Duration of preparation: 6 months
Average time per day: average 4-5 hours.
[This was very long, I know!
]Resources (randomly ordered):
1. Manhattan GMAT SC Guide (4th Ed)
2. PowerScore CR Bible
3. Knewton online course
4. Grockit standard membership
5. Mahattan GMAT CATs (Free with any Manhattan GMAT guide)
6. GMAT Prep
7. GMAT Sets
8. OG 11 and 12 and Verbal 2nd Ed.
9. BTG Forums
10. Manhattan GMAT Forums
My preparation was quite comprehensive. The above list includes only those resources that I think helped me the most.
Sentence Correction
1. To brush-up the grammar fundamentals, the most effective and efficient way I found was to go through the following youtube channel
https://www.youtube.com/user/mrthoth
I would encourage you go through all the video lessons, except the diagramming part, twice!
2. I think that after watching these lessons, one would feel confident about the grammar concepts and is ready to delve into GMAT grammar. I would strongly recommend you to get hold of Manhattan GMAT Sentence Correction guide at this point and go through each chapter. With each chapter, try the In-Action problems given after each chapter (untimed). Also try the OG questions based on that specific chapter (the guide lists relevant question numbers from OG(attempt OG questions timed, giving yourself 1 min 15 secs in the beginning). Attempting questions in groups of say 5-8 questions from a particular category will help put you under timed conditions from the beginning. Please maintain a log since the beginning of your preparation. This would go a long way in helping you work on your weaknesses. I would only attempt quesitons from OG11 and OG12 at this point, as I would want to save OG Verbal for later practice.
In the log, I would suggest you to review all the questions which took you:
- more than 1 min and 15 secs to complete or
- were incorrect or
- were correct but flukes (you were not confident while marking an answer to these questions)
For each of these questions, search a few key words on BTG. You would most probably find an expert answer. I used to bookmark this explanation for later review. In your log sheet, make notes regarding the concept.
I would have read the Manhattan SC Guide approx. four times. It should not take you more than 10 days (5 hours daily) to cover the book twice the manner I recommended. Reading each chapter more than once would help you memorize the rules. I think your grip on this book should be such that if you encounter a SC problem based on a concept given in this book, you should be able to locate the concept in the book within a few seconds.
By this time, you would create a solid foundation for yourself on Sentence Correction. From here onwards, it is all about practice. Try to memorize as many SC "patterns" as you can. GMAT has some set patterns that it keeps repeating. Grockit can come in very handy at this point. Most of their questions are based on OG 11 and 12. So, as you attempt these questions more and more, you would actually train yourself to recognize patterns given in OG. As you master these patterns, start setting your SC target timing to under a minute.
I have not advised anything regarding GMAT Prep till now, but just as a note at this point - after you have taken each GMAT Prep CAT twice, try to extract as many GMAT Prep SC questions as possible, because they are closest to the real questions you would face in the exam. There is an awesome excel that lists down the GMAT Prep SC questions and contains links to explanations given on Manhattan GMAT forum (Please find it attached). The file version I have attached also contains some of my own compilation of knowledge from forums. This should serve as the final stage of SC preparation. Ron's/Stacey's explanations to GMAT Prep SC problems are second to none. I went through about a 100 of them.
Critical Reasoning
This is one area where one can improve substantially through structured and focused study. I would recommend the following approach
1. Read Powerscore CR Bible. Try the probems given at the end of each chapter. At this point, I would give myself 2:15 mins to complete each question. Make notes as you read this book. Making notes would help structure the concepts in your mind. I strongly recommend you to re-read this book until you have internalized the concepts.
2. Now you could attempt OG 11 and 12 and attempt questions in groups of 5/7 from a particular category (Save OG Verbal guide for later use). Maintain a log, in the same way as you did for SC. Key to gaining command over CR is to look at the problems as a mathematical equation. Try to make a habit of classifying different sentences withing a CR stimulus as premise and conclusion. The subject of discussion in a CR question is not so important. What is important is the underlying reasoning structure. You should try to identify the reasoning as you read the CR problem. As you become familiar with these questions, try to analyse the pattern in which the author creates correct and wrong answer choices. (This is explained in detail in powerscore bible).
I found Knewton's CR material particularly useful. If you subscribe to Knewton, make sure your read their CR material again and again till you internalize the concepts.
3. Subsequently, you should try to solve CR problems on BTG. Forum members post some excellent problems. I found Testluv's CR explanations on BTG extremely useful. These explanations are the best CR resource in my opinion. Ron's explanations are also outstanding. If you go through around 100 such problems with explanations, you should be able to develop a knack to attempt these questions.
I was also able to go through the two Veritas Prep CR guides (Thanks to BTG and Veritas for giving away the guides as a prize). They have a good question bank, although I feel they are priced a bit too high. If you are facing a crunch of authentic CR problems, Veritas guides could be a good resource. I would still call it an optional but "nice to have" resource.
Experts say that you should try to attempt a CR question with an average time of 1:50 mins. I could never achieve this timing. My average timing on CR questions just before the exam was approx. 2:00 mins. So, I tried to gain some time in SC (where my average timing was approx. 50 seconds).
After you have taken each GMAT Prep CAT twice (I will come to this later when I elaborate on CATs), try to extract as many GMAT Prep CR questions as possible. I had to do this by filtering on "tags" from the posts on some other GMAT forums. I also find a recently created doc (available freely over internet) in which someone has put GMAT Prep CR questions. I think this must be a great effort. Just google "GMAT Prep CR.pdf + whiplash2411" and you will find it.
Reading Comprehension
Quite literally, this section gave me jitters. I read Manhattan RC guide, but it did not help me much. Finally, I got help from Stacey. Upon my request, she wrote an entire article on how to find the main point of an RC. She then analyzed an RC for me on the Manhattan GMAT forum.
https://www.manhattangmat.com/forums/rc- ... 10372.html (you might access this link only if you have access to Manhattan GMAT CATs)
From here on, I think I understood the approch needed to attempt RCs. I am really thankful to Stacey for helping me out. Knewton material also helped me a lot in learning to deal with RCs. There are not many RCs in either of the OGs that really match the level of the real exam (at the upper scoring level). GMAT Prep has much better RCs. Still, you should attempt RCs from OG11 and OG12 and maintain a log as explained before.
After you have done this ground work in Verbal, I would recommend you to pick OG Verbal 2nd edition, make small sets of different topics (For example, 10 CR ques, 15 SC ques, 4 RCs) and take these sets in a timed manner. The questions in OGs are arranged in the increasing order of difficulty. In order to ensure that you do not make too easy or too difficult sets, you may pick questions randomly. Subsequently, it should be a matter of practice.
CATs
I would recommend you to take as many simulated CATs as possible. If you have a good grasp of English and are confident about the essay section on GMAT, I would advise you to utilize the initial one hour of your CAT working on Math or Verbal questions. This way you would not only tire your brain but also utilize your time well. When your GMAT is about a month away, you can start practicing with essays.
I would rate GMAT Prep CATs quite close to the real exam. Manhattan CATs are the next closest thing. Knewton CATs would be a close third (although there scoring algorithm is sometimes weird). It is EXTREMELY important to analyze your CAT and learn from your mistakes. It is more important to analyze a CAT than attempting the CAT itself. Stacey has written some articles on this forum on how to analyze your CAT. I am sure your would find these articles helpful. I was able to take each CAT from GMAT Prep twice, with very few repetitions. About a week before my real exam, I started to extract as many questions from GMAT Prep as possible. Even if you don't subscribe to Knewton, you can take their CATs for free. And this is great! Veritas also offers a free CAT and it is nice. In total I would have attempted about 18 simulated CATs.
After this practice, if you still feel that you are having problems with timing on the verbal section, I would strongly recommend you to take SETS under timed conditions. I understand that many experts are skeptical about the authenticity of this material. And I completely agree with them because almost 30% of the official answers given in the material are wrong. But the good thing is that most of these questions are drawn from GMAT Prep. So, many of these questions are discussed by experts on BTG or Manhattan forums. This would mean that one would have to search in these forums via a few keywords. There is also an excel where someone has provided the corrected answer key for SETS. This could save you lot of time.
MOST IMPORTANT ADVICE
Something most important to remember while taking GMAT, and I am writing this in bold. NEVER EVER GET STUCK UP ON ONE QUESTION FOR MORE THAN 3 MINS. JUST MAKE A GOOD GUESS AND MOVE ON. I say this because it took me 5 months and a futile GMAT attempt (one month prior to this attempt; I scored 700 then) to train my brain to move on. GMAT is not a traditional paper and pen exam. Law of diminishing marginal returns holds so true for GMAT. You must understand that if you invest too much time on a particular question in getting it correct, there are zero returns at best and negetive returns at worst (most often) derived from that question [unless that question is the last one in that section
]. The problem is that if you invest too much time on a difficult question but get it right, the next question thrown at you will potentially be even more difficult. You cannot just keep taking your own sweet time to get each question correct and then guess randomly on all questions at the end of the section. The score would take a nose dive. It is important to quickly admit during the test that the highest level matching one's potential has reached and that one just moves on with a good guess. Otherwise GMAT penalizes like hell.Quant
A few words on Quant. The resources are as follows:
1. OG 12. (very few questions match the upper exam level)
2. Knewton (CATs are very good, other material was average, sometimes the scoring algo is weird)
3. Manhattan Number Properties and Word Translations
4. Explanations from Manhattan CATs (way too tough. But these guys rock with their explanations!! Try to understand concepts.)
5. GMAT Prep. Very close to real GMAT. You can refer the solutions on BTG / Manhattan GMAT forums. Again Ron is the King.
6. SETS
Apart from the above mentioned Quant and Verbal resources, I found articles written by Stacey on BTG simply exceptional. I strongly recommend that you go through them all.
Hope this information helps! BTG community is awesome. Thanks so much. All the best, everyone. Go and Beat the GMAT!
(Sorry, this turned out to be a loooooooong one!)
