Study Plan - GMAT in 4 weeks

This topic has expert replies
Junior | Next Rank: 30 Posts
Posts: 24
Joined: Mon Apr 11, 2011 3:40 pm
Thanked: 1 times
Followed by:2 members

Study Plan - GMAT in 4 weeks

by aanchalsinha » Thu Aug 04, 2011 2:18 am
Hi All,

I have my GMAT in around 4 weeks. Like a lot of GMAT takers, my quant is decent - average Q47 on prep tests. However, verbal is a disaster. V28 - 29.

I figured SC was probably the only section of Verbal I could really improve in. Challenging SC topincs: Tenses, Modifiers and Idioms. I have gone through the MGMAT SC guide and have purchased the Aristotle SC grail + OG 12 solutions guide today.

CR and RC are not that great. Timing is the biggest issue for me with these two topics.

My plan for the next 4 weeks:

- SC: I plan to go through the grail topic by topic and attempt all the questions at the back. This way, I am not exhausting the OG guide. However, I have attempted the first 110 qs once before. (Next 3 - 4 days)

- CR: I plan to go through MGMAT's CR guide and attempt as many OG qs as possible. My aim will be to practice with a timer. I have read a lot about different ways to tackle different CR qs types. Could you please point me to some useful resources regarding the same? (3 - 4 days)

- RC: Again I plan to go through MGMAT's RC guide to fish out some strategies and then practice (timed) as many OG qs as possible. I believe practice is the only way to improve on RC.

- Quant: With quant, I plan to do a few sums every 2-3 days and also attempt the quant section while undertaking the mock tests. I think this should suffice. Any thoughts?

- Throughout the next 4 weeks, I plan to take 6 MGMAT tests + GMAT Preps x 2. I work fulltime so I am able to spend approximately 3 hrs per day during weekdays and approx 10 hrs on weekends.

I would like some advice regarding my verbal prep and if you think this is the right approach. I want to stick with one study plan for the next 4 weeks and need the experts to tell me if this will truly work. I would really appreciate your advice and anyone elses who has probably been in a similar position.

Many thanks,

Aanchal

User avatar
Legendary Member
Posts: 965
Joined: Thu Jan 28, 2010 12:52 am
Thanked: 156 times
Followed by:34 members
GMAT Score:720

by vineeshp » Thu Aug 04, 2011 6:52 am
I have read both MGMAT's CR guide and Powerscore's CR Bible and I prefer the Powerscore one. MGMAT is too detailed and I did not like the approach.
Practice all OG. But don't just practice, study each question and every answer choice. Learn important things like
"In a weaken question, 1 answer choice weakens and 4 don't weaken. Many people fall into the trap of thinking that one will weaken and other 4 will strengthen. And since an answer choice does not strengthen, it is deemed as the correct answer." - My point is that if you can just understand the strategy required, it will help tremendously. Whatever happens for SC / CR, practice all OG.

For SC, MGMAT is unbeatable. Even for quant, MGMAT is the best. Grail also works as a good alternative.

If you were to ask me, I would also recommend that you do a bit of math daily to keep your focus in math right up to your best level.
Vineesh,
Just telling you what I know and think. I am not the expert. :)

User avatar
Newbie | Next Rank: 10 Posts
Posts: 2
Joined: Wed Jun 08, 2011 10:12 am

by dpkece » Thu Aug 04, 2011 10:11 am
I am exactly on the same lines as you presently are. I have my GMAT exactly 4 weeks from now. I tried completing the OG 12, but I do have a few Problem solving questions pending in OG12. I would agree that Manhattan verbal and quant books are really helpful. I have not taken any CAT completely. I have two tests in GMATprep. Apart from them, can anyone else please let me know what are other CATs which would be helpful and how to obtain the same?

Regards,
Deepak

Junior | Next Rank: 30 Posts
Posts: 11
Joined: Sun Jul 10, 2011 12:44 pm
Thanked: 1 times

by HarryPotter » Thu Aug 04, 2011 2:43 pm
I would like to get some expert advice.I am facing similar problem.

Here is my situation-

I am planning to write GMAT by the end of Aug.
I wrote 1 GMAT Prep :

Total score : 610
Quant : 45 (without any preparation)
Verbal : 29 (No. of wrong answers : SC-11, CR-2,RC-2)

Clearly I need to improve in SC. (...and keep practicing other modules as well)
I have gone through MGMAT SC and GMAT Verbal Review Questions.

Junior | Next Rank: 30 Posts
Posts: 11
Joined: Sun Jul 10, 2011 12:44 pm
Thanked: 1 times

by HarryPotter » Thu Aug 04, 2011 2:46 pm
contd.... Let me know how to improve my SC ability.

TIA

Junior | Next Rank: 30 Posts
Posts: 24
Joined: Mon Apr 11, 2011 3:40 pm
Thanked: 1 times
Followed by:2 members

by aanchalsinha » Fri Aug 05, 2011 1:40 am
Thanks Vineesh, again. With Quant practice, should I practice my weak spots or a bit of everything?

dpkece: i clearly am no expert. but i think the mgmat cats are pretty good with explanations. if you have any of the MGMAT guides, you should get access to all 6 CATS.

Mr Potter: I reckon you will ace the GMAT if you only get SC under control. Someone on this forum also told me that if you make a lot of mistakes on SC, you might be scoring well in CR and RC because your getting easy qs (this was my situation when i started). The grail is pretty good, has 100 practice qs too. I did look at the MGMAT SC guide before looking into Aristotle Grail. So any of these should suffice.

Again, no expert, just giving my opinion.

Thanks again guys. GL

Junior | Next Rank: 30 Posts
Posts: 11
Joined: Sun Jul 10, 2011 12:44 pm
Thanked: 1 times

by HarryPotter » Fri Aug 05, 2011 5:53 am
'Someone on this forum also told me that if you make a lot of mistakes on SC' :(

Thank you. I will try Grail now.

Junior | Next Rank: 30 Posts
Posts: 24
Joined: Mon Apr 11, 2011 3:40 pm
Thanked: 1 times
Followed by:2 members

by aanchalsinha » Fri Aug 05, 2011 6:44 am
Correction:

For one of my posts, someone commented saying that if you get a large number of SC qs incorrect, then chances are your seeing easy questions and thats why are able to score well in CR and RC.

Is that better framed? Not saying this is always the case...

Junior | Next Rank: 30 Posts
Posts: 11
Joined: Sun Jul 10, 2011 12:44 pm
Thanked: 1 times

by HarryPotter » Fri Aug 05, 2011 9:59 am
I am concentrating on SC now and I will give equal importance to RC - CR as well.
Good luck for your exam. :)

While going through the forum I found the below message from one of the GMAT expert (I guess its Ron)

" * you should be able to go through the CORRECT sentence -- including the non-underlined part -- and justify EVERY construction in that sentence.
e.g.
-- if there's a modifier, you should be able to explain exactly what it modifies, and exactly why that modification makes sense.
-- if there's a pronoun, you should be able to explain exactly what it stands for, and exactly why that makes sense.
-- if there's a verb, you should be able to find its subject. you should also be able to justify the tense in which the verb is used, and/or the tense sequence of multiple verbs.
-- you should be able to explain the exact meaning of the sentence.
-- if there are parallel structures, you should be able to explain (a) the grammatical parallelism AND (b) the parallelism in meaning.
etc. "