Best Use of Strategy Guides?

[Duncansn]

I am using the MGMAT set of 8 strategy guides. My goal score is 500 and my exam date is 5-6 weeks away. My last GMAT score was 460 and I need to move up 40 points. This is a lot of material to cover in a short amount of time. My plan was to read the first part of each guide, do all the drills, and skip the advanced sections unless I finish early and have time to come back to the advanced parts. My goal was to finish one guide per week and two guides if they are shorter.

Thoughts on how to maximize my time?

[StaceyKoprince]

Short answer here, but take a look at my response to your other post - in order to give you specific advice, we have to know more about your strengths and weaknesses.

Do not do the advanced portions at all - people don't need to worry about those sections unless they're scoring in the 650+ range. You may, though, want to add the Foundations of Math and Foundations of Verbal guides to your study list.

How's your timing? Most people struggle with timing anywhere from a little to a lot. A lot of people find that their score improves 40-50 points just from fixing their timing problems, so that's definitely something to look into. See this article:
http://www.manhattangmat.com/blog/index ... anagement/

It often takes a good 4-6 weeks to fix timing problems, so get started on that right away. (I'm just assuming you do have at least some timing problems because almost everyone does!)