GMAT Exam date set. MGMAT classes set. Now what?

[commit.gmat]

Hello all,

After procrastinating for a long time, I finally decided to take the plunge and finish off my GMAT. And, to get myself motivated and keep focussed, first thing I did is to book the GMAT date on July 18th. I am aiming for 740+.

I also registered for the 9 week MGMAT course starting from April 20th (Steve Young in SFO). I received my strategy guides along with the OG 11 and OG Quant(green) and Verbal(violet) reviews. So, that will be my complete material. I might consider going thru 'GMAT Verbal bible' at a later date.

I started my preparation two weeks ago and first completed the diagnostics test in OG. I am planning to spend a total of 8-12 hours in the weekdays and 6-8 hours in the weekends. Last week I started off with OG Math review. Now I am half way thru completing the sample PS questions, noting down the mistakes that I have been doing. So far I noticed that I am making a lot of 'silly mistakes', as they call it.

I havn't taken any full length exams so far. I am saving them for later dates after I complete my content review. I'll take my first full length MGMAT exam on April 18th or 19th just before my first class. (total 2 official + 6 MGMAT tests, correct? is that enough?)

I browsed the forums and noticed a lot of similar questions and great answers from Stacey, Ron, and others.

This is how I am planning to proceed.
1.Math OG review - done
2.OG math exercise - currently working
3.OG math supplement exercise
4.OG SC - review
5.Manhattan GMAT - SC - review
6.OG SC exercise
7.OG Verbal supplement SC exercise
8.OG CR - review
9.Manhattan GMAT - CR - review
10.OG CR exercise
11.OG Verbal supplement CR exercise
12.OG RC - review
13.Manhattan GMAT - RC - review
14.OG RC exercise
15.Manhattan math books- review and do exercise
16.manhattan verbal book - exercise, manhattan SC review book
17.GMAT Verbal Bible

I am looking for some expert comments on my status so far and my plan. Also, wish me good luck.

Thanks
Commit GMAT

[RonPurewal]

Hello all,

After procrastinating for a long time, I finally decided to take the plunge and finish off my GMAT. And, to get myself motivated and keep focussed, first thing I did is to book the GMAT date on July 18th. I am aiming for 740+.

interesting score goal.

do you have any practice test scores, or scores from official administrations of the test, at all?
that's a lofty goal, which may or may not be realistic depending on where you are at the current moment.

I also registered for the 9 week MGMAT course starting from April 20th (Steve Young in SFO).

we have classes at the airport?
heh heh.

I received my strategy guides along with the OG 11 and OG Quant(green) and Verbal(violet) reviews. So, that will be my complete material. I might consider going thru 'GMAT Verbal bible' at a later date.

remember, quality over quantity.
now is not the time at which to be worrying about additional materials, given that you haven't even started going through the materials you've already got.

I started my preparation two weeks ago and first completed the diagnostics test in OG.

how'd that go? do you have any data on your performance?
since you haven't posted any test scores (and it doesn't seem as though you've taken any practice tests), anything that can help us get a baseline idea of where you stand would be useful.

I am planning to spend a total of 8-12 hours in the weekdays and 6-8 hours in the weekends.

i assume, and i hope, that this means a TOTAL of 8-12 hours from monday through friday, and a TOTAL of 6-8 hours for saturday + sunday.
correct me if i'm wrong!
(we have occasionally had students who have tried to plan on studying for 6-8 hours per day, but that never works out well. the average person's capacity for learning falls well below this level.)

Last week I started off with OG Math review.

that's not a bad place to start, but do know that it's (at least somewhat) incomplete. there are certain topics that you have to know, but that just don't show up in there, so be ready for some occasional surprises.

also, there are a couple of things that appear in there, but have never actually shown up (to our knowledge) in an official question. two such things are the calculation of standard deviation (i.e., calculating the actual numerical value - as opposed to the conceptual idea of standard deviation, which comes up with some regularity) and the quadratic formula.

still, though, as i stated above - not a bad place to start. certainly more manageable, and more effective, than trying to pore your way through an entire algebra book.

you will find that the math review is extremely low-level, though.

Now I am half way thru completing the sample PS questions, noting down the mistakes that I have been doing. So far I noticed that I am making a lot of 'silly mistakes', as they call it.

make sure that you write down TAKEAWAYS, not just mistakes. you should of course note mistakes, but you shouldn't stop there.

here's what i mean:
most students don't study practice-test problems anywhere close to ideally.
specifically, you MUST study problems with an eye to CONNECTIONS AND TAKEAWAYS. whenever you solve a problem, you should never put the problem to bed until you've drawn at least one lesson that can be applied to other problems.
so, rather than just asking yourself questions such as "why is choice (a) wrong in this problem?" or "what silly mistake(s) did i make?", you should learn to ask yourself questions such as "what signals can i look for, IN GENERAL, that will let me spot such errors in future problems?"
in other words, you should try to get to a point where it's "stimulus - response". i.e., you see a (general type of) "stimulus" in the question stem, to which you have a pre-scripted "response".
the closer you get to having a pre-scripted response to EVERY stimulus, the better you'll do on the math section.

if you have a hard time coming up with such takeaways, try filling in the blanks in the following sentence, for EVERY quant question:
"if i see _____ ON ANOTHER PROBLEM, i should ______"

here are two examples:
"if i see powers of specific integers (such as 4^16 and 8^3) on another problem, i should break the integers down into primes"
"if i see a triangle with two equal sides on another problem, i should immediately realize that the angles opposite those sides are also equal"

try to do this every time.

I havn't taken any full length exams so far. I am saving them for later dates after I complete my content review. I'll take my first full length MGMAT exam on April 18th or 19th just before my first class. (total 2 official + 6 MGMAT tests, correct? is that enough?)

we actually have seven exams. there are six in the practice test bank, but there's also a seventh test, called "Free Online Practice Test", that you can go to the mgmat online store and "buy" for the bargain price of $0.00.
that test has its own (small) pool of questions - i.e., there is zero overlap with the questions on the other tests - so it's effectively a 7th exam.

yes, GMATPREP will give you 2 guaranteed distinct exams.
it's definitely worth it, though, to re-install GMATPREP and take the exams more than once. the resultant scores won't really be predictive, because you'll see some repeat questions, but you'll see a very large number of previously unseen questions. (the bank of questions stored in that software easy fills over a hundred pages, so, every time you take the test, you're seeing only a small sliver of what's actually stored in there.)

This is how I am planning to proceed.
1.Math OG review - done
2.OG math exercise - currently working
3.OG math supplement exercise
4.OG SC - review
5.Manhattan GMAT - SC - review
6.OG SC exercise
7.OG Verbal supplement SC exercise
8.OG CR - review
9.Manhattan GMAT - CR - review
10.OG CR exercise
11.OG Verbal supplement CR exercise
12.OG RC - review
13.Manhattan GMAT - RC - review
14.OG RC exercise
15.Manhattan math books- review and do exercise
16.manhattan verbal book - exercise, manhattan SC review book
17.GMAT Verbal Bible

i hope this isn't a chronological order. if it is, then there are 2 big problems.

(1) YOU SHOULD NOT DO ALL OF CR AT ONE TIME, AND YOU SHOULD NOT DO ALL OF SC AT ONE TIME.
your success in these 2 areas DEPENDS on your treating different types of questions / errors in different ways.
the techniques used to solve, say, Find the Assumption questions are NOTHING like the techniques used to solve, say, Strengthen the Conclusion questions. if you study all these types of problems too close together - especially if you aren't studying anything else in between - then you run the risk of having them all "run together" like colors of wet paint. that would be horrible, since applying, say, Find the Assumption techniques to a Strengthen the Conclusion question (or vice versa) will pretty much always get you the wrong answer.

(2) YOU SHOULD DO THE MANHATTANGMAT STRATEGY GUIDES BEFORE YOU DO THE CORRESPONDING O.G. PROBLEMS.
our strategy guides actually aren't really "strategy" guides; they're CONTENT GUIDES. in other words, our 8 guides are where you're going to learn the raw material that's necessary for success on the official problems.
given this fact, it should be clear that you should study the strategy guides FIRST, and then move on to the OG problems.
you can always try your hand at some of the OG problems now, but be sure to leave a VAST majority of the OG problems for AFTER you've finished the corresponding guides.

Also, wish me good luck.

good luck.

[commit.gmat]

Thanks a lot Ron for your constructive feedback. I very much appreciate it.

do you have any practice test scores, or scores from official administrations of the test, at all? that's a lofty goal, which may or may not be realistic depending on where you are at the current moment.

I agree that it's a lofty goal and realize it may not be possible. But that's what I am aiming for and ideally like to achieve with help from experts like you and with right amount of effort.

how'd that go? do you have any data on your performance?
since you haven't posted any test scores (and it doesn't seem as though you've taken any practice tests), anything that can help us get a baseline idea of where you stand would be useful.

My diagonistis test scores:
PS: 20/24 (Excellent)
DS: 17/24 (above avg)
RC: 15/17 (above avg)
CR: 11/17 (above avg)
SC: 12/18 (above avg)

i assume, and i hope, that this means a TOTAL of 8-12 hours from monday through friday, and a TOTAL of 6-8 hours for saturday + sunday. correct me if i'm wrong!

your assumption is correct. I will be spending 2-3 hours per day on weekdays and 3-4 hours per day on weekends. My GMAT test time at 8AM. I am one of those early morning people. To get used to it, I am studying every morning for an hour starting at 7:30AM. When I take practice tests, I'll plan to start each test around 8 AM.

so, rather than just asking yourself questions such as "why is choice (a) wrong in this problem?" or "what silly mistake(s) did i make?", you should learn to ask yourself questions such as "what signals can i look for, IN GENERAL, that will let me spot such errors in future problems?"

Thanks for the suggestions. What I noticed so far is that I am making a lot of silly mistakes. I guess I am hurrying when I read the question and miss some 'gotcha' points. Hopefully I'll improve in that area. Also what I learnt is that if I can remember the multiplication tables, it'll help in speedy PS responses.

we actually have seven exams. there are six in the practice test bank, but there's also a seventh test, called "Free Online Practice Test", that you can go to the mgmat online store and "buy" for the bargain price of $0.00.

Before I attend my first class of the MGAMT 9 week course, which one am I supposed to finish? is it the 'Free online' test? or is it one of the six tests?

i hope this isn't a chronological order. if it is, then there are 2 big problems.

that was my chronological order. But, I'll make the adjustments you suggested.

(1) YOU SHOULD NOT DO ALL OF CR AT ONE TIME, AND YOU SHOULD NOT DO ALL OF SC AT ONE TIME.

'All the CR at a time' - How should I know how much of CR should I do at once before going to SC. Similarly, how much SC should I do before getting back to CR. Please suggest.

Thanks a lot

[StaceyKoprince]

Great suggestions Ron. And, commit, I'm really glad to see you're making a plan and thinking about what to do and how to do it. Not enough people do that!

For the first test (for the course), you can do either the free test or test 1 in your set of 6 - doesn't matter. I'd actually recommend doing the free test so that you then have the other 6 tests too. (Also, when you start class, tell Steve I said hi. Until recently, I also used to live in the Bay Area. :)

Generally speaking, CR and RC should be chapter by chapter - you thoroughly learn one chapter, including doing practice OG problems, before you move on to the next chapter.

Note: it's probably a good idea to do only some OG problems right now, but save a lot for the course. Steve's going to be teaching you additional ideas and techniques that are not in the books, and you'll want to be able to practice those techniques on the OG problems after you've learned them.

Good luck with your study!

[commit.gmat]

Thanks for the suggestions Stacey.

Note: it's probably a good idea to do only some OG problems right now, but save a lot for the course

that makes sense. My original plan was to completly go thru all the 8 books and do the OG problems chapter by chapter as I finish each book. I figured, that way I would be thoroughly ready to understand the additional concepts and strategies taught in the class? What do you think? Should I just go through the content now without doing the OG problems?

I finished MGMAT Math guide 1 today. And at the end of it, I solved the OG problems. That was too much Math for the last one week and my brain is math-fatigued. I want to start with one of the Verbal books and alternate between Math and Verbal. Comments?

What else would you suggest me to do before the classes? I will be taking my first practice test on April 18th ( 2 days before the class).

Also, when you start class, tell Steve I said hi

I will.

[StaceyKoprince]

I agree you are going to re-do the ones that you do now, while applying the lessons that you learn from Steve. At the same time, you're going to want some "fresh" ones after you've learned the concepts in class and after the course is over, to check and make sure that you really know what you're doing. You don't want to be somewhat familiar already with every problem.

I like the math and verbal alternation thing. You can also do things chapter by chapter (which is what I recommend to my students). Read a chapter, do the problems at the end of the chapter, do some of the OG problems. Then move on to a new chapter. If you want, you can alternate math and verbal by chapter, instead of the whole book.

I wouldn't suggest doing anything else before the class starts - that's only 8 days away. I don't want you to get so tired out from studying this stuff that you get burned out or dread doing it. That wouldn't be good! :)