550 to 750 - How YOU can be just as successful

I did every question in OG 11 and 12 on my first run through the book. By the time I was had gone through all the questions, as well as reviewed MGMAT sample questions, I kind of had an idea which concepts were frequently tested. Therefore, I ignored any advanced questions that appeared to be odd. When you see such a question, you have to ask yourself, have I seen this concept(s) tested in other questions before. If you cannot think of seeing the odd concept tested in at least one other question during your studies then I would ignore the question in future study sessions (i.e. don't bother wasting your time putting it on your error log, or whatever other method used, for future review). Chances are you've sunk enough time into that question already and it is not worth it. Also noting that advanced questions usually test multiple concepts, you have to ask whether there is a mix of good foundational concepts, and maybe one concept that is an oddity, making the question advanced and difficult. If this is the case, I would not bother focusing on the odd concept, but still note the other concepts tested.

As you correctly mentioned, I used the key fundamentals learned from the first part of the MGMAT books and was able to apply those same fundamentals to what is being taught in the more advanced sections. If I remember, correctly, there was significant overlap, with the advanced sections focusing more on some of the nuances. After studying for a while, you gain a sense of what areas are truly important and what areas you can ignore. One example of an advanced section that I thought was not worth the time was the advanced section of the Sentence Correction book. You can do fine in SC without having touched that section, which just fills your head with a lot of other nonsense that is rarely tested. You start to realize that there are even a few non-advanced sections of the MGMAT books that are not worth your time studying (e.g. MGMAT's horrible chapter on combination/permutation problems through the use of anagrams).

Also, I beg you guys not to focus on those brutal questions, hardest challenges, or whatever else they manifest themselves as if you want to study efficiently (unless you are a nerd genius who won't settle for any less than a 770+). One perfect example is the Brutal SC questions, which I have seen making its rounds through this forum. This is the biggest waste of time imaginable. At best it will waste a few hours of your valuable study time. At worse, it could be detrimental to your score, as you will be carefully studying questions that are not even from official GMAC sources and may be questionably written. I didn't go through all of the Brutal SC questions as I quickly identified this as non-value added study time, but for the questions I did do, I probably scored no more than 20%, and I did these Brutal SCs just 1 week before my actual test. In other words, I would score just as well if I just randomly picked "C" for all my answers. Keep in mind that I was able to score 97% in verbal on the actual exam.