Strategy for final 3 weeks

[ManishH404]

Dear Instructors

Need some help in planning the final stages of GMAT prep.

Bit of background: I took Manhattan Online course in Jan this year. Finished the course, read through strategy books and completed all exercises in the books. I was just about to start on Official Guide questions but an opportunity came at work which took priority over GMAT. The project delivered, I am now back to books, but just realised that I only have 3 weeks to apply for my desired school - hence the rush.

Objective : Now since I am going for Exec MBA, where the average score in my target school is 620, I guess I would be happy with 680+. And with three weeks in hand, I think I can achieve it. I will write another MGMAT mock to get more recent view on how far I am.

Prep so far : I took first mock in the beginning of the course in Dec-14 and scored 590 (Q-40, V-32). In verbal SC was my strength and RC was weak link. In Quant - I struggled in DS overall and Inequalities and Algebra specifically. Since then I hammered hard on these with the MGMAT books.

In this spell, I have gone through all the MGMAT guides again, and about to start working on OG & mocks. I can put total 80-90 hours in prep. And I was thinking of finishing all questions in OG + Official Quant and Official Verbal review, and re-do the error log + a mock every 4/5 days to build stamina for the real exam.

Does this sound right? Also, is there a better, efficient way to study OGs? or should I start from first page working my way further?

Thanks for the help!!

[StaceyKoprince]

Don't try to do everything. If you do, you'll just tire yourself out and learn everything only a little / not very well. Set priorities right from the start.

How? Take a practice CAT ASAP. You may feel that you want to review a bit before you do so. Nope! You want to use the data from the CAT to tell you what you need to review. Take the CAT today if you see this!

Okay, you can do two things before you take the CAT. Read these tow articles:
http://tinyurl.com/executivereasoning
http://tinyurl.com/2ndlevelofgmat

Then, take the CAT - full official conditions, including IR and essay, two breaks of 8-min each, etc. Use the below to analyze (this should take you a minimum of 1 hour):
http://tinyurl.com/analyzeyourcats

Based on all of that, figure out your strengths and weaknesses as well as any ideas you have for what you think you should do**. Then come back here and tell us; we'll tell you whether we agree and advise you further. (Note: do share an analysis with us, not just the raw data. Part of getting better is developing your ability to analyze your results - figure out what they mean and what you think you should do about them!)

**In a limited amount of time - ie, 3 weeks. I will repeat: do not try to do it all. Figure out what you think will give you the biggest return on your investment energy. If you are tempted to do too much, re-read the executive reasoning article to remind yourself what this test is really about. Read it again and again, if needed!

Re: how to study, tell me what you think after reading the 2nd Level article above. Here's an article on how to set up OG problem sets (you can also just use their online software to generate random problem sets):
https://www.manhattanprep.com/gmat/blog ... blem-sets/

Re: stamina, no, don't take a test every 4 to 5 days. That's like saying that you're going to learn how to run a marathon by running a practice marathon every 4 days - bad idea!

For study sessions, plan out what you're going to do over a 2-hour period. Then GO for 1 hour, no stopping, no checking email, no getting up for something to eat, etc. Take a 10-15 minute break, then GO again for 1 hour. Then take a more substantial break.

(Note: I'm specifically NOT recommending that you do what I just described for 3-4 hours. It's actually *more* mentally taxing to study than to take a test, because when you're studying, you're trying to create new memories, not just access old ones.)

Then, you can take another practice test about 1 week* after the first one, but you're primarily taking that test to see what progress you've made and where else you need to prioritize / focus your studies. (*Note for others reading this: normally, I would say to study 2-3 weeks between tests. But this student has only 3 weeks total, so we have to compress things. Non ideal, but we work with what we have to!)

Good luck on your practice test!