GMAT Strategy

Thanks everyone!

Really appreciate all the help.

Will keep you guys posted.

Vivian, thanks a lot for the downloads!

Brent@GMATPrepNow wrote:

kolkataknightrider wrote: Btw, I screwed up primarily on DS.

EVERYONE struggles with Data Sufficiency (DS) questions at first. Keep in mind that this question type is unique to the GMAT, so it's totally foreign territory.

It just takes time for the concepts and strategies to become secondary, at which point you may come to find that DS questions are actually easier than Problem Solving questions.

If you're interested, we have a free set of videos that cover everything you need to know to tackle DS questions: https://www.gmatprepnow.com/module/gmat-data-sufficiency

Cheers,
Brent

Thank You Brent! Will definitely go through the videos.

Hi kolkataknightrider,

Great plan!!

Do keep in mind some additional points.
- Do make sure that when you review your tests - you make a note of the question types that you get wrong more often & focus on those question types more in termas of practice & approach that you use to attempt these questions.
- Do regular practice of all question types. Don't make the mistake of practice only Verbal or Math on a single day. Make sure that you focus on both the sections equally. Even when you focus on a particular question type on a day, do take to at least practice a few questions of the other question types.
- When you are so close to the test day, make sure that you take complete tests with the breaks. This will help you take tests & Practice as close to the real test like situation. Also, with the help of this you will have an idea of the scores that you can get.
- You need to practice from addaitional sources. You can practice by taking The Princeton Review tests also - there are 10 tests & also topicwise drills available on the student portal at www.princetonreview.com.

Good Luck!!!

Thanks for the guidance everyone.

Quick update:

I wrote two GMAT preps, each a week apart from the other.

Pulled off a 710 in both. Slightly worried that I did not see any improvements.

Q48 and Q49. V38 for both.

It would be great if I could get some inputs.

Thanks in advance!

There is not really any reason to be worried. All you need to do is figure out what you can do better and work on those things.

The fact that you are wondering if you should be worried tells me that you don't get something though. You don't seem to get that you could be focusing on particular things to work on to drive up your score point by point.

In your first post you talked about all the things you were going to do and read, and it sounded as if you were counting on those things to drive up your score. That only works up to a point. Reading a strategy guide and consistently doing groups of problems does give one ideas and create familiarity, but doing that does not give one intense preparation on particular things that one needs to get better at to increase one's score.

So now to increase your quant score, go back to those two tests and see what questions you got wrong and what questions you took forever to do, and figure out what you need to work on. Then deep dive into the concepts involved and do dozens of problems of the types that you need to work on until you are totally rocking with all that stuff, and obviously you will put more points on the board next time.

On good tool for doing this is a BellCurves practice account. Their quant questions can be broken down into many categories. So you can find a category to work on and do many questions in just that category. There are also other question banks that can be similarly categorized. Another way to find questions of a particular type is by doing internet searches. If you need more practice on, for instance, overlapping sets, search for that. You will find blogs about it, question sets, discussions on Beat the GMAT and other ways to get totally rocking with overlapping sets.

Similarly, go over the verbal section and note what you could be doing better. Figure out what you could have done differently to get right the RC and CR questions that you missed. Look over the SC to see what you needed to know about and to see more clearly to get more right. Then work on those topics. Figure out how to put more points on the board.

For what it's worth, in a way I don't even get why someone who speaks English pretty well and scores in the high 40's on quant would score under 40 on verbal. Ok, I get it, but my point is it doesn't have to be that way. Maybe you don't get that the verbal section is a logic and reasoning test much like the quant section. Verbal is not so complicated. Maybe you need to see that and to approach verbal in a way more like the way you approach quant. Don't accept missing verbal questions. Learn to hack your way to OAs that put points on the board.

There is no real mystery here. There's nothing to be worried about. If you want a higher score,figure out what you can change in terms of knowledge, skills, approach, timing and attitude toward the test, among other things, so that your score goes up.

Hi kolkataknightrider,

Based on what you've shared about your study plan, I'm curious to know if you've supplemented your Verbal study materials with any outside reading. We've found that adding opinion pieces from news authorities you trust (and really diving into them with a test taker's mentality) is a fun and effective way to help improve your RC performance.

I recently elaborated on this in an earlier column, which you can check out here: https://bit.ly/1NBrLVD.

Keep going and best of luck!
Rich

Hey guys,

I know this a little belated.

But thanks for your guidance.

I averaged 700 in 4 of my GMAT Prep tests, but I could pull off only a 670 in the real thing.

I'll be retaking the test in a month's time.

I think it was primarily nerves that did me in and I kind of burnt out towards the end.

Any tips for the next one?

I think it was primarily nerves that did me in and I kind of burnt out towards the end.

A case tailor-made for mindfulness meditation, which helps with both nerves and focus: https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archi ... on/275564/

(Do know, most test-takers are naturally a bit less nervous the second time around as the environment is more familiar/less intimidating. But the meditation can still help.)

How was your timing on the sections? Were you able to comfortably finish each of the sections?

It sounds as if your approach to verbal needs to be refined.

Often people get to the point of being very clear regarding how to handle quant problems and at the same time don't develop a clear sense of how to handle verbal. Their verbal strategy can come down to something along the lines of, use some rules and hope for the best in SC, vaguely sort of understand how to handle CR and get right answers without fully understanding the arguments, and do RC without really being clear as to why right answers are right and wrong answers are wrong.

The truth is one can get very skilled at handling verbal questions too and get to the point where being burned out would be pretty much a non issue. In other words if you are super clear about how to handle the verbal question types, being tired, or nervous, won't make much of a difference.

So my suggestion is that over the next month you work on all three verbal question types and get a really good idea of how to approach them, and, by the way, that idea won't be something about just throwing GMAT ish rules at them and choosing answers that you are not really sure are right. When you really get what's going on in a verbal question, you pretty much always know exactly why an answer choice is right and the others are wrong.

Also, you could look over your quant performance and work on some weaker areas. Not only would your being more skilled in quant result in a higher quant score but also you would be less stressed by quant and so leave yourself feeling better for verbal.

Thanks for the inputs guys. ( David, I loved the link! )

Jim, I did manage to finish Quant, but the last few questions on verbal were just random marking.

Really appreciate it.

Hopefully I can pull off a 750+ this time.

Thanks!

Thanks for the inputs guys. ( David, I loved the link! )

Jim, I did manage to finish Quant, but the last few questions on verbal were just random marking.

Really appreciate it.

Hopefully I can pull off a 750+ this time.

Thanks!