laythesmack23 wrote:
I see, since my last post, I've found it somewhat difficult to restrain myself to the chair, and study in a consistent manner.
I finished the numbers property book, and also half way done through the FDP
MGMAT S.Guide. So let me get this straight, you did not practice, until you were done with all the books.
Was there a particular method how you chose to do the problems after you completed the guides? Or did you just do like the first 10-15, review, then re do them, and move to the next few questions?
Before you moved from one
MGMAT Guide, to the next, how sure were you of the concepts? I understand the concepts, but it seems like i'm honestly forgetting them, I feel that I need to explain the concepts to someone before I move forward, so I can memorize the
necessary steps to solve? Do I need to worry about nailing the concepts 100% before moving forward, or is this something that I might pick up during practicing of the problems, assuming I read the guides, then practice on
OG guides?
Correct, I did not do any practice tests until I had completed the books. I realize this won't work for everyone, but it was best for me because I wanted to build a strong base before "wasting" a valuable practice test (as there are so few sources for good/realistic practice tests).
Just to be clear, I did complete the problems at the end of each chapter of the
MGMAT guides. But I did NOT do the recommended problems from
the Official Guide that
MGMAT includes at the end of each chapter until later.
After I completed the guides, I worked through
the Official Guide by doing 37 Quant questions in 75 minutes in order to replicate actual test conditions. Same with Verbal (obv doing 41 questions for Verbal). I also started doing lots of
GMAT Club Tests and one practice test per week (either
MGMAT or GMAT Prep).
You do not need to nail concepts 100% before moving forward. This is impossible, I'd say. Try to build a very strong base, then move through practice problems until you're doing very difficult problems (whatever "very difficult" means for you in the context of whatever score you're trying to achieve). Only doing those problems will truly elevate your skill level to where it needs to be to achieve your target score. The key, in the beginning, is to build very strong fundamentals. Then it is all about refining those fundamentals and learning how to apply those fundamentals faster (after all, at least half the battle is doing things quickly, just as much as learning how to do difficult problems).
I thought the best resources for learning very difficult concepts were
MGMAT tests and
GMAT Club tests, both of which I felt were much harder than the actual exam (at least the Quant portion). I thought the Verbal portion of the
MGMAT tests did not accurately mimic the actual exam (was much too ambiguous), and I did not do the Verbal
GMAT Club tests.
Hope that helps! Good luck!