GMAT Strategy

Okay, so finally like other, I have also started my preparation for the GMAT from this 1st of the month. As already discussed so many times on this forum that to give GMAT prep test once before starting the preparation, yesterday I got chance to give my first GMAT Prep test.

Result: 540 (Q50, V19)

There is vast difference between Q and V score.

Area of Weakness that I identified yesterday:-

Quant

1. Mean, Median and SD problems (I got 4 such problems and I fumbled in all of them).
2. Probability, Combination and Permutation Questions (Need to study again to grasp the concept).
3. Formula's related to ARC problems. (I got 2 such problems)
4. Inequalities question. (I messed up in some questions, as I forget when inequalities changes there signs)

In Quant, except the above area, I didn't face any problem and I finished the section 5 minutes before the end time.

Verbal

1. RC seems to be nightmare to me. I spend to much time on reading the RC. I have to read RC at least 2-3 times to grasp the idea of RC. I got 2 big (full page) and 2 short RC during the test. Unfortunately these 4 RC came during the first 22 questions.

2. Due to much time spend on RC, I had to blindly hit the last 10 questions.

3. Almost in every question, I had chose the option with guess work as I was never able to eliminate all the choices in any of the question.

4. I easily lost focus in verbal even with very small noise as compare to quant in which I can stayed focused even in the nosiest environment. Its difficult for me to get noise free environment as both in office and at my flat, people and my flat mates are either listening music or talking with each other.

So, I am f***ed up in Verbal and needs lots of improvement.

STRATEGY (For next 15 days)

For quant, I am thinking of finishing the areas mentioned above (i,e, Mean, Median and SD problems, ARC problems, Probability, Combination and Permutation Questions and Inequalities question). I believe that I have enough time at my flat to finish all the above areas in next 15 days.

I will be studying the formulas from standard Math books and will be solving the questions of related area asked on this forum.


For Verbal, I am thinking of concentrating only on Sentence Correction for the next first days. I guess SC will create a base for improving the standard of the English and would help me better to grasp the ideas of the sentences as compare to do doing first RC or CR problems.

For SC, I am studying MH 2005 SC edition.

I would again give GMAT Prep 1 test after 15 days to check my improvements.

I need to stayed focused even in the noisy environment. Damm! that's tough to do.

Is the plan sounds okay? I would like to know your comments.

TIA

Hey, I think I can understand your problem... I am pretty poor at Verbal too. I think I am good at Math.. but Kaplan Test scores will tell . Anyways, I had a look at your strategy,, sounds well planned. I am starting my preparation today and trying to collect some good verbal material from the internet, so that besides reading from books, I get the practise of solving verbal questions over the computer... Its a different thing when you do it rfom a book!...

Best of luck with ur prep. keep posting if you have any questions and we all shall try to solve them, It will improve my verbal skills too. Also keep updating on ur progress and I shall do the same. Good luck!

Thanks Punit,

I had finished my 1st lesson of SC from Manhattan i.e. 3Cs (Concision, Clarity and Correctness) with exercises from OG. Good to say that, after this lesson, I was able to recognize the correct answer from the question of OG suggested by Manhattan for the practice.

Also, I finished my Mean, Median and Standard Deviation problems.

Good Going, Good Getting

hey code snooker

From what you said... I understand that doing Manhattan GMat Material helps a lot... So Anyway, here is my progress.. I completed all the verbal sections, and Arithmetic, Algebra sections in Princeton review. Did not do any practice questions yet. Just trying to understand all the topics and making notes. Today and Tomorrow I plan to finish Geometry, Applied Arithmetic and DS topics. And then on the weekend revise the concepts and take GMAt warmp up test at the end of the book. That way I will know where I need to improve my skills.

May be after that I might go for Manhattan or Kaplan...

Could you tell me which books are good.. in Manhattan.. and where I can buy/download from?

thanks

Hey Punit,

Manhattan SC is awesome. Even noob like me is also able to recognize the errors in the sentences. So I must say to go with it. You may get the latest edition at discount from this website.

Last night I finished my Subject Verb Agreement lesson from Manhattan along with problem set. Tonight planning to finish Tense, Mood and Voice chapter from MH.

Regarding other books of MH, I can't say much. As I studied few days back FDP of MH, but I find nothing new. All the ways they have mentioned is already known to me. So, I can't say how much it can help you.

Good luck and keep posting your progress.

Alright.... I did Geometry and Applied Arithmetic chapters in PR yesterday.
Tonight, I hope to finish the Data Sufficiency chapter and I will be done with reading all the basic concepts. They all were pretty simple and give a good introduction to all the concepts and also some provide some good tips in Verbal. Overall I would rate this book a 8/10 for people who do not know A,B,C of GMAT . I wouldnt recommend this book to a person who might be decently good at Verbal and Math.

Next comes, the practicing part. There are 2 tests in this book, one is called warm up test and other is a practice test.

Saturday I shall revise all the concepts and do the warm up test, may be untimed since its going to be my first practice set of problems. As of now, I need to see my accuracy more than the timing and identify my weak areas.

Sunday I plan to do the other practice test, this time Timed , to guage my speed.

Well, Thats the plan for the weekend. Next week, I plan to begin Manhattan SC most probably. I got the 2005 version from one of my friends... Is 2007 better? Would you recommend buying the latest version?

Punit - good luck with this plan. My recommendation is make sure you don't do too much. Jumping from a lot of studying to practice tests can be wearing on the brain.

Codesnooker - What does SWOT analysis mean? When are you actually planning on taking the test?



I like your plan, and am following something I set up for myself. However, in the last week, I seem to be regressing. I need to refocus and make sure I am learning both my wrong AND right answers.

My first GMAT Prep score was 710. After some studying and learning about the process, I retook this and received a 730 (okay, there were two or three repeat questions.)

A couple of weeks after that, I took the first Manhattan GMAT and scored a 740. Feeling pretty good about myself at that point. I had just put up a good score, I was going in the right direction, and I still had time before the test.

Since then, life got hectic and in the way. The study plan disintegrated. After a couple of days trying to get my mindset back, I took the first Kaplan test the other day and scored a 600. Now, I know that Kaplan is hard, but I ran out of time badly in both sections (Quant and Verbal) and guessed blindly at a number at the end. I always have trouble with time on Quant, but before this, every single time I practiced Verbal, I ended with at least 5 if not 10 minutes left. This test disturbed me. I could still write it off saying it is difficult, I was only a couple of days back into study mode, and maybe my concentration wasn't there.

However, I went back and took the second MGMAT test last night. My timing was back and I felt like my mind was focused. I thought that questions were getting harder and I was still getting good answers, so I was feeling good.

Then the score came up as 700. Now, this is not bad. But I have been studying for a month and a half and am back to my initial GMATPrep score.

Overall, I know I am stronger in Sentence Correction, something I started out a little weaker in. However, other things are going the wrong direction. I feel like I am substituting a decent gut feeling with some good rules and some mistakes.

I am a native-speaking engineer. So overall, I have high expectations as I should be fine on the quant and I am naturally not bad at the verbal section (in fact, I have scored higher, percentile-wise, on all my verbal tests than on the quant).

The problem with quant for me is the time and that I try to solve the problem. I am getting pretty good with the DS questions and going fast, but when a real answer is required, I take too much time. Or worse, I go through the 2 minutes, then realize I calculated it wrong but know EXACTLY what I did wrong and that I can still find the right answer. Then I take the time to get it right (why waste a guess when I know I can get the answer) and screw myself up for later.

I don't know why I can't get the quant section. It should be a gimme, but I keep getting something like 44 range.

Personally, I think I may have burnt myself up and I did not do a good enough job learning from my mistakes (REALLY LEARNING and not just seeing that I did it wrong).

My ideas are:
----------------
1) Calm down and refocus studying - rather than disjointed jumping around to prepare for practice tests
2) Go back and document all my mistakes in Quant first
-I had planned time to go back and retake all questions that I have missed during my studying, but I need to bring this up to make sure I learned from it now, rather than realizing that I did not a week before my actual test
3) beg for help

What can an engineer (who should basically know the math concepts, and could solve them eventually) do to stop sabotaging the quant section.



In the end, if I can demonstrate that my verbal score is very good, I have plenty of examples to counteract a less-than-perfect quant score. I don't see why I should have to worry about it though.



p.s. I apologize for hijacking this post. I needed to vent. Thank you : )

punit.kaur.mba wrote: I got the 2005 version from one of my friends... Is 2007 better? Would you recommend buying the latest version?

Even I am having 2005 version. Don't know if there updation in the 2007 version or not?

But I am pretty satisfied with the content except the problem set (there are very less question, only 15 per chapter).

I don't want to touch the OG until I grasp the basic concept of all the areas. I want to keep OG for my last preparation. What do you think?

By the way, last night I finished TMV (Tense, Mood and Voice) chapter of SC from MH. Tonight I am giving break to myself as I need to finish my homework for tomorrow's French class. Ouch!!! learning French and English together is quite difficult.

Weekend Plan:

1. Probability, Permutation and Combination exercise from RS Aggarwal. I guess, it will help me to grasp back the concepts.
2. Studying RC Strategies from MH.
3. Studying "PRONOUN" chapter from MH-SC
4. On Sunday night, restudy the concept/mistakes and do the again the problem set that I have covered this week.

I am thinking of doing 2 RC passages daily from 1000 series in the office from coming Monday. I guess I can spare 20-30 minutes daily on it.

zacharyz wrote: Codesnooker - What does SWOT analysis mean? When are you actually planning on taking the test?

SWOT means to identify own's STRENGTH, WEAKNESS, OPPORTUNITIES & THREATS.

Since you are doing preparation from last 1.5 months, so I guess till now you have known to WEAKNESS and STRENGTHS. As you are always scoring good, so only thing left is to reorganize your planning structure and keep focusing on your weakness.

One thing to be noted is that to keep the log of your mistakes and error identified in your plan. Later it will help you to analyze the weakness and strengthen your goal.

zacharyz wrote: I like your plan, and am following something I set up for myself. However, in the last week, I seem to be regressing. I need to refocus and make sure I am learning both my wrong AND right answers.

The plan that I mentioned in my previous post (https://www.beatthegmat.com/study-plan-h ... 10574.html) is for starters. You are much ahead to us. I don't think so it would be much beneficial to you. Try to consult your plan with moderators or the persons who are going to give GMAT within a month. As even after one month I need to change my current strategy. And may be I need to squeeze down gap between two practice set up to a week only instead of two weeks for the moment. I have started my preparation by starting of this month and planing to give test somewhere in the end of July or starting of August, but again it will depend upon my preparation and chances of getting the 15 days leaves around July and August.

zacharyz wrote:
Personally, I think I may have burnt myself up and I did not do a good enough job learning from my mistakes (REALLY LEARNING and not just seeing that I did it wrong).

I think you need a short break and fresh questions to move ahead. Don't stretch your preparation to much otherwise soon you will be bored with the study material. You are already scoring greater than 700. If I were at your place, then I would have given the test in next 15 - 20 days.

zacharyz wrote: My ideas are:
----------------
1) Calm down and refocus studying - rather than disjointed jumping around to prepare for practice tests
2) Go back and document all my mistakes in Quant first
-I had planned time to go back and retake all questions that I have missed during my studying, but I need to bring this up to make sure I learned from it now, rather than realizing that I did not a week before my actual test
3) beg for help

Your ideas seems to be good. Take a fresh look at the material and just make sure the same mistake should not be done more than twice. You may slow down your preparation but don;t let the mistake happen again.

Regarding DS, I would say if you have finish your earlier materials then try to solve problems asked on this forum. It will give you enough confidence. If you don't have time to type the solution then just solve it for yourself on the paper. Even if you don;t have time to browse the forum and then just visit once in 2-4 days. Consolidate the question of particular areas and do it at your free time. I hope it will give you enough practice to strengthen your weaknesses.

zacharyz wrote: What can an engineer (who should basically know the math concepts, and could solve them eventually) do to stop sabotaging the quant section.

In the end, if I can demonstrate that my verbal score is very good, I have plenty of examples to counteract a less-than-perfect quant score. I don't see why I should have to worry about it though.

p.s. I apologize for hijacking this post. I needed to vent. Thank you : )

Don't let your ego come in between the preparation. I know for an engineer scoring less in Quant would shaken him a lot but if you try to analyze the GMAT scoring patterns then you would come to know that there is greater chance to increase the score with every single score in Verbal rather in Quant. So focus on your STRENGTH and minimize your WEAKNESSES. That's all SWOT is...

Good Luck!!!

zacharyz - You were absolutely right. I myself felt I was trying jumpin around to cover all topics as soon as possible. Especially Math. But in this book, the math concepts are really very very basic. some of them are like.. sample concept:- what is the area of a circle!! May be a person with a non-math background would definitely need to revise that. So I cant blame the book as it did do a good job. there were also some concepts like - opposite angles in a parallelogram are equal. i had forgotten but I remembered I had learnt in high school. so it did help me too but no so much.

Thats the reason, I ended up goign too fast on learning Math concepts.

I am not at all good at verbal. So, reading Verbal from this book did help me a little ( I learnt some new things), and I went decently slow on that. Noted down points I need to remember. and did 1 chapter per day.

Math was really basic as I mentioned before.... I am also an engineer in CS. So i am very comfortable with Basic Math. However, I do observe that I take slightly longer time to solve questions that are not straighforward. I think its natural to feel that in the beginning. But I am pretty sure I shall get over that as long as I keep practicing harder/not so straightforward problems.

I have also seen in few recent posts that Math could be sometimes surprisinly harder in GMAT. So, since I have time and not yet booked my test date, I have plans to practice rigorous math problems after I make my verbal stronger.

As of now, going by your suggestions, today I am gonna finish my last topic of DS and then take a practice test in from the book... tomorrow to asses where I stand. I should have done this earlier before I begun my prep, but I felt, I need to review all basics before I attempt a test.

At this point, I am claiming that I just have revised my basic high school math concepts and learnt very very few basic tips in verbal. So next week onwards, i will be focussing on each topic for couple of days until I am confident in each section and my hit rate is high is practice problems.

Only then I will take the practice tests, when I feel I have learnt the mistakes I make and remember not to repeat them.

Your suggestions are helpful and ur scores are really good. But from your post I can understand you are aiming to score really high... in 95-98 percentile in each section, and I wish u luck for that. Eventually I aim for that, and I am waiting to see where I stand...

Code Snooker - I am also planning to do OG after I finish Manhattan, Kaplan 800 and only after I am confident that I have learnt my mistake and newer strategies to solve questions of various types.


Keep posting your day to day progress. Its keeps me motivating and not lose focus on my prep .

zacharyz - I hope you keep posting your suggestions as you see our progress and if you think there is something lacking in our prep. I see that you are doing well and I am sure your experience will definintely help us.

Thanks to all! Back to work!

Hi everyone,

I think everyone is on to an important strategy on this thread: the importance of studying not only your weak area, but your strong area as well. On my SAT, I got 800M and 700V. I was a math major, and a private, in-home SAT math tutor throughout college. So, I focused my GMAT studying mainly on Verbal.

Ironically, I got 99th percentile Verbal and 83rd percentile Math. I think I was a little overconfident with the math. I also wasn't pacing myself well, as I was left with about 5 minutes at the end. There was one problem that I realized I had gotten wrong as I was hitting the submit button, but of course you can't goback with the computer adaptive test.

Anyway, if I were to go back and do it all again, I would spend just a little more time studying math... because then maybe I could have gotten 99th percetile in both! There's no reason to complain about my 750, though.

Best wishes,

Tatiana

Thanks Tatiana for a great advice.

Actually I work in a bit different pattern.

1. Analyze the weak and strong areas.
2. Level up your weak points to the level of strong points.
3. In meantime, continuously in touch up with your strong points.
4. Once, all your areas at same level, then collectively move up to your target.

This is my simple strategy that I use to follow in every area of my life no matters if its any game or study or work. I know its bit time consuming and need lots of patience but one thing I can say with confidently, this technique never betrayed me.

*** Initial failures doesn't matter, if it end with a huge success.

punit.kaur.mba wrote:

Code Snooker - I am also planning to do OG after I finish Manhattan, Kaplan 800 and only after I am confident that I have learnt my mistake and newer strategies to solve questions of various types.


Keep posting your day to day progress. Its keeps me motivating and not lose focus on my prep .

Hey Punit,

Actually, by sharing my plans and progress actually motivating me also. Though of unfavorable circumstance in my life, I get motivated by reading your posts and I put myself to be studying most of time.

Here is this weekend's update:-

1) Finished Pronoun chapter from MH-SC.
2) Studied noun and verb chapter from W&M.
3) Finished problem set of Verb-Agreement from W&M
4) Finished permutation and combination from RS Aggarwal
5) Finished probability from RS Aggarwal (though one confusion is still there).

Keep posting and sharing your views and updates.

Good Luck

Yeah you are right.. It is indeed motivating.

Here is what I did,

1. completed Data Sufficiency concepts from PR.

2.I changed my plan a little this weekend and decided to make Flash cards of Sentence Correction. Spent a lot of time on that... but it was worth, I got to revise what I learnt few days back.

3.I also solved 7 SC questions from the GMAT Warm up test . Attempted 7, got 2 wrong . But I think its wrong to predict how bad/good I am doing based on just 7 questions .


Week 2 Strategy (Focus on SC)

1. Begin Manhattan SC, while solving sample probs from OG, Update SC Flash Cards

2. Solve a few math problems everyday, keeping a log of mistakes in the Practice Grid


During the Weekend

1. Do 30 Practice problems in SC to check hit rate.

2. Prepare CR, RC Flash Cards of lessons learnt from Princeton.