Advice on studying for GMAT retak

[candancezimmerman]

Hi,

This post is targeted for Stacy, but I appreciate any response.

I had studied for about 3 months for the GMAT and took the exam yesterday. My practice scores were as follows:

MGMAT1: 600 (did not do essays)
MGMAT 2: 600 (did not do essays)
MGMAT 3: 690 (did not do essays)
MGMAT 4: 700 (did not do essays)
GMAT PREP 1: 640 (did both essays true testing conditions)
MGMAT 5:730 (did both essays true testing conditions)
GMAT PREP 2: 720 (did both essays true testing conditions)

My distribution for this was always 90-99+% verbal with math score ranging from 50%-75%.

On the day of the test I felt like the test was similar to the GMAT PREP 1 experience. I was getting very easy basic questions, and I was running about 5-10 minutes ahead of time pacing. There were a few questions I wasn't sure about, but none of the hard questions I was prepared to skip completely. On all the practice tests where I had done well (650+) I had felt like I was right on time, getting difficult questions, and having to skip some. For this reason this shook my confidence and I felt I did very poorly on the math. During the break time, I did not handle the stress well. When I went back to do the verbal section I had extreme difficulty concentrating and kept rereading questions and did not manage the stress well. I normally have plenty of time for verbal, so I did not watch the time and only realized near the end I had no time and 10 questions left to do. I decided to cancel my score.

In retrospect, I do understand the implications of canceling my score versus showing my score. I would recommend to anyone reading this to never consider canceling your score an option and to try and do your best on the next section even if you don't feel the first has gone well. Given that I made this decision in that state of mind, I need to move forward and count that decision as given.

In my preparation I did the practice tests laid out above, over 600 questions for math (nearly all the OG and many of the supplement) and reviewed and did all of the In Action questions in all of the Manhattan math study guides. I also read through the CR and SC guides for Manhattan and did some of those In Action. When I studied, I kept track of everything in the OG Archer and would always redo problems I got wrong and review why.

The issue with the Archer is I would redo the question and generally get it right on the second try. So it doesn't show me very well the weakness areas. I would recommend others not record their second attempts in the Archer for this reason.

I did generate reports though of my manhattan gmat PT as well as classify my GMAT prep tests by question type. My analysis of my skills and weaknesses is below.

I felt I had mastered identifying the problem type and had a game plan for my strengths and weakness which I will outline below.

Strengths:
Rate/Work problems (specifically combined work problems)
Divisibility rules (specifically hidden consec integers, LCM/GCM)
Geometry problems with circles/cylinders/area (specifically inscribed shapes)
Exponent problems where manipulating exponents cancels things out
Ratios using an unstated multiplier

Weaknesses:
Calculating cost for inventory/overtime in comparisons
Multiplying decimals quickly
Estimation of fractions or large multiplication/division
Combinatorics with limited conditions (i.e. people sitting next to each other) and in conjunction with coordinate geometry
Positive/negative data sufficiency where you should test numbers
VIC problems where you should test numbers

I also after the test wrote down everything I could remember in terms of its content. Generally the trend I saw was:

- a few number of sequence questions
- no rate/work questions
- a few number weighted average questions
- a few questions with tables asking you to add numbers up
- a few very basic geometry questions near the middle/end (i.e. "If you have angles a,b,c can you solve for c with a and b)
- lots of profit/cost questions
- a few num prop questions +/-
- a few basic alegbra questions

I have read the content here before that you should not try to second guess whether you are getting hard/easy questions and that you may get easy questions at any point in the exam. I agree, and I greatly regret psyching myself out by thinking about it too much. Again, to anyone reading this you may think mentally you would not this after reading everything, but it's very difficult not to fall into this trap. Please avoid my mistake and don't think this way.

I'm providing the above to ask your advice on how to proceed as I know you generally ask for this information.

I have a bit of a difficult personal situation as I have a very busy month planned for August which does not allow for intense GMAT studying. I could probably study 5 hours/week, but I'm not sure if this will be sufficient. I am wondering I wait until beginning of Oct (I can study intensely in Sept) if this will be too long of a break, and I will forget content. Please let me know your opinion.

I also would like some advice on generating a retake study plan. Since I have done so much of the material it's difficult to know what to do next. Here are initial thoughts:

- Back to basics - I could do many of the 600-700 level questions, but I'd often get 500-600 level question wrong due to poor arithmetic. I think this hurt my ability to score well as I was not able to show my strengths on the exam.
- Practice percents, estimation
- Review all practice tests
- Try to understand GMAT PREP incorrect questions and post to forums otherwise (I did not do this the first time around for questions I still could not understand).
- Do problems in Supplemental Math guide which I have not done
- Buy word bank questions from mgmat for problem areas and do those problems (potentially buy quant questions from GMAC)
- Buy practice tests from 800 score and do those for timing practice
- set clear timing strategy for verbal and practice doing it
this way
- Study SC for verbal more directly (I got stuck on some of these questions during the exam)

My biggest question is how I can make sure I stay fresh on the material that I have done. Should I review all the major concepts each week, or focus on weaknesses?

I want to stress that Manhattan GMAT is the best source of material for prep, and I felt like the explanations and advice were very clear. This is why I'd like to focus on material which Manhattan provides explanations for (i.e. OG 12 which I bought mgmat's explanations and the mgmt PTs). I often found the OG explanations difficult to understand or their methods difficult to execute in the 2 minute time period.

Any advice you can provide to me would be greatly appreciated. Sorry for the extremely length of this post.

[RonPurewal]

hi -- this is the wrong folder for this question; please re-post this thread in the GENERAL QUESTIONS folder on this forum. (you can just copy and paste the whole thing)

thanks.