confused about my study plan

[NabeelZ316]

So I finally decided to invest in the strategy guide book set so I can properly study for my GMAT. However, I still feel I am very disorganized and confused about what exactly my study path should be. When should I start doing practise questions, CATS, past exams, OG guide questions, question banks. Seems like there is just too much stuff out there and its hard for me to pin point on exactly where to start. So far how I have done the following:

-1 practise test. The result was awful because I didn't do anything prior to that. Just decided to dive into it to get a sense of familiarity.
-completed Math and verbal review from the FREE GMAT software by Manhattan
-completed Foundations of Math by Manhattan
-completed Road to GMAT book by Manhattan

I can now say I am confident about overall structure of the exam, question types, the foundations of core concepts and the expectations from the GMAT.

Now I know the next logical step is to the do remaining 8 books in the strategy guide set. However, I also feel like I have studied a lot for the past 1 month and really need to get going to with some actual practise questions or tests. I know I'll be studying these 8 books from now but I really want to do practise questions or tests on the side, especially for quant section.

I'm just confused as to where to start. Do I first do questions from each strategy guide? Do I do questions from a diagnostic test? Do I just starting doing full CATs/practise exams or past exams or do questions from OG? By the way, Im confused about OG. The road to GMAT mentioned OG quite a few times but I dont know where I can find OG questions. Is it an additional book that I have to buy?
I did go into the NAVIGATOR but that only has solutions, not the full questions.

Someone please help. Thank you

[StaceyKoprince]

Those are all great things to do! We have students in our classes take a test right at the beginning, too—as you said, you want to see what it's like, and you also want to get a sense of your natural strengths and weaknesses.

Here's what I'd recommend, generally speaking. Look over your CAT. You can re-do some of the questions, and mark the ones that you now know how to get right (from doing Foundations of Math, etc). Categorize everything into one of three buckets:
(1) These are my strengths (relative to everything else)
(2) These are weaker areas but I feel more comfortable trying to improve them (include careless mistakes or "I should have known that!" stuff here)
(3) These are weaker areas and I don't feel all that comfortable trying to improve them

Start with (2), mostly, while also pushing (1) whenever those areas are covered. Leave the (3) stuff for a little later (or possibly never, for some of it!).

For quant, consider starting with stuff from FDPs (Fractions Decimals & Percents) and Algebra, as this material can also be tested in the other content areas.
For verbal, I'd generally go through SC in the order of the book. For CR and RC, generally start with the introductory chapters first, but when you get to the question types, you can jump around if you like (just keep the material in one chapter together).

The OG = The Official Guide. These are books that are published by the makers of the real test, so if you only bought MPrep books, then yes, these are different books that you would have to buy. I strongly recommend using official questions when practicing; Official Guide questions were all used on the real GMAT in the past, and there's nothing better than studying from the real thing. You can get just the one main book (with about 900 questions in it): The Official Guide for GMAT Review. (There are two others, with 300 questions each.)

You can also download two free official GMAT practice tests and some other free resources from www.mba.com (the makers of the GMAT). Look for the GMATPrep software, which you can "buy" in their store for $0.

Okay, next, what to do. First, work through a chapter in one of our strategy guides. Then try some of the questions in the end-of-chapter problem sets. Consider these questions "open book": you can go back into the chapter and look anything up at any time while solving these problems.

If you decide to buy the Official Guide, then you can also download a PDF on our (MPrep's) website called The Official Guide Problem Sets. We've categorized all of the OG problems by book and chapter. So, when you finish a particular chapter in one of our books, you can go to the OG Problem Sets PDF and see which question numbers correspond to that material. Then you can try a few of those. This time, hold yourself to official test protocol: time yourself, don't look anything up, etc. When you're done, analyze the problem to see what else you can get out of it: http://tinyurl.com/2ndlevelofgmat

That will also let you know if you need to go back into the book to review or drill something. As you move deeper into a book (or several books), start to put together small sets of questions and give yourself a whole block of time (eg, you might give yourself 8 minutes to do 4 quant questions). Mix up topics—stuff you just studied, but also stuff you did yesterday and last week. This will help you to review and keep your skills current.

You might also want to take a look at this: http://www.beatthegmat.com/mba/2015/07/ ... s-say-what

When you feel that you have made good progress* and you want to take another CAT, do so and use this to analyze it:
http://tinyurl.com/analyzeyourcats

Then use that analysis to figure out what else still needs work and go from there.

*In our classes, we have students take their second CAT around week 6 or 7 and their third CAT around week 9 or 10, just to give you an idea.

Hopefully, that is enough to get you going. Let us know if you have any questions!

[NabeelZ316]

Thank you for such a detailed response, Stacey! So helpful.
I also have done a Math diagnostic test, didn't add that last time.

So from now on, I am making my study plan as follows:

- Continue reading the Strategy guide books and do the end of the chapter questions
-Buy OG to access the OG questions and download Mprep PDF file for OG question sets. Upon finishing each chapter, go to the PDF file and try the questions for each chapter.
-Finally once I've read all SG books, I can do more CATs!

Well that definitely clears things up for me. With this plan, I can now study and practise at the same time. Thank you so much again!

One thing I've noticed is in the navigator, it does not let me see questions from any other OG except OG 13.
It just says " question not found ". Do I have access to just OG 13 or am I just not using the navigation tools properly?

Thank you

[StaceyKoprince]

You're welcome! A couple of things:
- For the OGs, try a few at the end of each chapter, but not all. Save some / most for later, when you can do mixed sets of questions. The real GMAT is going to mix stuff up and it isn't going to tell you the kind of question you are about to get; you have to figure it out. So you want to practice that way, too.
- I would take another CAT when you are maybe halfway through the books. It's good experience.

For Navigator, contact our student services team to figure out how to get Navigator to show you other editions. In the US and Canada, you can call 800.576.GMAT. You can also email gmat@manhattanprep.com