Prep strategy a disaster - please please help me... Exam 3wk

[rkafc81]

Thanks Stacey

I'm back from my holiday now and not stressed out anymore :) So I'm ready to start studying again.

I have bought and read through the MGMAT strategies book (the new one) and have found some of the chapters quite useful. Especially how to analyse a problem using the UPS framework, making flash cards and recognising patterns etc. It seems these 3 things are critical - especially the pattern recognition stuff - and making the flash cards so that I can really nail the recognition phase of understanding then planning to solve a question.

So, I'm going to work through the OG12 again from scratch, and any questions I get wrong due to shaky content konwledge, I'll use to identify the areas and topics I need to deep dive into by re-reading the appropriate MGMAT chapter, doing the end-of-chapter questions and then do targeted practice in that topic by doing, analysing and reviewing all the In Action problems at the end of that particular chapter. For one study session a week I will focus on redoing and reviewing those problem questions...

Then by the time I've done all of that I will have done all of the OG12 quant questions, and have an error log so I can get a feeling of my weak areas. I'll then reattempt, analyse and review those questions I wasn't sure about or got wrong on the first pass to see if I'm ok with them now. Finally, I'll do a practice exam to help to really work out what areas I need to really focus on in the lead up to the exam, and then focus intensely on those weak areas...

Then I'll work through the GMAT quant review 2nd edition, analyse and review, and do one last CAT to see where I'm at.

Hopefully by that stage I should be ready for a retake...

Oh yeah and in addition, daily I will do 4 CR and 4 SC and review, and 1 RC chapter, as well as reading general RC-type reading material and reviewing my quant flash cards on the commute to work.

Is this a good strategy going forward, considering that I seem to know most of the content now and don't want to waste time and beat a dead horse by going through all the strategy guides again one by one, chapter by chapter...

[StaceyKoprince]

I love your plan; it sounds great. Do remember to factor timing into everything - need to practice that as much as content.

Also make sure that you don't burn yourself out. If you're feeling that "I don't care anymore" or "I keep re-reading the same thing over and over without taking it in" mental fatigue, take a day off. You're not helping yourself if you try to cram info in when your brain is rebelling. :)

Good luck - let us know how it goes!

[rkafc81]

Hi again,

I have started going through the OG again from the first quant problem onwards... And now I've forgotten heaps of stuff, or at least I feel that I have. Maybe I just need to 'warm up' again after my studying hiatus.

Obviously this is a bit disheartening for me. If I keep going at this rate I'll end up making 100's of flash cards for all the shaky questions - which is way too many flash cards I imagine.

Anyway, the flash cards look like this (links to follow)... I'm putting them into an application on my mobile phone so i can view them anywhere.

The front of the card:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/23238019@N ... hotostream

The back of the card:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/23238019@N ... otostream/

is this how to do it?

I have 5 weeks to try and reattempt this time around and I don't feel I have the time to go through all the MGMAT strategy guides again.

However this time around I'm spending a lot of time reviewing each question in depth, and then making a flash card from it to make sure it stays fresh in my memory (like the GMAT ROadmap book advises). I intuitively feel this is a good strategy. I guess the idea is to be able to see a question, recognise what it is testing, know how to plan how to solve the question and then start solving. And be able to do all of this in under 2 minutes.

I guess by the time I get to GMAT take #2 then I will have an arsenal of questions fresh in memory that I can use to help Understand, Plan and Solve questions that I see on the test.

thanks again

[StaceyKoprince]

I guess the idea is to be able to see a question, recognise what it is testing, know how to plan how to solve the question and then start solving.

Yes, you're really trying to learn how to think your way through new problems that you'll see on the exam (since we can never study the actual test questions in advance). It's all about learning how to think. :)

Remember that part of that is also learning to recognize "this problem is too hard for me" or "this problem will take too long; it's not worth it."

Your flashcards look great - keep that up. And, yes, you need a little time to warm up again. You'll get there - just give yourself a little time.

[rkafc81]

Hi Stacey,

Well, I've 'warmed up' again and the study is coming along well again now.

I'm starting to develop the "1 minute sense" too.

However, I am concerned about how I review questions. Do I really need to type up a word document every time I analyse it using your question analysis framework (i.e. "how to analyse a PS question")? It seems very time consuming. Or should I just keep those questions in mind when I analyse a GMAT question, so I roughly know what to do to analyse it effectively?

I've done a few write-ups now and I seem to be developing an intuition concerning how to analyse a question. Can I just ditch the writeups now?

Also, is the OG (and the OG Quant 2nd review) all I need to really nail the GMAT, if I properly analyse every single question?

And, how often should I review and re-attempt wrong questions that I've already analysed? Once a week? Once every 2 weeks?

One other thing, for mixed sets of previously wrong questions, how do I actually do those mixed sets - should I write out each question again and then jumble them up? or just write the page in the error log and do a mixed set by (tediously) going to each question on each different page, or is that what the flash cards are for - as a mixed previously-wrong question set database, in effect?

thanks again

[jacobneruda622]

Hi everyone,

I'm completely stumped on a good strategy to take for studying. I only have 3 weeks to study for my exam (I

can extend this to 6 at the maximum).

Currently I'm sitting on practice CAT scores of around 620 - Q38-42 and V38-42.

I have around 3 hours each week day of study time and 8 hours each day on weekends to spare.

I really need a 700+ score to offset an average GPA at university and get into a top school.

I've used the MGMAT books for studying and have completed around 1/2 of the OG quant PS questions, 1/4 of the

DS questions all of the OG SC and CR questions and none of the OG RC questions, as well as some MGMAT CAt

exams, 1 GMATPrep exam and a few GMATCLUB exams (which are absolutely brutal).
My BIGGEST problem now is that I'm not sure how to most effectively make use of my study time.

I know the main areas I'm weak in which I know will pull up my quant score if I can master them. Question is,

how do I master these topic areas in such a brief amount of time?

I have the MGMAT Advanced Quant book - should I start using that to focus on my weak areas (particularly DS)?

I really need to know the best ways to focus my studies to improve my quant score.

* DS (particularly absolute value & inequalities questions)
* probability & combinations
* overlapping sets
* ratios/work/rates/distance problems.

When I make a focused attempt to master one of these areas, I just can't seem to do it. This involves reading

up on the area, watching a few Ron Purewal videos, doing some practice questions and analysing them using

GMATClub and MGMAT forums as well as the MGMAT OG Archer and making flash cards of little snippets of

information if I don't understand things and know I need to learn it. The trouble with this is that it is

very time-consuming to analyse each practice question and I dont have much time left before my exam.

My strategy each day now is this:

1 hour -->

2 RC questions
2 SC questions
2 CR questions

2 hours-->
Quant focus


I am aking a few silly errors and reading errors where I miss a key word or key point in the quant question.

I'm working on addressing those issues.

I'm keeping an error log which tracks the following for each question I attempt:
1. The question source
2. Question difficulty
3. Topic & subtopic
4. Result (correct/incorrect)
5. Time
6. Question mastery - 0 = not mastered, 1 = mastered. Mastered means I'm absolutely sure I can do that

question again and nail it.
7. Alternative approach list
8. Alternative approach confidence.
9. Notes on each question
10. Last attempted date

I'm finding myself bogged down in nailing all the alternative approaches to each question... Should I bother

with this or just focus on the methods I know I can do well?

I really need a focused & good strategy going forward so that I can maintain motivation and not get

frustrated and burn out. I'm feeling that's starting to happen already.

I've been studying for this exam for 18 months now due to various reasons (not knowing how to study for it

and then getting frustrated and therefore losing motivation etc.), and I am at my wit's end with it. But I'm

not going to give up.
Previously I'd completed all the quant questions but I didn't analyse them well and therefore didn't learn

much from doing them.

I've only recently realised that I should have been focusing on mastering each practice problem as a way to

improve.

Does anyone have any advice?! Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks for your suggestion i will try to follow this step on exam!!!

[StaceyKoprince]

No, you don't need to type up a word doc every time. :) But you should be asking yourself those questions. You may decide that, on some problems, certain "review questions" are more important than others.

For instance, if I get it wrong, I know I need to go review some formulas or rules or logical thinking or whatever, but if I get it right, I'm going to move more quickly to: is there a more efficient way to do it? (Because I'm always happy to save time!)

Similarly, if I get it right but it was also a decently hard problem, I'm going to ask myself how to make educated guesses on problems of this type. Then, if I get an even harder one of the same type, I'll have an idea of how to make a guess.

If I take way too long, then I have to ask myself: can I do this one in the right timeframe? If so, how? If not, how should I make a guess.

If I make a careless mistake, I have to figure out what careless mistake I made and why, and then try to figure out what to do differently to avoid the same type of careless mistake in future.

So I'm not asking myself every single question with the same intensity on every single problem. I'm using them as a guideline to tell me what I should be examining or thinking about based on how I did.

If you really are properly reviewing and learning from the questions, then OG is technically sufficient - that's all I used. But, of course, I'm the kind of person who eventually makes this a job, so it might be the case that most students will need more than that. By "more," I mean things that help you to learn better, not necessarily just "more questions." Doing a million questions doesn't really help if you aren't learning what you need to learn from each question.

For re-doing old problems that you missed, it needs to be long enough that you don't just remember the answer or solution method. And you should intersperse a few questions that you got right - after all, we forget stuff that we did once know!

Re: doing questions from OG (or other books) in mixed sets, I just do them out of the book. I put little markers in all of the pages I'll need first so that I can just flip to the right page immediately. Remember that these sets should also be somewhat random, though - you don't want to just do all the Geo problems that you missed 2 weeks ago. Mix it up with other topics, DS and PS, etc.

[rkafc81]

great thanks again Stacey!

I've been using your approach to analysing questions and also making flash cards, and it is starting to help a lot.

I finally 'get' how to study for this exam now, it's a good feeling. The other night whilst studying the penny dropped - I realised its all about analysing the questions, revising forgotten or shaky content, learning takeaways and correcting any mistakes or bad habits for future questions.

The reason for doing this is to build up my personal 'recognition database' where I can see a future question and very quickly know a) what it is testing, b) what techinques are best used to solve it and c) be able to execute those techniques flawlessly and with no mistakes. To build up these skills I can 1) follow your question-analysis strategies, 2) make flash cards, 3) make personal, tailored drills and 4) look at the question from different angles and think about how it could be asked in different, or slightly different, ways. This comes from lots of practice and following the questions you have written up to ask myself when analysing each question.

If I cant do the question, following the timeline strategy in the GMAT Roadmap book, after 30 seconds I will give up on it. or, if I think I can do the question, and after 60seconds have not got any closer to solving it, then just give up and move on to the next one.

[StaceyKoprince]

Love it! Yes, you're doing the right thing.

The one thing I'll add: when you can tell after 30 to 60 seconds that you don't know how to do the problem, do take a little time to try to make an educated guess (fancy language for: find some wrong answers and cross them off before you guess blindly from among the remaining answers).

After all, if you've only used 30 to 60 seconds to decide you can't do it, then you have some time to figure out how to make an educated guess! (And, of course, since you studied how to make educated guesses, you'll often have a good idea of how to do so.)

Not always, of course - then you just guess blindly and move on.

[rkafc81]

hi again :)

ok I realise now after doing this in-depth studying and trying to absolutely master (as opposed to memorise) each OG question, that one of my biggest areas of weakness is silly mistakes.

e.g. today I did an OG question which involved solving 2 simultaneous equations like this:

12a + 10b = 38
20m + 15b = 60

ok, so I know that I have to align the coefficients of 1 variable in order to eliminate and solve for the other one... (and after analysing the question I realised that I should have simplified the equations first, but that's a takeaway: "simplify all equations when you can"), so I decided to triple the top equation and double the bottom equation to get 30b for each equation.

Thing is, I did this:

24a + 30b = 114
40m + 30b = 120

the mistake being that 12*3 is NOT 24! I do this stuff all the time! its really annoying. btw I did that in my head when I did it. so, as a result, I ended up wasting time on the question and eventually had to pass it up and move on to the next one (it was a timed OG set)

how can I eliminate my silly mistakes? I've realised it is an absolutely huge part of my bad score (580) and also when doing questions in general. It only really seems to happen in timed sets too btw.

i guess i need to slow down a bit more on calculation-intensive questions, but I also have the time pressure at the back of my mind, so I end up rushing them a bit.

any tips for how to improve this? shall i keep constructing drills, and is the MGMAT fundamentals book worth me getting and going through at this stage (consideirng I've mastered most of the straetgy guide content) ?

thanks again

[StaceyKoprince]

Ah, careless mistakes drive me crazy! We all make them. Keep a little log where you note down the TYPE of careless mistake you make. Notice patterns - we each tend to make certain kinds of mistakes over and over, but they're different for each person.

Once you know your trends, you can double-check your work just on those items.

Next, any time you make a careless mistake, ask yourself specifically WHY? eg, was your scrap paper work sloppy? (This is a big problem for me - I'm constantly fighting to be neat and organized!) Did you solve for the wrong thing? (I used to do this until I found a remedy for myself.) Did you mis-read, overlook a word, etc? Did you try to do something in your head instead of writing it down, or skip a step, or try to go faster than usual?

Then ask yourself: what bad habit do I need to break, or what good habit do I need to make in order to minimize the chances of making that same careless mistake next time? (Possibly there will be multiple things.) Write that / those down, and start doing whatever it is.

For example, in the mistake that you described, you discovered that you (a) multiplied wrong and (b) did it in your head. The first remedy for "I did it in my head" is ALWAYS "next time, I write it down."

When you were in school and just learning how to do this, what'd you have to do? You put parentheses around each equation and wrote 3 on each side of the first one and 2 on each side of the second one, right? Do it again now - it will minimize errors like this one. You're having to think it anyway, so it's not going to take any more time to write while you think. On quant, your pen should be moving *all the time*.

It only really seems to happen in timed sets too btw.

Of course that's when it happens - because that's when you're trying to rush, and when we rush, we get sloppy and make mistakes. :) That's why we've got to develop a very systematic process (so that the process itself helps us avoid making careless mistakes) as well as good timing habits (so that we don't mess up the timing, start rushing, and make a bunch of mistakes as a result).

Re: fundamentals, you may not need to get the books in order to understand the concepts, but if you are making lots of careless mistakes on fundamental calculations, then you may want to get them in order to do the drill sets. Repetition helps. :) You can also search online for drill sets posted by math teachers - let's say that you want to add and subtract fractions, or solve simultaneous equations. Do a google search and see if you can find a high school or middle school teacher who has posted drill sets online for students.

[rkafc81]

Hi again Stacey,

I've been away on holiday :) Tried to study a bit which was good, in order to not lose momentum.

Anyways, before I attempted the GMAT the first time, I'd done the GMATPrep tests (both of them) but not analysed the answers... I'm wondering if it is ok to do them again, 4 months on, without there being too much aritificial inflation of my score. I definitely do not want to go into GMAT attempt #2 with an aritficially-inflated confidence level...

Also, what should I use for practice test material now? I have already done the majority of the MGMAT tests before attempting the GMAT the last time, so now again I'm unsure whether or not my score will be inflated as I'm sure I'll recognise some of the questions again. Should I buy some tests from another company, say Kaplan or Knewton?

The flash card strategy seems to be working very well. I can feel my confidence has increased a lot and my recognition of question types and question content, as well as knowing how to approach questions using multiple solution methods, and knowing which of those methods work best.

I've realised most of my errors are not content related, but are due to a) not reading the question properly or missing a small nuance in the wording of the question , b) silly mistakes or c) poor technique (e.g. messing things up because I'm not working the math in a structured or organised way, and then the question-working space becomes a jumbled mess) or d) not being able to set up word problems correctly, especially ones with lengthy wording.

I've finished all the OG PS questions now (including deeply analysing them and making flash cards), and am about to start attacking the weak point out of those questions and revise those chapters in MGMAT. Then I'm going to do the OG DS questions, and every now and again do a set of the OG PS questions that I got wrong or wasn't sure about.

Is this a good plan?

thanks again

[StaceyKoprince]

If you haven't looked at GMATPrep in 4 months and didn't really study the problems last time, then you'll probably have forgotten most of them, so you should be fine.

If you do see a problem that you remember (and this means: I know the answer or I'm pretty sure I remember the answer, not just "hmm, this looks vaguely familiar..."), immediately look at the timer and make yourself sit there for the full length of time for that question type. This way, you don't artificially give yourself more time than you should have. Second, think about whether you got this problem right the last time. If you did, get it right again this time. If you didn't, get it wrong again. If you *completely honestly* think that you would get it right this time around if it were a new question (even though you got it wrong last time) because you've studied that area and improved, then get it right this time.

Also, GMATPrep doesn't give you any data, so download a stopwatch app or buy a stopwatch with lap capability and keep track of your per-question timing yourself.

If you've already "used up" our tests, I'd try 800Score next.

And, yes, I like your math plan. Go to it! :)

[rkafc81]

Hi Stacey,

Thanks for the advice.

I saw one of Ron's (under his lunarpower moniker) posts that said

"
if you're studying properly, you should be spending substantially MORE time on review than on doing problems. if you can do even close to 100 problems per day, that indicates that you're just doing problem after problem after problem after problem after problem, and not spending nearly enough (if any) time reviewing.

here's what you should be able to do:

for EVERY quant problem:

* don't concentrate on the solution to that actual problem, since you can be sure you aren't going to see that actual problem on the exam

* instead, try to find TAKEAWAYS from the problem, which you can then APPLY TO OTHER PROBLEMS. this is key - DO NOT LEAVE A PROBLEM until you have extracted at least one piece of information, whether a formula, a strategy, a trick/trap, etc., that you can apply to OTHER problems.
do not leave a problem until you can fill in the following sentence, meaningfully and nontrivially:

"if i see _____ ON ANOTHER PROBLEM, i should _____"
* notice the SIGNALS in the problem that dictate which strategy to use. if you miss the problem, then notice the strategy that's used in the book's solution (not always the best solution, in the case of the o.g., but better than nothing), and go back to see if there are any signals 'telling' you to use that strategy.
"

MY question is, and I think this is the key to my whole prep actually, how do I remember all of these takeaways from my question reviews?

thanks!

[StaceyKoprince]

Flashcards! And drilling. I tell my students to make flashcards. On one side, it says "If I see _______" and on the other it says "I'll think / do _________"

Clue goes on one side, response goes on the other. Then you drill these till you know them. It's almost like learning a foreign language - certain clues should make me think of certain concepts, or certain solution paths, or whatever. What are the clues and responses?

You'll have a huge stack of these, but you'll keep retiring flashcards over time, too, as you learn things. Also note that not all topics are created equal. Spend more time on number properties than on combinatorics, because number properties = MUCH more commonly tested on the real exam. Etc.

(Also, if it's not obvious already, I 100% agree with Ron.)