Approach for using the OG guides

[Naim]

Hello,

I have an important question on the OG usage. Basically, I am going to attack the 12th edition OG now as I have just finished the Strategy Guides. As MGMAT told me before, I need to do drill content on the red book and drill timing blocks with the supplements. However, I am not totally sure how best to do these drill contents. My questions are therefore:

- Should I start with the topics where I have lowest % right on the CATs and move up to those with highest % right even if this means changing from Math to Verbal frequently or should I work linearly across topics?

- Should I do all OG for a given topic then do a CAT or should I do some across all weak areas then step back and do a CAT? If the latter, how many average number of problems per topic before the next CAT?

- Should I do one problem at a time timed, or a set of, say, 3 then look for answers ?

- Should I stop working on the problem when OG Stopwatch reaches the timing limit for the question type (ex: 2mn for Quant) or should I avoid looking at the watch until I selected an answer and then analyse my results and timing?

- I have read good things about this website for advanced Quant problems later in my preparation. http://gmatquantproblems.blogspot.com/.. I cant get hold of the set of 400 questions although i contacted many times the owner. Would be very grateful if you can help me get hold if it

Please help me answer these questions.

Any additional tip or advice will be of great use as I am about to attack the OG.

Thank you very much.

Best,
Nayim

[StaceyKoprince]

It sounds like you have already been through all of the red strategy guides, yes? And you have taken at least one CAT recently (within the last week or so)?

In that case, I would start with my problems from the CAT. I actually want to figure out what I need to make better (and make it better) before I start doing NEW problems in those areas.

Go back over the CAT questions that gave you the most trouble (based on EITHER percentage correct or timing - don't focus only on what you got wrong!). Use this article to help you analyze the problems:
http://www.beatthegmat.com/a/2009/10/09/how-to-analyze-a-practice-problem

(By the way, you may want to use this article to help you do a thorough analysis of your most recent CAT. The best analysis is a lot more complicated than just the lowest percentage correct. http://www.beatthegmat.com/a/2009/09/23/evaluating-your-practice-tests)

The analysis described in the first article will possibly involve going back into your red strategy guides, re-doing some of the in-action problems, etc. You may want to group the problems according to book (eg, I'm going to start with all of the problematic Number Properties problems).

Then, after I felt I'd thoroughly addressed whatever issues I uncovered from that test, I would test myself by doing some mixed sets of OG questions from the Number Properties category.

So, for example, I might decide I'm going to do a set of 10 questions total, roughly half PS and half DS. I pick 5 random questions from PS and 5 from DS in the OG book, the question numbers a bit spread out to represent different difficulty levels. Then, I set my timer and go. Make sure to time yourself for each question and make sure that you hold yourself to a time limit of 20 minutes total for 10 quant questions (you can use your online stopwatch for this, if you don't have your own stopwatch).

Then, I'd actually start the analysis cycle all over again - analyzing each problem, figuring out what I need to fix (and what I'm good at!), and then doing another mixed set AFTER I feel I've made some improvement.

Remember that, at every step of the way, you want to make some improvement before you start looking at a bunch of new questions in that same area.

I typically like to do all quant or all verbal in one study session, though different people have different preferences. I do think it's important to do at least some quant and some verbal each week, though - don't do all quant for 2 weeks and completely ignore verbal. Even if your verbal is fine, you still need periodic practice to keep your levels up.

As far as the website that you linked, I don't know who that is, nor do I know how to get in contact with him. I personally don't think I would seek out his material for myself. It may be good quality but it may not - there's no way for me to tell. (Well, there is a way for me to tell as an expert, but if I were just a student, there's no way for me to tell.) I don't know what kind of research he's done, etc.

I did notice that he says his stuff is more up to date and other questions are out of date because they're from "before Pearson took over." Pearson manages the physical test centers; the company has nothing to do with the content of the test. A different company, ACT, writes the test items for GMAC. I find the Pearson reference odd; in my opinion, if an expert does have the most current research, s/he should be aware that ACT writes the test items and Pearson administers the test.