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isacr
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Hey,

Congratulations for the wonderful score. I have just started my GMAT Prep and I might not have as much time as you had to prepare. Can you give me some tips to cut down my preparation time?

Also, I do not know what the MGMAT material is? And by the GMAT review, I hope you mean the OG? Sorry if this sounds silly!
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dhruvd
Hey,

Congratulations for the wonderful score. I have just started my GMAT Prep and I might not have as much time as you had to prepare. Can you give me some tips to cut down my preparation time?

Also, I do not know what the MGMAT material is? And by the GMAT review, I hope you mean the OG? Sorry if this sounds silly!

Hey,

Thanks a lot ! ! Sorry, my bad, the GMAT review is the OG 13 and then you have the specialized Verbal 2nd edition and Quant 2nd Edition. Also, the MGMAT Preps are the Manhattan GMAT Prep Materials. I got the complete set of 10 books from them [basically 1 for each verbal section, then a bunch for quant (algebra, number proprieties, geometry etc.), and a general guidebook).

I guess if I were to cut some time, and I would have 6 weeks, I would do:

1 week of getting used to question formats (covering all the types of sections in the OG);
2 weeks of going through essential theory (from MGMAT/other prep material and OG) and brushing up weaknesses identified in the 1st week;
2 weeks with 2 CATs per week (Monday/Friday), working through OG and MGMAT practice questions on (Tue/Wed/Thu) - focusing on stuff that you're weaker at; (keep brushing up theory)
1 week of ONLY GMAT Prep stuff - GMAT Prep CATs (Monday/Friday), only OG practice questions on (Tue/Wed/Thu)
(last 2 days before the exam, only review questions that you got wrong in the OG, make sure you know how to solve them now - especially in quant)

That would be my plan honestly - and in my case, the GMAT CATs were by far the most accurate test predictors - there are subtle differences between real GMAT questions and prep material questions, and it's useful to be totally in the zone with the real stuff by the time you take the exam. As I said before, I was a big CAT test fan, as this really helped me to deal with time management and adjust stuff on-the-go during the real thing. In quant, for example, I had 21 mins left with 12 questions to go, I speeded things up and got back on track without panicking.

Obviously, this is just my opinion - I am sure there are many other ways of timing things.

Hope it helps and good luck ! !
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Thanks for the advice! Seems good. I'll start preparing and tell you how it goes :)
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isacr
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See how it goes and just adapt it as fast as you can to your own rhythm and needs - you should also check out what other people are saying on this site regarding prep schedules :)

All the best
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How beneficial did you find the Advanced Sections of the MGMAT books?
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Hey,

Well, when it comes to the MGMAT Books, I mainly used them for the Quant section - I didn't bother going all out on the Verbal stuff, since, in my case, all I needed to do in Verbal was to get used to the type of questions in the test and to the kind of reasoning needed to solve them.

Sooooo - for the Quant Section of the MGMAT books, I have to say that I found a bit of a disconnect between their advanced questions and the type of advanced questions on the actual GMAT/ GMAT Prep. What I did find very useful though were the Word Problems / Overlapping Sets / Combinatorics explanations in the MGMAT books - they really helped me get a better grip on these areas in which I was kind of weak.

I don't really know what else to say - hope this helped
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Congrats on the great score and good luck with your applications . From your experience what do you advise me to do regarding these aspects?

1.Which is more advisable , to dedicate a few days for studying each section individually or doing mixed sets?

2.How to make the best use of an error log ? I mean that I keep a reference of every question I get wrong (indicating the error type), guess or am not sure of the answer (even if correct). How many times a week do I have to check this log ? and how do I best exploit this data for my improvement?

Thanks in advance :)
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TheNona
Congrats on the great score and good luck with your applications . From your experience what do you advise me to do regarding these aspects?

1.Which is more advisable , to dedicate a few days for studying each section individually or doing mixed sets?

2.How to make the best use of an error log ? I mean that I keep a reference of every question I get wrong (indicating the error type), guess or am not sure of the answer (even if correct). How many times a week do I have to check this log ? and how do I best exploit this data for my improvement?

Thanks in advance :)

Hey,

Some really good questions there, I wish I had the magic answers to clear things up, but there's no right/wrong recipe for it.

1. For your first question, my advice would be to do individual sections, especially for the stuff that you have identified as weaknesses - really go at them, get the theory right and nail a good 20 questions right on that topic. (the problem solving part should help you in memorizing the correct way to solve these problems in the
future)

2. If you're uber organized, you could probably undergo this really detailed approach you mentioned - in my case, it was more intuitive let's say - i would identify the general topics in which I kept making mistakes, and I would go back to the MGMAT books, revise their advice on how to solve them, and go back and solve problems - it was a back and forth - for probabilities, I pbbly did this about 4 times - by the end, I was getting them right. I don't think there is a clear mathematical formula to go by (check 3 times on SC, check twice on geometry DS) - I think that with time, your brain gets accustomed to the types of questions the GMAT gives you. You start acting intuitively - especially in Verbal (sometimes, an answer just LOOKS RIGHT).

Sorry I can't be more helpful, as I said, I wish I had the answers, it would have made my job a lot easier too

All the best and good luck to you
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isacr
TheNona
Congrats on the great score and good luck with your applications . From your experience what do you advise me to do regarding these aspects?

1.Which is more advisable , to dedicate a few days for studying each section individually or doing mixed sets?

2.How to make the best use of an error log ? I mean that I keep a reference of every question I get wrong (indicating the error type), guess or am not sure of the answer (even if correct). How many times a week do I have to check this log ? and how do I best exploit this data for my improvement?

Thanks in advance :)

Hey,

Some really good questions there, I wish I had the magic answers to clear things up, but there's no right/wrong recipe for it.

1. For your first question, my advice would be to do individual sections, especially for the stuff that you have identified as weaknesses - really go at them, get the theory right and nail a good 20 questions right on that topic. (the problem solving part should help you in memorizing the correct way to solve these problems in the
future)

2. If you're uber organized, you could probably undergo this really detailed approach you mentioned - in my case, it was more intuitive let's say - i would identify the general topics in which I kept making mistakes, and I would go back to the MGMAT books, revise their advice on how to solve them, and go back and solve problems - it was a back and forth - for probabilities, I pbbly did this about 4 times - by the end, I was getting them right. I don't think there is a clear mathematical formula to go by (check 3 times on SC, check twice on geometry DS) - I think that with time, your brain gets accustomed to the types of questions the GMAT gives you. You start acting intuitively - especially in Verbal (sometimes, an answer just LOOKS RIGHT).

Sorry I can't be more helpful, as I said, I wish I had the answers, it would have made my job a lot easier too

All the best and good luck to you

You were more helpful than you can ever imagine .. thank you and best regards
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