I have been mostly using the MGMAT books and OG but I feel like I am not progressing well at all. I am just using all this time to study but not getting anywhere really. I feel like my learning is very superficial and that I am understanding and solving the problems on the face but still have difficulty transferring the skills to other problems and applying principles.
You have stated the problem. It is like telling a doctor "I am sick". Unless you give details it will be impossible for anyone to advice you on how to improve. What makes you feel you are not getting anywhere? Did you take a diagnostic test, and then took another test to measure your progress? If not it could be a perception. For example we progress from easy to hard on the OG. So your accuracy might actually go down as you progress - while in reality you are far better than when you started.
My biggest area of concern is Quant. I am phenomenally horrific at maths (haven't done it for 8 years) and ashamedly have to admit that I forgot even the basics like long division/squares/roots/fractions or some basic multiplication! It has improved a little bit since my studies but definitely not enough for the target score range.
Part of quant is solved on "paper" in terms of knowing formulas and techniques. Part of quant is in the "mind" in terms of your own confidence, comfort, and can-crack-it attitude. I believe you seem to be lagging in the latter rather than the former. You just have to plug away at it - with time you will certainly see an improvement.
Another issue is timing.I noticed that a lot of my errors were careless due to time pressure.
Taking more time is a symptomatic problem and usually means there is a problem elsewhere in your approach. Everyone makes careless mistakes under time pressure - so the question really is how bad is it? I would suggest you do a time-motion analysis to see which part of the question you are taking too long. For example in CR I can split it into 3 parts:
1) Reading the stimulus
2) Eliminating 3 wrong choices
3) Picking the right answer choice (using negation etc)
Now that you are able to get a better understanding you will have to analyze how you can go fix it.
To answer your questions:
a) "How long" you need to study assumes that GMAT scores are proportional to the effort you put in. Not true. More importantly you have to assess where you are - you should take periodic tests to measure where you stand.
b) "Material from one book" ? It should be a clear strategy that you are learning along with a few solid rules. Atleast in Quant and SC. There should be no confusion even if you read another book - unless ofcourse they have said something tangential to what you have learned. More importantly why would you need to do anyother book? 1 set is good enough.
c) I would recommend you pick only the specific areas which require you to improve to see the videos. It is pointless to see all of them. Again you seem to assume that there is a finite amount of work required for you to improve your scores. Not true.
d) Error logs needn't be time-consuming if used correctly. However you would need to analyze how you have done as accuracy is an incorrect metric to assess your progress. My suggestion is you use something simpler like what's here: https://www.crackverbal.com/nailed-it-mi ... crewed-it/
Hope this helps,
Arun[/i]
Starting point: 550. Goal: 700+
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arun@crackverbal
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