Review Strategy

[sri_cruiser2k]

Dear MGMAT Instructor,

After 14 weeks, I'm done studying all 8 MGMAT study guides. For each guide, I studied the content, did/reviewed the end of chapter problems, did/reviewed the referenced OG problems for all 3 OG guides, and prepared concise study notes.

I would imagine now that the next phase is reviewing what I have learnt, the problems I did, and doing practice tests. Accordingly, I kindly request your advice on the following:

- What specific strategy should I employ during this Review Phase? For instance, with the Sentence Correction Guide I would review each chapter and then do the OG problems specific to that chapter, i.e., it was a chapter-by-chapter approach. Now however, should I just go through my my study notes for the whole guide, and then look at OG SC problems from all chapters (as opposed to a chapter-by-chapter approach)? Also, should I look at as many problems I can, OR a few representative ones, ones that I made mistakes on and ones that I found difficult? Sorry for my confusion here.

- How long should I plan out for this Phase?

- Where do I read up on the AWA Section? I didn't find any material on the AWA Section in the MGMAT guides.

Many thanks for your time and efforts.

Warm Regards,
Sri

[StaceyKoprince]

First, take a practice test under 100% official conditions, including the essays.

Use this article to analyze your results:
http://www.beatthegmat.com/mba/2011/02/ ... sts-part-1

That will tell you what areas need work, and how. Do you know the content but are struggling with the timing on certain questions? For those, you need to work on process - recognizing more quickly what the problem is about, working efficiently, etc.

Are there content gaps? That requires going back to your books. Did you make certain careless errors? Figure out why you made them and what good habits you could make or bad habits you could break to minimize the chances of making that same kind of careless mistake again in future.

Also, in general, when you want to test or quiz yourself from now on, you should do that with sets of random questions. Sets = 5+ questions all done in a group within an appropriate block of time (so that you're practicing how to balance your time among questions). Random = you don't know what topics you're about to get; you have to figure that out as you look at each question. (Because the real test is never going to tell you: hey, I'm going to give you a divisibility problem next!) :)

The MGMAT guides don't have essay info. If you took our class, watch the lesson tape for class 6 and do the essay lab. If you didn't take our class, look at this article:
http://www.beatthegmat.com/mba/2009/12/ ... -no-thanks

Finally, in terms of how long you should take, it just depends upon what your goal score is and how far you are from that score. There isn't one timeframe that works for everyone. So go take that test, use the results to study whatever needs to be studied for 2-3 weeks, take another test, and go from there.

When your practice test scores are in the range that you want to score on the real test - and the practice tests were taken under 100% official conditions including the essays - then you're ready to take the real test.

When you get to your final 2 weeks of study, use these articles:
http://www.beatthegmat.com/mba/2010/08/ ... -game-plan
http://www.beatthegmat.com/mba/2010/08/ ... -to-review

[sri_cruiser2k]

Stacey,

After receiving your advice, I went ahead and implemented it. I took 3 practice tests - one every week - under test-like timed conditions including AWA essays with scores as follows. On other days, I was reviewing the tests, as well as my study notes and already-completed GMAT OG problems.
Apr 7 - GMATPrep 1 - 750 (Q 50, V 41)
Apr 14 - MGMAT CAT 1 - 700 (Q 43, V 41) [I learnt the valuable lesson here of not leaving any questions unanswered as I had left the last Quantitative question blank, and if I'm reading the review screen right, my score in the section dropped 10 percentile]
Apr 21 - MGMAT CAT 2 - 650 (Q 44, V35) [As you can imagine, I'm not feeling too great that my score tanked here.]

I have a little over two weeks to take the real test. My target score is around 710. Based on the information above, I would really appreciate your insight and advice.

Looking forward to hearing from you at your convenience.
Best,
Sri

[StaceyKoprince]

Every blank question drops your score 3 percentile points - so not as bad as you thought, but not good. :)

Have you been able to figure out why your verbal score dropped on that last test? This article might help you figure out why:

http://www.beatthegmat.com/a/2009/10/26 ... went-wrong

It's important to figure out why; then you can take steps to ensure that this doesn't happen on the real thing! Let us know what you think after you've completed your analysis.

Also, why was your quant score so much higher on the GMATPrep test compared to ours? Figure that out too!

You look like you're generally in range, but you also have some variability going on that we need to clean up so that you don't have an unwanted score drop on the real thing - so that (plus review, obviously!) is the goal at this point. For the review part, use the "last 14 days" articles I linked to in my last post.