One week to go for GMAT

[sriram]

I have been preparing for GMAT for about a couple of months now and have my G-Day on the 17th.
I took GMATPrep test 2 today and got 600 (Q45, V28) and found the Quants questions to be tougher than those in OG-11. In OG-11 my accuracy in Quants was around 85%.

Are the questions in GMAT of higher standard than OG?
In verbal, I am really struggling in RC.

Can you guys please suggest what materials do I refer to in the last one week?
I somehow want to get atleast 650. Dont know if that is achievable now

[beatthegmat]

If you haven't done so already, I highly suggest creating a set of flashcards that are specific to your weaknesses. Review these flashcards on a daily basis.

Otherwise, in your last week you should be slowing down the pace of your studying to get mentally prepared for the test. You're almost there! Trust the months of preparation that you've done and kick some butt!

[stoic74]

Hi,
Most certainly create or refer to Flash cards everyday.

For RC, practice 2 passages from OG or VR everyday. Look up the RC tips from the BeatTheGMAT Resources section. I especially liked Eric's tips.

I would like to offer a different opinion with respect to the preparation in the last week. I did not slow down my pace. On the contrary, i increased the intensity of my preparation for the last 7-8 days. I am very sure this benefitted me.But in the end, it really depends on your individual style of studying.

Good luck!
-Stoic

[mayonnai5e]

I agree stoic74. You should focus on RC. I suggest reading several passages from OG11, OGV review, 1000RC or whatever you have available. I wouldn't focus on answering problems though.

The first day or two, just read the passages and take detailed notes.
For each paragraph: What is the general focus of the paragraph? What details are included in that paragraph? Why is that paragraph there (why was it included in the passage)? What is the author's tone in the passage? Are there any transition words (however, still, despite, etc.)?
For each passage: What was the main purpose for this passage? How do the paragraphs relate to one another? What is the overall tone? What are the major keywords?

You do not need to practice problems although you can if you want - the main idea is to get as much detail as you can from untimed conditions.

The next two days, read a few more passages and take notes, but do not take detailed notes. Do the same thing as above, but take only the most important points and make mental notes of everything else. What is most important depends on what you find hardest to remember. Say you have a hard time remembering the author's tone, but can easily remember the main point then you should write down author tone keywords.

The last few days, read even more passages, but do not take notes at all. Instead, focus on organizing your memories of the passage like you've organized your notes on the previous days. The point of the notes was to help you organize the info and hopefully after reading many passages you'll be able to do the same thing mentally. Since you won't be taking notes, you can cover more passages. An important point - as you read try to figure out what questions will be asked on the passage without even looking at the questions. On my RC passages now, I play a little game where I try to guess whether a particular sentence/phrase/topic will be asked about. Why is this important? It helps you gauge whether the things you think are important are in fact what the GMAT will ask for. If you're focusing on the wrong areas while reading and the questions are on completely different topics you will get wrong answers.

I found this to be really helpful for me - my hit rates during practice have been in the high 80s and 90s. On my CAT yesterday, my hit rate was 93%.

[keviv]

Are the questions in GMAT of higher standard than OG?

the OG contains real GMAT questions -- so technically, no. they are not of a higher standard.

BUT -- the OG contains the range of questions, all the way from easiest to hardest. what this means is that on the GMAT, if you do well, the Computer Adaptive software will keep giving you harder and harder questions, so you're only going to see the harder questions. that means that your hit rate will be lower.

it took me a while to realize this, but the OG is organized from easiest to hardest questions. so unless you're scoring really low, it's not worth spending much time working on the first third of the sample questions, since those are the EASIEST gmat questions. hopefully, you're shooting for a higher score, and will not even come across easy questions in your test....

making sense?

and i'm in the same boat! 8 days til the test!

[Stacey Koprince]

Just want to reiterate what keviv said - when you take the test, your questions will be clustered around your scoring level. You won't see that many questions that are considered "very easy" relative to your scoring level. The OG books have questions at every level, so anyone scoring above about the 50th percentile is going to have a higher "hit rate" on OG than on the test.

Expect to be pushed on the test. Expect to feel like you are getting lots of questions wrong. You will be getting lots of questions wrong - that's how it works.