760 -Q49, V44- My GMAT Progress Diary

Did m08 today. I did pretty poorly, -13 wrong in the first 33 questions. While working on 34 the website/software crashed and kicked me off. I think it was most likely due to the redesign of the tests. When I logged back on the entire member area was different with added tests and a new format. Yay!

Test Correct Total % Correct Mean time Percentile
m01 31 37 84% 83.4548 sec 85%
m02 33 37 89% 93.8058 sec 90%
m03 30 37 81% 111.1665 sec 80%
m04 33 37 89% 107.7445 sec 91%
m05 29 36 81% 122.0276 sec 82%
m06 24 33 73% 136.3358 sec 53%
m07 28 37 76% 121.3407 sec 66%
m08 20 34 59% 124.5703 sec 39%

I was pacing myself well, and couldn't complete the test due to the website update. Still, that's no excuse for missing 13 of the first 33 questions. Given my current trend I'm a bit perplex as to how to go about my quant score. I don't really want to spend too much time on quant as I only have 4 weeks left and would like to focus more on verbal. However, I seem to be doing worse and worse with each practice test I complete. After I finish the test I go back and review the incorrect answers and usually I can figure out how to solve it. I just can't seem to solve the problems during the test, especially under a tight time limit.

So, does anyone have any suggestions as to how to fix my quant score? I want to get a 49+ on the quant section but am worried that I might bomb it. Should I keep doing 1 gmatclub test per day and just review the test afterwards or should I take a break and just review fundamentals, going back to the MGMAT guides? I would like to finish ALL the gmatclub tests before the test date and that would require me to do about 1 per day...

I completed Brutal SCs today... man they were brutal. out of 70 total questions I got 22 wrong, and I am 100% positive my SC score will improve next time. I realize that I was previously spending way too little time on the questions and just picking the one that sounded right. However, now I know what to check for when I see those types of questions (when I'm down to two choices however I'm still prone to pick the incorrect one). For the most part, I'm done with SC and will just keep going through the error logs and questions posted in the SC subforum on this site.

As for CR, I'm still reading the Powerscore Bible. I was only able to complete chapter 9 of the bible today, though I've pretty much covered the majority of the CR question types- weaken, strengthen, and assumption. I absolutely LOVE the assumption strategy given by powerscore and it makes these types of questions a LOT easier. I went through the MGMAT CR guide afterwards and skipped over the strategy in order to do the pset. I got 1 wrong due to carelessness, but for the most part the answer just jumped out at me. I still want to get through as much of the bible this week though.

I've sort of slowed down on RC...need to pick it up again. I've stopped reading the economist daily because I stay up late and am tired when I get to bed. There's still so much to do and there's less than 4 weeks left. I can't believe I wasted two months of the summer doing absolutely nothing thinking that 4 weeks would be sufficient preparation time. If it hadn't been for my friend who motivated me to study with 5 weeks left to go (by saying he studied 4 hours a day on average for the LSAT), I might not have begun studying until 3 weeks left. Now with 4 weeks left I feel screwed.


Goals for tomorrow:

m09
CR Bible Chapters 10&11
Attempt 7 RC Reading Passages
Do Assumption, Strengthen, Weaken Psets

I found m08 to be the hardest as well. There's a lot of support for the GC Math Tests on this forum, but I usually just get discouraged. My biggest issue with them is that some of the DS statements contradict each other (they don't on the the real exam). I'm curious to try the new questions by topic in the test area now.

As an alternative, I've been using Jeff Sackmann's Extreme Challenge set. It's really good. The questions are all 700+ difficulty and they each come with a great answer explanation.
https://www.gmatproblems.com/

Did you find Sackmann's extreme challenges to improve speed? At this point, I feel as though I have more than enough prep questions (still have 21 gmatclub tests) and have not even touched the mgmat challenge question bank. I'm also not sure I want to spend $100 on quant material when I haven't exhausted my current material... unless its amazing and teaches one of a kind secrets that can't be found any where else

I didn't do m09 today. took the time I usually take on gmatclub tests to go over old quant questions. i realize i have trouble with 3 types of questions; combinatorics, mixtures, and really long word problems. i generally spend 4 minutes on mixtures so i clearly need to improve my timing. luckily i noticed gmatclub added a test devoted exclusively on mixtures and word problems.

I did 7 RC passages as planned, a total of 47 questions. I got -2, -1, 0, 0, -1, 0, -2. The -2s are killing me and if I can eliminate those I'll be good to go. I hate doing the ALL OF THINGS ARE MENTIONED IN THE PASSAGE EXCEPT questions. Does anyone have any suggestions as to how to improve speed? I hate spending a bunch of time looking through the passage for each option and crossing it out. half the time I end up taking an educated guess because i am too lazy to engage in gmat's stupid scavenger hunt.

Casually did some SCs. I need to run through all my SC error log questions a second time. I looked at a couple of repeats and despite reviewing them earlier I did not know how to answer them and got them wrong again. Looks like the grammar lessons didn't stick in my mind.

I feel as though i'm improving CR. I finished the weaken, strengthen, resolve the paradox, assumption, and justify the conclusion question types. the only ones left are perhaps evaluate the argument and find the flaw. I opened up the mgmat cr guide to look at how they explained strategy and found them to be woefully inadequate. Hooray to me for using Powerscore.

Goals for tomorrow:

m09
Learn Strategy for Evaluate the Argument and Flaw
keep practicing weakening/strengthening/assumption CR question types
more random SC questions

I haven't used the MGMAT challenge question bank, so I can't comment on those. Sackmann's Extreme Challenge questions are all difficult concepts and they're very GMAT-like. They're great for understanding how to apply concepts to more difficult questions (quality vs. quantity imo). I bought 2 sets, so I think I paid $25 for each set or something

Honestly, I'm not that hot on the GC Tests. I'd rather re-do Extreme Challenge set than take another GC Test.

As for RC's "All of the following, except," there really isn't any way to do this other than checking each answer. You should be able to eliminate some of them very quickly though. I'm usually left with two remaining choices that I have to reference the paragraph for. Overall though, it's not too time consuming. The good thing about these questions is that all of the wrong answers are written in the passage... no guessing required. I wouldn't advise you to get lazy and guess - save that for questions where you can paraphrase the answer before reading the choices.

Thanks for the info and tips. I'm going to try mgmat's challenge bank and if those aren't a good match i'm going to go with gmathacks.

I read up on Evaluate the argument and flaw CRs and did some practice problems. I have two more question types left and I'll be done after method of reasoning and parallel reasoning. hope to finish those tomorrow.
I did m09 today. For some reason I thought it was really easy but then when I got my score I found I got tricked a lot. Need to be more careful next time. On one hand I feel as though I should read each question twice in case I miss something (like if you need to solve for x, the answer asks you for x+3). my time was way faster and i finished with 15 minutes left, though this clearly was an easier test since my percentile hit an all-time low at 34%... sigh

Test Correct Total % Correct Mean time Percentile
m09 24 37 65% 95.5053 sec 34%

I reviewed the test afterwards and some of them were careless errors, some of them I just blanked under pressure and took a guess. Going back I realized the questions were not all that difficult... more practice I guess. I started the mgmat challenge question bank and man, those questions are tough! it's good practice, though even after reading the solutions I doubt I would be able to solve them in under 3 minutes. some of them are crazy hard.
I went over 50 or so SCs from my error log and seem to have corrected most of the problems. I also tried gmatclub v01 today but stopped after question 20. I didn't really like the wording of many of the questions and decided that there are better prep materials out there to use.

Tomorrow I'm taking it light and will review the material from this past week. I spend nearly 2 hours a day per gmatclub test + review so by not doing one tomorrow I'll have a much lighter load. Saturday morning I'll be taking the first gmatprep and I really need to get at least 700+ on that test. I think I will, and if not then I may need to reevaluate where I stand and... well, i'll think it over if it comes down to that.

Goals for tomorrow:

Keep reading the economist + other articles
10 more MGMAT challenge questions
review gmatclub quant tests
learn method of reasoning + parallel reasoning
keep practicing CR question types

Completed goals for today. GMATPrep 1 tomorrow morning. I'm expecting at least 720+ and will be disappointed if I don't hit it. Guess I'll see...

Good luck

Kinda might seem silly but how do you get the motivation to really dedicate yourself to this? any advice?

Good luck and keep us posted on ur gmatprep scores

Basically I took my first diagnostic "cold" 3 months before the test date. I didn't study after that and procrastinated until I had like 5.5 weeks left. As soon as I opened the book and started studying, I realized I was screwed with less than 6 weeks left. Now I'm preparing like crazy mainly because I don't have much time left =(

Took GmatPrep1 today and wasn't thrilled about the results. Not very disappointed but not excited either.

Quant:
Was completely phased by the first question which seemed to be difficult exponential algebra. I thought about it for 2 minutes and ended up just taking a guess. I wasn't really expecting a difficult question at the beginning but I ended up getting 2 out of the first 4 wrong. The rest of the questions seemed really easy and I was at a pace of 1 min/q. for the first 30 questions. I took my time on the last 7 and finished well within time. However, this timing pattern was probably due to my getting very easy questions since I got the first couple wrong. -6 wrong overall Q49.

Verbal:
Didn't really think it was difficult but apparently got 2 out of the first 5 questions wrong. Some SCs were tricky and I got a hard RC passage. Unfortunately I started feeling very rushed at the halfway point despite maintaining a rate of 2min/q. I guess I'm used to breezing through verbal so I felt rushed to complete it on time. Not thrilled with the results since I had expected a 41+ score yesterday. I ended up getting -9 wrong, V39. I was surprised that the verbal scale was that harsh but I guess I screwed up easy ones at the beginning. -4SC (2 dumb mistakes, 2 I had trouble with), -2RC, -3 CR(all of which were evaluate the argument).

Overall, Q49 V39 - 720 which was the minimum I had hoped for, but definitely felt as though I had prepared more. Oh well! Good news is that for CR I can now focus on evaluate the argument questions which I had previously not really prepared for. SC I'm still very weak... I'm still hesitant to use 1000SCs since I've heard there are so many mistakes (not to mention copyright issues), but I need to find new SC material to study since that's been my weakest area for a while. I have a kaplan gmat2005 cd lying around. Any suggestions?

I only have 3+ weeks left (should have not procrastinated until <6 weeks before exam ) so I'll be stepping up the intensity the next two weeks.

First congrats on your 720, I guess you should really start focusing on Verbal, but the score was kind of harsh for 9 mistakes.

I suggest you to go through Spidey's notes, Gayathri's, Sahil's notes and somewhere on this forum there is this 75 brutual SC document

for practice - why dont you try this out, it has around 350 questions - my roomie who scored 740 suggested it for more practise.

https://www.gmat-success.com/gmat-sentence.html


Did PowerScore CR help you in CR questions ?

I made the biggest improvement with MGMAT SC. I didn't use a ton of SC practice questions, just enough to see the concept in practice and understand it. Your verbal results are a little spread out, but I think you should probably re-work the MGMAT SC book and, as you already said, you should fix that evaluate the argument issue.

The only way to really guarantee yourself a V41+ is to get each area down to 0-2 errors.

Good job on the 720.

Thanks for the suggestions. I think I definitely will work through MGMAT SC again. I went through it once and it seemed sort of basic but clearly I didn't go over it in enough detail. I think tomorrow I will start rereading it because right now I'm sort of brain dead . Need to make sure the concepts stick more...

I've already gone through the brutal SCs document and got about 1/3 of them wrong. I haven't really reviewed my mistakes for a second time so I'll need to do that. Those SC tests from Gmat-success look really promising! I'll be going through them about an MGMAT SC re-read and hope that they contain few, if any, any mistakes.

One thing I realized about MGMAT vs GMATprep is the relative difficulty and difference in scoring. On MGMAT CAT I got -16 on the verbal and got the same V39 as I did by getting -9 on GMATprep. For Quant, I got -14 for a MGMAT Q48 and -6 for a GMATPrep Q49. I did realize that Gmatprep quant was MUCH easier than MGMAT, though again that may be because I screwed up the first couple questions.

As for CR, I used Powerscore's LSAT LR Bible. I am 100% convinced that the Bible helped as now, most CR answers jump out at me. I combine the LSAT LR bible with kaplan LSAT mastery, which is a book that contains only questions. The LSAT mastery book is given to students who take kaplan's full course but I found it on amazon for cheap. it's divided into sections, 1 section of 100 strengthen/weaken questions, 1 section of ~100 assumption questions, 1 section of ~70 evaluate the argument questions...etc. Basically I read the LSAT LR bible for the strategy and then try to do all the questions in the kaplan book. I haven't really had time to keep up with the kaplan books as I just read evaluate the argument questions yesterday. I guess after I practice them in lsat mastery I'll be quite prepared for all types of CR.

I think that Powerscore LR Bible is THE essential guide to getting perfect CRs. I skimmed through the MGMAT CR book and it was terrible. For example, in assumption questions, MGMAT says has a couple of pages explaining what the question is. The LSAT bible has ~20 pages devoted exclusively to assumption strategies. For example, one of the great tips I learned was that If the conclusion is valid, the assumption is true. That is, if the conclusion is valid (a sufficient condition), then the necessary condition (assumption) must occur. Powerscore says that you can double check all your assumption questions by taking the contrapositive. (if the assumption is not true, the conclusion is NOT valid). Hence, you can double check all your assumption questions by picking your answer choice, negating it, and seeing if it WEAKENS the argument. After learning that strategy I've gotten only 1 assumption question wrong and the 40+ questions I've done. Before reading the guide, assumption questions were probably my weakest area.

Fairly unproductive today aside from taking Gmatprep earlier this morning. Going to have to step it up a bit the next couple of weeks since gday is in about 3 weeks. Target of 7+ hours a day for the next two weeks. Going to start using the RC Bible since I got -2 on the RCs earlier and found them challenging. I didn't realize that in verbal, every lost point is brutal.

Tomorrow:
Read over MGMAT SC Guide
Do Gmat-success SC 1+2
Review Evaluate the Argument + 50 Evaluate the Argument Questions
Do at least 2 GMATclub topic-specifc quant tests
More MGMAT challenge questions
3 chapters of Powerscore RC Bible

Some things came up and wasn't able to study too much. need to make up for not taking gmatclub tests today. oh well, tomorrow will hopefully be better. i was able to complete 2 gmat-success tests (great resource). i read over half of manhattan sc and reviewed the evaluate the argument strategies. unfortunately lsat doesn't have a specific evaluate the argument section practice type =(

goals for tomorrow:
5 section specific gmatclub tests
finish manhattan SC
3 more gmat-success tests
Powerscore RC bible

Good to hear that you found gmat-success a great resource, so if you improve your verbal then you owe me one ...

Let me know if Powerscore RC bible was of any help to you.