I was encourage to post this on the forum by other users. Its basically my detailed GMAT log. I will post every Sunday night what I do during the week.
GMAT Journey Log
August 26, 2011
I have started to prepare for the GMAT. I followed the advice from Mark on the forum and did the Math Diagnostic test. It is 20 questions of math in the 300-500 range. I got 19/20 which means that I should skim over the foundations of GMAT math book and not spend too much time on it.
I’ve decided to take the GMAT Club diagnostic test on the 28th. It is very long and it’s been a long day and I am too tired to take the diagnostic. On the 28th I plan on taking the diagnostic and going through the Foundations Math. I plan on finishing the book by the end of the weekend and start the Foundations of Verbal by Labour Day. As soon as I finish both books I will be taking the first
MGMAT CAT.
September 5, 2011
I took a while to restart this GMAT journey. However I am going to start getting serious after today. I scored 19/45 in the diagnostic test. This is quite low although I did not put that much focus to it. I also ran out of time. I am briefing my answers and I will be briefing them more in depth tomorrow. I will start making notes on foundations of Math GMAT. I got to take this seriously if I plan on writing on December. This is much harder than I thought.
September 10, 2011
I reviewed the diagnostic test in detail to find out what I got wrong and how to improve my speed. I had to review pretty much everything, so I moved to the
MGMAT Foundations of Math book. I’ve done chapter 1: equations on the book and it seems pretty elemental….however when I did the first 2 drill sets; most of my mistakes were careless. I have to pay more attention to detail when I do this massive math review. I will complete the entire Foundations of Math book before moving to foundations of verbal.
September 24, 2011
I’ve found a better strategy to tackle foundations + strategy. Do the chapters that relate to the strategy. So I’ve finished chapters 1 – 3, 8 on the foundations, then I moved to the strategy book called Equations, Inequalities, and VICs. I have to be careful in the word problems as I tend to put the variable on the wrong side of the equations. Some of my questions were wrong based on small math errors, but I understood all of the foundations of math questions. Chapter 1 of the strategy book was good; it has a lot of tips. I do need a ton of practice.
September 25, 2011
I’ve done chapter 2 of E, I, VIC, but I need to go back and review the basics of exponents, in order to increase speed + accuracy. I will be using the calculus book for that as it was very good. I will do this before I advance to chapter 3. I need to pick up my pace. I got stuck in a lot of the questions; I need to practice to be able to do them more naturally.
October 1, 2011
I did chapters 3 -6 of E, I, VICs. Will try to finish the basic part of this book tomorrow so I can start with word translations next.
October 8, 2011
I decided to do odd problems of the strategy book in order to speed up the process. Finished the E, I, VICs book.
October 9, 2011
I Finished Chapters 1 and 2 of the Word Translations book, and I will require some more practice. I will do the first
MGMAT practice test tomorrow to gauge which areas I will need to put more time going forward. I’m also very curious where I stand right now. Note that I have yet to do any verbal.
October 10, 2011 (1st Test Day)
I finally completed the first
MGMAT practice test. Did quite poorly, scoring a 550, Q33 and V33. I did not finish the Quant section but I finished the verbal section with 20 minutes remaining. Verbal was not that bad considering I have yet to review it, but this is going to be an uphill battle.
For verbal there’s no point in reviewing as I have yet studied for it. I got basically the same average for all three different sections which were between 50% - 60%. I believe that is a strong foundation, and I will be happy if after actually studying in detail I can average a score between 40 – 45, Meaning I will have to increase my score by 8 – 12 points. We will see if it is doable.
For quants, I focused on reviewing the questions I should have known. I made a few careless mistakes as well as one question I went completely wrong about. I only got half of the questions I should have known which is not good. I’ve decided to switch my strategy a little bit. After seeing some of the questions that show up, I realized that the hardest questions come from WT and E, I, VIC sections. I’m going to take a step back and continue my review by doing the easier parts: number properties and FDP. I will finish the foundations of math book with the exception of chapter 9 before moving to the strategy books. Once I finish the NP and FDP books, I will go back and finish the WT book. I need to speed up the process as there is a lot of material to cover.
After finishing the entire quants review, I will move to verbal foundation, followed by CR, RC, and SC in that order. I will then take the next
MGMAT to see if my score improved. Target date for
MGMAT 2: Saturday November 12.
Finished Chapter 4 of Foundations of GMAT math with a near perfect drill set score.
October 12, 2011
I Finished chapter 5, exponents and roots, and I’m glad I did as I needed good practice simplifying roots. Key is to do prime factorization – something I haven’t done since 10th grade. I also forget that even powers when rooted have 2 answers. I need to ingrain that in my head.
October 16, 2011
I finished chapters 6 and 7 of Foundations of Math. I will finish chapter 9 once I finish all the other strategy books.
October 17, 2011
I Finished Chapters 1 and 2 of Number Properties, and I only had 1 mistake in both problem sets.
October 18, 2011
I Finished Chapters 3 and 4 of Number Properties, had 2 silly mistakes and 2 conceptual mistakes.
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Updated on: 26 Oct 2011, 10:23
