GMAT Strategy

Hello,

I am planning to give my GMAT exam this summer (July-August) before college reopens in September. While I have been following the Beat the Gmat 60 Days course religiously, I am a bit confused as to when I should book my actual exam. I have reached Day 10 and am aiming for a 650+ score. Also, since college is closed for the summer, I can put in more hours to study each day.

Could you suggest a good date for me to set my exam on?
Also, what material should I cover besides the OG and the Manhattan Strategy Guides? Are the Beat the Gmat emails sufficient?

Im a bit lost and feeling little panicky.

Hello,

I am planning to give my GMAT exam this summer (July-August) before college reopens in September. While I have been following the Beat the Gmat 60 Days course religiously, I am a bit confused as to when I should book my actual exam. I have reached Day 10 and am aiming for a 650+ score. Also, since college is closed for the summer, I can put in more hours to study each day.

Could you suggest a good date for me to set my exam on?
Also, what material should I cover besides the OG and the Manhattan Strategy Guides? Are the Beat the Gmat emails sufficient?

Im a bit lost and feeling little panicky.

Hi Aishwarya,

Ideally you should take the GMAT test date when you are done with most of your preparation and you have taken atleast one or two sample tests.

Test date in India are generally available on very short notice therefore I don't feel it will be any problem for you to postpone the decision of taking test date. However for some people it helps aiming at it better and do better preparation keeping the target date in mind and then I would suggest that you should take test date about One month later when your syllabus for GMAT preparation is over. By syllabus I mean
-All Topics of Quant (Numbers, Inequality, Geometry, Co-ordinate, P&C, Probability, Statistics, Time speed distance, Time and Work, Ratio and Mixtures, Word problems, DS Pratice etc.
-RC
-SC
-CR

The suggested material for Quant is
-Manhattan Books
-Kaplan Book
-OG-13

For Verbal
-OG10
-OG11
-OG12
-OG13
-Manhattan SC

Take a GMAT PREP Test and if you get a score close to your target score then decide a date about 20 days later so that you can improve a few mor problem areas and get that score consistently or even a higher score.

Prosper!!!

Thanks for the advice. Ive booked it for the 27th August. Hoping it goes as planned.

Cheers!

Hey Aishwarya,

Since your exam is August 27th, and you're aiming for a 650+, I'd suggest you aim to score a 670 on a GMATPrep by August 17th to be on the safe side.

My suggestion would be to move through your study materials concept-by-concept and NOT chronologically. Don't try to do a little bit of everything each week -- instead focus on ONE concept at a time.

I would also suggest doing 1 CAT each week, preferable on the same day of the week and time as your scheduled CAT. I'd alternate the four GMAT Preps (the two free, and the additional pack) with the six MGMAT CATs. Should be plenty!

Don't forget to develop your strategy skills! Especially for CR and RC! "Strategy" is a word that can seem a bit intimidating, but it boils down to this: do you have a systematic approach to each question type? And, more importantly, does it work for you? You can see what I mean by RC strategy here: https://gmatrockstar.com/2013/10/31/gmat ... f-the-day/

Good luck!

Aishwarya,
Another bit of advice is to not get caught up in practice alone. I've seen a lot of students solve thousands of GMATPrep questions without seeing any significant improvement in their scores.

50% of your prep time must be spent on practice and the remaining 50% on analysis.

Always solve a block of questions from across different sections of the GMAT. Give yourself a little less than 2 minutes per question. Let's say you start off with 30 questions. Give yourself 45 minutes to solve these. Then spend the next 45 minutes analyzing these questions.

As you do this, make sure to note down:

• 1. What concept did each question test?
  2. What kind of mistake did you make? Conceptual? application? timing? silly mistake?
  3. The difference between your answer and the OA
  4. A 'micro learning' from this question - what went wrong here
  5. A 'macro learning' for this type of question - what should you do (or not do) the next time you get a similar question

It is best if you track this on an Excel sheet instead of a diary. So, during the last week before your test, you can simply filter out your learning by concept & question type. This will make revision a lot simpler.

Do check out this blog where I have compiled some more best practices for GMAT preparation:
https://www.gmat.crackverbal.com/effective-gmat-prep/

Hope this helps.