GMAT Ninja Study Plan Week 4

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GMAT Ninja’s 13-Week Study Plan  
  Week 4 (~15 hours)

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Welcome back for Week 4 of the study plan! If you have no idea what’s going on here, then you’ll want to start with  Week 1  instead.

I’m a fan of anybody who perseveres through the ups and downs of the GMAT. Our friend  PyjamaScientist  made a long, hard slog from a 430 to a 740, and shared a lot of really great wisdom in  his very detailed debrief . Definitely worth a read if you have a few minutes. 
   
You hopefully already understand that the GMAT really doesn’t measure how much stuff you’ve memorized. Instead, it tests your ability to read and reason and think logically under pressure – and to maximize your ability to do those things, you’ll need to make sure that you’re taking good care of your mind and body, even if you’re months away from your actual exam.

So we’ll say it again this week: to be at your best on test day, you’ll want to look in some unexpected places. These three items won’t take long, and are worth a look for most test-takers.

Watch  this video about how to close the gap between your practice exams and your actual GMAT  (6 mins).  
 (Optional, bur recommended) Read  this article about how exercise can can help your GMAT performance  
 (Optional, but recommended) Read  this Q&A about nutrition and mental performance . Anybody interested in gut biome testing?    
   
This week’s focus will be on quant word problems of various sorts. If you’re confident on these, great – feel free to skip the videos and optional homework. If you really struggle in these areas, that’s great, too – either spend more time on them this week, or pause the study plan if you need to invest extra time in your weaknesses.

Our usual reminder: the study plan includes specific topic-based practice and study resources only in Weeks 1-8. In Weeks 9-13, we’ll focus exclusively on practice tests and mixed OG sets.

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 4 quant homework 
There are tons of options on this list. If you need extra reps on quant (but not verbal), great – spend extra time on the videos and topic-based sets. If you’re doing relatively well on quant, do some extra verbal homework instead.

1. (Optional) Watch these videos as needed, but please skip them if you’re performing well in these topics:
   Percents, Ratios, and the Gift of “Direct” Translation  (~ 1 hr.)
  Word Problems with Harry  (~1 hr.) 
  Ratios… lots of them  (~1 hr.)  
2. GMAT Quant Guide (skinny little book) PS #51-75
3. GMAT OG PS #51-75
4. 3rd set of 25 DS questions from the GMAT OG (the exact question numbers will vary depending on which edition you’re using)
5. Do 15 ratios PS questions.  Sub-600 level  |  Mixed difficulty 
6. Do 15 ratios DS questions.  Sub-600 level  |  Mixed difficulty 
7. Quant section only from the GMAT Club tests or another NON-official source (save the mba.com exams for later!)
8. (Optional) Do 15 word problems PS questions.  Sub-600 level  |  Mixed difficulty 
9. (Optional) Do 15 word problems DS questions.  Sub-600 level  |  Mixed difficulty 
10. (Optional) Only if you’re CERTAIN that it’s worthwhile: do extra sets of topic-based questions as needed (algebra, exponents, geometry, word problems, percents, ratios).

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 worried about time management on your practice test, here’s  a familiar video reminder to bail when you flail .
2. If you’re STILL making careless errors,  this algebra video describes a process for approaching ALL quant questions, starting at the 1:01 mark .
3. If you’re feeling inefficient, the video on  Developing a Flexible Quant Mindset  is probably a good fit.
4. Videos (also listed above) on  word translations (~1 hr.) ,  ratios (~1 hr.) , or  a combination of both (along with percents) .
5. If quant topics from previous weeks are giving you trouble, whatever you need is probably in this first half of  this playlist .
5.  GMAT Club Math Book 
6. Heroic quant threads from  Bunuel :  Ultimate GMAT Quant Megathread  |  Signature Question Collection  |  All You Need for Quant   
   
By now you’ve hopefully gotten comfortable with different topic areas, and you’ve hopefully done some serious thinking about how to optimize your process on RC.

This week, we’ll take a look at some common pitfalls on RC (and CR). From there, we’ll mostly just ask you to keep practicing, and let’s see if you can move the needle on your results.

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 4 RC homework 
 1. (Optional) Watch  this video on the most common mistakes on RC and CR . (The same video appears in this week’s CR homework.)
2. One full LSAT RC set
3. Do the second set of ~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. 
4. (Very 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  |  How to identify different points of view on RC passages  |  Full GMAT RC video course  
  All GMAT Ninja RC resources    More RC explanations than anybody should ever read  
  Beginner’s guide to RC again  
  A whole lot of live YouTube videos    
   
This week, we’ll offer extra practice on inference and “except” questions if you need it. If you don’t need the extra practice, don’t force it -- if your general process on CR is solid, you probably don’t need to drill specific question types at all.

More broadly, your main goal remains the same at this stage: strive to become 100% consistent in how you read and comprehend CR passages. If you can do that, consistent results will follow.

We’ll also give you some extra GMAT CR questions this week. The GMAT set will feel relatively easy, so your results should look better than your LSAT results.

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 4 CR homework 
 1. Watch  this video on the most common mistakes on RC and CR . (The same video appears in this week’s RC homework.)
2. (Very optional) A set of 5-10 inference questions 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 .
3. (Very optional) A set of 5-10 “except” questions 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 .
4. Do the first set of 25 questions from a recent edition of the Verbal Guide (skinny little book). These will feel MUCH easier than the LSAT. (The CR question numbers will vary slightly, depending on which edition you’re using.)
5. One full LSAT CR set
6. (Very 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:

EXCEPT questions aren’t interesting enough for their own video, but there’s a brief discussion in  this video , including a full example at the 6:01 mark.  
 Some wisecracks about CR and RC inference questions can be found in  this video on common CR & RC mistakes . 
  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

This week, we’ll start picking on individual SC topics, as well as ways to continue improving your overall approach to SC.

Usual disclaimer: we know that you’re probably itchy to do more than just one set of 25 SC questions. But please keep in mind that there’s a limited supply of official SC questions -- and there’s never a good reason to do non-official verbal questions. We’ll carefully assign the official stuff to maximize its value, so please don’t race ahead -- we’ll get to everything in time, including every significant SC topic.

Week 4 SC assignments:

1. (Optional, but recommended) Watch  this video on why splits are (sometimes) bullcrap on SC 
2.  Video: basics of GMAT pronouns  (~ 30 mins) 
3. (Optional)  Video: demonstrative pronouns (i.e., “that” & “those”)  (27 mins)
4. (Optional) 10 pronoun questions from older OGs; we recommend the first 10  here  for mixed difficulty, or the first 10  here  if you're just warming up with easier questions. Some of these questions will also appear in newer editions, so please don’t be shocked if you see some repeats over time.
5. Do the 1st set of 25 SC questions from the GMAT Verbal Guide (the skinny little book; 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 4 Homework Results Please read this section each week if you’re serious about optimizing your study time. We’ll 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.

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” ? What to do about your Week 4 practice test results : Don’t overreact to non-official test scores! It's nearly impossible for practice tests to mimic the actual scoring of the GMAT, so the score itself doesn't matter much. If you’re making careless errors : As always, job #1 is to stamp them out. Check out the resource list in the study plan for help. If you spent 3+ minutes on too many questions : This is an issue of discipline and mindset. Learn to let go! Remember: the test is designed to make you miss 30-50% of the quant questions, and most of you will do exactly that – even if you get a GREAT score. So dump the perfectionism, and learn to let questions go. Again: don’t spend a ton of time reviewing your mistakes. Reviewing individual questions can drain too much of your precious study time. If a question was hard or weird, then it isn’t the biggest threat to your GMAT goals. So please don’t obsess over individual questions – especially non-official ones. Benchmarks for Your Week 4 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 4: Careless error rate : < 3%. You’ve heard this before: the careless errors need to be gone, or almost gone. OG & Quant Guide sets (#2-4 on the list) : 80-90% correct is excellent, 70-80% is probably fine, since these are getting harder. 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. Ratios questions (#5-6 on the list) : 85-90% correct is probably good on the sub-600 questions, but if you did mixed difficulty sets, you’ll have to take the results with a grain of salt. If you happened to see nasty, strange questions, 50-60% might be pretty good. Other randomized question sets (#8-10 on the list) : again, 85-90% is good on sub-600 questions, but take the results of mixed-difficulty sets with a 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 still have time to improve those things. What Should You Do About Your Quant Weaknesses in Week 4? 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 you’ll miss plenty of them. Embrace the pain. In other words: don’t obsess over the hard stuff. It isn’t worth much of your precious time. Here’s 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 (items #2-4) : don’t panic. Again: ask yourself WHY you struggled. If you’re at, say, 70% 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 couple of months. If you struggled on the ratios sets (items #5-6) : concentrate on putting your errors into context, and look for broad patterns. If you missed several questions of the same type, then maybe this ratios video or some other resource might help. But if you missed really hard ones or one-off oddball questions, please don’t waste your time on them. If you struggled on other topic-based sets (items #8-10) : 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. But if you missed hard or strange 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 – be proud when your results tick upwards a little bit. Slow, steady progress is still gorgeous, even when it hurts. Benchmarks for Your Week 4 RC & CR Results Accuracy on LSAT CR & RC sets : 80% is the long-run goal if you’re shooting for a 40V or above. It’s still totally OK if you’re not quite there in Week 4. Efficiency on LSAT CR & RC sets : 60 minutes or less is your long-run goal. Again, it’s OK if you’re not quite there in Week 4, but you should be close by now. 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 work on your approach to questions. GMAT OG RC + Verbal Guide CR sets : 85-90% accuracy, in no more than 2 minutes per question. These aren’t too hard yet, but they’ll 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 4? Look at Week 1 for signs of progress . 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 ton of questions that felt easy to you, especially in the OG and Verbal Guide? If so, you might want to revisit the techniques in the videos and articles in the assignment lists. This is MUCH more important than getting better at harder questions. If your results are significantly better on RC than on 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 : When this happens, the most common reasons are that you’re obsessing over details when you read RC (and missing the “big picture” by doing so), or you’re struggling 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, > 2 minutes per OG or Verbal Guide question) : sadly, there are a ton of different reasons why your times might be high. At this stage, maybe you’re still learning new approaches, so you’re still figuring out how to integrate them into your process – if that’s the case, your times will come down. 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, it’s likely that you’re 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 still only Week 4. If you’re hitting our benchmarks, you’re doing GREAT. If you’re not quite hitting the marks yet, 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 (or 75% or below on the Week 4 OG & Verbal Guide sets) might not be too bad. But if you have ambitious verbal goals (40V+) and you’re truly struggling to understand the passages, it’s possible that you need to spend some time working 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 over time. We only assigned one SC set again this week, so the most important thing is not to overreact. You’ll spend TONS of time building your fundamental SC skills in the next month or two – so don’t obsess over individual questions yet. It’s a waste of your time. That said, if you’re struggling badly on SC, that’s a sign that you’ll want to invest more time in SC in the next month or two. If you can afford to cut back on other topics, great. If not, you can always pause the study plan, and spend extra time with SC content in the next month or so. Benchmarks for Your Week 4 SC Results Accuracy : 90% correct is cause for celebration, and 70-90% is still completely solid. If you’re under 70%, don’t worry – there’s TONS of time to improve. Speed : under 50 minutes is great for a set of 25 questions. If you were in the 50-60 minute range, you’ll eventually need to get more efficient, but you have plenty of time to do so. If the set took you more than 60 minutes, don’t panic – just be aware that you might have extra work to do as you strive for efficiency. What Should You Do About Your SC Weaknesses in Week 4? Almost nothing… yet . Yes, you read that right. Keep reading, please. 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” in the coming weeks, great. If you can’t, then you can always pause the study plan at some point, and spend some extra time with SC videos or other resources. 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 may never see again. Instead, be patient – 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

GMATNinja I'm sorry for reposting this but you may have missed it as I didn't tag you. 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 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 15 minutes reading and answering per passage and I have about 75-80% accuracy. Thanks again for everything you do. I already owe the majority of my progress to you! TL:DR: I started intensely prepping for the GMAT in June, went through some basic books, they were not of great help. Magoosh paired with GMATNinja and GMATclub have given me tremendous progress over the past few months (back then I would laugh at the idea of me with 700+ score, now I can see some light in the tunnel). Now I have reached a plataeu; I feel like I am not improving as much and I am struggling to keep my confidence high as sub-600 questions are way too easy, 600-700 are mehh (~3 mins) and 700 are intimidating. How do I move forward on Quant, what should I be solving, how do I approach 700lvl? I am at around 70% on the OG sets but way ahead of the plan.

GMATNinja · Answer

Sorry for my slow response, Mykonos ! And thank you so much for the kind words about our videos. I'm glad that they've helped a bit. And for anybody who might be wondering: Bransen and Harry are indeed smarter than I am.

I don't know that I have great answers to your questions, unfortunately. A few things that jump out at me as fairly clear ways to improve your prep: If your "silly error rate" stands at 16%, that's absolutely catastrophic. In a way, the biggest reason to practice sub-600 questions (or drill silly things like basic equations) is to teach yourself to stamp out those careless errors. As you know from the constant nagging in the study plan, careless errors can very, very easily ruin everything on an adaptive test like the GMAT, so the most important thing you can do is get rid of the carelessness. Very little matters until you do, unfortunately. If you're truly happy with your CR and RC performance (especially on the LSAT sets), then it's OK to take it easy on those. In your case, it's just a question of whether 75-80% accuracy is what you're looking for. That's good enough to set you up for a score in the high 30s on GMAT, very roughly speaking. If you're looking for something higher, then you'll want to make CR and RC a bigger area of focus. If your performance is "meh" on 600-700 level quant questions (and on mixed OG sets in general), then... well, the crappy answer is that it depends on why, exactly, that's happening. Broadly speaking, two different things could be happening. It's possible that your fundamental skills simply aren't that great, and you need more exposure to quant topics via videos or a course or Bunuel's math guides or whatever. The second possibility (which strikes me as more likely in your case) is that your basics are mostly fine, but you lack flexibility in your approach. In other words, maybe you're barreling down whatever path jumps to mind first, and you end up choosing inefficient ways to solve questions -- and sometimes, you choose methods that are dead ends. In other words, maybe your "math" is fine, but you're struggling with the layers of "quantitative reasoning." There's no magic bullet for that problem, but all of our videos address it implicitly -- and being aware that it might be your achilles' heel is a decent starting point. I'm less worried about exactly WHICH quant questions you practice. In your case, I think the more important factor is HOW you're practicing. It sounds like you aren't paying enough attention to careless errors, and that's a sign that you aren't paying enough attention to your process in general. (If you've paid attention to the resources in the study plan, you'll know what I mean by quant "process.") And the more I think about it, the more I'm pretty sure that you're rushing at the beginning of questions -- not reading carefully enough and not plotting your path forward, and that's part of why you keep hitting dead ends and finding inefficient ways through quant questions. You don't have to be great at the really hard ones, but you'll have to push yourself to think about questions from different angles from the very start, instead of launching right into whatever jumps into your head first. I hope that helps a bit, and good luck with your studies!

thelady02 · Answer

Hi  GMATNinja ,

Thank you so much for the detailed study plan. It truly helps students a lot.

That being said, I'm on week 4. I have scheduled the GMAT in December and am aiming 99 %tile.

On Quant, I'm making 10-12% silly mistakes/careless errors still. I am a little wonky on topics like permutations and combinations, probability, and some topics in geometry. I'm trying to focus on these as well.

In Data sufficiency, I'm making more careless errors - it is around 20%.

On Verbal, I'm getting 60% right on LSAT CR and RC sets. It is slightly better on official GMAT questions where I'm getting around 80% right.

I'd say my performance in RC is worse than CR.

I've been following your videos on RC and CR and am trying to improve on them.

SC is again 80-85% accuracy.

Can you please suggest what else I could do to improve my verbal score?

nosaj · Answer

Just a post here for accountability, finishing up W4 and going into W5. Honestly, this study plan has been a game changer on several parts:

1. Silly mistake rate for PS and DS have gone down significantly in tandem with a better and more flexible process - I am also seeing these skills (e.g. reading twice, checking calcs as you go etc) translate into the exam environment (took one practice, sorry). Will continue to ensure ideally 0% silly mistakes for both PS and DS.

2. VR/CR feel like i'm plateauing on the LSAT question sets between 70-80% on average. Need to solve this inconsistency in process asap, planning to revisit some of the videos linked and some of the questions done incorrectly.

3. DI need to put more effort here into the different question types, but going to start tracking it as rigorously as the other two sections.

Thanks again for all your efforts!

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