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maxpowers
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What would be a good study plan for me? 08 Feb 2007, 13:57
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I haven't looked at any GMAT prep stuff in a few years, and just started again this week. The only section I need help with is math. I've done extremely well on the verbal every time I've taken it. Last time I took the test was in Feb 2 of 04 and I got 39 verbal and 42 quant for a score of 660 (and 5.5 on AWA), which is pretty consistent with my previous attempts. I had a kaplan tutor before that test work with me only on math and my math score actually went down and my verbal went up, leaving me with the same 660 I got before.

I know the basic math concepts, but stil struggle with figuring out the harder problems and handling my nerves when taking a test like this. I find the data sufficiency problems to be escpially difficult when dealing with number properties.

I have the OG 10th edition, the 2003 ARCO book, a probability book from high school, and a book called "Math Power" from the 80's, and I have the Kaplan 2003 book here somewhere.

So far I've reviewed the perm/comb from the prob book, as well as the basic math concepts from the math power book. I've also done some questions on the forum.

Should I go out and buy all the new editions or any other books or is what I have fine? I refuse to believe that I can't improve my math skills to the point where I can solve these problems.
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maxpowers
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What would be a good study plan for me? 11 Feb 2007, 16:57
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Is there more information I can provide that would be helpful for someone to respond with suggestions?
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What would be a good study plan for me? 11 Feb 2007, 19:35
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There probably aren't many people prepping for the GMAT right now because it is the height of the application season. My suggestion would be to avoid Kaplan altogether, and focus on the OG guides. You need to get OG11, and the OG math supplement.
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What would be a good study plan for me? 15 Feb 2007, 02:23
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What's your target score?
I assume you want to break 700.

Here is a link you may find useful (sorry I do not have enough messages to post a link):
manhattangmat-dot-com (/) strategyseries2.cfm

It analysis V and Q breakdown for people getting 700+.

You can also read posts in this site by people getting 700+ recently.
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maxpowers
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What would be a good study plan for me? 15 Feb 2007, 08:24
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nbooky
What's your target score?
I assume you want to break 700.

Here is a link you may find useful (sorry I do not have enough messages to post a link):
manhattangmat-dot-com (/) strategyseries2.cfm

It analysis V and Q breakdown for people getting 700+.

You can also read posts in this site by people getting 700+ recently.
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That didn't really give me a study plan. I already know I can do well in verbal so I don't want to mess with that. I would like to get my math score up to the same level as my verbal. I studied math for 4 months straight before and actually went down, while I did absolutely nothing for verbal and went up.

The problem is that I get extremely frustrated and nervous while taking the test, plus I get a headache looking at the computer screen. I become very mechanical and start writing everything down, and lose my ability to estimate or think through the problem. I remember looking at problems and thinking "how in the world am I supposed to figure this out" and also getting frustrated when I thought I did a problem right and my answer wasn't there. Should I go back and redo it or just skip it?

I think last time I did a large quantity of problems, but didn't take the time to fully absorb the concepts in such a way that I was thinking about the problems correctly.
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What would be a good study plan for me? 02 Mar 2007, 10:36
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Sorry maxpowers I was busy preparing for tests until now.

Your V39 is in 700 range, you need to bring your Q score to at least 47. You can search for 700-ers here to study some V & Q combinations.

Since you have not touched the test for several years, I suggest to focus the improvement in Q side to the target score I mentioned above, and bring your previous V skills back.

In addition, since the Q side in GMAT is getting much more competitive these few years, because of more test takers from many countries with good Q fundamentals, a few wrong questions in Q section can cost you a lot. Hence the safer strategy is to bring Q to 47+, and at the same time try to improve V-side as-much-as-possible.

For more details, I suggest the followings: Get the latest OG guide (OG11) and focus on the Q questions (PS, DS). Monitor your hit rate of these questions - your hit rate need to be at least 85%. Analyze the wrong questions to identify particular weaknesses in a certain area, whether it is number properties, algebra, geometry, or something else, and work on those. DS is more important if you want to get over 45 - these questions are not difficult but are designed to trick people, so you must be extra careful and get good hit rate for this category.

For verbal, the goal is to bring your performance back to that of previous test. You can either do SC and CR questions in OG11 (the book has very good explanations), or get SC1000 and CR1000 from this site (for explanations for SC1000 and CR1000, you need to search in this site).

Good luck and hope this helps!!
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What would be a good study plan for me? 04 Mar 2007, 09:31
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I would also recommend the challenges on this site as well.

Sounds like you have a problem with getting nervous during the exam so I would recommend doing alot of practice questions and exams to try and calm your nerves and build confidence. The challenges should help with that because if you can conquer those questions, you will be much more confident on test day.
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