Hi guys,

I've gotten a 750 for my gmat Q49 V42, and I would like to give u guys some tips that are seldom mentioned.

1) It's fine to spend 3-4 mins on some hard questions, because these are the questions that will determine if u break the Q50-51 or V40-50. If u keep skipping those questions, then you will be unlikely to break the barrier. So how can one spend 3-4 mins on a questions? isn;t it time wasting? I can assure you that there will be around 7-10 easy questions and these are the questions that you shld be spending less than a min on. Hence, used those extra time saved to tackle the harder questions.

2) Ever wonder why the score you got from your GmatPrep are usually lower than the actual one? It is becuz you are likely to be more anxious and nervous during the actual gmat - you will keep looking at the timer. one part of your mind will tell you to skip a certain question becuz it's too hard( and u'r running out of time) and the other part will tell you that you are so close to gettin the correct ans. Such scenarios don;t happen when u do your gmatprep at home, isn;t? Hence, the trick is to STOP looking at the count down timer so frequently, maybe once at the half way mark and the other at the 3/4 mark. I think many people will argue ' what if you are not aware whether you are behind time?' So the trick is to ensure that you are able to constantly solve a question within 2 mins when practicing at home. When you do your OG, cluster them in groups of 40-50 and sort of make the OG into 'mini gmat exam'. After 1 mth of practice, you shld be able to know whether you are solving a certain qns under 2 mins during actual GMAT exam without looking at the timer. For example, i only looked at the timer once and this has really help calm my nervousness.

3) Do the Manhattan/veritus or whatever unoffical gmatprep FIRST and Leave ALL your OG material for later. Those unofficial prep helps improve your concept and clarity (for Q part) but are not really reflective of what the gmat questions are ( official gmat test more on ur analytical skills, that is the way you approach a question and the way u think). As for verbal, Only OG are reflective of the actual GMAT. Hence, practice all your Manhattan online cat test first, exhaust all those questions, refine your concepts, and only then, start doing official questions.

4) Do the questions in your OGs TWICE- this is to ensure the errors that you had made previously are really well-understood. Make sure you understand why a question is correct too, don;t skip the explanations just becuz u got them right. I would advice all of you to do hundreds of SC to see all the possible ways that GMAT can ask.

5) not much tips for CR, but just ensure that your mind is 'switched-on' when doing CR. As for RC, make sure you spend time to understand what the passage is talking about and this can be achieved even if you skip the details. For instance, the paragraph may talk about blah blah blah and then give some examples. You can 'fast-read' the examples (or non-essential part) but make sure you understand what the whole passage is trying to say. Why 'fast-read' those examples (or non-essential parts)? It is to save time becuz i'm very sure most of us would need to refer back to the passage. But this is a personal preference.

Hope my tips will be of some help to u guys.

Couldn't agree more this is very important that makes a difference between a good score and great score!

Great advice on looking at the time, Crusader. I actually looked at the timer too much out of paranoia, which caused me to rush and finish the Quant section with over 5 minutes, and the Verbal section with 7 minutes! I probably left some points on the table because I did not heed this wisdom.

I couldn't agree more! It's hard to say that any 3rd party practice test is better than GMAC's own GMATPrep software, but our new practice test (launched this past month) is all about measuring your analytical skills, not just how well you memorized idioms or number properties, etc.

Great writeup, BTW. Excellent tip about not getting too obsessed with the timer.
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Hi Mate
Can you please advice me on the practise tests. As I bought the Veritas prep books but from amazon 2 months back but at that time there was no promotion of free practise tests. Now I am only left with CR books which I have to buy from veritas to make the full set. If I buy just CR books will I get the Practise tests. I have made my purchases from Amazon before as they sell in individual books. So this CR book as well will be bought from amazon.

Please advice.

Thanks

Hi tk,

We're no longer running that promotion, unfortunately. (Please let me know if you saw a promo that's still running somewhere.) But, please send me a private message and I can hook you up with five free practice tests!
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Totally agreed. I started with the OG and i found it so difficult as I forgot a lot of the core concepts. Moved back to the Manhattan books to build up the core foundation.

Thanks for the Excellent Debrief