Calling on bb to consolidate ideas to improve on GMAT

Folks,

There is no "magic pill" or "one size fits all" for prep.

Some things work for different people, and some do not. The key is YOU must figure out what YOU need to break the barriers.

We have plenty of resources that provide people guidance on "HOW" to determine the above. It's up to you to seek that information.

This is an art, not a science.

bb- thanks for the reply. I understand there is no one size fits all solution for acing the GMAT. Nonetheless, a framework of books and some strategy does help bring some method in madness ..

The issue I have as a second time test taker is what should I be doing differently than I did the first time I took it. The first time I took the test I went through OG12,Princeton Review,Kaplan and MGMAT for SC. In terms of doing practice I used to do 25 practice questions at a time from each section and try to finish in 50 mins. I found myself wanting for time in the actual GMAT.For Math and especially verbal I used to revisit the questions I struggled or got wrong after some weeks but what I found was I was able to remember the solution to the problem or the correct sentence correction or CR answers and was able to work out faster the second time round. The downfall to that I found is the second time I got it right b'cos subconciously I remembered the correct answer.

So I would like your suggestion on how to go about practicing the questions from the books you have mentioned to ingrain concepts than fall into a pitfall of remembering them. I hope I am making sense- do you get me? Thnaks for your time again.

Have you seen this post specifically for retakers?
should-i-retake-gmat-thread-retaking-gmat-strategies-83339.html

Practice Questions are not the key, it is the rules and principles behind them that are critical - you can score 700+ without ever seeing a GMAT question if your math and grammar are good. (you'd probably do much better if you practice, but realistically, this test is not about questions, but material behind them).

thanks bb...I shall try re-practicing and hopefully this time my belief that I understood the concepts will be validated. The metric for whether the concepts have been understood has to come from practice test scores or doing similar problems I had difficulty from another book source.
What is your opinion on how to gauge the improvement or metric for whether you have understood concepts?
Also, what is your recommendation on improving speed? I found wanting by 3-4 questions during actual test.

That would be this: timing-strategies-on-the-gmat-80176.html

thanks and also about the other question I had asked- What is your opinion on how to gauge the improvement or metric for whether you have understood concepts after you do the practice exercise from books?