Study methodologies

[artistocrat]

Just wanted to ask a question about studying. My difficulty right now is that a lot of the printed material simply isn't challenging. As I am sure you have noticed, OG math is a joke. The supplementary guides are even more elementary. In fact, the two official software prep tests are much harder. Furthermore, I have been studying for a couple of months now, and i am in this weird place of not knowing what or how to study. What is the most effective way? Just keep plugging away at problems until I find holes/gaps in my knowledge? Focus more on concepts? I find the Kaplan strategies pretty useless actually. (read the stimulus first, read the stem first...who cares!?) What was your study method?

[Prasanna]

Lets be objective. Can you share your prep test scores with the breakups? When are you planning to take the exam and what is your target score? How much time do you plan to spend on prep per day/week? This information will help the experts on this forum help you better.

[artistocrat]

My test prep scores are all clustered around 710-740. I am planning on writing at the end of November. My target score is 800 I spend roughly 2-4 hours per day.

[Prasanna]

If all your test scores are between 710 and 740, there are two possibilities

a) That score range represents your potential as on this date. I will have to leave it to experts to guide you on how to get a 800. I am not competent to do that . In my opinion in this case, it would be a very difficult goal to achieve

or

b) You have not paid sufficient attention to the areas of weakness between the tests. You need to qualitatively analyze each of the test to identify the areas of improvement. This will help you focus your prep and score better

[artistocrat]

I should have been more specific. The issue I am having is more with a lack of material than a lack of approach. Its like training for a 100 meter dash for the 100 meter hurdles.

[Prasanna]

Did you try MGMAT tests? They are very challenging in Quant.

[lunarpower]

a couple of things:

* if you're already scoring in the 710-740 range, you may want to start shoring up the other elements of your applications. for the top schools, additional points don't really matter that much once you've moved into the mid-700s.

* when you study the OG quant problems, make sure that you're deriving takeaways from the problems. specifically, for EVERY problem, you should be able to fill in the following sentence:
if i see ______ ON ANOTHER PROBLEM, i should ______"
this is where you're going to get the big points - by making connections among different concepts.
you should try to get to the point where you're like an experienced improv actor: nothing at all is actually improvisational anymore, because "you've seen it all before". any situation you could be presented with, you could just relate it back to similar situations you've seen in the past and act similarly.
you're trying to get to the same point with gmat problems: if you amass enough TAKEAWAYS of the aforementioned type, then you'll eventually reach a point where almost every problem reminds you of several other problems you've seen in the past - and you can proceed to use the tools that worked for those problems.

just remember the following when you study:
you are never going to see these particular problems again.
do not ever forget that.
if you're spending excessive time pondering the little stupid details of the specific problem you're studying, then you're wasting your time. it's only the connections to FUTURE problems that matter.