Improving from a 41Q to a 46-48.

Just an update, in case anyone is in a similar boat as I am

I picked up Jeff Sackmann's Total Gmat Math and really am getting a lot out of it. I just finished the book today. Considering I bought it almost two months ago (2/4) - I feel that I've made a lot of progress.

How I went through this book:
One section at a time. This book is broken up into 2-3 page sections which makes it really easy to navigate. You go from concept to concept and he gives you drills followed by GMAT-like problems, sometimes followed by even tougher "Challenge" problems. I'd read the section, do the drill problems - mark those, see if I needed to study further before proceeding to Practice/Challenge problems. If not, I'd proceed. From there I'd mark off any problems I either got incorrect or felt I could improve upon (any problem where I found myself taking up more than half the page with scratchwork or taking longer than 2-3 minutes to solve).

Once I went through each section, I'd go back to the beginning and attempt the problems I got wrong once again. Re-marking them a different color if I had further trouble. I'm now on my third go-over and I'm not running into too many problems I don't know how to solve. I'm not worried about the whole "remembering the answer" thing either because I've put enough time in between retries and I've also been trying to do some problems from other sources. After this final go-through, I'm going to know exactly what question types are my weakest points and I will go over those concepts in greater detail to nail them down.

I don't really know the difficulty level of the questions in Jeff's book - I started the book with a 40-41Q score and I feel a bit more confident after going through his book, but I don't know the exact level I should be performing upon mastery of the concepts explained in the book. This is just step one to a higher quant score, I am going to re-do my MGMAT books next.

Anyway - for those of you who are like me and started out pretty weak in Quant - I recommend this resource. I wish I had this when I started and I hope I'm saying that even more unequivocally after I take my final GMAT.

I'll try to post some more updates along the way.

So it looks like this method is golden!

I finished all my total gmat math stuff and felt that I could really benefit from running through the MGMAT stuff once more before I tackle the OG problems. I also purchased the advanced GMAT Quant (a book I never thought that I'd be buying as I felt that I'd always be around the 40 level in quant) but I feel that I'm prepared for that level of questions now.

I have some questions that I still need to get more confident on and really need to nail down geometry but I have a couple of months and I'll be able to do all of that.

I took the quant section the GMAT Prep test yesterday and scored a 47! I'm really happy with this result and it's definitely a product of a TON of hard work. For people who are verbally strong - raising your score isn't a walk in the park but it is most definitely possible!!

Thanks for all of these amazing resources here and I'll have another update when I get a bit further along in my review.

-Ryan

Hi Ryan,

I hope you find our Advanced Quant book helpful. Just keep in mind that it is really about strategy. Just as on the real exam, you don't want to get too hung up on one problem. Some of them are just going to be too hard to do in 2 minutes! It's much more important to see what a problem has to teach you. Sometimes the takeaway will be a really cool move or a new way of thinking about fractions, while at other times it will be "If I see something like this on the test, I need to move on."

Also, bear in mind that to get a top-notch quant score, your performance on easy- to mid-level problems needs to be really solid. Some people benefit from continuing to do basic skills drills from our Foundations of Math book, even while they're stretching into Advanced Quant. After all, an advanced problem is usually just a whole lot of basic problems put together! Make sure that each of the individual steps is something you're able to do smoothly, even automatically, and continue to push on the skills that aren't feeling that way. This will allow you to free up more brain power to think about timing, strategy, and quality control.

Good luck!

Thanks for the advice, Dmitry. From about a half hour of going through the first few problems in the book I can tell that it's definitely a different type of resource but it's teaching me to think multiple ways and is good in combination with all of the other work that I'm doing. I'm at 47 after one GMAT Prep quant section, I didn't take it with the essay or IR so I am not treating it as anything close to the real thing and I definitely won't be abandoning the basics - but that was my first CAT since November so I was anxious to see how I did. I started with a broad look at all concepts, eliminated the concepts I was really clear on and kept any concept that gave me trouble. As I moved forward I'd eliminate more and more topics that I got more comfortable with, coming back once in a while to ensure I stay sharp. Now that the test is two months out, it's good to have a deadline but that deadline is pretty far out so I'm starting to worry that I may forget some of the stuff I'm having trouble with but picking up later in my studying which is causing me to avoid eliminating too many of these concepts.

One of the things that I noticed this time around compared to others was how comfortable I felt with everything. I wasn't trying to solve things I didn't know the answer to. I knew that the next question would likely be something I'd know considering how many concepts I'd covered so far so I'd abandon the current question quickly to give myself more time for those questions.

So for the 48/49/50/51-type questions. Are we looking at things that are incredibly more difficult than what I've been doing so far? Is two months going to be sufficient to bring me from 47 up to the 49-51 zone? I'm perfectly happy with a 47, I'd be ecstatic if it got any better but I know that I also have to work on verbal as that was only a 40 last time around I'd like to see some improvement there. I also have to improve my essay and IR sections.

There's no real change in content at the top. It's mainly about pushing up your accuracy so you're spending more time doing 700-800 level questions. Although these are definitely challenging, they aren't any kind of leap from what came before. A 700-800 level problem is simply a problem that a lot of people will miss. This could be because it has one or more sneaky tricks, or because the setup or wording is tricky, or because it requires you to combine a few different ideas in an unexpected way. You can count on missing some of these on every test, but if you can bounce back every time, rather than missing the easier questions, then you have a shot at a really good score.

To anyone following:

I'm about a month out (8-5 is exam day). I took my first full GMATPrep exam since I decided to re-take the exam back in March.
IR- 8 (92% percentile)
Q - 46 (71%)
V – 41 (93%)
Overall – 710 (92%)

So, as of right now my score jumped up 50 points from my last exam. I hadn’t taken this exam in a while so I’m pretty sure these scores are somewhat accurate (my GMATPrep scores were almost spot on the last time I took the test). One thing I did notice was that my timing in quant wasn’t as efficient as it was the previous time around. I found it difficult to let go of some of the problems and will have to work on that. I struggled with timing and got the last five wrong in the quant section. I know that this can really hurt your score, so now I’m wondering where I would have been if I had managed my time better. It’s difficult to let go of a question that you know you know how to figure out.

Over the next few weeks, I will continue to nail down the IR concepts so I can maintain that 8. I will continue going over my SC and CR prep as I think I can make that verbal a 42+ and I will try to work at my quant timing and a few of the concepts I’m still not 100% on and bring that up to a 48/49. I think that if my timing was more efficient this time around I probably would have been there.