Necessity of finishing OG Quant

Question

Hey people,

I got my GMAT appointment in 2 1/2 weeks (6-7hrs studying/ day). Currently I am almost done with all OG Verbal and I am 70% through OG DS and OG PS( q no.120/q no.120).

I think the harder DS / PS gets, I am often only able to get every second question right directly and every first I have to review or at least take more than 2 mins to solve it.

I am aiming for a 42-45 in the real GMAT and I think I am currently at 38-40. Is the last third of the PS / DS problems worth the time or should I stick with the first 2/3s for the last 2 weeks, strengthening the basics, re-re-re-viewing errors and just doing 500-650 questions?

Advice would be appreciated!

TheGerman · Answer

Does anybody have some insights and / or valuable opinions? Would really appreciate it!

KarishmaB · Answer

You should try to finish the OG. The later questions are a little higher level but they are a must if you are aiming for Q42-45. Very few OG questions are very high level. Also some of the later questions are easy too i.e. the segregation is not perfect.

TheGerman · Answer

Hey Karishma, thanks a lot for the advice! Another question: I ve just done another CAT and ended up with 37 in Q...

During my preps there seems to be a pattern as I am always in the 40-44p. range until question 20-25 an then I get 10-12 wrong IN A ROW and I am down to 37...

What can I do against that?

EDIT: I uploaded my math results. It would be great if you could have a look and tell me what the best strategy for me would be... I am not really good at analyzing those CATs unfortunately, especially with the big number of wrong questions in a row at the end...

KarishmaB · Answer

I think there are gaps in your concepts - if you notice, you are making mistakes in 500-600 level questions and also taking 3 mins or more in some of them (and still getting them wrong sometimes). You certainly don't want this to happen. There should be very few (if any) mistakes in the 500-600 level questions. Perhaps a few in 600-700 where you missed out on a trick or two. I would understand if you spend more time in the 700-800 level questions. 
Note that in last ten questions, you have not spend too much time on any question. In fact, you have spent 1:30 mins on average in the last 10 questions. - what does this imply? It implies that you were probably worried that you will overshoot the time and hence you just cruised through the questions without giving them much thought. No surprise then that you answered them incorrectly because you do need to give think about most questions. Hardly any will be such that you can answer correctly with your mind closed.
So then, there are a couple of things you need to do. Work on your concepts.You should be able to correctly answer all 500-600 level questions in 1 to 1.5 mins. This level consists of questions based on direct applications and hence is not hard to master. If you do not spend too much time on these questions, you will not need to rush at the end. Also, practice under strict time conditions - try to get into the habit of solving correctly with a ticking clock.

TheGerman · Answer

Hey, thanks alot for the analysis! I always do questions timed and I find it quite hard to see which 500-600 questions I answer incorrectly... Lets see.

EDIT: Where can I find many 500-600 q. to practice the concepts that I've missed?
EDIT 2: Ok, I 've just analysed the past CATs to see in which sections I struggled with 500-600qs and even 300-500qs. The problem is that it seems to ber very diverse... There are about 13 different fields and in each field I only got 1 question wrong. SO I don't know whether it is due to missing conceptual knowledge.. Sometimes I just felt pressured and did not get the right idea in the right time.

EDIT 3: I ve just done all wrong 300-600 questions from my 4 CATs so far. It seems like I can do 90% of them without a problem now. The other 10 percent I ve done very cautiously, so that they stick from now on. What are the next steps? Don't really know how to proceed...

TheGerman · Answer

Hey, so I did another CAT (GMAT Prep CAT) today and ended up with a 630 (38Q/38V). I started with a 31/28....

what would u guys recommend me doing for the next 8 days (full-time) till the real GMAT -- quant-wise?

In the OG, I have about 25 questions left for DS and 35 for PS. Should I try to finish the OG and then redo all wrong ones or should I "skip" the last questions of each section as they are not beneficial for me at the moment?

Best

D

PS: I think I got 38 also because out of the first 15, I answered 8 incorrectly...I think that I am able to score >40-42 in quant but within the first questions my nerves seem to kill me..

KarishmaB · Answer

You have 60 questions left and 8 full days. What is the harm in wrapping them up? Doing a question takes 2-3 mins so a total of 2-3 hrs . If after reading the explanation, you feel it is very high level, skip it and move on. Or better, search it on the forum. If it is tagged as a high level question, you can choose to skip it.

Necessity of finishing OG Quant

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