GMAT on 31st Jan; strategy solicited.

[sachin.w]

Hi Stacey,
I took my gmat prep 1 on 11th Jan.. got a 650 ( Q 47, V33) and the gmat prep yesterday . got a 640(Q 47, V31)

Manhattan cat1 ( Nov 15th ) : 640 ( Q 40, V 36)
Manhattan cat2 ( a week ago): 630(Q 44, V32)
Manhattan cat3 ( a week ago): 640 ( Q 44, V 33)


I have my gmat on 31st Jan.

I am currently on leave and I want to improve as much as possible both in Quant and Verbal and I will spend equal time on both.

Starting tomorrow till 24th ( 10 days), I will work on the below mentioned strategy:

Verbal Strategy:
I have analysed both the bests and found that I need to improve on the time management on Verbal.
To improve on this, I have decided to solve a random mix of 41 Qs of SC, CR and RC at a stretch and then analyse them. This will help me build competency if there's been any gap so far.

I will start with 6Qs at a stretch on day1, 12 Qs on day 2.. will go on till 41 Qs at a stretch on day 7, will maintain this till 10th day.

I will also review and fix any competency gap or timing/ strategy gap I may have.

RC: Ron's videos did help me but I don't know how to go beyond the competency I have currently achieved.

SC: Have spend a lot of time on this. Yet, I get a few questions wrong on mock. I am pretty strong on grammar rules, yet I go wrong sometimes.

CR: I have serious problems with questions that test quant.. Percentage based, statistics based, etc I am gonna try my best to work on these type of questions.

Quant Strategy:
To bring my quant >=49, I have started solving gmat prep questions. I find them better than the OG questions. I am sure they will make me agile. They, however, are more than 800.

I will start with 5Qs at a stretch on day1, 10 Qs on day 2.. will go on till 37 Qs at a stretch on day 7, will maintain this till the 10th day.

I will also review and fix any competency gap or timing/ strategy gap I may have.

Have problem with P&C and Probability, mixtures,weighted averages: Will try to work on them. will watch Ron's videos if feasible.

I have so far used OG Archer Lite ,which, in my opinion, is simply an amazing tool.

I am now using OG Stopwatch, another great tool, whilst solving GMAT prep Qs.

I am making careless mistakes; will develop habits to counter this problem.

On 25th, 26th and 27th, I will take last 3 Manhattan Mocks.

28th: IR 3-5 hours
29th: IR 2-3 hours
30th: 1 hour

31st: Attack!


Please let me know whether this strategy is fine or if it needs some tweaking.


Regards,
Sach

[StaceyKoprince]

First - I know this is not what you want to hear - but most people don't make a huge amount of progress in 2 weeks. Even if you're not working. In fact, if you study full-time for the final 2 weeks, you actually just risk burning yourself out and having a disappointing test day. I know that's not what you want to hear, but I do feel that I have to warn you.

The fact that you're trying to do this tells me that you're not that close to your goal score. If that's the case, strongly consider postponing. If you absolutely can't, then consider that you might have to lower your goal score - because cramming may do more harm than good.

The plan you have for fixing your timing is not at all what you want to do. :) Even if you weren't cramming, I would say that - but that's especially true given that you have very limited time. Your plan won't actually help that much, while simultaneously using up a lot of your valuable study time.

Read these two articles:
http://www.manhattangmat.com/blog/index ... to-win-it/
http://www.manhattangmat.com/blog/index ... nt-part-1/

(Make sure to read both halves of the 2nd one.)

Note that fixing significant timing problems is often a 4-6 week process. Some people get the hang of it faster, but I haven't heard of anyone fixing significant problems in only a week or two.

Your next big goal is to make sure that you're actually learning what you need to learn from all of these problems that you're doing. I know you're not right now because no one could ever get through the volume of problems you're talking about and still thoroughly study each problem. :)

Read the How To Study section of this article and start doing what it says:
http://www.manhattangmat.com/blog/index ... -the-gmat/

You mention "sometimes" going wrong on SC though it is your strong area. Expect to get things wrong sometimes - you will never study enough that you'll get everything right. Nobody does, even the experts. See the two articles I linked above. Until you can change the mindset described in the first one, you're going to find it very hard to fix that timing.

Here are some additional RC and CR resources:

RC reading:
http://www.manhattangmat.com/blog/index ... p-passage/
http://www.manhattangmat.com/blog/index ... -passages/

RC Q types:
http://www.manhattangmat.com/articles/a ... estion.cfm
http://www.manhattangmat.com/blog/index ... e-details/
http://www.beatthegmat.com/mba/2010/09/ ... prehension
http://www.beatthegmat.com/mba/2010/11/ ... il-problem

CR process:
http://www.manhattangmat.com/blog/index ... g-problem/

4 main CR Q types:
http://www.manhattangmat.com/blog/index ... e-Problem/
http://www.manhattangmat.com/blog/index ... -problems/
http://www.manhattangmat.com/blog/index ... n-problem/
http://www.manhattangmat.com/blog/index ... n-problem/

On to quant. Again, don't do question sets that go up to 37 Qs - not a good use of your time. Do smaller sets of 5, 10, 15 and iterate (meaning, learn from what you did and then do another set).

Probability, combinatorics, mixtures aren't super common on the test. Weighted averages could be - that is, the concept of what that is and how it works in general (often tested on DS). Search our blog for some good articles on that topic.

For careless mistakes:
http://www.manhattangmat.com/blog/index ... -the-gmat/

On 25th, 26th and 27th, I will take last 3 Manhattan Mocks.

No, definitely don't do this. This is the equivalent of saying, "I'm going to run a marathon on the 30th. I'm also going to run practice marathons on the 25th, 26th, and 27th." You're just going to injure / harm yourself for no real benefit, because there's not enough time to actually learn / get better based on those test experiences (especially if you keep on taking more tests!)

Take the last practice exam no closer than 5 days to the real exam. Spend that last week on high-level review using all of the insights that you gleaned from that last practice exam. I also wouldn't spend all that time studying IR right before the exam - that's not as important as Q and V.

Okay, so... what I'm really coming to is that you may need to think seriously about postponing, or lowering your goal score. I'm reading between the lines here, but your plan makes it sound like you're not that close to your goal yet (which is what? 700? 720?). But quantity jammed into a 2-week timeframe is likely to lead to a disappointing outcome. Better to temper your expectations and come up with a reasonable study and review plan, or postpone entirely.