When should i start mocks?

Hi 12921,

You posted back in November that you had taken your initial CAT/mock. If you have not taken ANY others since that time, then it's been approximately 4.5 months. To assess how effective your studies have been during that time, you really should plan to take a NEW CAT sometime soon (perhaps on Sunday). Make sure to take it in a realistic fashion that matches-up with what you will face when you take the Official GMAT (take the FULL CAT - with the Essay and IR sections, at the same time of day as when you'll take the Official GMAT, if you will be at a Test Facility, then wear a face mask, etc.). Once you have that Score, you should post back here (or you can feel free to PM me) and we can discuss the results and how you might best proceed with your studies.

GMAT assassins aren't born, they're made,
Rich

Contact Rich at: Rich.C@empowergmat.com

Hi 12921

The most important thing in case of GMAT prep is to understand the objective of the exam. GMAT is a test of your inferential skills and your application skills. As such, that is where your focus must be. What you need is a structured study plan that gives you clear guidance on what to study and how to study it. I recommend doing this in 4 phases -

1. Planning - This is where you set your target score, your study plan, your timeline, the colleges you are targeting, the day you plan to take the actual exam. Keep in mind that it generally takes around 3 months to prepare well.

2. Learning - Start learning the concepts, then move to application of concepts. This is a key step, often missing in most students' preparation and leads to them being stuck in the low 600's score range. So you must make sure to avoid this and learn the correct methodologies of solving each question type. Finally, once you're done with that, move on to practicing questions. Solve them and go through the solutions step-by-step to maximize your learning.

3. Review - Assess your performance through sectional tests to find out your weak areas and improve on them. I'd also recommend maintaining an error log to see the mistakes you're making.

4. Mocks - Once you've done all this, you can take full mocks and see your performance.

Coming to OG, it may be a great source for solving GMAT like questions, however, it is definitely not the ideal way to prepare in your case. Moreover, you may find that the OG is a good option as a question bank but lacks detailed explanations for you to use for improvement. It’s always better to prepare with a definitive resource to help you learn concepts while formulating a consistent strategy to solve questions before practicing them from the OG. This way, your preparation will be a lot more structured, and the chances of you leaving gaps in your learning will be significantly less. Focus on improving the method you follow to solve questions because that's what stops people from scoring 700+.

Feel free to reach out in case you need any help around your prep strategy.