't, and make a guess, within the same 30 seconds.

if you are actually giving yourself an upper limit of 2 minutes per problem, then you are basically guaranteeing that you won't be able to solve the problems that are longer than average.

I study 2 hours daily after work from 8-10pm and on weekends for about 5 hours.

how many days per week OFF?
if the answer is zero, then you are in big trouble, and you need to take some time off, pronto.
read the first paragraph here:
https://www.beatthegmat.com/confused-how ... tml#366523

Ron is right that you shouldn't just memorize a bunch of rules for verbal- especially in the critical reasoning. However, the SC section does have a ton of grammar rules that you must know. Not learning the SC grammar rules would be like trying to do exponent problems without know the exponent rules. There are some rules that you just need to know. Also, it's important to not just use "what sounds right" for a lot of people because the GMAT seems to test phrases that are often said incorrectly.

Good luck!