760 -Q49, V44- My GMAT Progress Diary

I definitely need to be more efficient in studying. I feel as though I study for 7 hours but only get a good 4 hours of "library setting no distractions" studying. Starting next week I'll be going to the library. Can't this week for personal reasons.

Finished all my goals today.

Verbal
1 LSAT RC Sections (4 passages)- found it pretty difficult but learned from my mistakes. i need to read the answer choices more carefully. 20 correct, 7 wrong =(
3 more Gmat-success SC tests- I think I'm improving here but I've definitely been seeing many OG questions which for me are repeats. 72 correct, 3 wrong. if i maintain that success rate i'll be doing pretty well for myself =)
60 CR questions- I did 47 strengthen/weaken and 23 inference. all the strengthen/weaken questions were rated difficult and i got a good number (~7) wrong. i did easy inference ones and managed 1 incorrect. i've been keeping an error log for all my verbal so i'll need to review them again a second time.

Quant
3 gmatclub 10-problem tests + review answers- GMAT club question tests are HARD, especially number properties. I completed 3 and went over the answers. Saved the most difficult ones for last =)


Goals for tomorrow:

V:Another LSAT RC Section- aim for <5 wrong
3 gmat-success SC tests
40 CR questions

Q: 3 specific gmatclub tests

<3 weeks to go at this point. Uh-oh

number properties is a tough one to crack, it is simple but there is so much to test on. It easy to play around with the million properties od a number and form a question, I guess only practice can make it easy

I've been pretty unmotivated these last couple of days. I feel as though I'm around the 700 range and getting +750 is a combination of luck and extremely hard work. Maybe it'll just come down to luck. Hopefully next week when I go to the library I'll be more focused. At least by setting goals every day I make sure I complete them.

Completed another 4-passage lsat verbal section. -6, +21. one of the passages destroyed me (-3) and I hope I don't encounter one of those types on the gmat. oh well, keep practicing. still need to concentrate on reading the answer choices more closely.
Finished 3 gmat-success SC tests of 27 questions each. I've been noticing more and more errors now in the answer choices but that's okay. Most of them are correct and the ones that are incorrect I can usually verify that it is incorrect. -3 on each of the 27 problem tests. At least I'm learning from my mistakes.
40 CR questions- completed ~20 strengthen/weaken and ~20 inference. inferences ones are generally the easiest types for me and the strengthen/w ones tend to be more difficult.

Did 3 gmatclub number specific tests. some are very difficult and i've started ignoring the percentiles. theres absolutely no way that i'm in the 14-30% for a majority of these tests and i'm not even bad at math!. I'm getting like 3 wrong each and that's 30%? seriously? if that's true then the forum members here are ridiculous

slightly easier/altered schedule for tomorrow since gmatprep 2 for friday. will focus more on SC and RC.

2 LSAT RC sections
3 gmat-success SC tests
2 gmatclub 10-question tests
REVIEW, REVIEW, REVIEW!!!

Really unproductive day today as I only got through half of what I was planning on. I have the stupid excuse that tomorrow is gmatprep 2 so i "take it easy" but of course that's just bogus.

completed 1 lsat rc section and got -1 overall (27 questions), felt pretty good about it but realize it was probably luck
did the combinatorics gmatprep test
completed 1 gmat-success sc, 4 mistakes
reviewed gmatprep1 since i was too lazy to do that after taking the exam last week
did ~20 paradox CR questions

tomorrow is gmatprep2. i feel unprepared. good thing it's only practice. 2.5 weeks left. im screwed

Took Gmatprep 2 today. Good simulation for test day. Woke up, ate breakfast, sat for the test...

Quant went okay at first. I was on a roll for the first 10 or so questions. At around 16 or 17 the question difficulty started getting pretty ridiculous and I was thinking to myself, crap I can't maintain 2min/question for the next 20 questions at this difficulty level. Luckily it started getting a bit more manageable. Anyway, at around question 30 I was a minute or two behind pace and felt pretty rushed. Next thing you know, my doorbell rings for some delivery. To make matters worse my dog starts barking like a madman and I can't find a way to pause the test. I end up signing for the package and rushed to finish the test. had to guess on the last few questions since I ran out of time. After the section I felt terrible since I thought that my difficulty level had gone from 50+ to like 30+. The second to last question on the gmatprep2 was what is the median of -2, -15, 3, 5,7. I was like jeeeez... must've flunked.

I was so pissed at my dog after the quant section for barking and distracting me since he started going crazy after the package arrived. I didn't take a standard 8 min. break because I was so angry and felt so bad at screwing up the last 10 or so questions. Good thing it wasn't on test day... I need to learn how to control myself and push forward. Can't let bygones affect me. Started my verbal after 15 minutes after having calmed down (I love my dog so i would never beat/strangle him in case you guys wondered what the consequences were... if that were the "real" gmat however and it was some random dog I probably would've... nvm)

Verbal was okay. I felt rushed the last couple of questions and a couple of SCs and RC questions I felt were very vague. Ended up finishing just in time....

Overall I thought I did pretty well. Definitely need to practice more to maintain my stamina. -7 on quant for a Q50, though i got 3 out of the last 7 questions wrong. -6 verbal (1SC, 2RC, 3CR) for a V42. Overall is a 760. If only that were my official score and I could be done with it.

I'm glad that all my SC work over the last week has helped me. Thanks guys for the tips on rereading mgmat sc and the gmat-success tests. I'm still stuck on 2RC which I'd like to get to 0 but I think that can happen when I'm more familiar with the harder LSAT passages. As for CR, I got 1 evaluate the argument wrong, -1 weaken, and -1 on formal logic. Previously I didn't even think formal logic was tested but I definitely encountered a close formal logic problem. keep drilling i guess... would like to get down to -3 consistently for Verbal.

I'm actually moving to another state tomorrow so I'm going to be pretty busy the next few days. Not planning on studying GMAT at all since I'll be packing, getting furniture...etc. Studying should resume hopefully Monday but by latest Tuesday, from which I'll have exactly 2 weeks to go. Given that I pretty much started with <6 wks left, with 1/3 of my study time remaining to improve on a 760 gmatprep looks pretty promising. however i know i'll need to start scoring at around 780+ consistently on practice gmats since i plan on my score dropping at least 40 points on the real thing. I read these share your experience threads where people post CAT1 700 CAT2 680 gmatprep1 720 gmatprep2740 CAT3 710 officialgmat 770 and i'm like :wth:. so jealous of people who can perform well under adrenaline.

pretty much planning on resuming hardcore studying next Tuesday. Next week I'm going to go all out and will actually go to the library to study. Hopefully this 3 day rest won't kill me, but I'll try to look over materials in the down time (i.e. browse gmatclub aimlessly when i have the time)

one more step closer to 800! congrats, your hard work is paying off!

Great show!

Moral of the story - love ur dog and gmat will love u back!

wow ... awesome progress ... all the best for your move

first of all congrats to Avernusaur for an amazinggg score of 770. that's my goal, however........

I've been REALLY slacking off for the past few days, though in my excuse it's because I've been moving. I tried to study today but ended up just lounging around my new apartment, which, by the way, is AMAZING. One part of room...

(temporary bedsheets... i swear )

It's going to be incredibly difficult staying focused for the next two weeks. My last three weeks of freedom as a college graduate before I head off into the corporate world... single young 20s dude living in the city. friends and roommates all want to go out and party. i do too but will have to be more reserved in my debauchery.

so, starting tomorrow, no more excuses. exactly 14 days left until my gmat. going to try to go to the library for at least 3 hours and work on some stuff. The problem is I really lack motivation- one part due to just moving into an amazing city and the other part because I got a 760 Q50V42 in gmatprep, and for me to improve on that would be almost useless. For all I know, I could drill 50+ hours and get a Q49 V35 on the exam, which isn't terrible but certainly not the ideal for top10 schools.

I complain too much... tomorrow's goals:

gmatclub m11
1 lsat critical reading section
2 more gmat-success SC tests
do some CR questions

nice room and view from ur room ...

u r right, its tough to focus once you start seeing 750+ scores on gmat prep, what you should do is start revising ur error logs and practice more of your weaklings and probably take gmat prep atleast 3 more times before ur actual, you might get upto 20% repeats but its still 80% new questions ...

BPbear

are you planning to apply to MBA programs this year, or just getting gmat out of the way?

yeah definitely a good suggestion with gmatprep... right now one of my biggest areas is stamina so i need to make sure i am capable of concentrating for such long periods at a time. during the next 2 weeks i'm going to attempt 6 CATs. I tell myself to start tomorrow but it's such a big commitment

i'm just getting the gmat out of the way. definitely won't apply within the next year but very likely in 12-24 months...

Killer view from you room and your test scores are looking great. You'll have plenty to celebrate once the test is done

800 is not far from 760.Just a little more hard work

Another lackluster day. At least I did "some" work.
I completed 2 gmat-success SCs and got -7 on one of them. It was actually pretty hard so I'm glad I learned a couple of news things (and refreshed some things I got wrong such as SANAM pronouns).
I did about 20 paradox questiosn and got about 1/5 of them wrong, not good.
instead of doing gmatclub I did 37 of sackmans extreme set. I got half of the DS questions wrong, so I definitely need to work on that (always knew it was a weakness).
Too lazy to do lsat RC section

Really going to try to step it up tomorrow. I'm just so lazy and suffering from burnout. <2 weeks to go. I want to take gmatprep 1 & 2 at least once more each, and I still have 3 more MGMAT CATs left (i paid for them so I'm going to use them!). Going to try to take MGMAT CAT#4 tomorrow... hopefully, as well as more DS problems. The good news is I only have 2 more gmatsuccess SC tests to go, and after doing those I am completely finished with SCs. I'll only be going through error logs.

how do you find sackmans extreme set ? . I need to decide on gmat club test or sackman's challenge series, what do you suggest ? ...

all the best for MGMAT CAT #4, you will surely do well.

Overall I think the quality of questions on Sackmann's extreme is better than gmatclub. Many of his questions can be solved with more than 1 method, and it's really up to you to pick the method that takes 1 minute to solve rather than 5 minutes. His DS questions in the extreme are VERY challenging and I consistently struggle with them.

If you have a lot of time, I wouldn't just purchase Sackmann. I think it is super expensive ($25 for a mere 100 questions = a quarter a question?!). I would be in favor of getting his Total GMAT package or something that gets you everything... unless you are already consistently scoring 49+ on practice tests, don't go with just Sackmann.

GMATclub's tests are definitely a much better value, but after one hits the 49+ level the explanations and question types don't help tremendously in improving to a 50+. However, gmatclub tests were great in going from 44-> 49 level, and I think they are the best questions around.

Short conclusion:
If you are <Q49 -> Gmatclub or Complete Sackmann Package (Gmatclub is definitely a better value per question and I personally have not used Sackmann's Complete Package)
If you're consistent at Q49+ -> Sackmann in order to improve to Q50 or gmatclub for much more practice to at least maintain that Q49

Both are very good tools in your preparation... I used both and am not even halfway through either one.

Anyway...

I woke up early this morning for MGMAT CAT4. Couldn't really say I expected to improve on a 760 since I didn't study much at all since gmatprep2. I knew MGMAT questions took longer so I focused on timing. Luckily I finished Q with 10 minutes to spare and Verbal with 8. Guess I should have paced myself better since i know i made some careless mistakes.

Overall, Q50 V41 for a 740 (good I guess?). I was satisfied with quant but slightly annoyed at my verbal performance. During the question, i selected an answer choice after debating for ~20 seconds then hit confirm, during which at that exact moment i realized that my answer choice was wrong but was too late to switch. This happened twice (1 for SC, 1 for CR). I should take more time in confirming my answer choices. Good news is that I only got -2 CR, 1 of which was careless. Bad news is I got -6 in SC (only about 50% of the 700-800 questions right), and was killed in a RC science passage that talked about cell functions. It'll be good review.

It's still before lunch now so in the afternoon I'm going to maintain this productivity.

Finish my last 2 Gmat-success SCs
1 LSAT RC
50 CRs
Try to finish Sackmann Extreme Challenge Set (~80 questions)