740+ Study diary

If you are comfortable with 5 books of mgmat quant and want some more material esp advance, then you may consider mgmat advance quant, i have heard great guns about this book. As far as practice with og 12 is concerned, i doubt if the questions are 700 + representative barring 40-50 that are at the end of the chapter. So i think once the concepts are clear and one is able to score above 45-46 in practice tests, that is the right moment to move onto gmatclub tests or may be jeff Sackmann's 1800 questions.
I am ok with gmatclub tests and advanced quant.... ..don't practice with gmatprep material now, it will inflate ur quant score once u will give the gmatprep test.
Regards.

i somehow feel you are using too many resources....if you have only 2 months to GMAT i would recommend only OG Material(OG12,11,10) for verbal practice..Bcoz these are the actual GMAT questions..

During study session you must always give importance to quality of questions rather than quantity of question.
1. Practice topic wise. ( study the topics from MGMAT guides and practice OG questions. if you dont like reviewing. i would recommend to practice the questions twice. once in the morning and once in the late evening on the sameday. this will improve your retention of topics and the way you approach the problem)

2. Always be present during the study session. by this what i am trying to say is when approaching a problem, try to recollect the topics, shortcuts, diff approaches that you had learnt. TRY TO AVOID THE CONVENTIONAL, time consuming approaches to problem solving questions.

3.Avoid all sorts of distractions during the study session to make it more effective and production. disconnect from internet, fb esp, music, phone call, tv shows....

4. try to find out you weak areas and strong areas ASAP.

5. avoid wasting time hunting for many books.

Few points bgpower

* You are over complicating the process by reading too many debriefs and trying to integrate evrything into your plan. Everyone is different and what applies to A may not apply to B. Recall how have you studied in the past:
Just because people have said that mixing topics is good doesnot mean this is the only strategy. This will only work if you have a habit of managing more than one topic in 1 week. Juggling topics is a good strategy in the 2nd half of your prepration not the best while you are just starting out. The stumbling block in GMAT Prep is the conceptual understanding - at least initially.

* Its good to have a rough idea/plan but be flexible with your plan, see why its important:


"Don’t create a grandiose initial schedule. For those of you familiar with Scrum you’ll note that this is similar. You have 2 week “sprints” in which your workload and prioritization are fixed. During this time you simply “play”. At the end of the two week sprint you look back at what you did, pick an improved, intermediate goal state and then decide what you want to try in order to get there. You are flexible and near sighted. It is true you do have an overall goal in mind (usually something like “score a 730” or some such) but there is NO WAY anyone can say what specific steps are needed to get from their current state to the goal state in a complex game such as this."


* I would suggest you to just study the foundation books well and then give a free GMAT Test from Knewton(or MBA.com). Knewton scoring is not accurate but you will get an idea of your strengths/weakness.
You can also try the OG12 Diagnostic untimed test at the beginning of OG12 to find your relative strengths and weakness.

* Last but not the least how badly do you want a 740+ score, would you be happy with a 700 ?

Hi AbhiJ,

thanks for your suggestions! You're right, I wanted to incorporate too many things into my study plan. If I look back I'm sure of just two things: I'll dedicated much time to the GMAT and therefore would like to achieve a very good/excellent score (just for the fun, don't believe GMAT has that much of impact on applications - 700 would do it, but I'd love to see a 740 and above) and, second, I'll write down many things - that's what worked for me in the past. Write down notes, revise, then write down on flashcards, revise and so on. That's what it's going to be with the GMAT as well.

I do believe that I started broad with both Foundation books, which I hope to complete these days, then see what the CAT says, and then just study the weakest (one) topic at a time - make notes - and revise (notes and error log). That's what I intend to do, but stay flexible. I hope you guys will help throughout the journey!

Once I get to around 700, then I'll need to more specificly focus on certain areas, but there is a long way to go, as I expect to be somewhere around 590 :D

Regards,

PS: @rajeevrks27: I haven't forgotten my promise I'm working on it and it'll be burning.

BTW, when ru planning to give a CAT ??
It's very important to incorporate CATs during regular intervals in our journey.

@rajeevrks27: That's absolutely true! CAT's are important. Until now i have 2 GMATPrep CAT's (possibly 4 after a re-install) and 6 MGMAT CAT's. Those are the CAT exams I aim to use. The only other exams are the GMAClub Tests, which I aim to incorporate to boost Quant. Do you think I would need more than 9-10 exams?

I'll make use of one CAT once I have finished with both Foundations books in order to gauge my starting level. Another one will follow when I'm ready with all MGMAT books to see how to I have improved. The remaining ones will be part of my final 3-4 weeks.

@AbhiJ: Do you think it will be better to save up a GMATPrep/MGMAT exam and do after the Foundations a free Knewton/Kaplan CAT?

@all: Do you think diagramming and note-taking can be important in Verbal?

Regards,

I gave a free Knewton test as a diagnostic. You can give GMAT Prep also because believe you can repeat each test twice without too many repeats.

Diagramming can be beneficial in RC. Not sure how it would help in CR - As you are expected to understand and answer the question in 1 min 45 sec. It may help you initially in organizing your thoughts but later you can get rid of it.

@AbhiJ: Thank you! I think I will try one of the GMATPrep test towards the end of next week in order to gauge my level! I will definitely post the score breakdown here and will discuss with you the alternatives of tackling the topics afterwards.

My question related to diagramming was mostly related to ebon101's debrief, as he refers exactly to the diagramming to have been vital to his V51 score But I assume, diagramming in CR/RC is explained very good in both MGMAT books.

Regards,

Diagramming for RC is very helpful and with due practice , one can reduce the time consumed. I am currently following this approach and finding it to be beneficiary to me.
Diagramming in CR is not yet tried but yes, this method is recom in ebon101's debrief so , nothing wrong in trying the approach.
All the best for ur gmatprep.

hi nhk13579,
here are the links
gmatprepsc-105446.html#p824116 for SC
gmat-prep-critical-reasoning-collection-106783.html for CR
those-of-you-who-want-to-practice-more-rc-passage-but-96881.html for RC
gmat-prep-problem-collections-114358.html for quant
hope the above mentioned links help

MGMAT: Foundations of GMAT Math Review (Fourth edition)

As I'm currently going through the MGMAT Foundations of GMAT Math book, I just wanted to share some insights, which may be useful for all future test takers. By the way, I'll be sharing reviews of all books I complete during my GMAT journey, including fictions books. Stay tuned.

The MGMAT Founations of GMAT Math is about 320 pages from cover to cover. At first, this sounds quite spectacular, but the book is easy to read. It includes chapters, describing all basic mathematical concepts, drill sets and solutions. The book is written in a systematical manner, explains all strategies very well, although, I think in some places they are just repeating some things too much (e.g. Nerd note). As I bought the book, I though that it might help me refresh some mathematical concepts, which I haven't seen since high school and college, but it turned out to be a bit different. Reading the book is total fun, doing the drill sets is just like a game and I do feel that I am further strengthening my Quant skills. As I said, I expected this book to include just the already familiar basics from school, but it explaines many strategies and shortcuts, which I think are very important for the actual GMAT and its components. Furthermore, it helped improve quick calculations for my case interview practice.

Later on, as I start the 5 Quant MGMAT Strategy Guides, I'll be able to asses the foundation this book has given me, but I am pretty sure that now, as I have completed this book, I'll have it much easier.

Pros:
+ includes all important mathematical concepts
+ easy to read
+ includes many drill sets, which help you improve knowledge and speed

Cons:
- drill sets help you improve your skills, but need some time

Approx. time to read: 8-9 days with 3-4 hours per day

hey buddy, great that you have completed and also enjyoed the book( equally important if not more). Now as you move on to next set of 5 mgmat books, i am sure the basics learned through the foundation book will help you immenesly.

Hi guys,

just to drop an update note - I'm somewhere in the middle of MGMAT Foundations of GMAT Verbal. I should admit, it's somehow different than the Quant Foundations book, which was more intuitivelly. Here, especially the first couple of chapters - Nouns, Pronouns, Adjectives, Verbs etc. included much classification information, which I'm not sure if it is important for the real GMAT. I mostly understand the essential information (rules, exceptions) but am not sure if this noun, verb, pronoun classifications are vital for the real GMAT type of questions. Would be grateful for any suggestion here.

Except that I really have fun studying for the GMAT and hope that this will continue in future as well. I just started writing some flashcards, based on the Foundation books, and mark my Drill set mistakes, in case I want to review them at some moment. Nevertheless, I do not include them in my error log.

Regards,

MGMAT: Foundations of GMAT Verbal Review (Fourth edition)

And again, my quick assessment of the MGMAT: Foundations of GMAT Verbal book.

The MGMAT Founations of GMAT Verbal is about 310 pages from cover to cover. The book is divided in 3 segments - SC, CR and RC. Once this week I have started with the Strategy Guides, I'll be able to assess what both Foundation books have taught me, but currently I think they were a good investment - in terms of money and time. While the MGMAT: Foundations of GMAT Math was more intuitive (I knew all of the concepts, just needed a refresh), the situation with the Verbal foundations was a bit different. There were certain passages, which were completely new to me (e.g. the CR & RC strategies and SC classifications). Nevertheless, the book was interesting and after a difficult time - when I was going through all conceptual classifications of the different parts of speech (dedicated to SC) - the CR resp. RC strategies and drill sets turned out to be very different from what I had expected the GMAT to include. The exam and its verbal part include much more conceptual thinking and not just grammar.

What I liked most - the book is written using a very personal attitude. Therefore, it has the ability to catch the attention of the reader and make the general process of reading-practicing much faster and enjoyable (oopps - still having some issues with parallellism). I would overall recommend this book to everyone of you, who has enough time, like me. Just in a few days, I'll be able to assess if there is much repetition between the Foundation books and the Strategy Guides.

Last, but not least you have to have in mind that the book refers to OG12 problems for CR and RC purposes. In addition, the last 70-80 pages of the book include only idioms.

Pros:
+ includes many important grammar concepts and classifications
+ very personal approach
+ includes many drill sets, which help you improve knowledge and speed
+ refers to OG12 for CR and RC

Cons:
- I feel that especially the first passage, including the several parts of speech and SC strategies, is too detailed

Suggestions:
It would have been nice, if MGMAT had included all idioms as flashcards - not as a paper version, but rather more as a iOS/Android version

Approx. time to read the entire book: 7-8 days with 4 hours per day

As I have now finished those two strategy books, my objective is to complete a CAT on 20.03 or 21.03 in order to gauge my level, and define the sequence of the MGMAT Strategy Guides. I'll do a GMATPrep CAT and will report my results in the next days.

Prior to that I just wanted to state some more questions. Hope you're going to be able to help

1. How do you learn idioms? Flashcards - paper or e-versions? I just struggle with this, because it would take much time adding all idioms no matter if on paper or on my phone (as mentioned I currently have 70 pages of idioms from the Verbal Foundations and, as far as I know, there are more to come from the SC, RC and CR strategy guides)?
2. How do you handle new words in fiction? I just started with "To kill a mockinbird" by Harper Lee and I seem to have some words I don't know? Is it better to try and understand them from context (not look up from dictionary and write them down) or still start a list (words, example sentence and translation/explanation) for all unknown words? Flashcards could also be an option. What do you think?

Regards,

I use hand written flash cards (blank visiting cards) , with 10 idioms on one side. The point is you already know some idioms, so you can skip them and keep the tough/confusing ones. Idioms from CR/RC are going to be less useful as the focus is on "prepositional idioms". Keep adding idioms you find in SC questions. The point is to learn the idioms, how you learn depends on you.I would not suggest spending too much learning new words.Just keep a note of words you find in editorials etc.

@AbhiJ and bgpower, i believe idioms are not tested anymore.
correct me if i am wrong.