GMAT VERBAL PLAN - HELP

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GMAT VERBAL PLAN - HELP

by gui_guimaraes » Thu Mar 09, 2017 7:09 am
Hi from Brazil!

I have studied the Manhattan strategy books (CR, RC, SC) and completed the On Demand Manhattan GMAT Prep, but my score isn't getting any higher. I have plenty materials such as: 1- the complete Veritas GMAT prep books; 2- Official Guides (Verbal and Math Reviews); 3- Princeton Review; 4- Kaplan Program and Math WorkBook; 5- Sections for RC & SC from ARCO, CLIFF, BARRON, SUPERCOURSE, HBJ, KAPLAN, CRACKING and so on. But I having a hard time to develop a study plan, can someone please help me out to build one?

Many Thanks! Guilherme

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by DavidG@VeritasPrep » Thu Mar 09, 2017 7:21 am
gui_guimaraes wrote:Hi from Brazil!

I have studied the Manhattan strategy books (CR, RC, SC) and completed the On Demand Manhattan GMAT Prep, but my score isn't getting any higher. I have plenty materials such as: 1- the complete Veritas GMAT prep books; 2- Official Guides (Verbal and Math Reviews); 3- Princeton Review; 4- Kaplan Program and Math WorkBook; 5- Sections for RC & SC from ARCO, CLIFF, BARRON, SUPERCOURSE, HBJ, KAPLAN, CRACKING and so on. But I having a hard time to develop a study plan, can someone please help me out to build one?

Many Thanks! Guilherme
Can you give us a little more info on your practice exams? (How many have you taken? What is your process for reviewing each test once you've completed it? Once you identify areas of concern, post-exam, how do you go about addressing these concerns?)
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by gui_guimaraes » Fri Mar 10, 2017 5:30 am
Hi David! Good morning!

After a practice test or a section test (RC/ SC/ CR), I review all the questions. The ones I got wrong, I tried to identify the subject I struggled with and I go back to Manhattan Books or the forums to sort it out. Also the Manhattan Interact has a "navigatior" in which most of the official questions are explained. And even if I still can't figured it out, I get a class with an english teacher, who is not a GMAT instructor, but is a Ields instructor. It's convenient because he is already teaching me for the TOEFL test. I know it is not the same...I recently started an error log and this tool is helping to identify my "regular mistakes".

Regarding practice tests, last week I took a verbal section quiz from E-Gmat. I am attaching the results for your evaluation, ok? I left 6 questions undone![/b]

I have access to 6 Veritas Practice tests, which I did not take yet. Do you want me to take one and send you the results?

Thank you for your time and consideration!

PS: As for the Math section, I'm having tutoring...
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by DavidG@VeritasPrep » Fri Mar 10, 2017 7:20 am
gui_guimaraes wrote:Hi David! Good morning!

After a practice test or a section test (RC/ SC/ CR), I review all the questions. The ones I got wrong, I tried to identify the subject I struggled with and I go back to Manhattan Books or the forums to sort it out. Also the Manhattan Interact has a "navigatior" in which most of the official questions are explained. And even if I still can't figured it out, I get a class with an english teacher, who is not a GMAT instructor, but is a Ields instructor. It's convenient because he is already teaching me for the TOEFL test. I know it is not the same...I recently started an error log and this tool is helping to identify my "regular mistakes".

Regarding practice tests, last week I took a verbal section quiz from E-Gmat. I am attaching the results for your evaluation, ok? I left 6 questions undone![/b]

I have access to 6 Veritas Practice tests, which I did not take yet. Do you want me to take one and send you the results?

Thank you for your time and consideration!

PS: As for the Math section, I'm having tutoring...
It sounds as though you're leaving out one important element of the post-exam review: distilling what you've seen into 3-5 concrete actionable steps.
My advice is to focus more on the forest and less on the trees. The individual questions are only worth reviewing to the extent that they give you insight into what strategies are working for you and what categories you need to devote more time to.

So here's the first thing I'd do: go back over your post-exam analysis. If, upon review, it turned out you were missing questions because you were spending too much time doing brutal algebra and not employing simple strategies, such as picking numbers and working with the answer choices, that's one thing. If you were missing questions because you simply require more practice in a given category, that's quite another. And, of course, there could be a blend. It's possible that one post-exam analysis will yield the following action steps: 1) remember to pick '100' as a starting value for tough percent change questions, 2) do drills to improve at rate/work questions and combinatorics, 3) remember to try the assumption negation technique for tough "assumption" question in Critical Reasoning, 4) remember to consider the logical meaning of the sentences in Sentences Correction, rather than focusing too much on grammar.

That's just an example. Working with your tutors, you'll come up with your own list. Only once you've done this, and performed whatever drills your team has deemed necessary to address problem areas, would I gear up to take another test. Otherwise, it's likely that you'll repeat whatever errors you made on the previous exams.

Ultimately, you'll repeat the process on the next practice test as well. Wash/rinse/repeat until you're hitting or exceeding your goal score.
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by gui_guimaraes » Tue Mar 14, 2017 7:29 am
David, good morning!

Regarding your message to my topic, would you be willing to lay down a plan for the Verbal section for/ with me?

I could take a Vertias test, send you the results, and we plan from there...what do you think?

I need not only a strategy, but also a study plan (exercises per day/ type of exercises/ subjects to review, etc..).

Many thanks!

Guilherme G Azevedo

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by DavidG@VeritasPrep » Tue Mar 14, 2017 10:14 am
gui_guimaraes wrote:David, good morning!

Regarding your message to my topic, would you be willing to lay down a plan for the Verbal section for/ with me?

I could take a Vertias test, send you the results, and we plan from there...what do you think?

I need not only a strategy, but also a study plan (exercises per day/ type of exercises/ subjects to review, etc..).

Many thanks!

Guilherme G Azevedo
Ultimately, the goal is to master concepts and then practice applying them as you work through the Official Guide. I imagine your tutor will have a curriculum for you to work through. The Official Guide can then be used in one of two ways: to focus on a given category each session, or to practice dealing with a variety of categories each time, as this is the scenario you'll be dealing with on test day. Each day, you'll have a schedule that might look something like this:

- 15 Sentence Correction questions
- 10 Critical Reasoning questions
- 1 RC Passage

(You could go even more slowly. 10 SC, 7 CR, etc.)

It's less work than a single verbal section on the exam, but the goal is to be slow and thorough. And even at this pace, you'll get through all the OG verbal material in 2-3 weeks. Spend time dissecting why every wrong answer choice is incorrect. If an incorrect choice was tempting, be mindful about both what made it tempting and what made it wrong. Make a summary sheet at the end of each session. Once you feel as though you're mastering fresh content and the strategies are starting to click, take a fresh practice exam. Then report back.
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