Taking the exam on April 10-How to fast track Quant progress

Question

I have been a lurker for a while, posting here and there but not really taking my prep seriously like I should be......

My study plan:
 - Kaplan Premier '10
 - 5 MGMAT Quant guides (I have the latest edition of the number properties book but the old 2007 of the other 4 quant guides)
 - OG12 
 - OG Verbal 2nd edition and OG Quant 2nd edition

I am keeping an error log for all MGMAT questions and (soon enough) OG questions. I never took a diagnostic test before I started studying. After finishing the Kaplan Premier '10 book (I just did the quant sections), I took the in book GMAT exam.

I scored a  490  with a breakdown of  Q11 , V30. (410 based on kaplan chart, 800score says it's a 310!) Clearly I have to work on my Quant. The school I am applying to wants about a 40th percentile score in both Quant and Verbal areas.

My plan is to finish the MGMAT quant guides, do those problems and continue taking paper tests which I bought a year or so ago. I am wondering what is the quickest way to bring my quant higher to like a 30? My ideal score would be a Q30 and v30.... I am confident I can do okay on the verbal based on my 1st exam score but my math HAS to get better!

I am wondering - is there any way to QUICKLY improve my quant? I am going to go through as many problems as I can and keep an eye on the ones I get wrong and try to learn the concepts behind them... is there anything else that I can do to boost this score?

I appreciate the help and thank you guys in advance!
 - tsd

Although I put that I got a Q11, I am not sure this is right. I went by the scoring grid in the kaplan premier 09 guide and, for me at least, it wasnt so clear how I can score myself. Anyway, It's just my first test. I'll see how things go from here.

mohater · Answer

Did you finish the quant section in the allotted time? Did you guess on most of the problems?

A Q11 score is fairly indicative of a lack of application in fundamentals (simple algebraic/geometry etc.). The GMAT materials will not be very useful here (assuming the prior sentence is correct about your shortcoming).

You might want to check out the explanations this guy provides on the OG material. He breaks down the problems to the most basic level.

https://www.khanacademy.org/

Simply going through practice problems/practice tests will likely yield negligible results. I suggest going through some basic fundamentals and then working to apply them (using your error log). The Khan Academy should help with this.

TimeSquareDesi · Answer

Mohater,

+1 Kudos for the reply. I have been looking at khan academy - that is a really great site! my test is scheduled for April 10 - about 6 weeks away... im going to be putting in about 4 hours per weekday and about 10 hours per weekend to bring my score over a 500 which is the score im shooting for.

Thanks again. I'm going to use this post as my work-in-progress/blog so I can share with everyone my experience thus far.
 - tsd

TimeSquareDesi · Answer

Kaplan premier 09 -- online quiz/test:
overall score: 520: Q30, V33

For my Q30, I got 15 out of 37 correct :-X or a 41% hit rate
For my V33, I got 23 out of 41 correct --- or a 56% hit rate

Out of the 78 total questions on the exam, I got 40 incorrect and 38 correct yielding a 49% overall hitrate... I am trying to bring this closer to 60-65% for the school I am applying to. My work experience significantly overshadows my academics (which were stellar anyway) so I'm not really looking to get into the 700s....

After reviewing the exam, I realized that I made a lot of concept errors. I accidentally clicked the wrong answer once on the math section. I am happy with my V since I am only looking to score a 500 overall. I'm trying to bring up my quant to getting around 20-25 of the 37 questions correct.

Anyway, the MGMAT guides are great so far. I'm still working though the problem sets and I feel my quant getting better. I haven't touched math like this in years (although I was a math minor) so a lot of the stuff is sticking once I am going through it again.

bigmonkey31 · Answer

I really think the Manhattan GMAT books (all the math ones except maybe the geometry one) are extremely good. They are full of fundamentals and GMAT strategies that are invaluable. The advanced sections are always good as you get your fundamentals down too.

TimeSquareDesi · Answer

^ agreed. the more i go through those books, in detail, the more and more good chunks of info i am picking up on, learning and internalizing.

So I took another Kaplan online exam but I only did the quant section. unfortunately, i found out too late that you cannot go back and pickup from the verbal after you click "finish" on the exam - looks like kaplan treats their tests like the real deal :D

anyway, my quant score was a 29 - and once again, i got 15 out of 37 correct. I agree however - I took this exam way too closely after taking one exam on Friday. As it would turn out, my quant score was nearly the same this time around.

I made some careless mistakes and actually clicked the wrong answer again this time around! :-X i really have to slow it down. im rushing through the answers which is not good.

as of march 10, my exam is in 30 days. im putting in a good 4 hours a weekday from now until then and spending about 8-10 hours on the material on weekends. for the rest of the week: finish up the word translations mgmat book and then attack all the quant related mgmat problems (their end of chapter reviews) all at one shot (doing maybe 30-50 Qs a day to try to force the information into my brain

By Saturday or sunday, i will be starting with OG12. Since my Quant is terrible, I plan on doing all the quant-specific questions - DS also.

then from there, im doing OG quant and the kaplan math workbook which has some great fundamental problems. im also planning on taking an exam every couple of days (mgmat, kaplan, OG tests, paper tests which i purchased, gmatprep as well. im going to try to force the lessons from these problems into my brain and whatever sticks should be enough to give me at least a 30 in quant on the real exam - that's thescore im looking for :D

By Saturday or sunday, i will be starting with OG12. Since my Quant is terrible, I plan on doing all the quant-specific questions - DS also. then from there, im doing OG quant and the kaplan math workbook which has some great fundamental problems. im also planning on taking an exam every couple of days (mgmat, kaplan, OG tests, paper tests which i purchased, gmatprep as well. im going to try to force the lessons from these problems into my brain and whatever sticks should be enough to give me at least a 30 in quant on the real exam - that's thescore im looking for :D

TimeSquareDesi · Answer

Weeks until exam - about 4.5

plan:
 - finish MGMAT guides and run through the end of chapter problems in all 5 quant guides
 - start OG12 within the week
 - do kaplan math workbook and og quant for a good amount of practice problems
 - start taking more full tests - maybe 1 every couple of days. i have the following to choose from: paper exams (9 of them), mgmat exams (6 left, havent used any of these yet), the remaining 4 kaplan online exams i have access to, kaplan 'color" quizzes, gmat prep which i know is the biggie. 
 - for more problems, im going to start the gmatclub sets too.

im putting in about 100 hours in the next month or so - i honestly do not feel that i am taking on too much. with other tests in school, the more problems i do, the better i get at the material. i think that's the case with everybody :D

perseverance · Answer

Looks like you're making good progress. My advice for the practice tests would be to take the MGMAT ones and the GMATPrep ones. I'd steer clear of the paper tests as these are not adaptive, obviously. Word of warning: the MGMAT scores might potentially be discouraging. Don't read into them too much. The MGMAT tests help greatly with ironing out any timing issues. Best of luck.

TimeSquareDesi · Answer

perseverance,

Thanks for the support. I'm simply doing the problems on paper test in an untimed manner - I'm just trying to get familar with the question types. I'm not going to be scoring them or anything. The (overall) scores and percentiles are the last thing on my mind for now. I simply want to get to a point where I am getting about 25 Quant questions right out of 37 and about 25 right on the verbal as well. I'm starting off with these "easier" paper tests first then working my way towards OG12 material.

I'm definitely saving the 6 MGMAT exams (and their initial assessment test) for later this month. I'm doing the same with GMATPREP - I'm holding off on all of these exams until I can confidently answer the MGMAT end of chapter Q's without an issue. This will tell me that my fundamentals are in order and that it's then time to put them into use on the OG problems/OG Quant problems.

I am going to be done with the 5 MGMAT quant guides by tonight. I'm taking this weekend to go through all of the MGMAT guide questions and to make a list of the mistakes I made and what led me to make those mistakes (theory related, silly mistake, etc etc.)

I read your thread about your exam - congrats again. I used / and am using the same materials you used. I'm simply looking for a 500 but anything higher than that score is more than welcomed :D

Problems to work through and create/review error logs for:

MGMAT End of chapter questions (also DS chapters in each book) --> Paper Tests --> OG 12 (PS+DS Only) --> OG12 Quant --> GmatPrep / MGMAT Exams --> If there is time, Kaplan Online and on CD exams ( I think I have about 6-8 of these remaining) --> Kaplan Quant Refresher workbook

perseverance · Answer

tsd,
Appreciate the kudos. MGMAT's Number Properties book is great. Try to squeeze in another read-through of that before your exam.

I would also suggest:
https://www.gmatmathformulas.com/#placing_order

This is a great 'cheat sheet'. I used it in place of bulky notecards. Only $10.

TimeSquareDesi · Answer

Took MGMAT Cat #1... Wow, the verbal was soooo dense! after a day of studying, I took the exam and had absolutely no patience to re-read or re-validated my answers.... I think it shows in my score:

MGMAT Cat #1 - Overall 490. Q27, V31.

My verbal is staying over 30 but in the last 3 exams I've taken, my Q has dropped by an average of 1 point each time. I am noticing however that I am missing some "easier" problems simply because I have not spent enough time shoring up my fundamentals. I'll be doing that this week.
 - tsd

TimeSquareDesi · Answer

Got my reality check today.

Took GmatPrep #1: 450 Q26, V26.

(20 wrong in Quant, 19 wrong in verbal)

16 days until my exam.... needless to say, i"m nervous. Gmatprep was pretty serious but the verbal felt easier than the MGMAT verbal... but then again, my verbal score was lower.......

anyway, i just hope i can get a 500 on the real thing... i'm going back to basics with quant. i have an errorlog of og12 problems as well as an errorlog from some of the online exams ive taken (mgmat, kaplan).... so im going to go over them again in an attempt to solidify fundamentals..... but wow, what a wake up call this was.

sudgmat · Answer

Hi, nice to see you working hard.

If you need any explanation for a specific problem do post them on the Quant (DS/PS) forum, will try to get on them by the end of the day.

if you work hard and follow the methods mentioned in the forum you can do way better than 500.

Ravi

TimeSquareDesi · Answer

Since I have about 8 days until my exam, I am exhausting the Quant portion of the CATs that I have. I have 5 more Kaplan Cats (3 CD and 2 online), 2 or 3 GmatPrep Cats (I've only taken one and will be reinstalling after the next one) and 4 MGMAT cats left. Anyway, these are the results from my last 2 exams

March 31 - Kaplan CD Cat #1 - Q28: 21 right, 16 wrong
April 1 ---- MGMAT Cat #2 - Q27: 16 right, 21 wrong

I am going through my errors and making an error log which I will review for the next few days. I plan on going through the OG12 PS problems again too - just reviewing some of the more difficult problems, making sure I remember the correct formulae and some other bits of info.

TimeSquareDesi · Answer

Today -- MGMAT #3 -- 480: Q28 V29

I have about 5 days left until my exam this Saturday. I'm just taking CATs and looking over my mistakes. My Quant isn't budging but one thing that I did notice is that I am not longer getting a row of questions wrong in a row. I used to get 5 wrong in a row and now I'm down to 3 wrong in a row, max. Still, my Q isn't moving up. I'm happy with a 480 and I hope I get that on my real test! I'm taking GMATPrep #2 tomorrow.

I told myself (above post) that I was going to take 2 CATs per day but this is really the worst thing I could probably do. LOL. Instead, I'm taking one cat per day then going over my mistakes - but only the ones in the PS and DS sections which I have been performing the worst in.

bb · Answer

This is probably the best approach.
DO NOT TAKE 2 TESTS PER DAY!

I'd rather spend more time flipping through the books and compiling the questions you missed instead.
Possibly grab a quant book you have done done such as MGMAT Math Foundations or another MGMAT or Kaplan Math book.

TimeSquareDesi · Answer

GMAT Prep #2 -- 410: Q26, V21 :roll:

My lowest V score I've ever had.... None of the answer choices looked plausible!@#

TimeSquareDesi · Answer

Did Kaplan Cat #3 (Quant only) today and got a Q31. This is my highest Q number so far but am thinking nothing of it since there is a night and day difference between GMATPrep and Kaplan Cats.

I'm doing another GMATPrep tomorrow morning.

TimeSquareDesi · Answer

GMAT Prep #3 - 510 Q35, V25 I'm quite happy with the 510. This is my highest Q ever with my 2nd lowest V ever :roll:

I had 13 wrong in Quant and 14 wrong in verbal. In Quant, I got 8 out of the first 20 wrong and, for the first time I've seen on any of my cats, I got 2 long rows of questions correct. question 19-24, I got these 6 correct then question 31 to 37 I got correct. I think this is why my q was on the higher side. While many people say you need to focus on the first 10-15 questions, I've found the opposite to be true. I am basing my opinion on both gmatprep and mgmat - the more questions you get right towards the end of the exam, the higher your q. i will go so far as to say that i could have gotten the first 15 questions wrong on in quant, but as long as i had a good streak of correct answers towards the end, my Q would still be in the 30s.

perseverance · Answer

Have you seen bsd_lover's experiment?

un-scientific-analysis-of-gmatprep-64970.html

Maybe not the best thing to think about with your test a few days away but interesting nontheless. Best of luck on your exam! Remember to be confident. I'm sure you will get the score you want!

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