Help Focusing last 3 weeks of study!

[jarydo]

Hi everyone. First time poster but I have been lurking the forums and this site for a few months now. In short, I have 3 weeks to go until my GMAT and I'm looking for some advice on where to focus my efforts based on my progress so far. I'll give a little background for context, but will try to keep things short and sweet!

I took a practice GMAT just before Christmas, knowing almost nothing about the test (structure, timing, question types, etc...). I didn't do nearly as well as I had hoped, and realized I would have to put some real effort into the GMAT (I've been a strong test taker my whole life).

I didn't do anything until early January, at which point I spent some time researching how to go about studying. I decided to start following the BTG 60-day study guide. I took my 2nd practice test after spending a week learning about test taking strategies, question types, timing, etc..., but no real content studying. I consider that score my baseline. Since then I've spent about 3 weeks studying Quant (followed by another practice), and 3 weeks on Verbal (followed by another practice today). I've been tracking statistics of my progress on practice questions and test questions all along to hopefully help narrow down where I need to focus. Here is a summary of my scores so far. And to answer the obvious question, yes I have been taking the entire test including AWA and IR. My IR scores are consistently 6 and 7 so I'm not too worried there.

12/19/15 - 540 (Q32 V33)
1/12/16 - 640 (Q39 V40)
1/31/16 - 660 (Q42 V39)
2/21/16 - 700 (Q43 V42)

I am targeting a 720. Overall, I'm much stronger on verbal than Quant. So I think that in general, I should focus my time in the last 3 weeks about 80/20 quant/verbal. I plan to take 2-3 practice tests per week over the next 3 weeks, and spend the other days focusing on specific topics. So I'm looking for guidance on where to focus my Quant studying. I will post some statistics on my practice test answers by category in a moment. My general question is: how should I go about prioritizing topics. I figure there are 3 approaches I can take:

1) Spend most time on weakest areas, and vice versa (in attempt to not miss any "easy" questions)
2) Not waste time on areas I'm clearly not grasping basics of, and focus on honing the areas that I am doing fairly well in (in attempt to be able to answer higher level questions in those areas)
3) Maintain a balanced approach with roughly equal time spent across each subject.

I've tallied all the questions I've taken across my last 3 practice tests, and here are my %correct on each topic. I realize this isn't the best set of metrics to go off, because it doesn't take into account things like question difficulty, guesses vs. answers, etc... However for the sake of this post I think it is fairly representative of the topics I am strongest / weakest in.

Quant:
Arithmatic 60%
Powers/Roots 17%
Algebra/Equations 50%
Geometry 78%
Word Probs 75%
Integer Properties 77%
Statistics 67%
Counting 60%
Probability No questions

Data Sufficiency: 54%
Problem Solving: 77%

Also, I've now completed all of the manhattan strategy guides, as well as the GMAC 2016 review questions. So any good suggestions on where to get the best additional practice questions from would be helpful!

Thanks in advance,
Jaryd

[DavidG@VeritasPrep]

Hi everyone. First time poster but I have been lurking the forums and this site for a few months now. In short, I have 3 weeks to go until my GMAT and I'm looking for some advice on where to focus my efforts based on my progress so far. I'll give a little background for context, but will try to keep things short and sweet!

I took a practice GMAT just before Christmas, knowing almost nothing about the test (structure, timing, question types, etc...). I didn't do nearly as well as I had hoped, and realized I would have to put some real effort into the GMAT (I've been a strong test taker my whole life).

I didn't do anything until early January, at which point I spent some time researching how to go about studying. I decided to start following the BTG 60-day study guide. I took my 2nd practice test after spending a week learning about test taking strategies, question types, timing, etc..., but no real content studying. I consider that score my baseline. Since then I've spent about 3 weeks studying Quant (followed by another practice), and 3 weeks on Verbal (followed by another practice today). I've been tracking statistics of my progress on practice questions and test questions all along to hopefully help narrow down where I need to focus. Here is a summary of my scores so far. And to answer the obvious question, yes I have been taking the entire test including AWA and IR. My IR scores are consistently 6 and 7 so I'm not too worried there.

12/19/15 - 540 (Q32 V33)
1/12/16 - 640 (Q39 V40)
1/31/16 - 660 (Q42 V39)
2/21/16 - 700 (Q43 V42)

I am targeting a 720. Overall, I'm much stronger on verbal than Quant. So I think that in general, I should focus my time in the last 3 weeks about 80/20 quant/verbal. I plan to take 2-3 practice tests per week over the next 3 weeks, and spend the other days focusing on specific topics. So I'm looking for guidance on where to focus my Quant studying. I will post some statistics on my practice test answers by category in a moment. My general question is: how should I go about prioritizing topics. I figure there are 3 approaches I can take:

1) Spend most time on weakest areas, and vice versa (in attempt to not miss any "easy" questions)
2) Not waste time on areas I'm clearly not grasping basics of, and focus on honing the areas that I am doing fairly well in (in attempt to be able to answer higher level questions in those areas)
3) Maintain a balanced approach with roughly equal time spent across each subject.

I've tallied all the questions I've taken across my last 3 practice tests, and here are my %correct on each topic. I realize this isn't the best set of metrics to go off, because it doesn't take into account things like question difficulty, guesses vs. answers, etc... However for the sake of this post I think it is fairly representative of the topics I am strongest / weakest in.

Quant:
Arithmatic 60%
Powers/Roots 17%
Algebra/Equations 50%
Geometry 78%
Word Probs 75%
Integer Properties 77%
Statistics 67%
Counting 60%
Probability No questions

Also, I've now completed all of the manhattan strategy guides, as well as the GMAC 2016 review questions. So any good suggestions on where to get the best additional practice questions from would be helpful!

Thanks in advance,
Jaryd

If you haven't hit the GMAC question pack, I'd certainly tackle that: https://www.mba.com/us/store/store-catal ... ack-1.aspx

And for additional practice, check out our free question pack:https://www.veritasprep.com/gmat-question-bank/

Otherwise, just keep doing what you're doing and making adjustments as you go.

[[email protected]]

Hi jarydo,

You've made some excellent progress over the last two months. Since you're in the final few weeks of your studies, you really want to be strategic about how you use this time.

You've mentioned that you took each of your CATs with the Essay and IR sections, which is good. I have a few additional questions about your CATs though:

When you took your CATs:
1) Did you take them at home?
2) Did you take them at the same time of day as your Official GMAT?
3) Did you ever do ANYTHING during your CATs that you couldn't do on Test Day (pause the CAT, skip sections, take longer breaks, etc.)?
4) Did you ever take a CAT more than once?

The process of completing a FULL CAT and reviewing it requires a significant amount of effort and energy (and time to 'recover' and practice), so you really should NOT take more than 1 FULL CAT per week. Your plan to take 2-3 each week will likely increase the chances of 'burn out' before Test Day without providing any real benefits - and that 'burn out' is something that you want to avoid.

Your general plan sounds fine. I'd add that you would likely benefit by focusing on Quant Tactics, since your Quant Scaled Scores imply that you're missing out on a lot of those points.

GMAT assassins aren't born, they're made,
Rich

[MartyMurray]

Hi Jaryd.

Your hit rate in Exponents and Roots and you overall hit rate is DS tend to indicate that maybe the most important thing that you can do to increase your score is to improve the overall way you handle questions. Exponents and Roots tends to be territory for tricky data sufficiency. So basically, it looks as if you are missing right answers because you are getting tricked.

I bet that in verbal also you are falling into traps, and so you could pick up points in both sections by developing more skill in noticing key details, picking up on red flags, and generally seeing more clearly what's going on in questions and answer choices.

To a large degree the GMAT is a test of VISION.

One way you could start to address these things is by going to the GMAT section here, https://bellcurves.com, and setting up a practice account. Then you could go straight to the Exponents and Roots sub category of the practice questions and work on just what you need to work on. There are plenty of nice tricky questions in that category, and your best bet would be to start off doing them rather slowly, seeking to achieve a relatively high hit rate, at least 80%, and developing the skills necessary for doing so.

In doing that you will be developing skill not just in handling Exponents and Roots but also in handling quant in general, especially DS.

Another good move would be to use the Veritas Question Bank that David mentioned for focused DS practice. You could go there and just do dozens of DS questions, seeking to get right answers. If it takes five minutes or more per question to achieve a high hit rate, then so be it. Once again developing skill in getting RIGHT answers is paramount. Somehow in the fog of concepts, strategies and question types one can miss the fact that what really matters is getting right answers consistently. So slowing down and doing what it takes to get right answers is the way to develop the skills you need to score high.

Regarding your question about what your overall quant approach should be, the answer is that as long as you are doing something that increases your expected score, you are doing the right thing. Right? So just look for the highest ROI thing you can do, such as working on the Exponents and Roots category for a couple of days, and do it. Then find another high ROI thing to do and do that. In that manner you can drive your score up point by point.

Hit rate is one indicator of ROI potential. Another is time to answer. You may be able to consistently answer questions of certain types correctly, but taking well over two minutes. So that's another thing you can address, by doing practice questions of those types until you can bang them out in close to two minutes each.

I tend to agree with Rich that taking 3 practice tests a week every week could be too much, but there's nothing wrong with taking quant only CAT's to give yourself multiple opportunities to play the quant section like a video game. Alternatively, sometimes you could skip the AWA and IR sections. As long as you sometimes take the full test, you will get practice in handling the four hour mini marathon. In any case, focusing on specific areas and developing specific skills would probably be more productive for you than taking many CATs.

I'll second that the GMAC Question Pack that David mentioned is another good resource for practicing both quant and verbal. Once again, when practicing, go slowly in order to see what you need to see in order to get right answers consistently. Blowing through questions and not getting right answers is pointless.

I think that by finding things with high ROI that you can do and by developing certain skills, you can drive your quant score up to the upper 40's and your verbal score up who knows how many points, and blow away your target.

[ceilidh.erickson]

I agree with Marty. The 2 most important things you can do to improve your quant score are:
1. lock down your exponent/roots rules with flashcards & drills
2. improve your DS strategy

Because DS is a question type unique to the GMAT, most students will initially perform worse on those questions, until they learn proper DS technique. You have to learn how to:
a) frame / rephrase the question correctly
b) analyze the statements with the correct mindset: trying to prove insufficiency

Here are a few articles to help you think through these questions in the right way:
https://www.manhattanprep.com/gmat/blog/ ... ncy-works/
https://www.manhattanprep.com/gmat/blog ... questions/
https://www.manhattanprep.com/gmat/blog ... ncy-traps/
https://www.manhattanprep.com/gmat/blog ... est-cases/
https://www.manhattanprep.com/gmat/blog ... fficiency/
https://www.manhattanprep.com/gmat/blog ... aw-it-out/
https://www.manhattanprep.com/gmat/blog ... tatements/
https://www.manhattanprep.com/gmat/blog ... ust-right/
https://www.manhattanprep.com/gmat/blog ... at-part-1/
https://www.manhattanprep.com/gmat/blog ... ms-part-1/
https://www.manhattanprep.com/gmat/blog ... -part-1-2/
https://www.manhattanprep.com/gmat/blog ... fficiency/

[ceilidh.erickson]

And here are some threads on this forum that deal with approaching DS questions in the right way:

https://www.beatthegmat.com/how-do-i-mak ... tml#737862

https://www.beatthegmat.com/ds-query-t276597.html#719495

https://www.beatthegmat.com/questions-th ... tml#561400

https://www.beatthegmat.com/data-suffici ... tml#714088

https://www.beatthegmat.com/gmat-og-13-t ... tml#653748

[jarydo]

Hi jarydo,

You've made some excellent progress over the last two months. Since you're in the final few weeks of your studies, you really want to be strategic about how you use this time.

You've mentioned that you took each of your CATs with the Essay and IR sections, which is good. I have a few additional questions about your CATs though:

When you took your CATs:
1) Did you take them at home?
2) Did you take them at the same time of day as your Official GMAT?
3) Did you ever do ANYTHING during your CATs that you couldn't do on Test Day (pause the CAT, skip sections, take longer breaks, etc.)?
4) Did you ever take a CAT more than once?

The process of completing a FULL CAT and reviewing it requires a significant amount of effort and energy (and time to 'recover' and practice), so you really should NOT take more than 1 FULL CAT per week. Your plan to take 2-3 each week will likely increase the chances of 'burn out' before Test Day without providing any real benefits - and that 'burn out' is something that you want to avoid.

Your general plan sounds fine. I'd add that you would likely benefit by focusing on Quant Tactics, since your Quant Scaled Scores imply that you're missing out on a lot of those points.

GMAT assassins aren't born, they're made,
Rich

Thanks for your feedback, especially the advise about not burning out on additional CAT tests. I agree 2-3 per week is probably a bit much. I'll take a look at my schedule and try to do 3-4 more between now and test day instead.

Regarding your questions about my CAT's so far:

1) Did you take them at home? 1st one at a coffee shop (that's the one I don't really count for various reasons. Next 3 in home office.)
2) Did you take them at the same time of day as your Official GMAT? Roughly same time of day. Official is scheduled for 11am. I took them at times starting between 10am and 2pm (I typically feel at my peak in late morning which is why I scheduled the test for this time).
3) Did you ever do ANYTHING during your CATs that you couldn't do on Test Day (pause the CAT, skip sections, take longer breaks, etc.)? I've tried to stay true to the real conditions. I will say I haven't been putting a tremendous amount of effort into AWA.
4) Did you ever take a CAT more than once? No. I've done a Veritas, both GMAC's, and Kaplan so far.

[jarydo]

Hi Jaryd.

Your hit rate in Exponents and Roots and you overall hit rate is DS tend to indicate that maybe the most important thing that you can do to increase your score is to improve the overall way you handle questions. Exponents and Roots tends to be territory for tricky data sufficiency. So basically, it looks as if you are missing right answers because you are getting tricked.

I bet that in verbal also you are falling into traps, and so you could pick up points in both sections by developing more skill in noticing key details, picking up on red flags, and generally seeing more clearly what's going on in questions and answer choices.

To a large degree the GMAT is a test of VISION.

One way you could start to address these things is by going to the GMAT section here, https://bellcurves.com, and setting up a practice account. Then you could go straight to the Exponents and Roots sub category of the practice questions and work on just what you need to work on. There are plenty of nice tricky questions in that category, and your best bet would be to start off doing them rather slowly, seeking to achieve a relatively high hit rate, at least 80%, and developing the skills necessary for doing so.

In doing that you will be developing skill not just in handling Exponents and Roots but also in handling quant in general, especially DS.

Another good move would be to use the Veritas Question Bank that David mentioned for focused DS practice. You could go there and just do dozens of DS questions, seeking to get right answers. If it takes five minutes or more per question to achieve a high hit rate, then so be it. Once again developing skill in getting RIGHT answers is paramount. Somehow in the fog of concepts, strategies and question types one can miss the fact that what really matters is getting right answers consistently. So slowing down and doing what it takes to get right answers is the way to develop the skills you need to score high.

Regarding your question about what your overall quant approach should be, the answer is that as long as you are doing something that increases your expected score, you are doing the right thing. Right? So just look for the highest ROI thing you can do, such as working on the Exponents and Roots category for a couple of days, and do it. Then find another high ROI thing to do and do that. In that manner you can drive your score up point by point.

Hit rate is one indicator of ROI potential. Another is time to answer. You may be able to consistently answer questions of certain types correctly, but taking well over two minutes. So that's another thing you can address, by doing practice questions of those types until you can bang them out in close to two minutes each.

I tend to agree with Rich that taking 3 practice tests a week every week could be too much, but there's nothing wrong with taking quant only CAT's to give yourself multiple opportunities to play the quant section like a video game. Alternatively, sometimes you could skip the AWA and IR sections. As long as you sometimes take the full test, you will get practice in handling the four hour mini marathon. In any case, focusing on specific areas and developing specific skills would probably be more productive for you than taking many CATs.

I'll second that the GMAC Question Pack that David mentioned is another good resource for practicing both quant and verbal. Once again, when practicing, go slowly in order to see what you need to see in order to get right answers consistently. Blowing through questions and not getting right answers is pointless.

I think that by finding things with high ROI that you can do and by developing certain skills, you can drive your quant score up to the upper 40's and your verbal score up who knows how many points, and blow away your target.

Thanks for this response, I have found it very helpful! I think that the bellcurves.com website you provided is exactly what I was looking for - a place I could filter down the question types to the exact category. I plan to utilize that over the next few days as I start by focusing on Exponents/Roots.

I am going to take this week by week over the next 3 weeks, as you've advised focusing on ROI for the time I am putting in. This week will be a focus on exponents / roots and data sufficiency in general, and then another practice on Saturday to see how my quant (specifically DS) hit rate improves.

[Brent@GMATPrepNow]

To add to Ceilidh's DS recommendations, we have a free set of 16 videos that cover everything you need to know to tackle DS questions: https://www.gmatprepnow.com/module/gmat-data-sufficiency

Cheers,
Brent

[MartyMurray]

Thanks for this response, I have found it very helpful! I think that the bellcurves.com website you provided is exactly what I was looking for - a place I could filter down the question types to the exact category. I plan to utilize that over the next few days as I start by focusing on Exponents/Roots.

I am going to take this week by week over the next 3 weeks, as you've advised focusing on ROI for the time I am putting in. This week will be a focus on exponents / roots and data sufficiency in general, and then another practice on Saturday to see how my quant (specifically DS) hit rate improves.

Exxxxcellent