Strategy help and planning.

[mayonnai5e]

Hello,

I have read many different types of strategy plans on this forum as well as others. I'd like to explain my situation and get critiques on my stategy as well as my study plans.

I have been studying on and off for about 2 months now, but I have not been able to find the necessary discipline to really study hard on my own. My original plan consisted of solo studying with the following books:

PR GMAT 2007 with CD
PR Verbal workbook
PR Math workbook
Kaplan GMAT 2006 with CD
Kaplan Verbal workout
Kaplan Math workout
Kaplan 800
OG11
OG math review
OG verbal review

Basically I bought every book that was recommended for self study. I have only completed the PR GMAT 2007 book and parts of the PR Math workbook (shows how bad my study habits are) . I have taken two CATS (1 from the old powerprep and 1 from PRs online CATs) and scored 580 and 560. Those scores were rather disappointing, but my pacing is SEVERELY off. I finished only about half of the questions in each section and literally marked A, A, A... for the last 15-20 questions on both Math and Verbal sections. Pacing is clearly my weakest point. My one sign of hope is that I was able to score in the high 500s with just random guesses on half the exam.

So, in light of my poor solo study habits I decided to sign up for the Veritas prep class which will begin this week. I have strong study habits when I'm in a class/school environment so I believe this will help a lot.
My question now is:

What should I do with all the books I have and how should I proceed with my study plan?

My plan for now is to finish the Veritas course and schedule my GMAT exam for 4 weeks later. In the month between the end of the course and the exam, I will burn through all the GMAT books that I have not gone through. Does this sound like a decent plan? Or another idea was to immediately take the exam after the course. If the score is not high enough (aiming for 700+ - I am a computer science major with a 3.81 GPA from UC San Diego, graduated top 4%; I believe I can break 700) I will schedule a second exam a month out and go through my other books during that month.

One point that I am worried about is whether the lessons taught by Veritas will contradict with those taught in the commercial off-the-shelf prep books and whether these potential differences will steer me off course or just make things more complex. For example, most GMAT prep books advise you to slow down for the first 10 problems of each section while Veritas recommends ignoring that rule and keeping a steady pace throughout. Which is right? Which should I follow? These kinds of simple conflicts could really affect my test taking habits.

As for as study habits go, I believe the structured test/study environment of Veritas will help greatly - there are 13 CATs that I will be taking as part of the class as well as hundreds of problems that must be completed - within a small group environment (I was told < 10 people per class). The study problems are from Veritas' publications and only available if you take the course so these will not be duplicates of problems from my commercial GMAT book collection. I intend to work through the problems at a slow pace to get a firm foundation of the ideas then once I start the OG book, I will do problems in large blocks with timing/pacing involved.

Any advice/critique would help because I am a bit overwhelmed.

Thank you in advance.

[Stacey Koprince]

Couple of thing:

1) The course will probably be fast-paced and you'll have a lot of work to do, so it's generally good to leave 2-3 weeks after the course ends for a comprehensive review.

2) Veritas is right - do not spend extra time on early questions. You need to maintain a steady pace throughout the test; the earlier questions are not worth any more than the later ones.

3) Aside from #2, which is a critical point that many test prep companies get wrong, if you learn multiple strategies (from Veritas and your test prep books), that just gives you options - you try them and see what works best for you. Or if you already learned a technique you really like and you then return to the prep books you bought, just use those as sources of questions rather than strategy / technique stuff. If you hit anything that is directly contradictory, talk to your instructor and see what s/he recommends.

[mayonnai5e]

Couple of thing:

1) The course will probably be fast-paced and you'll have a lot of work to do, so it's generally good to leave 2-3 weeks after the course ends for a comprehensive review.

2) Veritas is right - do not spend extra time on early questions. You need to maintain a steady pace throughout the test; the earlier questions are not worth any more than the later ones.

3) Aside from #2, which is a critical point that many test prep companies get wrong, if you learn multiple strategies (from Veritas and your test prep books), that just gives you options - you try them and see what works best for you. Or if you already learned a technique you really like and you then return to the prep books you bought, just use those as sources of questions rather than strategy / technique stuff. If you hit anything that is directly contradictory, talk to your instructor and see what s/he recommends.

Thank you replying Stacy. I will go with your suggestions about 1) and 2). I was also leaning towards just using the extra books I have as question sources.