Strategy With OG 11? 520 to 650, please help

[sammit85]

I took the Gmat Prep Test 1 a while back and got a 500. I dont remember the rest of the scores. Recently, I took the Gmat Prep Test 2, and the details are as follows:

520
Q. 36
V. 25

This is the breakdown of how I did...

Quant. 21/37 = 56.7%
PS 11/20 = 55%
DS 10/17 = 58.8%

Verbal. 22/41 = 53.7%
RC 8/13 = 61.5%
CR 5/11 = 45.5%
SC 9/17 = 53%

I have the Official Guide 11th Edition, I havnt even started to study out with it, I just wanted to take a test and fiquare out where I am. What is the best way to study out of the OG? Should I time all of the question and keep redoing the ones that take a long time to do? Should I keep redoing the problems I get right?

I have always done well in all of my math classes, so I have no idea why I am not doing very well. I have always gotten A's in calculus and statistics and so forth, so I am a bit confused. I think on some of the questions, it takes me some time to fiquare out what it is that I need to do and then on others, I am missiong details in the questions.

I also have the Kaplan book Premier Edition with the CD that has tests. I dont have the money to enter a class, and I plan on taking the Gmat in about a month? What is the best strategy to get my score up around 650?

I read about how people are making flash cards. What should I make flash cards of? Problems that I get wrong, or concepts or what?

Any help would be much appreciated, Thank you
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[papgust]

Yeah i agree. Many ppl have done well with their math classes but struggle with GMAT math. The reason is that GMAT makes the questions difficult to comprehend and of course time factor plays a major role in our performance.

Your position is the same as what i was during my first attempt. It's time to really make use of OG's. What i would suggest is do a set of questions everyday (say 10 qns) of each section (PS, DS, SC, CR) and 1-2 passages of RC under timed conditions. Set a reasonable time limit of 20 minutes for 10 questions. After working out each section, analyze your performance. You need to analyze each and every question by - what is wrong with my approach, why did i take so much time, which step did i struggle with,...etc. Read OG explanations really hard. At first glance, i thought that OG does not have good explanations. But after revising my strategy, i found that OG explanations are really great (esp. Verbal). Math explanations are also good but sometimes they give a very long approach to a problem when a short approach exists. But still it is worth to sit and analyze their explanations.

Make flashcards from their explanations (especially for SC. You could find many takeaways from their SC explanations).
Log all incorrect questions separately, analyze what went wrong while doing it, devise the best approach to the problem and re-do them multiple times until you are 100% confident.