3 Months Plan

Question

Hello everyone, 
I want to ask you about opinion about my study plan. 
I want to study for next 3 months. I will have about 3hours during workdays and about 4/5 hours in the weekend. I bought OG 2017 and I have all books from MGMAT (4th edition). I want to buy EGMAT for Verbal section (I'm not native and I heard that they plan are brilliant for people like me) and Empowergmat for Quant section. 
First month I want to focus on Math, in which I'm much stronger. The second I want to focus on Verbal section. In March I will make improvements of my weak sides. 
My target score is about 600-650. If the GMAT will go incredibly well then I want to go to St. Gallen University and if my score will be close to 600 then Mannheim University is my target. In both cases I want apply for Master in Management. I want to apply in a year.
Today I did my first CAT and the score is 400 ( 31Q and 14 V). I know that my score is very weak, but I did the test without any review.

I also have couple of questions:
1. Should I use a GMAT flashcards? What do you think about it?
2. What do you think about Empowergmat study plan for 3 months? I wanted to use it, but train my verbal skills on egmat platform.

Thank you guys for any help or opinion!

DAVEexamPAL · Answer

Hey Dave!
It certainly sounds like you've taking the test seriously, which is good. 
I recommend reversing the order of study, by which I mean starting from your weakest part (verbal) and only doing your strongest (quant) later. Not only that, but I would even consider starting with a few weeks of concentrated attempt to improve your verbal skills, even before diving into the GMAT verbal material. By this I mean - reading a book and a lot of magazine and newspaper articles, and going over vocabulary lists. Even if you don't want to put off the study for this, I strongly suggest incorporating newspaper article reading into your daily routine - say, 45 minutes in the morning or evening. It can go a long way! 
It's also great that you are leaving time to improve your weaker points, but I don't think an entire month is necessary. Also, remember to add time in the end for practice test taking + reviewing! 
Good luck!

dave9783 · Answer

Thank you  DAVEexamPAL  for your answer! 
I can start with Verbal prep. That's not a problem. The second thing that I want to mention is that in my university we have a FT magazine everyday and I planned to read it, because I know that this is crucial to master skills, which are important during GMAT Verbal section. 
The only thing that I'm not sure about is the few weeks of English prep. I think that my English skills are quite good, but I was completely not familiar with GMAT question types. What's more I'm studying in English, so I have a lot of possibilities to read, write and speak in this language. The last, but not least, I asked 2 months ago if should I start my prep from some special English course and people in the forum said that "normal" English is something much different than GMAT English. They recommend me to do CAT and start normal GMAT prep.

Once again, 
Thank you for your help!

PS.
I have 2 additional questions:
1. In GMAT all the measures are Americans. I mean that for example on my CAT I had a question like "the average height of girls in HS was 5,2 feet". Should I learn it, because in my country we use cm, kg, km etc. 
2. Is possible for me with good prep to have 600? I'm a little bit confused, because I feel that I can do it, but a lot of people say that 150 points improvement is max.

EMPOWERgmatRichC · Answer

Hi dave9783,

From what you've described, you've given yourself plenty of time to study - which is good. Most Test Takers are not happy with their first CAT result, but you really shouldn't be - it's just a measure of your natural skills right now - and the extra months of available study time are there so that you can IMPROVE on this initial practice result. That having been said, raising a 400 to a 600+ will likely take at least another 3 months of consistent, guided study - and you'll have to make significant improvements to how you handle BOTH the Quant and Verbal sections. Thankfully, the GMAT is a consistent, predictable Exam, so you CAN train to score at a higher level.

As far as forming a proper Study Plan, regardless of the study materials that you use, I suggest that you do 'some Quant and some Verbal' each week (as opposed to the "all of one, then all of the other" that you're thinking about). You'll likely find it easier to retain everything overall if you're working on a mix of subjects. You would likely find learning the proper 'unit conversions' to be quite helpful in the Quant section (and sometimes in IR too). GMAT questions that depend on that type of knowledge often include the formula/information, but there aren't actually that many to learn (and you already know the metric system), so learning that 1 foot = 12 inches, 1 yard = 3 feet, $1 = 100 cents, etc. shouldn't be too difficult.

1) Are you planning to formally begin your studies this week?
2) Have you scheduled your Official GMAT yet or are you going to wait to do that later?

GMAT assassins aren't born, they're made,
Rich

dave9783 · Answer

Hi EMPOWERgmatRichC Thank you for your advices. It's my mistake that I wasn't 100% precise with the schedule. I wanted to focus on Quant in 1st month, but of course with some elements of Verbal. So do you think with hard work ( I really like work hard

) I'm able to reach 600? And to answer your question: 1. Yes, I want to study from tomorrow 2. I will do it later. In my center is not a lot of GMAT takers, so I don't have to hurry with that.

EMPOWERgmatRichC · Answer

Hi dave9783,

When it comes to how you might score on the Official GMAT, nobody here knows exactly what YOU are capable of. Until you put in some significant practice time and take some additional practice CATs, there's no way to know what your "peak score" is. That having been said, I think that you have the right mindset to improve - so now it's a matter of how you want to proceed.

Given Most GMAT Companies offer some type of free materials (practice problems, Trial Accounts, videos, etc.) that you can use to 'test out' a product before you buy it. We have a variety of those resources at our website (www.empowergmat.com) if you'd like to take a look today or tomorrow. I suggest that you take advantage of all of them then choose the one that best matches your personality, timeline and budget.

If you have any additional questions, then you can feel free to contact me directly.

GMAT assassins aren't born, they're made,
Rich

Sajjad1994 · Answer

rohan2345 · Answer

Hi dave9783, EmpowerGMAT is a great course and will surely help you improve on your weak areas and help you solidify your concepts. Also for verbal, Your choice of e-gmat course is great. It's a great course especially designed for non-natives. They offer almost 25% of their courses for free so you can try out their free trial to decide which one you want to go for. Plus the e-gmat Scholaranium which is included in both the courses is one of the best verbal practice tools in the market. You can easily track your progress in that you can identify your strengths and analyze and improve on your weak areas. I must add that if you are particularly looking to discover and improve on your weak areas in quant; a subscription to GMATCLUB tests is the best way to do that. They are indeed phenomenal and will not only pinpoint your weak areas but also help you improve on them. Further taking multiple mocks might help. Apart from the GMATPREP, Manhattan GMAT tests and Veritas Prep Tests in my experience have good verbal and Quant section and will certainly help you point out and improve your weak areas. Further another advantage of taking many mocks is to build up your stamina. Apart from the GMATPREP tests, taking practise tests of any major GMATPREP company ought to do that. I would also encourage you to purchase GMATPREP QP 1 for some great additional practice. Here is a link that will help you with your decision. https://gmatclub.com/forum/best-gmat-ve ... 68383.html Lastly, you can check out a very interesting article by Mike McGarry from Magoosh detailing a 3 month study plan https://magoosh.com/gmat/2012/3-month-g ... -students/. You will find it very helpful as it gives out a study plan as per your needs. Hope this helps. All the best.

rarce · Answer

Nice comment. Thanks! I´m study by myself and using Gmat Club. I think they have pretty much all we need. It also depends on how disciplined you are.

Hi dave9783,

EmpowerGMAT is a great course and will surely help you improve on your weak areas and help you solidify your concepts.

Also for verbal, Your choice of e-gmat course is great. It's a great course especially designed for non-natives. They offer almost 25% of their courses for free so you can try out their free trial to decide which one you want to go for. Plus the e-gmat Scholaranium which is included in both the courses is one of the best verbal practice tools in the market. You can easily track your progress in that you can identify your strengths and analyze and improve on your weak areas.

I must add that if you are particularly looking to discover and improve on your weak areas in quant; a subscription to GMATCLUB tests is the best way to do that. They are indeed phenomenal and will not only pinpoint your weak areas but also help you improve on them.

Further taking multiple mocks might help. Apart from the GMATPREP, Manhattan GMAT tests and Veritas Prep Tests in my experience have good verbal and Quant section and will certainly help you point out and improve your weak areas.

Further another advantage of taking many mocks is to build up your stamina. Apart from the GMATPREP tests, taking practise tests of any major GMATPREP company ought to do that.

I would also encourage you to purchase GMATPREP QP 1 for some great additional practice. Here is a link that will help you with your decision.

https://gmatclub.com/forum/best-gmat-ve ... 68383.html

Lastly, you can check out a very interesting article by Mike McGarry from Magoosh detailing a 3 month study plan

https://magoosh.com/gmat/2012/3-month-g ... -students/. You will find it very helpful as it gives out a study plan as per your needs.

Hope this helps. All the best.[/quote]

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