How much study time on Essay and IR?

[ChristopherL948]

Hello,

Like most, I have been putting most of my effort toward Quant and Verbal. I have not studied the essay or IR yet, and am taking the test in about one month. Being that sufficient appears acceptable for the essay and IR sections, how much study time is acceptable for these two sections / how much have others spent studying these two sections? I was really planning on spending 2 days for each section. Being a native English speaker, I am assuming essay should be okay. For IR, being that it is new to the test, I have read it won't be scrutinized heavily by schools.

Thanks!

[StaceyKoprince]

Depends how good you are at those sections now. :)

What have you scored on IR on practice tests? (Note: Our IR tends to be harder than the real thing; if you took our CATs, add a point or two to your score.)

If you want to check your essay score, GMAC (the org that owns the GMAT) has an essay-grading service called GMAT Write (it uses the same computer scoring algorithm used by the real test).

If you're in one of our classes, you already have access to this program; if not, you'll need to purchase your own access. The program allows you to write an essay, get a score and feedback, edit the essay, and submit again to see whether you get a higher score. You can do this for two different essay prompts.

For IR, I'd recommend starting by watching the Intro to IR lesson in our (free) IR Interact lesson series. That will help you plan your strategy. There are then four additional lessons (all free), one for each question type. Then, you'll know how to tackle each type. (You'll still choose to guess on some, but you can make better decisions about when to guess if you actually know at least somewhat what you're doing. :)

Good luck!

[ChristopherL948]

Depends how good you are at those sections now. :)

What have you scored on IR on practice tests? (Note: Our IR tends to be harder than the real thing; if you took our CATs, add a point or two to your score.)

If you want to check your essay score, GMAC (the org that owns the GMAT) has an essay-grading service called GMAT Write (it uses the same computer scoring algorithm used by the real test).

If you're in one of our classes, you already have access to this program; if not, you'll need to purchase your own access. The program allows you to write an essay, get a score and feedback, edit the essay, and submit again to see whether you get a higher score. You can do this for two different essay prompts.

For IR, I'd recommend starting by watching the Intro to IR lesson in our (free) IR Interact lesson series. That will help you plan your strategy. There are then four additional lessons (all free), one for each question type. Then, you'll know how to tackle each type. (You'll still choose to guess on some, but you can make better decisions about when to guess if you actually know at least somewhat what you're doing. :)

Good luck!

Thanks for the insight Stacey! Are the Manhattan GMAT CAT Quant problems a little harder than the actual exam Quant as well?

[StaceyKoprince]

Sometimes. (How's that for a middle-of-the-road answer? :)

Our questions tend to be a bit more computation-heavy than the real ones - so ours are a bit harder in that respect.

They, on the other hand, are amazingly good at writing a question that looks a lot easier than it is - but it's got some twists or traps that will lead you astray if you're not very careful.

So, in the end, I don't think their stuff is easier than ours, but it can sometimes seem so superficially.

I will also mention one reason the real test can feel easier than practice if you are a high-scoring tester: the real test includes a healthy dose of experimental questions, which can hit at any difficulty level. So if you are really strong, you're going to get some pretty easy (for you) experimentals. You don't get those on practice tests.