Need assessment of study plan

[la2ny]

Dear Stacy,

I need some feedback on my current study plan. I've decided to cut out the CR, RC, and essays in my regular study plan. I'm focusing completely and entirely on quant and SC (do you think this is a good idea?) My thinking is that, if I focus on mastering SC to get the timing down to 1 minute per question, then the extra time can be re-allocated to the RC and CR, which are sections harder to improve upon. For quant, it's clearly the most important area for me. I'm focusing more on doing the OG questions and understanding explanations and solutions completely - to the point of mastery. I'm only using the guides if I need clarity on concepts and for reference (besides, I already went through the whole self-guided study and have completed the readings and practice problems). I want to learn through the actual questions rather than the guides. I want to desensitize myself from seeing the concepts wrapped up in the question. I found that I don't want to stick to the guides too much, as I want to get as much exposure to the questions themselves as possible. Also, I'm utilizing the other MGMAT materials (i.e. lectures, strategy drills) when needed.

I'm studying 6-8 hours/day on weekends, and 1-2 hours (probably closer to 1)/day during the weekdays. I have a traveling job and it's hard to study on travel days because I'm tired, but I'm doing the best I can and making up for it on the weekends.

Below are result of my first 3 MGMATs. My goal right now is not a particular score, but to show strong improvement. Granted my first tests were quite low, thus would be easy to improve upon, but my quant score - while still low - I'm at least glad I've improved 14 points. I'm convinced my improvement on Verbal from exam #2 to exam #3 was the focus I put on SC. I'm certainly not near my goal of 700, but how would you assess my study plan, frame of mind, and exam results? I'm open to suggestions for improvement. ... Also, is there a danger if I prolong my GMAT prep for too long? That's one of my concerns.

Last question, about how much time should I take between practice tests? Certainly I don't want to waste any of them. I figured I have 5 practice test left (3 MGMATs and 2 GMAT.coms)

MGMAT Exam #1
Q21
V29
T440

MGMAT Exam #2
Q27
V19
T410

MGMAT Exam #3
Q35
V29
T530

[StaceyKoprince]

I've decided to cut out the CR, RC, and essays in my regular study plan. I'm focusing completely and entirely on quant and SC (do you think this is a good idea?)

It depends on your current scoring level, your goal score, and your strengths and weaknesses. But I don't think it's often the case that completely cutting out two entire Q types is a good plan. :)

On the first and third tests, V is definitely better than Q. On the 2nd test, V dropped significantly. Were you able to figure out why? I'm glad that 2 of the 3 are at 29 - so that 29 is probably not a fluke - but unless we know why you dropped to 19 one time, then we can't do anything to ensure that you don't drop again in future.

Next, the plan to get SC down to an average of 1m will only take you so far - because if you really do want to get to 700, then you're going to have to be answering some pretty hard SCs, and your average time is probably going to go up.

In addition, you're right that RC, in particular, often takes longer to improve... so that's a good reason to start working on it sooner rather than later. The later you leave it, the harder it will get to improve because it takes time to get better.

So I guess I'm talking myself into saying: No. Don't ignore CR and RC right now. If your overall goal were to see a fast jump in your early improvement, then that plan would be fine. But your overall goal is really to hit that 700 in the end, right? So take the time now.

It sounds like you already went through the guides once - if so, then it's fine to use the OG problems to drive your study and what you review, using the guides as needed. But I do want to warn you that, often, the solution method shown in OG is not the most efficient or clearest and easiest solution method. So push yourself to discover other methods, either through playing with the problem and brainstorming on your own or searching online for other solutions. (If you've done our self-study program, then you should have access to OG Archer - we've put up our own solutions for the OG12 quant problems.)

I'm studying 6-8 hours/day on weekends

That's fine, but don't study more than 2h at a sitting without taking a substantial break (at least 1h). Your brain needs down time to process and make memories out of what it's learning!

Are you sitting on planes or trains for your job? If so, even if you can only get in 15m or 30m, grab some flashcards and drill.

Re: taking too long, there are two dangers: (1) burn-out, and (2) forgetting stuff you studied a long time ago. Be aware and avoid those things, and you'll be fine.

Re: practice tests, don't take another until you feel you've made substantial progress since the last one. That's a minimum of 2 to 3 weeks, possibly longer, at this stage.

Use this to analyze your practice tests:
http://www.manhattangmat.com/blog/index ... ice-tests/

And that then sets up your study plan for you. You don't have to fix EVERYthing before you take another test, but you want to have done enough work that you will come out with a different mix of strengths and weaknesses. If your next test tells you the exact same strengths and weaknesses, then it was a waste - because you already knew that. :)

If you have time management problems (and we all do, really):
http://www.manhattangmat.com/blog/index ... anagement/

And some other "how to study" resources are linked in this article:
http://www.manhattangmat.com/blog/index ... -the-gmat/

[la2ny]

Thanks a lot for your elaborate response! I don't really have anyone else to bounce GMAT ideas off of and these forums are really helpful in that regard. Hopefully your feedback will help other MGMAT students in a similar situation as mine.

I fly every week on early Monday mornings and Thursday evenings. My flight is only 40 minutes airtime (New York to Boston), so often (especially on my morning flights) I'm much too tired to look at any material. Moreover, given the short airtime, I don't find it worthwhile to get all my materials out, but I'll try to work with the flash cards, as well as the journal/notebook I've been documenting on key concepts and areas of weakness. Even during the weekdays while away on business travel, I don't feel I have very effective study sessions (it's hard studying in a nice, plush hotel room :) ), which is why I put so much time and focus during the weekends -- which I feel has been working. :)

In regards to my practice test scores, the first Verbal 29 I feel was a fluke. I also remember taking it isolated from the rest of the test, so I had a set of fresh eyes and lots of energy at the time. However, the Verbal improvement from Exam #2 to #3 I do not feel was a fluke, as prior to taking #3 I did a significant amount of prep on SC.

I hear you on being cautious with cutting out material from GMAT (in my case RC and CR), and I will strongly consider your disclaimer. I've always like to take an "all-eggs-in-one-basket" approach towards studying. It's a strategy I've executed my entire academic career, which includes the ACT and my college years. My thought process is to gain mastery of Quant and SC first. After I take the first real GMAT, I'm ok if I don't reach my target of 700. At that time, I will focus on honing and fine-tuning the RC and CR sections of Verbal, but to your advice, I will try not to ignore it now. I plan on taking the real GMAT 3 times.

And I'm definitely not solely relying on the OG. I'm using the MGMAT OG Explanations Guide in tandem with the OG explanations. It's been extremely helpful, although at times I like the OG's explanation better. ^^

At this point, my biggest concern is stamina on the GMAT. Near the end of the test - especially into Verbal - I feel I start to run out of energy and mental focus. My eyes get tired. I'm sure I've thrown away many correct answers simply b/c of lack of stamina. Unlike many other test takers, I don't think timing is a huge issue for me.

Finally, I actually just found out I'll won't be traveling for work in the coming months. I feel I can use that to my advantage and revamp my study schedule and hold more effective study sessions on weekdays.

[StaceyKoprince]

Flash cards are great. Also, if you bought our books recently, then you may also have access to the e-reader versions. If you have an e-reader, or get one, then you may find that easier in terms of "getting out" your books. :)

Thanks for the additional info. Most people find that CR and RC take longer to improve because it's more about how you think (and less about knowing / memorizing certain facts), so just be aware that you don't want to leave that stuff too late.

Have you read this article?
http://www.manhattangmat.com/blog/index ... you-crazy/

Food for thought with respect to the mental fatigue issue. Also don't forget the physical side of things, towards the end of the test (last break before verbal), an energy drink (ie, a big shot of glucose) can really help to get your brain revving again. (You just don't want to do that before the test starts because you'll crash before the test is over.)

Oh and great news on the change in travel schedule! Good luck. :)

[la2ny]

Hi Stacy,

So I completed another MCAT exam with results below. My score went up 20 points and quant score went up 3 points (verbal stayed about the same), but I am unsure if this is even considered to be an improvement. What do you think? During the exam, I mimic-ed the actual test conditions exactly, taking appropriate breaks and using the laminated sketch board with marker. I felt that my mindset and confidence level was much better on this exam than prior ones. I didn't start to lose focus until halfway through verbal, whereas previously I was starting to lose focus during quant. For quant, my score has continually gone up since exam #1. Verbal stayed about the same, but that's without doing any prep on RC or CR. I guess the positive takeaway is that at least my score didn't go down and my state-of-mind and stamina was far better. The data sufficiency questions I no longer cringe and feel inconvenienced. I'm am now pretty comfortable with them.

MGMAT Exam #4
Q38
V28
T550

One interesting finding when analyzing my quant results is that on question 33 I was at the 26th percentile!!! If I knew this during the test, I would have totally freaked out. Somehow, I managed to get the next 4 correct, 2 of which were 600-700 level questions and leaving me with a 38 (55th percentile). Moreover, my performance on quant was pretty "streaky". Sometimes I'd get 5 in a row right to be followed by 4 wrong answers. How should I make of this? What should the idea correct-incorrect pattern look like? Many of my wrong answers I was on the right track, but just couldn't finish off appropriately. I really believe that eventually this quant stuff is going to click for me and I'll be able to score in the high 30's. I don't consider myself to be "math challenged" (I used to work as a computer programmer) and my quant has been consistantly improving, but I just have to get over that last hump -- the 'hump' being getting more 700-800 level questoins and being more proficient on the 600-700s. If you have any ideas on getting over it, let me know.

For verbal, I am comfortable with the RC, as I got many difficult question correct on this latest exam. SC - I wish I would have done better on give the time I put in, but at least my score didn't go down. Clearly, CR is what I need to improve upon, as I only got 2 right and the rest wrong. If I can do as well on the RC as I am doing on sC and RC, then I'm pretty sure I can enter into the mid 30's.

The scoring breakdown to my path to 700 (or close to it; I'd accept a 680) I envision a 38 for quant and 35/36 for verbal. I do acknowledge that I have yet to really prove myself on the MCAT exams and I am still a ways away from my target of 700.

Looking at all of my test results to date and my thoughts, what observations/comments/suggestions do you have? Going forward, I'll carefully review my exam, but it's still somewhat hard for me to accept the idea of doing "just a few" problems a day. I want to work through entire problem sets b/c there's so many different problem types, I want to cover them all.

[jnelson0612]

Hi la2ny,
Stacey is taking a well-deserved break so I am monitoring this forum in her absence. Yes, this is definitely improvement! Look at how far your quant has come! The streakiness is a concern; my worry is that you could end the section on the tail end of a bad streak, leaving your percentile lower than it should be.

I would recommend that you deeply, deeply review every math question you do. You should be identifying the following as part of a review process:
1) What type of question is this?
2) What elements of the question are important? Which would help you identify the type of problem? Any keywords?
3) What is the best strategy to solve this problem? Any alternate strategies? Any answer choices I could rule out if I had to guess?
4) Put the problem away and work it again cold in a week (timed). See if you remember the lessons and it comes more easily.
5) If you are still struggling, flashcard the problem and teach it to someone else?

I have found that students who review with this process tend to learn a lot, retain what they have learned, and recognize similar questions in later tests.

Regarding verbal, can you please supply the number right/wrong for each of the three sections as well as the difficulty ratings of the wrong questions? I think we need more info here--verbal is obviously an area that continues to be a weight on your score. Thanks!

[la2ny]

Hi la2ny,
Stacey is taking a well-deserved break so I am monitoring this forum in her absence. Yes, this is definitely improvement! Look at how far your quant has come! The streakiness is a concern; my worry is that you could end the section on the tail end of a bad streak, leaving your percentile lower than it should be.

I would recommend that you deeply, deeply review every math question you do. You should be identifying the following as part of a review process:
1) What type of question is this?
2) What elements of the question are important? Which would help you identify the type of problem? Any keywords?
3) What is the best strategy to solve this problem? Any alternate strategies? Any answer choices I could rule out if I had to guess?
4) Put the problem away and work it again cold in a week (timed). See if you remember the lessons and it comes more easily.
5) If you are still struggling, flashcard the problem and teach it to someone else?

I have found that students who review with this process tend to learn a lot, retain what they have learned, and recognize similar questions in later tests.

Regarding verbal, can you please supply the number right/wrong for each of the three sections as well as the difficulty ratings of the wrong questions? I think we need more info here--verbal is obviously an area that continues to be a weight on your score. Thanks!

Jamie,

Thank you very much for the response and feedback. Below is the break down of right/wrong for each area in verbal for Exam #4:

CR: 3/14
RC: 8/12
SC: 8/15

As I said, for the past few months I've been focusing on quant and SC exclusively. I've done ZERO prep on CR and RC, but based upon these latest results, I have been doing heavy prep on CR while trying to maintain proficiency in SC and quant. I'm convinced I'll get the CR up next exam. ... I'm a bit disappointed that the number right I got on SC didn't really go up since last test (actually, it went down by 1), however, the questions I got were of greater difficulty, which I guess is a good thing.

Thanks for the study tips on quant. I think I've been already doing it that way, but I'll see if there's room for improvement on what you suggested. I'm really optimistic that I'm going to keep improving on math. I just don't want to go down in any of my scores. I've identified weakness areas based upon test results and that is what's driving and deciding my quant study content.

Thanks!

[StaceyKoprince]

(Starting with your previous post, since I was out for a while.) You qualitatively felt things got better - that's good. Don't assume that this will immediately translate into a big score jump - it takes time. You're moving in the right direction, so that's all that matters right now. :)

Check out both the timing and the individual questions for your streaks-right and streaks-wrong. Were you spending more time on the streaks-right, and then speeding up to make up for it (which would make it more likely to have wrong streaks)? Were you just getting really lucky and then really unlucky in terms of getting a sequence of "strength" questions and then a sequence of "weakness" questions? Try to figure out why the streakiness was happening (and come back here to tell us).

I agree from the results that CR is obviously the next place to hit for verbal. :) For quant, you mention wanting to be able to hit more 700+ questions, but worry a bit more about the sub-700 questions right now and your timing. If you mess up the timing or make too many careless mistakes on the sub-700 questions, you're not going to get that higher score anyway.

Going forward, I'll carefully review my exam, but it's still somewhat hard for me to accept the idea of doing "just a few" problems a day. I want to work through entire problem sets b/c there's so many different problem types, I want to cover them all.

About 20% of what we learn comes from the act of doing a problem, and about 80% comes from the analysis of that problem that we do after the fact.

Knowing that, do you still want to do a million problems (with the obvious result that you won't have much time left to review them)? You can do that if you want... but I wouldn't recommend it. It's an incredibly inefficient way to study. :)

That doesn't mean you're only going to do 2 or 3 problems a day, obviously - but there's a balance to be had, here. Don't do so many problems that you're not really learning from each and every one.

[la2ny]

Stacy,

I completed my final 2 MGMAT exams. Bad news and good news. Bad news is I totally underperformed on my MGMAT #5 exam and my overall score went down 50 points (on the positive, my verbal went up 1 point). I don't know what went wrong, but I never got into a rhythm in the quant. I got a lot of easy questions wrong. Of course I was pretty discouraged at the end. ... Good news is on MGMAT #6 exam, I achieve all time highs for both quant and verbal. My overall score was 40 points higher than previous high (see breakdown below). I believe my improvement here had EVERYTHING to do with timing. At the end of quant I had like 5-6 minutes left, and amazingly I answered the final 11 problems correctly. I was shocked when I saw I got 11 in a row at the end of the test. Granted, though, many weren't of high difficulty.

Moving forward, I'm scheduled to take the real GMAT in 3 weeks. In between now and then, I'll take another practice test from GMAT.com. My question to you is, how should I interpret my MGMAT exams and overall GMAT progress and potential? There's a clear trend that I'm consistently moving my scores upward (aside from test #5), but at the same time, I've never really scored that high and certainly am not near my goal of 680-700. I don't want to give up, b/c I feel that if I keep studying and pushing forward, I will get there. If my scores weren't showing an upward trend, then maybe I would give-up. ... I think my main obstracle is I have not been able to develop a strong study cadence during the weekdays and really delve deep into my weak areas. In fact, 2-3 weeks prior to MGMAT #6, I barely studied at all b/c I was overloaded at work. I hate to blame my job, but I really believe it is the culprit and if I could develop a better study cadence during the weekdays, I would be much farther along. So that's what really keeps me going. I've been pretty much studying since the beginning of this year and don't know how much longer I want to stretch this out. I just want to get this DONE.

BTW, I've integrated most of your advice you gave me above. I've developed a methodology for wrong answers and am developing my own "hot list". It's helped a lot. Thanks.

MGMAT Exam #1
Q21
V29
T440

MGMAT Exam #2
Q27
V19
T410

MGMAT Exam #3
Q35
V29
T530

MGMAT Exam #4
Q38
V28
T550

MGMAT Exam #5
Q29
V30
T500

MGMAT Exam #6
Q40
V32
T590

[StaceyKoprince]

You need to know exactly what went wrong on T5 and know that you have unequivocally fixed whatever the problems are so that you don't have a repeat - so that something more like T6 happens instead.

Next, your goal is 680-700 and your most recent test is 590, so it's unlikely that you'll be ready to go in 3 weeks. Most people would need more time to go up 100 points. You've made great progress so far, and I agree that you shouldn't give up - but I also don't want you to set unrealistic deadlines for yourself and possibly set yourself up to be disappointed. You don't have to decide today, but if about 10 days out you aren't in your goal range, then you should postpone (and the fee is only $50 to reschedule as long as you do so at least 1 week before your test date).

So dive deep into T5 and T6 and really try to figure out all of the differences there - sounds like timing was one major one. The more detail we have on the differences, the more we'll know where to go from here. You can use the article I linked to earlier re: analyzing your tests to help.