Guru's pleas advice: require last month strategy

Question

I have signed up to take the GMAT on Jun 12th (planned it so that I can happily enjoy the world cup football)

I would really like a 700 +
currently am scoring between 630 range (MGMAT exams, semi-timed, I pause the time sometimes, maybe 2-3 times an exam).

I require advice on what I should do for the last month:

a. Should I resolve all OG questions (I did keep an error log - so maybe the incorrect ones) 
 - really struggle on the 700-800 level questions, how much importance should I be giving them.

b. Should I do questions set from Kaplan (never touched the book or exams)
- some friends recommend doing Kaplan question sets since they harder .....so will improve my overall standard

c. Solve OG 11 ( I have pretty much completed OG12 but also have OG 11 lying around)

d. keep taking exams from different sources

what would be the best practice

Thanks,
D

bb · Answer

I am not a big advocate of practice questions.

I doubt you can really improve 70 points in a month by just doing a bunch of practice questions. Unless you haven't done the questions before really, I would suggest you do a deep dive into grammar and arithmetic.

Just my 2 cents

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ykaiim · Answer

Hi,

I am in the same boat. I need some guidance on my retake on 24th June 2010. My first GMAT score was 640(Q46, V31), Nov 2007. I have done two tests each on GMATPrep and MGMAT and the respective scores are:

GMAT Prep1: 620 (Q48, V27)
MGMAT 1: 670 (Q45, V36), 89%
GMAT Prep2: 650 (Q46, V34)
MGMAT 2: 700 (Q47, V39), 93%

I am comfortable on Quant, CR and SC but RC is bit difficult for me. I tried to take notes but found impractical in my case. I have finished OG(10 & 12), Kaplan and Manhattan SC and I have started revision with OGs/Manhattan first.

Can you please provide me some insights on what would be my final score range and what strategy should I follow?

nonameee · Answer

bb, what do you mean by that?

divanshuj · Answer

Yup exactly what does that entail? 
 Should I go back to learning key concepts by going through the theory in the books again or should I practice, practice, practice.

shaselai · Answer

i think he means back to basics. If you kept an error log you should know what areas you are weak at - so instead of just do practice questions you might want to focus on improving on your weaknesses through basics and perhaps questions on only those topics. 630 is a range where you get some basics but need to improve to go over the hump - so you probably wont be needing an overhaul but just improve on your weaknesses....

bb · Answer

shaselai is absolutely correct.

Get a good arithmetic book and do a deep dive and also get a good grammar book to revisit the underlying rules. 
Think of GMAT as a pyramid or a 3-story house. First level is to master the basics, second level is to master the questions and stop making silly mistakes (learn to check questions, common traps, strategies for different types of questions, etc), and third level is to master test-taking techniques (timing and stamina, etc) . Most people jump into the second and third level right away forgetting about the first one, which plagues them all along the way.

Here is a graphical representation to give you an idea

nonameee · Answer

Thanks for clarification.

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Guru's pleas advice: require last month strategy

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