Strategy for a beginner

[metman82]

Hello,

My background first: mechanical engineer from Germany, really not into CAT or standardized tests (I cannot remember a standardized test to have written in the past. neither on highschool, nor at the university. So it is a really hard test for me).
I'm reading this forum since November 2011. I took a practice exam and scored 400 with one week preparation. I did a lot of mistakes on DS problems and verbal section.

Then I took a break over x-mas and my desired university accepted me for September 2012 intake. But I need to take the real GMAT so I've bought the 8 books from MGMAT and, what can I say? Best books I have encountered so far. Even better than the OG12 (except the questions in OG12). You did a great job with these, easy to understand, books.
I have now exactly 4 Weeks for preparation (working full-time :( ). Target score 550-600. Finished Number Properties Book today.

My strengths: problem solving and geometry.

My weakness: Data Sufficiency in general (need more training on rephrasing questions), Word Problems AND, as a non-native speaker, the verbal section. Sentence Correction is okay, not that difficult, 60% accuracy. Its just practicing and according to my english, which I use very often because I am mostly abroad on business trips, it is not that hard to recognize verb-tense, parallelism and idioms issues. I will focus on this on my last week. But I am really struggling with CR. To inform you: I didn't take a look on the CR book yet. But everytime I try to solve a CR question, it'll be wrong. So I am thinking not to take too much time on it.
Any suggestions?

And my second question, which is very important to me: every book has an advanced tactics section. Is is mandatory to learn this tactics to score at least "550-600"?

Kind regards from a MGMAT fan

edit: I am learning at least 4h/day at the evening. So I am willing to learn as much as I need.

[StaceyKoprince]

Welcome to the forums! Okay, first, no: you don't need to worry about the advanced material for your scoring range. So, good, that makes your job easier. :)

Have you taken a practice test yet? If not, do so. I know you only just started, but the test results will give you very good data on your strengths and weaknesses, which will help you to prioritize, and that will also let you know what your timing problems are so that you can start to fix them. (Note that I didn't say "if you have timing problems." Everyone has at least some timing problems. :)

Read this:
http://www.manhattangmat.com/blog/index ... tudy-plan/

And start doing what it says (including following the links to the other articles). After you've taken your practice test and analyzed it according to the article linked in the above article, you can come back here to share your analysis, if you like. Also, read the time management article (also linked in the above article) sooner rather than later.

For CR, take a look at these:
http://www.manhattangmat.com/blog/index ... g-problem/

http://www.manhattangmat.com/blog/index ... -problems/
http://www.beatthegmat.com/mba/2012/02/ ... en-problem
http://www.beatthegmat.com/mba/2011/04/ ... en-problem
http://www.beatthegmat.com/mba/2009/10/ ... -questions

The first article talks about a new way of organizing your work that we're going to be using in our next version of the strategy guide. The other four articles show you examples of the 4 major question types and talk about how to work through them and what to think about for questions of these types. you can use these in conjunction with the relevant chapters in your strategy guide.

Good luck!

[metman82]

Hello Stacey,

thanks for your answer and I am really appreciated to cut the advanced section (for my score range (but I will take a look If I have time left)).

I have taken a test back in November but without a real preparation (scored 400 on official GMAT prep test).
I will have a MGMAT prep test on Saturday, and I will report it here and after I've read the articles.

Kind regards from Germany

[metman82]

Hello Stacy,

did my first CAT now.

Quantitative Score: 39 Estimated Percentile Rank: 57%
Verbal Score: 28 Estimated Percentile Rank: 51%
Total: 550 Estimated Percentile Rank: 54%

550 Overall score is okay for me, I only need at least 550 but 600-650 would be perfect.
I have to admit that the verbal part seemed to be easier than the Quant part.

Quant:
I had to guess the last 10 questions on the Quant part :(
At Question 26 I was at 75% Percentile. And then it dropped down to 57.
So will focus on my timing and the math section.
Verbal:
The percentile range is between 25%-60%. I had a high increase at the end of the Verbal part. And as fas as I can see, my RC is quite good.
But my question is: is the MGMAT RC easier than the real GMAT RC? I can imagine that the paragraphs in OG12 are longer.
Also SC and CR was not that bad after all as I thought at the beginning.

I also did the AWA section but I am not good after all writing essays ;-)

Now I will go on reading your articles. This can maybe help me with my headache ;-)

[StaceyKoprince]

Good, that's a great starting point! You're already where you need to be and now you can push for extra points, but no real pressure!

I have to admit that the verbal part seemed to be easier than the Quant part.

And yet your verbal score was a little lower than your quant score. Just remember this for future: in general, the better you do, the *harder* it feels, not easier. And that makes sense because that's literally how the test works: the better you do, the harder the questions get. :)

I had to guess the last 10 questions on the Quant part :(

That's half-good news, because it means that you're already a lot better at the quant content, but you just need to work on your time management and test-taking skills. That will take some work, but you can do it. Read this and start doing what it says:

http://www.manhattangmat.com/blog/index ... anagement/

We don't specifically try to make any parts of our tests harder or easier than the real tests. For RC, we do actually study the word count and match the ranges we see on official passages - so, no, the real test doesn't necessarily have longer or shorter passages overall. Of course, on any given test, you only see 3 or 4 passages, so you may not necessarily see things that hit the exact averages. It might skew slightly longer or shorter than average.