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Need help with GMAT Prep | One month to go

by [email protected] » Thu Jul 04, 2013 7:42 am
Brief: Hi, I have already given two attempts for the GMAT and have my third attempt one month from now. I am taking MGMAT Cats for practice. My score since two cats has been around 640. My verbal score is not exceeding 35 and math keeps swinging between 43-45.

My target score is Q-49, V-41

After a thorough analysis of my tests I realized the following:

CR - Assumption, Boldface and Evaluate questions are my achilles heel here. I am making errors few in 600-700 and mostly in 700-800
SC - Mainly in the 700-800 range
RC- Screwed up totally. No pattern. I take more time and still pick wrong answers\

Quant
Inequalities and word problems slow me down. PS - 600-700 level needs more improvement as I make a lot of silly mistakes and when in exam I am not able to solve certain questions which I am easily able to do later.

I would like to mention here that I had started doing 700-800 level questions in quant only to realize I haven't perfected the art of 600-700 till now. so stopped doing that.

DS -
600-700 and 700-800 level needs improvement.

Also, after my 10th class in school I did not have math. So, I am not comfortable with P n C, Combinatorics, Probability.

I know there is a lot of information up there. I need an answer for the following?

1. Is an improvement of 640-730 possible in one month?
2. How should I perfect the 600-700 level questions. I have started revisiting the last 50 questions in OG for quant and verbal to strengthen my concepts. Any other ideas
3. My timing strategy is also not uniform so I am working on that too to tap my complete potential during the exam. Also, I am making it a point to revisit math formulas everyday through Manhattan flash cards which I wasn't doing earlier. My stamina for test also needs work because if the math question goes well I start lagging in verbal.

Please correct me where I am going wrong and help me with suggestions. Help much appreciated.
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by vishugogo » Fri Jul 12, 2013 2:45 am
This plan is strictly for 1 month

Regarding your problem in CR focus on assumptions,strengthen weaken and evaluate...they make up 2/3rd of the total CR questions. Forget boldface,main point and parallel reasoning.

For SC immediately but Aristotle 3rd edition,the book will definitely improve your sc skills.

and For RC I recommend aristotle book.

You might consider signing up for BTG's free 60-Day Study Guide (https://www.beatthegmat.com/mba/gmat-guide).

Now for maths get manhattan strategy books specifically for your weak areas and follow the BTG 60 day study guide.

hope this helps!!
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by lunarpower » Sat Jul 27, 2013 5:27 am
i received a private message about this thread.

some thoughts:

* vishugogo's advice about the CR problems is good. in fact, he has most likely understated the proportion of "strengthen"/"weaken"/"evaluate"/"explain the discrepancy" among the CR problems; together, those are probably a solid 80% of the problems.

all four of these tasks demand the same general mentality... namely, the following three points:

1/ you have to read for the main issue when you're reading through the passage -- even if there are a lot of words, there should ultimately be one main issue that you're interested in resolving.

2/ the answer choices are NOT going to be "in scope" -- i.e., the correct answer will not involve concepts that are already contained in the passage. (you can't "strengthen" or "weaken" or "evaluate" or "explain" anything if you're just rehashing concepts that have already been brought up -- the only way to do any of those things is to introduce new information into the picture.)

3/ most importantly, you are going to need real-world common sense to connect the answer choices to the issue in the passage.
if you are thinking of these passages as "logically rigorous" or "academic", then you aren't going to be able to solve any of the problems!
as just two illustrations -- in og13 cr #94, you need the common-sense fact (not spelled out in the passage) that tall buildings are normally built in city centers, where land is expensive. in og13 cr #110, you need the common-sense fact that people will be less likely to break the law if they know there's a significant risk that they'll be caught.

--

more generally -- don't forget that CR is specifically designed NOT to require extensive studying. It's a test of normal human reasoning processes that have already existed in your head for many years and that you use every day of your life.

this is a really important realization: you don't have to learn anything for CR. you just have to take existing thought processes, and use them with a little more care and precision than you would in a casual environment.
i.e., there are no specific "rules" that you can memorize; there are just general mentalities / ways of thinking about the situations. beyond that, you have to trust yourself!

--

more verbal-related stuff is here:
https://www.beatthegmat.com/where-am-i-g ... tml#443962

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Ron has been teaching various standardized tests for 20 years.

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by lunarpower » Sat Jul 27, 2013 5:29 am
as far as math goes --
the most important thing on the math section, by a mile, is the use of backup strategies:
* "plugging in your own values" for undetermined quantities (multiple choice questions)
* working backward from answer choices (multiple choice questions)
* estimating answers (multiple choice questions)
* testing cases (data sufficiency questions)

if you are not currently making extensive use of these strategies, then those are probably the only thing standing between you and the score that you want.
used liberally, these strategies can solve over half of all the problems on the entire math section! just think about that for a second -- think about how much more important they are than, say, combinatorics (which accounts for what, maybe 3% of the problems).

if you don't know what i am talking about, check out the videos labeled "Backup Methods", "Flexibility in Problem Solving", and "Testing Cases" here:
https://www.manhattangmat.com/thursdays-with-ron.cfm

good luck.
Ron has been teaching various standardized tests for 20 years.

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Pueden hacerle preguntas a Ron en castellano
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Voit esittää kysymyksiä Ron:lle myös suomeksi

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Yves Saint-Laurent

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