GMAT Ninja Study Plan Week 3

Question

GMAT Ninja’s 13-Week Study Plan (Beta Test) Week 3 (~15 hours) Subscribe via E-mail | Study Plan Chat Group Welcome back for Week 3 of the study plan! If you have no idea what’s going on here, then you’ll want to start with Week 1 instead. For the rest of you: it’s Week 3. Things are getting serious and SC is part of the mix now, so it’ll become just a bit harder to choose how to spend your time. Think carefully about your weaknesses before you dive into the homework – or before you spend an eternity reviewing individual questions. Especially if you’re starting to feel frustrated with verbal, check out this debrief from beloved GMAT Club moderator gmatexam439 who had “a very long and fruitful journey from V21 to V41.” It’s a longer debrief, but there’s some great stuff in here about his mindset leading into the test, and how connecting with other GMAT Club members helped him get over the hump. It’s worth a read if you’re worried about verbal – or if you’re feeling isolated in general. You’ve done some serious studying, and now it’s time to start thinking about “non-academic” elements of your performance. To be at your very, very best on test day, you’ll want to look in some unexpected places. At least 40% of adults suffer from some form of test anxiety, and if you’re seeing a dropoff from your practice exams to your actual GMAT , odds are good that anxiety plays a role. The time investment here is small – less than 30 minutes. Even if you don’t feel consciously nervous when you take tests, we very strongly recommend the first few items on the list for everybody . 1. A 4-minute video on how to overcome GMAT test anxiety , with an emphasis on helping you understand what test anxiety really is 2. A 3-minute video on how mindfulness meditation can help your GMAT performance 3. (Optional, but recommended) A 10-minute quiz to help you think about the factors that can contribute to test anxiety 4. (Optional) A beginner’s guide to GMAT test anxiety Here’s the deal in Week 3: 1. We’ll emphasize specific quant topics in Weeks 1-8 only – and this might be the heaviest content week, featuring percents, absolute values, & inequalities. Enjoy. 2. We’ll work on adding flexibility to your quant approach as the questions get harder. 3. As always, you’ll need to ensure that you don’t make score-killing silly errors. Nothing matters until the sloppy errors are GONE. Still not sexy, right? But we’re turning the corner from fundamental algebra to word problems, and the difficulty level will start ticking upwards for most of you. How to approach quant homework 1. Time each set, but don’t rush through . Do every set with test-like intensity , but don’t impose an artificial time limit -- at least not yet. 2. When you’re finished, please do NOT review your errors at all just yet. On the day you do the homework, just input the results into your error log, and walk away. Week 3 quant homework Be honest with yourself: did you make silly errors on quant in Week 2? If you make boneheaded errors on, say, 5-10% of questions, that’s WAY too much on an adaptive test like the GMAT. Now’s the time to eradicate the sloppiness, before quant practice tests start in the coming weeks. If you’re making a lot of careless errors, choose the sub-600 sets until you STOP MAKING CARELESS ERRORS. If you’re free of sloppy errors, you can choose mixed difficulty on items #8-11. We’d recommend keeping a few easy ones in there for now though, just to make sure that you don’t get complacent. Also, this list gives you plenty of freedom. If you need extra help on quant (but not verbal), great – tackle extra sets from items #1-4 and #8-12. If you’re doing relatively well on quant, focus on extra verbal homework instead, please. 1. (Optional) If you need practice with basic inequalities: do the first 10 exercises on this worksheet . If you’re not efficiently getting 100% correct, please finish the entire worksheet. 2. (Optional) If you need practice with basic absolute values questions: do the first 10 exercises on this worksheet . If you’re not efficiently getting 100% correct, finish the entire worksheet. 3. (Optional, but recommended) Video: Developing a Flexible Quant Mindset (~ 1 hr.) 4. (Optional) Video: Percents with Peyton Manning’s Doppelgänger (~ 1 hr.) 5. GMAT Quant Guide (skinny little book) Problem Solving #26-50 6. 2nd set of 25 DS questions from the GMAT Quant Guide (the exact question numbers will vary depending on which edition you’re using) 7. 2nd set of 25 DS questions from the GMAT Official Guide (the exact question numbers will vary depending on which edition you’re using) 8. Do 20 percents PS questions. Sub-600 level | Mixed difficulty 9. Do 20 percents DS questions. Sub-600 level | Mixed difficulty 10. Do 15 inequalities & absolute value PS questions. Sub-600 level | Mixed difficulty 11. Do 15 inequalities & absolute value DS questions. Sub-600 level | Mixed difficulty 12. (Very, very optional) Quant section only from the GMAT Club tests or another NON-official source (save the mba.com exams for later!) What to do AFTER completing a quant homework set 1-3 days after completing the set, redo your errors from scratch. Try to “wash your brains” and pretend that you’ve never seen the questions before. If you get most of the questions RIGHT the second time: you’re probably making careless errors, and fixing them needs to be your #1 priority. See below for some videos that might help. If you miss a question twice, don’t overreact. Obsessively studying individual questions drains a TON of your study time – if you miss a particular question, you’ll probably never see anything quite like it again. So focus on GENERAL takeaways on how to improve -- don’t spend hours memorizing steps for individual questions. For more on how to interpret your results, see the next post in this thread . Need help with quant? If you make careless errors or struggle on the content this week, these resources might help: 1. If you’re STILL making careless errors, this algebra video describes a process for approaching ALL quant questions, starting at the 1:01 mark . 2. If you’re feeling inefficient, the video on Developing a Flexible Quant Mindset is probably a good fit. 3. If you’re struggling with the fundamental content this week, check out these videos on percents , word translations in general , or absolute values & inequalities in DS questions . If quant topics from previous weeks are giving you trouble, whatever you need is probably in this first half of this playlist . 4. GMAT Club Math Book 5. Heroic quant threads from Bunuel : Ultimate GMAT Quant Megathread | Signature Question Collection | All You Need for Quant In Week 3, we’ll try to easy any pain you might have on culture and literature passages. Maybe they scare you, and maybe they don’t. If they don’t, great – feel free to skip the video and the topic-specific homework, and do more RC practice sets instead. As always, your process for RC shouldn’t change at all based on the passage type -- or your mood, or the weather, or what you had for breakfast (speaking of which: this is my favorite sports team ever , for obvious reasons…

). The goal on RC is always to develop a 100% consistent approach to reading -- and that’s harder than it sounds. How to approach RC homework 1. Time each set, but don’t rush through . Do every set with test-like intensity , but don’t impose an artificial time limit -- at least not yet. 2. When you’re finished, please do NOT review your errors at all just yet. On the day you do the homework, just input the results into your error log, and walk away. (We’ll say more below about how to analyze your results.) Week 3 RC homework 1. (Optional, but recommended if you’re intimidated by certain passage types) Watch this video on conquering your fear of literature & cultural passages or this one with a better beard . 2. (Optional) Do 3 “humanities” passages from older editions of the OGs; you can find some from OG 12 and the Verbal 2nd edition here . 3. One full LSAT RC set. You know you love it. 4. Do the first ~25 questions from a recent edition of the OG. (The page numbers will vary depending on which edition you’re using, and it’s OK to do a little bit more or less than 25 questions so that you don’t stop partway into a passage.) These will feel MUCH easier than the LSAT. 5. (Optional) One more LSAT RC set. What to do AFTER completing an RC homework set Don’t obsess over the questions you missed. You’re never going to see these passages again, and you don’t want to burn too much time reviewing them. Instead, focus on general patterns. Did you miss a bunch of primary purpose questions? Inference questions? Did you get intimidated by certain types of passages (like humanities/culture/literature)? Did you panic? Run out of energy? Pay special attention to errors that surprised you – did you somehow make a silly mistake? If you missed, say, three or more questions on a particular passage, you might consider redoing the entire passage (and its questions) from scratch. If you do better the second time, ask yourself: what should you have done differently the first time? For more on how to interpret your RC results, see the next post in this thread . Need help with RC? If you struggled with your RC homework sets this week, here are some resources that might help: Videos: How to approach RC | Another RC basics video | Dealing with RC culture and literature passages with Charles | RC humanities passages with Coach Beard | How to identify different points of view on RC passages All GMAT Ninja RC resources More RC explanations than anybody should ever read Beginner’s guide to RC again A whole lot of YouTube videos Your goal in Week 3 is to fight for 100% consistency in how you read and comprehend CR passages -- and that’s much harder than it sounds. Keep practicing, and stay focused on HOW you approach every question. If you want some extra practice with “evaluate the argument” questions this week, great. But if not, feel free to skip those tasks -- your approach to those questions shouldn’t be terribly different from strengthen, weaken, and assumption questions. How to approach CR homework 1. Time each set, but don’t rush through . Do every set with test-like intensity , but don’t impose an artificial time limit -- at least not yet. 2. When you’re finished, please do NOT review your errors at all just yet. On the day you do the homework, just input the results into your error log, and walk away. (We’ll say more below about how to analyze your results.) Week 3 CR homework 1. (Optional) If you want extra reps with “evaluate the argument” questions, do a set of 5-10 from the LSAT or older editions of the OGs; you can find some from OG 12 and the Verbal 2nd edition here , or from the LSAT here . 2. Do one full LSAT CR set 3. Do the 1st set of 25 questions from a recent edition of the GMAT Official Guide. These will still feel easier than the LSAT. (The CR question numbers will vary slightly, depending on which edition you’re using.) 4. (Optional) One additional LSAT CR set What to do AFTER completing a CR homework set 1-3 days after completing the set, redo your errors from scratch. Do your best to “wash your brains” and pretend that you’ve never seen the questions before. If you get most of the questions RIGHT the second time, that’s a sign that your overall CR process isn’t nearly as consistent as it needs to be, and fixing your process needs to be your #1 area of focus. See below for some videos that might help. If you miss a question a second time, don’t overreact: obsessively studying individual questions can drain a TON of your study time – and it really isn’t very valuable on CR. So don’t spend hours memorizing the steps for individual questions. For more on how to interpret your CR results, see the next post in this thread . Need help with CR? If you struggled with your CR homework sets this week, here are some resources that might help: Beginners’ guide to CR YouTube video on how to approach CR All GMAT Ninja CR resources More full CR explanations than anybody should ever read A whole lot more YouTube videos The SC party begins! Two goals for SC this week: 1. Understand whether SC needs to be a HUGE part of your studies moving forward – or just a small one. 2. Start developing a good, systematic process for approaching SC questions. We know: you’re probably itchy to do more than just one set of 25 SC questions. But there’s a shortage of official SC questions, and non-official verbal questions aren’t worth your time. We’ll carefully assign the official stuff to maximize its value, so don’t race ahead. We’ll get to everything in time, including every important SC topic. Also, even if you’ve swallowed a few grammar books, we strongly recommend either the videos or the article (or both) this week. We meet tons of students who can babble about grammar forever, but they struggle on SC because they don’t have a smart, systematic process for tackling questions. In other words: get your process right, and good things will happen over time. Don’t waste a bunch of your time studying grammar right now – all of that is coming soon. Week 3 SC assignments: 1. Watch this old video on getting your priorities straight on SC or this newer video on how to approach SC . If you prefer written content, this beginner’s guide to SC covers the same principles. 2. Do the 1st set of 25 SC questions from the GMAT Official Guide (the exact question numbers will vary depending on which edition you’re using) You’ll get tired of reading this, but IR and AWA are always optional in this study plan. Why? Nobody really cares about them. Spend your time elsewhere, please.

GMATNinja · Answer

How to Interpret Your Week 3 Homework Results Please read this section each week if you’re serious about optimizing your study time. Our goal is to help you understand how good or bad your results are, so that you can (A) choose your homework wisely, and (B) avoid wasting time reviewing questions that don’t really matter. Obviously, some of this advice will be similar from week to week. But plenty of things will change, too. So if you’re panicking about a homework result – or if you’re tempted to spend a half-billion hours reviewing individual questions – please take a deep breath, and read through this post first. Also, if you’re worried about something that isn’t addressed here, please post your questions/worries/doubts either here or in the Week 1 thread . I guarantee that other students are suffering in the same ways as you are.

Most of you probably didn't do a practice test this week, and that's great. Generally speaking, your time is best spent elsewhere right now. Benchmarks for the non-official quant test : Quant section score : I don’t care, and you shouldn’t either. Non-official tests aren’t necessarily very accurate. Instead, focus on the next two metrics… Careless error rate : < 3%. If you made one silly error, that’s OK. More than that? Grrrrrr… Questions that took you 3+ minutes : < 3%. Didn’t you hear our guy Mike telling you to “bail when you flail” ? Benchmarks for Your Week 3 Quant Results The first part is the same as in previous weeks: Count the errors that make you go "whoa, how the 🤬 did I miss THAT one?!?" No really: count them, for EVERY quant set you completed . Then divide that by the total number of questions to get your careless error rate. If your long-term goal is to score in the high 40s, here are the metrics I’d like you to hit in Week 3: Careless error rate : < 3%. Hey, we’re almost ¼ of the way through the plan. The careless errors need to be gone, or almost gone. Basic sets (#1-2 on the list) : 100% accuracy, please, ideally in under 90 seconds per question on average. If you're not quite there, keep practicing. OG & Quant Guide sets (#5-7 on the list) : 85-90% correct is excellent, 80% is good. These are starting to get just a little bit harder, right? Just remember that WHAT you miss is more important on the GMAT than how many you missed. Careless errors are apocalyptic, but if you missed OG questions on topics that you haven't studied, that's totally cool -- you'll have time to learn those things. Percents questions (#8-9 on the list) : 85-90% correct is good on the sub-600 questions, but if you did mixed difficulty sets, take the results with a grain of salt. If you saw nasty, strange questions, 50-60% might be pretty good. Absolute value & inequalities sets (#10-11 on the list) : 80-90% range is good, but if you missed weird, hard, or gimmicky questions, less than 80% might be fine. These questions vary ENORMOUSLY in quality and difficulty, so take the results with a huge grain of salt. Speed : On the OG and topic-based sets, you're in good shape if you’re reasonably close to 2 minutes per question. If you're slower than, say, 2:30 per question on average, it might be a sign that your basic skills are rusty, or that you're not choosing efficient paths forward -- and you'll be able to improve those things over time. What Should You Do About Your Quant Weaknesses in Week 3? Our usual reminder: on an adaptive test, job #1 is to be spectacularly accurate on the questions that you’re capable of getting right. If you’re taking care of business on the easier ones, you’ll get pounded by harder questions – and that’s wonderful. You’ll miss many of those hard questions, and that’s great, too. In other words: don’t obsess over the hard stuff. It isn’t worth much of your precious time. Here’s some guidance on what to do once you’ve analyzed your results: If your careless error rate is too high : that’s bad. Do whatever you need to do to fix this. Do it now. Pause the study plan if you need to. Just fix the careless errors. If you struggled on the OG or Quant Guide sets : don’t panic. Again: ask yourself WHY you struggled. If you’re at, say, 70-75% accuracy, that’s not ideal. But context matters: if nearly all of those errors are on topics that you’ve never really studied, you’re in great shape, since you have plenty of time to study those over the next 10 weeks. If you struggled on the percents sets : concentrate on putting your errors into context, and look for broad patterns. If you missed several questions of the same type, then it’s probably worth trying to address those weaknesses. But if you missed hard or oddball questions, please don’t waste your time on them. If you struggled on absolute values and inequalities questions : again, concentrate on putting your errors into context, and look for broad patterns. If you make similar errors on several questions, then it’s time to buckle down and figure out what needs to be fixed in your approach, maybe with the videos or other resources. But if you missed hard or strange questions – especially if they aren’t official questions – who cares? If you got CRUSHED by ALL of the quant homework : if you’re nowhere close to the benchmarks on quant – and if your long-term goal is a high-40s score – then maybe you need to back away from the study plan, and invest some time in rebuilding your basic quant skills. If that’s the case for you, tag us in the thread, give us as much detail as you can about your situation, and we’ll try to help. How much time should you spend reviewing individual quant questions? Not much, please! Because it can take SOOOOOOO much time to review a question, it should be your absolute last resort. That’s why we want you to redo questions first – sometimes, you’ll see your mistake right away, and that’s the best way to learn. If you miss a question a second time, then maybe it’s a sign of an underlying issue. No, really: resist the temptation to obsess over individual questions . Instead, look for patterns in your errors – an error on one question might be a fluke (or a weird, hard, or badly written question), but if you miss several related questions, you have an opportunity to get a good ROI on your study time by addressing a general weakness via a video or articles or books. Our usual disclaimer: LSAT sets are HARD. If you’re not in pain, you’re probably not doing it right.

Improving on RC and CR is usually a slow, agonizing process. Don’t get discouraged – keep fighting to read a little bit more sharply, every time you do a set. Be proud when your results tick upwards a little bit, and don’t beat yourself up when you have a bad set. Slow, steady progress is gorgeous. Even when it really hurts. Benchmarks for Your Week 3 RC & CR Results Accuracy on LSAT CR & RC sets : if your goal is a 40V or above, we eventually want to see 80% accuracy on LSAT CR and RC. That’s your long-run goal. It’s still very much OK if you’re not quite there in Week 3. Efficiency on LSAT CR & RC sets : in the long run, you’ll need to complete full LSAT sets in under 60 minutes to have a shot at finishing the GMAT verbal section on time. If you’re in the 60-70 minute range right now, that’s still OK – you have time to become more efficient and energetic in your approach. If you’re slower than that, we might be worried. More on that below. Consistency on LSAT CR & RC sets : your errors and times should fall within a fairly narrow range across ALL of your LSAT sets. LSAT sets (~25 Qs each) do not vary much in difficulty, so if your errors or times fluctuate wildly, that’s a sign that you’re doing very different things at different times, and you might need to think about how to standardize your process and your energy so that you do the SAME THING, every single time. It’s totally normal to struggle more on some passages than others, though. GMAT OG CR set : 85-90% accuracy, in no more than 2 minutes per question. These aren’t too hard yet, but the sets will get tougher in the coming weeks, so don’t be alarmed if your results look somewhat flat over time. What Should You Do About Your CR & RC Weaknesses in Week 3? Don’t panic . CR and RC progress takes time. Zoom out a bit: are you seeing ANY improvement in your average accuracy and times from Week 1 until now? If you’ve reduced your LSAT CR and RC errors by 5-10%, that’s legitimately a great achievement, and you’re very much on track. Look for “careless” errors . As with everything on the GMAT, pay close attention to anything that seems to be an “unforced error.” Did you miss a bunch of questions that felt easy to you? If so, you might want to revisit the techniques in the videos and articles in the assignment lists. If your results are significantly better on RC than on CR : that’s not a bad thing! There’s no reason why you can’t bring your CR results to the level of your RC, but something is funky in your approach to CR. You might want to invest time in some extra CR sets or videos – we’ll provide recommendations each week. If you’re better at CR than RC : again, this isn’t a bad thing! You’re 100% capable of bringing your RC up to the level of your CR. If your RC is weaker than your CR, you might be obsessing over details when you read RC (and missing the “big picture”), or you might struggle to stay focused through a long passage. Maybe you’ll want to err on the side of getting a bit of extra practice on RC in the coming weeks, and we’ll keep feeding you videos that might help, too If you’re slow ( > 60 mins per LSAT set) : I wish that I could tell you exactly what’s happening, but there are a ton of different reasons why your times might be high. At this stage, maybe you’re still learning how to integrate new approaches into your process – if that’s the case, your times will improve. Maybe you’re not doing each set with test-like intensity. Maybe you need more coffee or more sleep. Maybe you’d be sharper at a different time of day. Maybe there’s inefficiency in your process – and if that’s the case, you’re probably still struggling to fully incorporate the techniques that you’ll see in the videos. It’s also possible that you’re a slow reader, and that’s a hard thing to fix. I wish I could tell you which of these things is happening – but you’ll have to figure that part out for yourself, unfortunately.

If you’re getting impatient with your results : hey, it’s Week 3. If you’re above 80% on your LSAT sets, you’re doing GREAT. If you’re in the 60-80% range, are you at least seeing some improvement? If so, you’re on track – keep at it! If you’re getting CRUSHED on CR & RC : my heart hurts for you, because that’s a terrible feeling. If your goal is something like a 30V or a 35V, then our benchmarks are too aggressive – so 60% or below on your LSAT sets might not be OK. But if you have ambitious verbal goals (40V+) and you’re truly struggling to understand the passages, it’s possible that you need to work on your fundamental reading skills before returning to GMAT-specific verbal prep. This article and this one will give you some ideas for how to improve your reading precision. We only assigned one SC set this week, so the most important thing: don’t overreact! Take note of how you’re doing, but then let it go for now, and focus your energy elsewhere. Piles of SC videos and resources and practice are coming soon. Benchmarks for Your Week 3 SC Results Accuracy : 90% correct is cause for celebration, and 70-90% is a completely solid start. If you’re under 70%, don’t worry – there’s TONS of time to improve. Speed : if you completed the set of 25 questions in under 50 minutes, that’s great. If you were in the 50-60 minute range, you’ll need to get more efficient, but you have plenty of time to do so. If the set took you 60+ minutes, don’t panic – just be aware that you might have extra work to do in the next 10 weeks. What Should You Do About Your SC Weaknesses in Week 3? Almost nothing… yet . Yeah, you read that right. You have 10 more weeks of SC ahead. Pace yourself, friends. If you struggled with speed and/or accuracy : for now, just make a mental note that you’ll need to spend extra time with SC over the next couple of months, and plan accordingly. If you can afford to do less “other stuff” (CR, RC, quant) in the coming weeks, great. If you can’t, then you can always pause the study plan at some point, and spend extra time with SC videos or other resources. But don’t let one set send you into an obsessive panic on SC. For now, please don’t spend your time reviewing individual SC questions . It’s incredibly time-consuming, and every SC question has its own unique qualities that you might not ever see again. Instead, be patient – in the coming weeks, you’ll have plenty of chances to build your underlying skills, and that’s a better use of time than obsessing over individual questions.

Mykonos · Answer

First of all let me start by sincerely thanking all of you at GMATNinja for all the hard work you put in to assist all of us throughout this journey. Charles, Bransen, Harry, Dana, and Alex, you guys are excellent and awesome. I have watched every single GMATNinja video on Quant, CR, RC, and SC and you did more for me than anything else I have tried. I started studying in June, and because I was really rusty and "scared" of quant, I decided to start from scratch. I went through both Manhattan Prep Quant books (foundations of math & All the Quant) along with solving all the problems in the books, then went on to All the Verbal, and finished with the IR and Essay books. I must admit that although the books refreshed my memory on certain concepts, they were not all that helpful as once I saw some real GMAT questions, I felt like I did not know anything. I then purchased Magoosh which was helpful in terms of practice questions and video explanations, but I did not go through the whole lessons part as it would take a lot of time and I was unsure if it would help.

I started watching your videos around September because it seemed like I was being tutored real time, and very quickly I was able to observe improvement. Charles, you rock, especially after the Ukraine marathon but most of the videos on the Quant playlist are by Harry and Bransen and, wow, these guys are amazing. Fast forward to now, I have solved over 600 Quant questions on Magoosh (would review always the day after), and many many more from the books and GMATclub that I have lost count. I still don't feel comfortable taking a full time CAT, especially after starting your study plan and not meeting the benchmarks on the OG sets. Because I have been studying for a while, I am slightly adjusting the plan. For example, I have completed 6 sets of 25 questions from the OG both in PS and DS. I currently average about 53-55 minutes per set (sometimes longer, another reason for not taking a CAT) and my average "silly" error rate stands at 16%. I am hitting about 70% accuracy (silly and non-silly included). My silly mistakes are usually misinterpreting the question, sometimes not understanding what is being asked (especially on some geometry DS), but other than that the feeling I get when I see a question is "I either know it really well and solve it in 1' or I don't". I feel like I am reaching a plateau because I don't know what else to try. Your study plan is good because it is making me solve a bunch of sub-600 questions more often, but these are way too easy, when I get to 600-700 level ones on gmatclub, yes, usually i'll solve it but I may take 3 minutes... 700 again, it depends on the subject being tested. I feel like I have issues with difficult percent questions, divisibility and remainders, distance/rates, and perhaps inequalities. I won't talk about probability, that's 1-2% of the exam

I guess my problem is, how do I transition to approach harder questions without being utterly lost and losing confidence? What kind of questions should I be solving? My time needs to improve too.

I may sound crazy but my goal is to score above Q48 and ace the verbal. I know I can do great things on Verbal (especially if I was putting in the time I devote on Quant), but what would you suggest I do? I don't have a strict deadline to take the GMAT, I am applying to grad school in the summer. I spend a minimum of 4 hours a day studying. I either review questions from the OG, warm up on Magoosh, solve some sub-600 and then slowly progress to harder ones. When I feel like I have done enough, I will go on and do some Verbal.

I am not particularly concerned about Verbal, or perhaps I should be, but I find myself doing fine in LSAT RC and CR. My SC is decent but I focus my studying on Quant, and just stay "warm" doing the LSAT passages. In RC I spend around 10 minutes reading and answering and I have about 75-80% accuracy.

Thanks again for everything you do. I already owe the majority of my progress to you!

I guess my problem is, how do I transition to approach harder questions without being utterly lost and losing confidence? What kind of questions should I be solving? My time needs to improve too. I may sound crazy but my goal is to score above Q48 and ace the verbal. I know I can do great things on Verbal (especially if I was putting in the time I devote on Quant), but what would you suggest I do? I don't have a strict deadline to take the GMAT, I am applying to grad school in the summer. I spend a minimum of 4 hours a day studying. I either review questions from the OG, warm up on Magoosh, solve some sub-600 and then slowly progress to harder ones. When I feel like I have done enough, I will go on and do some Verbal. I am not particularly concerned about Verbal, or perhaps I should be, but I find myself doing fine in LSAT RC and CR. My SC is decent but I focus my studying on Quant, and just stay "warm" doing the LSAT passages. In RC I spend around 10 minutes reading and answering and I have about 75-80% accuracy. Thanks again for everything you do. I already owe the majority of my progress to you!

Manifesting710 · Answer

hi, what did you end up doing? I am in a similar situation to yours, especially regarding the "I feel like I have issues with difficult percent questions, divisibility and remainders, distance/rates, and perhaps inequalities. I won't talk about probability, that's 1-2% of the exam

I guess my problem is, how do I transition to approach harder questions without being utterly lost and losing confidence? "

sherifY · Answer

Hello, i really enjoy this guide and i think its exactly what i need. I am a bit confused on what you mean by

"GMAT Quant Guide (skinny little book) Problem Solving #26-50
6. 2nd set of 25 DS questions from the GMAT Quant Guide (the exact question numbers will vary depending on which edition you’re using)
7. 2nd set of 25 DS questions from the GMAT Official Guide (the exact question numbers will vary depending on which edition you’re using)"

I have the gmat quant guide on web and i dont know what you meaan by the above. Can you please help?

nosaj · Answer

GMATNinja , bump on this one - is this just a repeat? on points 6/7

GMATNinja · Answer

Thank you for asking, and sorry for my slow response!

When we use the term "Official Guide", we mean the big, chunky OG that contains questions from all three test sections --  this thing . The "Quant Guide" is a skinnier, quant-only volume -- technically named GMAT Official Guide Quantitative Review.  Here it is . If you're ever unclear about the books, there's a list in the "what you'll need section" of  week 1 of the study plan .

Two things to keep in mind: DS has migrated to the Data Insights section of the exam, so you'll only find DS questions in the Official Guide and the Data Insights guide ( this thing ). Also, we're very aware that this study plan is outdated, and we're still working on an updated one for the new version of the exam -- we're finally getting close, and will hopefully publish it this fall.

I hope that helps a bit, and have fun studying!

nosaj · Answer

ohhHH my bad missed this one, if only I had applied Charles' advice on tricky little modifiers!! Completely changed the passage

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GMAT Ninja Study Plan Week 3

Prep Toolkit

Top 5 GMAT Debrief Videos

615 to 715 in 15 Days (Ria's Strategies)

More than Quant/Verbal Abilities: Speed vs. Accuracy

745 with Only Self-Prep and GMAT Club

From 555 to 765: 210-point Improvement

Perfect 805 Score Debrief by Julia

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