Since Gmatclub played such a significant role during my preparation, I had promised myself I would put down a debrief once the journey was over.
While many other debriefs list the same materials and preparation, I would like to attempt to give an insight on how I got there in hopes it may help others to get there too.
Prep
Time: 2 months / 2-4h a day. applied the first 2 weeks for concepts and the remainder on questions
Prep Course:
Magoosh (mainly for verbal concepts)
Other Sources: Manhattan SC; Manhattan RC; CR Bible; Thursdays with Ron
Questions:
OG 13; Verbal Review 2nd Ed; some compilations captured on gmatclub
CATs: GMATPrep; Veritas;
Magoosh; Manhattan
The Hows
Questions
For Verbal, I do believe that a serious applicant should be taking only the official questions. The line of reasoning is subtly but noticeably different in comparison to the questions prepared by prep courses. With that said, I found many incredible posts with official questions, URLs to the posts by the end of the thread.
For Quant, I took the questions on OG12 and some very tough ones in
Magoosh. The good thing about Quant is that official questions are not as important in terms of preparation. Therefore, while my recommendation is to really stress on official questions for verbal, the same does not apply for quant. Indeed, taking very (very) hard quant questions may help one to find easier / quicker ways to solve gmat level questions.
In terms of timing, I timed my sets of official questions ever since day 1. I see no purpose in taking things slow in the beginning, then to accelerate them.
For that intent, actually, the GMAC already did the job in placing the questions in order of difficulty in the
OG. I wanted to know, right from beginning, if timing was going to be a serious issue and which types of question I would need to focus on timing. Hence, I believe, from the beginning, one should try to adjust to the timing constraints. Readjust the sense of time pressure is rather painful in a process that is already cumbersome on itself. I had to do that for RC and definitely would not have liked to do so for all question types.
I also had a study plan. I think this is important because without that, I would tend to leave my least favourite parts of the test to the side, which would have been a bad strategy. Rather simple study plan, I just put the list of days I had to study and a plan of exercises I wanted to do that day, ie.: 20SC; 5 CR; 10PS.
Verbal
I am not a native speaker and I decided I would take the test with 2 month preparation. The former entails a stronger focus on the verbal portion of the test, and the latter, discipline and dedication. This dedication meant that I became a bit absent of some social events. I do notice that 2 months comprehend 8 weekends only, so no crying. Anyways, I was heavily committed and followed my study plan as best as I could, putting on a few hours of study even when REALLY didn’t feel like it. When those days came, I convinced myself by thinking that I really did not want to let my previous days effort go to waste. And, unfortunately, as I noticed in the couple of weeks that I had to leave studies aside because of some personal matters, if we let days go by without studying for this test, we do lose timing and sharpness.
SCAs I began studying, I noticed that SC was giving me a harder time than RC and CR. I started with the
Magoosh, which lessons are divided by topics as they are tested by the Gmat (just like you would see on the
OG: Diction, Logical Predication, Verb Form, etc). After weeks of little improvement in my confidence and accuracy levels, I decided to check the Manhattan strategy out. They provide a different approach, in the terms fo the error types (ie, s/v agreement, pronouns, modifiers, etc). I liked the Manhattan approach better but perhaps only did so because had already learnt the concepts from
Magoosh. I will never know. After closing on the Manhattan strategy, I was able to spot the most common type of errors and had it all polished with the corresponding Thursdays with Ron videos. For what it is worth, my most common mistake was to look for errors when in fact some choices do not contain gramatical misses but rather, are written in more poorly fashion than another choice.
CRLittle to say here if not for an advice many others have made here before: The Bible. The Bible is the very best compilation of explanation and process needed to crack any CR question. I did not particularly enjoy the "recipe" sort of way presented by some of the prep courses. However, I believe it is important to try different approaches when one just doesn't seem to click. CR was my strong suit on Verbal. I just never let the ball drop by studying just some 5 questions every other day.
RCIs RC anybody’s best friend on this thing? Anyways, I knew that 4 passages would show up on my test and I would absolutely not allow them to ruin my party. At first, I was too kind on my timing for RC passages and my first CAT demonstrated that right to my face. I exploded on time. By taking too long to read, I was able to get the questions easily, but I was really wrong in dedicating 5/6 minutes to reading only. I adjusted my timing according to the Manhattacn RC Strategy Guide, correcting my timing for the whole Verbal test. I know that some people use the long / detailed reading strategy and adjust the whole test according to this approach to RC. It just didnt work for me.
Quant
Like I said, I have strong quant background and perhaps the world is different for the applicants who do not share same confidence on Quant skills.
Magoosh was great for me because the lessons are given by topic, so it was easy for me to spot the subjects I needed to review. The videos were pretty clear, so I believe that
Magoosh may be helpful to those that need a thorough review of Quant too.
AWA
Look no further than How to get 6.0 post. For those willing to get a good grade (5.5; 6), it is absolutely imperative to have a standard skeleton and to train that in some essays before the test. I have read somewhere that the AWA may be a good way to bounce back a less than bright verbal score.
IR
Prep questions that I found ref IR were mainly on the unofficial CATs and were WAY harder than the actual test. GMAT Prep is the best parallel to the actual test anyways, but in the case of IR, it is really the only one. IR is a mix of the Verbal and Quant pieces. In that sense, I do not recommend to focus on it before Quant and Verbal studying are about done. Also, no big worrying on IR CATs as they are so much harder than the real thing. I think I got a 4 in one Manhattan CAT, tragic thing!
CATS
My Cats:
25Sep: 700 (Q47 / V39) Veritas
30 Sep: 740 (Q49 / V43) Veritas
18 Oct: 740 (Q50 / V42) Veritas
21 Oct: 760 (Q49 / V47) GMATPrep 1
24 Oct: (Q47
Magoosh / V38 Manhattan)
27 Oct: (Q50
Magoosh / V39 Manhattan)
29 Oct: 740 (Q50 / V40) GMATPrep 2
CATs are about learning to deal with time management, tiredness, scratch book strategies, etc. The idea is to get that CAT report and see where time and performance can improve. Only the GMATPrep is about having an idea on where you stand in terms of scoring. In that sense, Veritas, Manhattand and
Magoosh provided very good tests because, overall, questions were harder or more troublesome than the actual test – good for time management and tiredness. Surely, there is some anxiety factor to taking the CATs and not scoring as well as desired in the real thing, but let me tell it with all the words (as I looked avidly for someone to say the following sentence to me), the CATs are probably harder than the real thing
. And that is a good thing. Anxiety control is about confidence on the preparedness. I felt terrible for not being able to score more than 40 on the Manhattan verbals. I also felt like the world would fall apart when scored Q47 on
Magoosh 10 days before the test. Buy, as it turns out, CATs are one thing, real thing is another (duh!
). Important is to focus on what we can do before the day by using all tools we have. CATs are another tool. Easier said than done, i know (been there, done that).
Miscellania
Some things that we usually do not take so seriously do affect our performance. Anxiety is the chief problem magnet. I may be one of the most anxious people I know. yeah, with the whole unhealthy , spiraling down chain of bad, bad thoughts: “Im losing too many questions. My CATs are dropping!! I cant take this anymore! I am just not cut out for this!!! Can I have a drink?!”
Good God! Anxiety is something! Well, when the monster tried to speak, I would stop studying. Things eventually turned out better the following day, no exception.
I visited my test center some days before the test just so I would know where the building is, where to park my car, where the room was situated, where to use the bathroom. I think it helped me so I knew there was nothing to worry. It also helped me realize that test day was approaching.
Finally, i put myself on alcohol and fat meals absenteeism the last week. I know alcohol slows me down, and I also knew I would need to be at full capacity by the time of the exam. Greasy meals also have the same effect. no wonder the night of the exam i had pizza and beer. lots of both.
Bottom line, I think, is it pays off, though, so carry on.
Anyways, if I can be of any help, i am glad to share more ideas via email.
In the mean time, have a great one.
Links
Awesome compilation of 700 SC questions to build concepts; last push on SC!
awesome-compliation-of-700-sc-questions-to-build-concepts-160107.htmlThe most comprehensive collection of everything official CR; essential!
the-most-comprehensive-collection-of-everything-official-cr-140375.htmlHow to get 6.0 AWA my guide; without this, probably would not have gotten the 6!
how-to-get-6-0-awa-my-guide-64327.htmlThursdays with Ron; oh my God, thanks Ron Purewal! SC was a nightmare before your videos!
https://www.manhattanprep.com/gmat/thursdays-with-ronMagoosh Integrated Reasoning; Was always so pleased to see Mike's explanations on the forum!
https://magoosh.com/gmat/category/integrated-reasoning/ 
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22 Jan 2015, 13:02
study_plan.xlsx [9.32 KiB] 
