My GMAT journey....

I thought I attempted a diagnostic test, but it was first of total 6 CAT exams.

hmmmm... I read this an I thought I'd voice my concern! Did you really finish all the OG CR/SC questions?

No question is truly finished until you know exactly why the right answer is right and why the other options are wrong! Some people review only the questions they answered incorrectly without reviewing the ones they answered correctly! Please avoid this approach. There is a lot that can be learned from each question.

:D

@ Entwistle- Thanks very much for your inputs. You've correctly pointed out the importance of explanations of OG questions. I've gained a lot from this approach for SC. I completed OG12 SC questions thrice and my accuracy has improved drastically. It somehow doesn't work for CR/RC. If I know the stimulus or part of the stimulus beforehand in CR/RC question, I know the probable answers. I want to test my fundamentals on 'unknown'/'unfamiliar' questions. My understanding of CR stimulus/ RC passage goes haywire in real timed conditions.

hey i too have finished the OG sc questions twice and have found that i make mistakes in the verb-tense and pronoun refrence questions . I have been trying to improve these areas but no results yet.
@entwistle reviewing the questions which have been rightly answered is a great strategy, thanks for the idea

If you want to practice with additional high quality questions I can also recommend OG 10. There is very little (if any) overlap with OG 11/12. I've read mixed reviews about Kaplan questions but haven't solved many of them, so can't really judge. You can purchase a used version of OG 10 on amazon, should be quite cheap.

Also, somewhere on this forum you can download the Power Prep software, which is the predcessor of GMAT Prep. This will also give you additional verbal (& quant) practice.

Hope this helps.

Stanford2012 has a food suggestion. What about the OG reviews? They have additional material too. With RC I literally had to slow down and read (I take less than 2 minutes no matter the length of the passage since I read really fast and I had to slow down a bit. My RC score went from a 85% to a 97%). On my GMAT I felt like MGMAT was certainly more relatable than GMAT Prep for Q. MGMAT makes their questions computationally intensive but the GMAT questions are tricky. Try the GMAT club math tests.

Stanford2012: How've you been? Long time! Did you retake?

Posted from GMAT ToolKit

Thanks guys. I've completed CR questions from Verbal supplement and working on SC questions now. Oh, by the way I've 25 CR question bank from MGMAT, and OG 11th edition too. I'll work on these questions and review all OG CR questions again. After all this, I'll work from CR 101 from Aristotle.

To improve speed on the RC, try reading.

For CR's - you should be following the approach from MGMAT or other books. If you spend too much time reading, again, try reading more in general. See my post on GMAT Fiction.

I agree with bb. One of the other things which I have found useful while doing RCs is that I tell myself that I am NOT going to read the passage again. Earlier when I used to read passages I used to be in a little relaxed mode while reading a passage for the first time ,thinking that I will quickly read the passage again .
However, I also make sure that I don't end up reading a passage for long even in the first go. What I try to remember is the "skeleton" of the passage ,not the details. Also note-taking is a very good technique while reading a passage .Earlier, I used to think that it is a waste of time, but now I realize the benefits of doing that.

@rg1
Your GMAT journey thread seems to be dead for quite sometime now. Have you taken the GMAT or not ?

Sorry Guys.... I had very hectic schedule during past couple of weeks. After getting frustrated with not much improvement, I've joined Knewton Online GMAT prep course. I'm following their schedule now rather than figuring out myself which didn't work that much for CR/RC. I've definitely improved my RC skills:).
My diagnostic test result after joining Knewton was 570( Q39, V30). I'll keep you guys posted.

I'm back...
I've been working diligently and following Knewton's course. I gave 1st CAT last weekend and got 650(Q47, V32), my highest score so far. My diagnostic test was 570(Q39,V30).

Q: 6 mistakes ( and yet 47..sounds unreasonable but I'm getting confident about my abilities).
V: 15 mistakes- 9 CR, 4 RC, 2 SC.

Strange thing about quant: I didn't have to memorize anything and yet got 31 questions correct. I'm happy.

I got annoyed with lack of concentration in the middle of verbal part because some kids were making noise in the library:(. I got nervous-glazed eyes phenomenon- after that and couldn't understand some CR prompts.
I'll give more tests and get over with this nervousness.

I attempted incorrectly answered questions and got half of them correct without any pressure. It just shows that I have to concentrate more and calm down my anxiety. Also, many times I was in a situation with two choices left after removing common wrong answers and picked the wrong one. I have to break this situation go past V40. V40 is still very far and I'm hoping to hit V35 at least in the next test.
Any suggestions for choosing between last two choices in CR?

I am no authority in CR; however, I have been improving. I have gone through the similar problem of getting stuck with 2 choices in the end. To solve that problem to a fair extent, I tried improving my concentration and comprehension. Also, I do not read question stem before I read the stimulus. This apporach helps me understand the argument clearly without knowing the question stem. (This approach is explained in CR Powerscore Bible.) I read 3-4 sciencedaily articles and 3-4 NY Times editorials everyday. Surprisingly, that habit has immensely helped me improve my CR as well as RC skills.

Thanks @skbjunior. I've planned to read more than usual leading up to my test.

All right folks.. I've scheduled GMAT on 05/18/2011.

I'm starting with Test-Review-Test mode. I'm going to attempt as many GMATClub tests as I can during this time. I think I've reached plateau in terms of understanding the concepts. For CR, I've tried everything, and now, it'd prefer to review and try to remember patterns from all the OG/Knewton/MGMAT questions. My CR and RC accuracy has been hovering in 60-65% range. I hope to make best out of this much accuracy.

M01- 24/37 correct.
V01- 24/41 correct.

I'll review all M01/V01 questions tonight. Oh yeah, I need to improve timing.

I took the GMAT last year twice... First try 600, second try 700. For the second try, I did the Kaplan in-class course which was instrumental in getting my score higher. However, I found that the Kaplan Verbal exercises were not very close to what was done in reality on the GMAT and that the Kaplan math exercises were easier than the ones on the GMAT. In the end, my Kaplan test reflected exactly my score on the GMAT, mind you the split was not exact (high math score, average verbal when in reality I got a high verbal and average math score).

I hope this helps...

Are you saying that Kaplan Verbal content doesn't match with real GMAT? I thought Kaplan Verbal is harder or at least at par with real deal. Anyhow, I'm focusing on OG questions for CR/SC, Knewton questions for CR/SC/RC and GMAT Club Math tests for Quant.