Expert help needed on GMAT preparation (3months plan)

Question

Hi,

I am an IT professional having 5yrs of work experience. I am planning to go for GMAT.
I have strong base in maths and decent in english though weak in vocabs.

Can you please suggest me books i required to beat GMAT?
Also provide some guidelines on how to prepare it within 3 months if possible?

Thanks in advance!

Rgds,
Jim

hoogly · Answer

Hi jim ,

Three month for Gmat is good amount of time !

I actually took a 2.5 months of prep time to score an 740 and would lay down my study plan that might help you.

Commit an Study time of 3-4 hours on weekdays and 6-7 hours of weekends ( gradually reduce your social time and increase study time )
 
 Month 1 :

Day 1 - take a diagnostics test from Official Guide (OG ) 12 or Gmat club. Identify your weak areas and start studying your weak sections first.

Day 2 - Assuming Verbal is your weak area especially SC. lets start with it. Identify number of questions that will come from this section and type of questions.

Day 3 - 7 : Use Gmat Club's Ultimate Gmat Grammar to refresh your grammar concepts specific to Gmat even if you are a native speaker. Remember Gmat wont test your SC where you would just rely on your ear and pick the one that sounds good. Use a strategy and logic to break down and eliminate different choices and choose the best answer. It contains valuable practice tests and 500+ Gmat like SC questions.

Day 8 - 11 : Study Mgmat ( Manhattan Gmat ) SC Guide and make your own notes out of it ! Refer your notes for 30 min and start the next day's topic.

Day 13 - 15 : Use Aristotle SC grail topic wise and solve the topic wise questions from a bank of 100 questions it comes with , after end of every topic. Its an precise book of 140 pages only. Get OG12 solutions guide too from Aristotle prep.

Day 16 - 20 : Solve 140 SC problems from OG 12 and 54 non repeating SC questions from OG 11. This reinforces your concepts. use an error log ( very imp, search the forum for OG 12 error log and how to use an error log )

Day 21 - 30 : 
Read power score CR bible and practice all 124 CR questions from OG 12. Again use an error log.

Read RC theory from kaplan verbal work book or from kaplan premier Gmat with CDROM book

Watch Knewton videos on RC section ( search forum for link or visit  https://www.downloadmela.com/video-watch?sno=310 ) - It helps you identify different types of RC questions.

Search forum for Slingfox , Gin, Rhyme and Spiridon RC strategies . See which fits you the best.

End of Month 1 - you are well versed with SC and CR along with practice and aware of RC strategies.

Month 2 - First 15 Days :

Day 1 - 14 :

Try your RC theories on set of OG 12 RC problem. they are 24 in number. Check the timing, check the one that best suits your needs and adhere to one strategy finally ! Use an error log again.

Use Chineseburned guide for AWA section and practice some essays. Submit some essays for free evaluation at 800score.com ( search the site for free AWA grading it offers ! )

Everyday use gmat club forums - go to gmat - verbal questions - sentence correction - choose sc questions topic wise - then click on any tags namely - " source : Kaplan or Manhattan Gmat or Knewton ". Say choose Kaplan and solve all possible problems in a hour ( forum comes with an inbuilt timer.) Repeat this everyday until you exhaust goog number of problems from Kaplan , Knewton and Manhattan Gmat . repeat this for an hour daily for all 30 days of Month 2.

Next 15 days :

Day 15 - 29 : Grab Math concepts from either Mgmat set of 5 quant books or Total Gmat Books.
Practice all PS and DS problems from OG 12 using an error log.

Day 30 : Take Gmat prep 1 under exact test conditions along with AWA section

End of Month 2 - You completed Verbal - SC , CR , RC , Math concepts and OG 12 practice along with AWA !

Month 3 :

Plan your study to complete :

1. RC 99 from Aristotle prep ( LSAT like / tough Gmat RC questions )
2. 101 LSAT CR collection for gmat from Aristotle prep
3. Take Gmat Math tests from Gmat Club. 
4. Take 5 Mgmat CAT's . Review them and re do the questions you got wrong ( Use an error log ), Make learning from solutions ( all questions you got wrong and correct too ). Note the new learnings from your mock CATS and Gmat Cub Math tests in a book. this is imp to boost your scores.

Hope this would be helpful !

Thanks
Hoogly !

jimmy11 · Answer

U deserve Kudos Hoogly (it doesn't seem to be ur name but anyway).....

it helped to atleast chalk out plans....from nowhere to somewhere....thnks.

hoogly · Answer

Glad it was helpful to you. So did you start the prep

? I just realized i got a Kudo from bb. Hmm makes me proud and thanks bb

GMATPill · Answer

Looks like a pretty long list with many different books and resources.

If you can stick to that much work and dedication--great. Just be careful about mixing so many different resources.

I'd focus less on completing every single question from every single source you mentioned---and focus more on actually understanding each question--the multiple ways to go about it---and developing an intuition for what particular concept is being tested within the first few seconds of seeing a question.

In other words--QUALITY over QUANTITY.

Do consider re-doing questions you get wrong in random order a day or two later--instead of just opening up a new book of questions and getting through all of it without necessarily understanding each one.

Just something to consider. Good luck with your studies.

hoogly · Answer

I Agree its tad too long and focus on different books. Let me clarify I only stressed on SC using different sources such as :

1. Grammar review ( from ultimate grammar book ) - This is mostly needed for all non - native speakers.
2. MGMAT SC the bible -> to know in detail the Common errors tested. Also knowledge of grammar w.r.t terms such as subordinate clause ,relative clause and others makes it easy to understand Mgmat guide thoroughly.
3. SC Grail is sort of used to precisely summarize whatever you read through the voluminous Mgmat Sc guide.

SC Induces business writing skills that is also required post mba and throughout the career not just ending as soon as gmat is over. So, if there is time , as in this case where he has willingly 3 months of time, its good to grab the basics and go with a kind of profound understanding of concepts. Like bb says and I always agree, its BASIC CONCEPTS REINFORCED WELL will do the trick of course when combined with adequate practice of applying the skills you have learned over a reliable source of tough and test like questions.

However , I Agree if time is limited as is the case with most working professionals on on a deadline to roll in application for your target B-school , Gmat SC Pill one month course is quite helpful in reinforcing the CONCEPTS through its innovative thought process of understanding the question stem and finding multiple ways to solve it. ( I like to bring to the limelight the fact that using the above method of using Mgmat and Aristotle exposes you to three different strategies of solving SC but yes little time consuming. ) So if you on time crunch and probably lethargic enough to procrastinate your preparation multiple times until a month's left, I strongly recommend Gmat SC Pill to get your dream score. I have gone through the sample videos in detail and found them to be genuinely innovative where your thought process is scrutinized and exposed to Gmat Pill's way of approach. I rather not comment on Gmat Math Pill, I have never come across anyone seeking more emphasis on quant and never really recommended it , so never really went through the demos even (I would have , if someone came asking for improvement in quant in rather short interval of time before his test date ) . Gmat RC Pill is quite interesting and been continuously arousing the curiosity in me, but I felt the demos are just not enough to catch the glimpse. May be a full RC Pill review would help me to understand and comment on it. Its expensive though at 147$ alone, So I am kind of interested to review it in thorough but need to wait until i put aside some money for it ( Already Spent a TAD too much of amount on Material and started out with an expensive admissions consultancy which burned the hole in my pocket but that is something worth every penny when I accomplish my Goal

) Perhaps , soon I will comment on RC Pill, until then it keeps me inquisitive.

Expert help needed on GMAT preparation (3months plan)

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