Study plan help

[JuanF276]

I've taken CAT and scored a 470. I have two months before I take the GMAT and I possess all 9 Manhattan Prep books and the OG 2016. Based off my CAT, I have some idea of what my strengths and weaknesses are, but I want to cover as much of the books as I possibly can before the test. I've downloaded the Syllabus GMAT Complete Course PDF, however, I feel that it is very vague. For example, for session 1, it lists a few chapters from a quant related book, a few chapters from a verbal related books, and a few chapters from book 0, but in what order should I cover those chapters in the week? I know that I should interweave quant and verbal studies, but I am not exactly sure how.

[StaceyKoprince]

It doesn't matter in what order you do the assignments for that week. You just want to mix things up in different study sessions (ie, don't do only quant for 4 days and then only verbal for 3 days). (Love that you used the word interleave, by the way!)

And it also means interleaving activities. Read a chapter, try some end-of-chapter problems, go to Foundations of Math or Verbal if you think you need it for some topic (and if you have those books), come back to the main chapter to try or re-try problems. When you get through the several quant chapters assigned, try a mix of questions cutting across all 3 (or however many). Ditto when you're trying OG problems - first try a couple for just that chapter, but then mix it up.

And come back to chapters periodically. Look at a section header or the name of a grammar rule or whatever, and then look away and see whether you can articulate out loud whatever you're supposed to know about that thing. Or if, as you're learning something, you realize that this is harder or you're not entirely sure you're getting it / going to remember it, revisit it 2 days later and 4 days later. Basically, give yourself multiple exposures to the material - that essentially gives your brain a chance to make more memory connections, so you'll learn better.

Finally:

I want to cover as much of the books as I possibly can before the test

I would recommend adjusting that goal. Be a smart business person: you want to do what you need to do in order to get the score that you want to get. Beyond that, you don't really care about learning every last detail that could be tested, right? (I sure wouldn't!)

Also, because of the way the GMAT works, you want to be pretty good across most topics (ie, be more of a generalist) vs. being amazing at some things but bad at others (specialist). So first get a good grounding across most topics (with the exception of your biggest weaknesses), and then see where your practice test scores are. Then see what you need to do from there to get to the score you want. If you don't have to do it all, then why bother?

[JuanF276]

Thank you for the advice, Stacey. I did a few more questions if you dont mind. As I am proceeding through the Syllabus GMAT Complete Course PDF(I believe the quant and verbal book mentioned here are in the same chronological order that you listed in an article for Manhattan Prep), when should I reattempt a CAT? My second question is(and it might be subjective) how do I know that I successfully completed a book? I recently took a final quiz(moderate level) for a book and I got more than half of the questions right(and in time), but I am not sure if thats an indicator that I should move on to the next book.

[StaceyKoprince]

In our 9-week classes, we tell students to take test 1 by week 2, test 2 between weeks 6 and 7, and test 3 just after week 9. You can adjust that as you see fit - but note that you don't want to wait until you feel "ready" to take another test. You can always tell yourself that you could study more.

In fact, most people don't feel ready for the 2nd test - they still have a lot to learn! But the point isn't to suddenly have a huge score jump on test 2. The point is to practice all this stuff that you've been learning - and mess up the timing, and get tired out, and etc. And learn from that to get better next time.

I wouldn't think of it as "finishing" a book. Think of it as doing what you need to do to get the score that you want - very much a business approach.

Use the 80/20 rule: you want to feel pretty good about a decent percentage of the stuff in the main part of the book (not the extra chapters), acknowledging that you will have some weaknesses and there will always be things that just don't make as much sense to you. That's okay - leave those aside for now.

After you've done that across all of the books, you'll have learned the stuff that is easier to medium for you and set aside a lot of the stuff that's hard. If that's enough to get you to your desired score, great - who cares about the rest? If you need more to get to your score, then you go back and start to prioritize further: of the stuff that I don't feel great about, which is the least-bad? Start there. If that's enough to get you to your score... and so on.

From what you've described, I'd say you're ready to move on to a new book now. That doesn't mean you won't come back to this book again later, though.

[JuanF276]

Again- thank you for the advice. One more question: How should I devise with a timed and random problem set for a particular book? Should I add a few questions from each chapter as I move along?

Best,
Juan

[StaceyKoprince]

After each individual chapter, I would try only 2 or 3 problems from that chapter (and you can try them individually, not as a set). Then I'd go to another chapter. At that stage, you're just solidifying your learning / making sure you get that new material.

When done with that book, make up a random set of questions from all chapters from that book. If that isn't your first book, also add in some random ones from earlier books. Note: if the book is especially long (say 8+ main chapters - so not including the Extra chapters), then you might want to do one problem set after chapter 4 or 5 and then another set after the last chapter.

As you get later in your studies, continue to include some randomly chosen questions from earlier - you don't need to cover every topic in every set (the sets would quickly become way too long!), but you want to hit the major areas over a several-week period. And actually schedule explicit Review Days in your calendar. On review day, you're not going to learn new stuff. You're just going to do a random set of questions of "old" stuff and then...well, review.