Theory vs. Practice

[PFWinkler]

I’ve been studying for the past few months and seem to struggle with conceptual ideas and memorization of broader topics. Cant seem to really hold topics down in and recall them at will. The all too common thought "˜I’ve seen and solved a similar question before - why cant I remember it now’ I believe this is due to some fairly sloppy note-taking/outlining of my 9-week class and all MGMAT books; thus I’ve really contemplated outlining in fairly detailed order all of the books again. While it is a huge time commitment I believe I will benefit substantially from such (also resolving all of the problems again). Pros/Cons with this approach would be most welcome!

[StaceyKoprince]

That will take a long time and it's arguably not going to be the most effective approach even if you do take time to do that. :)

There are two levels to preparing for this test. The first is just learning "the stuff" - formulas, rules, processes, etc.

The second is to learn how to apply "the stuff" to GMAT-format questions, which aren't really just "pure" questions.

It *sounds* like you're struggling with the 2nd one - is that accurate? (I'm sure there are still some "level 1" things that could be better, but it sounds as though the real issue is level 2.)

If so, then what you need to do is NOT go through all of the books at once and concentrate mostly on level 1. What you need to do is take each chapter of level 1 and then go apply it to OG questions to learn how to make the level 2 connections.

Buy a bunch of flashcards. On one side, write "when I see this..." On the other, write, "I'll think / do..."

Then start filling them in. The contents can be anything from "when I see 5!, I will write out 5*4*3*2" to "if a problem asks about factors > 1 for a number, I'll examine whether it's really asking about prime vs. not prime" to "when I see chunks of the sentence moving around in the answers (SC), I will examine the sentence for structure, modifier, or parallelism issues."

You'll be learning how to respond to clues / cues, almost like learning a foreign language. And that's what will help you to bring up those memories of "I did study this... and here's what it was and what I should do now."

Of course, as you're doing this, if you realize that, say, you've forgotten some of the exponent rules, or how to do CR Discrepancy questions, then make up some flashcards, or do some drills, or whatever you need to learn / practice that thing.

Finally, remember that you're never going to learn everything (unless you aspire to teach this stuff someday!), so there are times when you should just let stuff go.

Read this:
https://www.manhattangmat.com/blog/inde ... lly-tests/

Also, the analysis described here will help you to learn what you need to learn in order to recognize more things in future:
http://www.manhattangmat.com/articles/a ... roblem.cfm

Let me know how that goes.