Strategy help - More focussing on Quant or starting Verbal?

Question

Hey,

I started to prepare for the GMAT a few weeks ago. My initial plan was to take it at the end of August, but that's, due to my current skills, not working.

So far, I've done all the Quant questions in the OG 13. My skills were far away from basic when I started, since I couldn't recall the easiest concepts. 
My weak areas are: in general algebra, more specifically exponents/roots, inequalities and I am also having issues with divisibility and primes. Never did that in high school. 
The last days I focused on these areas (except inequalities), solved several problems and I think it's getting better but still not 100% confident. I never study more than 4-5 hours a day, with some breaks and I haven't done any CAT test or any GmatClub Test so far.

My question is: should i further focus on quant and on my weak areas, solve more (harder) problems and then do a test or should i proceed with verbal and then do tests after I am done with verbal to see where I stand, and then focus on all weak areas? 
I am a bit worried that I could forget important quant concepts if I do all the quant now and then start with all the verbal..

Next problem: As of 1st September, I am going to work full time. Since I'll be doing an internshipt at a big4 company in the advisory division it won't be 40 hours/week, but more than that. I have no idea how to get my studying done then because I am not really a person who can study well in the evening/night. How do you guys handle this problem? The only idea I have is, getting up at 5am, study for 2 hours and then go to work but I am not sure if this will turn out to be advantageous. I still have the weekends, yes.. but as I said, more than 5 hours per day working on the GMAT doesn't make a lot of sense to me.

I am aiming for a 700 score, at least 680 since I want to apply to the top schools in Europe. I am confident that I can achieve that, if my conditions on the test day are "normal". The only thing I am worried about is the time, since I've experienced in my academic career that I get extremely nervous, doing stupid mistakes, not reading very carefully, when I know time is very limited. 
I also think, that I am better in Verbal than in Quant, since my sense of language has proved to be quite good. I've never had any problems with English and I've already passed some Cambridge certifications. (Just to give you an idea what I mean)

Any suggestions on how to proceed (more quant or starting with verbal?!) will be appreciated and if some of the full-time workers with a week of 50hours+ could give me some insights how they handle the preparation, I'd be very grateful.

Thanks in advance!

getsunny · Answer

Hi lou34,

I understand the situation that you're in. I would suggest the following to cope with the different issues you're facing:

1) More quants or start with verbal

It appears that you might have saturated yourself with just focusing on quants. I think it would be counter-productive for you to continue working on quants. Also, since your GMAT is in August-end, you don't have much time to work on verbal. So I think it's best that you move over to the verbal section. Remember, quants is not the only section on the GMAT, and bombing the verbal section will cost you much more than doing well on the quants section.

2) What if you forget the quant concepts

Moving over to the verbal section doesn't mean that you have to leave the quants section completely. You can keep things fresh by reviewing formulae, fundamentals and your key mistake areas every 2 days. That will help you keep quants alive, and help you focus on the more important verbal section.

3) Working 50+ hours and studying

I can completely relate to this problem. I work in a consulting firm (one of the top ones), and my work days are usually 12+ hours. Also, I'm not an evening/night person like you, and I especially find it difficult to study after a long day at work. To counter this, I used to sleep early and wake up early to study 3 hours per day. I also used to utilize my travel time by studying on my phone on the way in the metro. So the point is, that by utilizing your time smartly you can overcome the hectic work hours.

I would also recommend utilizing the weekends effectively. But as you mentioned, don't burn yourself studying more than 5 hours on any day. It doesn't help at all.

4) Start giving mocks

Trust me, you will regret otherwise. Since you have not given any mocks or timed tests till now, you have no idea how you would perform under stress condictions of the real GMAT. It is very easy to solve questions while preparing, but giving the GMAT in a timed environment can completely trip you off. Also, you need to develop timing strategies for the GMAT, which is possible only if you give mocks. I'm not suggesting that you give a mock every 2 -3 days, but give at least 3-4 mocks in total to test your strategies.

5) Last few days before the GMAT

3-4 days before the GMAT is the most crucial period for anyone. DON'T overwork yourself by studying too much or giving mocks. Just relax and go through your basics and timing strategies. Overstudying or taking a lot of stress will hit your abilities more than just taking it easy and letting it go.

Hope this helps! All the best!

lou34 · Answer

First of all, thanks for your reply getsunny!

I actually postponed my date to take the test. So my new goal is to take it in the middle/end of september, cause if I took it in August, I'd certainly screw it up.

I was just thinking if I should restudy my weak areas, like inequalities, again and practice more before moving to Verbal because I don't feel confident at all with those problems. But I think I will just start with SC on Monday and then move over the Quant some days in between studying the verbal part.

Concerning Mock exams, I was planning to take the first GMATprep after I've practiced all the verbal parts. I didn't take the diagnostic test before I started with Quant, maybe I should do that before starting with verbal?! 
I will also have access to the 6 MGMAT exams, so I am planning to take all of these + the 2 gmatprep exams. I was also thinking of taking the gmatclub quant test within the next days..

Getting up early and studying before work is probably the strategy I will use. Maybe 2 hours earlier and then study and then 1 more hour after I get home from work.. I hope that this will work out.

One more question: Since I am preferably aiming for a 700 score, what kind of problems should I practice? I heard/read that the OG problems are mostly below 600 or 600-700 questions.. will that still be enough? Or should I use the ones which are here in the forum? I've seen some collections of "hard questions", "tricky questions", etc.

Thanks!

getsunny · Answer

I think it's great that you have postponed your date. I would atill suggest that you leave quants for now and start with verbal. Even though you have over a month for your GMAT, improving and solidifying verbal strategies takes time. So the best thing to do would be to write a full mock exam (only Quant and verbal sections). This will give you an idea about where you stand in both sections. Then analyse the mock result to find out your weak areas in verbal, and start preparing with that. Also, analyse the Quant section in detail so that you know where you're making mistakes during timed tests. And try spending 4-5 hours per week in between verbal prep to focus on those Quant weak areas.

Finally, don't focus on the difficult 700+ level questions before you master the below 700 level questions. Remember, GMAT is an adaptive test, and the only way you'll be given 700+ questions is if you get the easier ones correct without fail. So focus on OG 13 and verbal and Quant 2nd editions first. Work through them in detail, and become extremely proficient in that. Only then think about doing questions from harder resources. If you have done OG properly, then you can easily reach a 700 score.

All the best!

lou34 · Answer

Alright, sounds good. So I should take the mock exam right before I start preparing for Verbal? Should it be CAT or is one of tests which are available here on the forum also ok? Because I don't want to "waste" one of my official prep tests. 
Yes I thought of harder problems after I can perfectly solve the OG questions. But in this case I think i will just go with the OG questions, unless I have some time left before the exam..

getsunny · Answer

You should give the mock before starting with verbal. Only then you would be able to analyse what your weak areas in verbal are. Plus you would also know what your weak areas in quants are, and you can revise them along the way as well.

You don't have to worry about wasting the official prep tests, because you can give each of the 2 tests twice. The question pool of the official prep tests is quite large, so retaking each test is a good option. If you're still concerned, you can take the Veritas Perp free CAT available online. The veritas prep mocks are very similar to the real GMAT and they use the same scoring algorithm as well.

All the best!

lou34 · Answer

Ok, I didn't know that you can retake the 2 tests. Thanks for the info! So I should take a timed prep test and do quant and verbal in one run? Or is it possible to split quant and verbal and take the 2 parts untimed? I will take one prep test tomorrow.. It might be that some more questions will come up afterwards

lou34 · Answer

I just completed one of the MGMAT tests and scored 530 (Q36, V28), which is quite bad

( I feel like the last couple of weeks were senseless, in terms of preparing and studying.. For quant I had all of the 600-700 questions wrong, except 1.. In Verbal I even had some of the 700-800 questions right, without any preparation. So I think/hope my theory about having better verbal than quant skills is right.. But I have to admit that I was not concentrated at all when I took the exam, sometimes I even randomly guessed (f.ex. couldn't read the whole passage for RC etc.), that's why I finished both parts when I still had a couple of minutes left. So I am not sure how serious I should take that result.. I am quite disappointed about my quant score, though. I can't clearly see in which areas I'm still lacking knowledge.. It seems, that I should just review all basic concepts again and practice practice practice..

evansgherzi · Answer

Hi lou34,

I completely agree with your most recent post. After seeing the results from that sim test, I would work on basics. Yes I would work on quant a bit more than verbal but for the most part I would work on them fairly evenly. As with verbal, if you have the basic grammar concepts down, you can tackle a wide variety of questions. Same goes for quant. Practice the basic skills and do not move on until you feel that you have mastered them. Then and only then should you start to touch upon the harder topics. if you have any other questions please feel free to ask.

Sincerely,
Evan

lou34 · Answer

Yes I will certainly do that. For now I try to do quant in the morning for 2-3 hours and then 2-3 hours verbal in the afternoon. 
I've already gone through almost the entire MGMAT book for SC and I haven't had any serious issues with the problem sets so far. I'll do another mock exam after I've studied the RC and CR part. Should I also use the MGMAT books for those parts? I've read somewhere that, MGMAT has some good strategies for CR. How about the RC part? I think RC will be my main issue in verbal, because the passages are sometimes very long and I have some struggles with my concentration when I have to read long texts. Especially when they include some single words, which I don't understand completely..

evansgherzi · Answer

Hi lou34,

Definitely do another mock exam after, as they are your best way of determining your areas of weakness and where to place your focus. As for the MGMAT books, I cannot say for sure as I personally have not used that specific book, but I can say that supplemental material is generally always beneficial and cannot do anything but help. Yeah, the RC can be a bit frustrating for that exact reason, I completely agree! Here is a blog post, that is short and sweet and to the point with some tips for RC: https://gmat.economist.com/blog/verbal/ ... n-and-gmat
I know you know this already but the best thing you can do is to just keep practicing reading and extrapolating info from practice RC questions. This will prevent you from jamming up on it during the exam, so you can breeze through it without getting hung up on all of the reading. Keep up the good work!

Sincerely,
Evan

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