Prep Plan for GMAT in 6 Weeks with diagnostic test of 515

Question

Hey guys, 
just started prep on the weekend. 
today I did the first diagnostic official free test with 515 (DI 76, V 80, Q 70). These were my first ver GMAT type questions.

My goal is to beat the Harvard average at 685 - I put 500 bucks on the line for that with my dad so its a  must  accomplish now!

Timeplan: I only got 3 weeks with 3h a day and then another 2-3 weeks full-time prep (8-22h minus breaks, so about 10h a day clean and productive study time).

Actionplan: 
1. focus on Q and DI as they seem to be my weak links (following the content from my TTP self study): all the content + some practice questions in TTP 
2. follow up with V: also all the content and then some practice questions from TTP again 
3. re-test after all the content and knowledge building phase to track progress and especially weaknesses 
4. focus on the weaknesses with reviewing content, doing practice questions and following my error log 
5. about a week pre-test I want to take a third and last official mock exam to track final weak links and strengths 
6. refine skills the last few days and accept my destiny

Any suggestions by the experts around here? 
I know my plan is quite ambitious but I am still confident!

Cheers guys!

AjiteshArun · Answer

Hi WWUping,

V80 is a really good starting point. Don't ignore verbal completely, but I agree that you should focus on DI and quant.

All the best.

WWUping · Answer

Cheers for your answer! 
Also got the following out of my first review of the results: 
1. messed up Quant even though I would say I am quite decent at math, so gonna review that first and look for careless errors and review basic concepts and content - confident that I will improve quite a bit 
2. for verbal: Scored 83rd percentile in CR – I think that's solid, so I will focus on that a bit later. Reading comprehension was bad because I messed up one of the passages with 4 questions in a row as I got the passage wrong. That's gonna be the first thing to look into on the verbal side. 
3. for DI: basically everything was somewhat equally good/ bad so I am gonna focus on the basics for DI and review content and concepts for DI for all sub topics.

After reviewing the stats I would split my study time of 3h as follows: 
1.5h on quant with a 50/50 split on arithmetic and algebra 
1h on DI with an equal split of time on the main topics 
30min on verbal to review the content especially for RC

I would keep that split for a week and see how it goes and split more equally after the first week until I complete the content phase.

Any suggestions on that?

Cheers!

yc168 · Answer

Maybe you can consider pushing your DI prep a little later.

Most of the underlying content and skills tested in DI are actually from Quant and Verbal sections, just in different question forms. So it may be more efficient to start prepping for DI after you build up strong foundations in Quant and Verbal.

Your plan indeed sounds ambitious given the extensive content of TTP. All the best and keep us posted.

ScottTargetTestPrep · Answer

Hi WWUping,

I'm glad to see you are using TTP! There are some ways you can follow the TTP study plan, even for a short period of time, so feel free to reach out to us on live chat, and we can discuss your plan in detail.

AjiteshArun · Answer

1.  That's definitely one way to go about it, with a short "burst" of RC every day. An alternative would be to go for a longer RC session on some days (and no RC on others, so that the average stays close to 0.5 hours/day). This could be useful if you think you need more than 30 min to solve  and analyse  (important!) your practice questions.

2.  I'm not a quant/DI expert, but it's good to see that your CR is strong. That, and the quant you're planning to do, will help you in DI.

3.  Try to schedule some practice tests as well. I recommend another 2-3 official practice tests (minimum, many people take each test twice).

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