GMAT Review: Part II - Tips

Part II of the GMAT Review deals with tips for acing the GMAT - what to do, what not to do, based on what I've learnt and what I've read. See Part I for information on learning and strategy. The following bits of information are resources and procedures I highly recommend in order to get a good score.

Plan your timeline


Create a study timeline. This should vary from person to person, as it depends on the areas of weakness or the areas you would like to target. Take a practice test to gauge your level, and go through the answers to find out the areas in which you are lacking. Most people are weaker in Verbal, so start with that. Devote a certain number of weeks for each section of the GMAT. I suggest devoting approximately two hours a day per weekday and maybe four to five hours a day per weekend - this means that your entire prep should last around 3 months. 

Learn first, then attack the questions

Read through the concepts presented, as well as the strategies put forward to help you tackle each type of question. Each concept is usually presented with an example. Work through these as you learn, so that you can help understand how they are used. Use the review questions in each strategy book to help you.

Flashcards

You can download some free flashcards here. Or you can use Manhattan GMAT's flashcards, available for free with any purchase of MGMAT products. Or (and this is my advice), make your own. There is no better way to instill the concepts in your head than by writing it down. You can also make the flashcards in the format that would suit you the most. I made my 'flashcards' on PowerPoint, and you can find them here:

Sentence Correction

Critical Reasoning

Reading Comprehension

Data Sufficiency

Problem Solving

Official Guides

Bear in mind, however, to not start practicing questions from the Official Guide that address those concepts. Questions on the GMAT are never organised by concept, nor by topic, and practicing them in order will not help you one bit. You need to have all strategies and concepts in your head so that your mind learns how to switch from one to another; you need to learn how to switch from RC to CR, from stats to algebra, from SC to RC. I suggest learning and working through each strategy book, before then devoting all your time on the OGs. 

Use an error log

There are several available online, but my favorites are the ones found here. I downloaded them and updated them as I was working - yes they do slow you down as you have to update the log after every question, but they do help you in figuring out which areas you need to target and what your strengths and your weaknesses are. 

Take a break

There's no point in taking time off work or studies and concentrating solely on the GMAT for 12 hours a day. The test works to test your understanding and your ability to think, and not your memorization techniques. Try not to exceed 20 hours of GMAT-related study a week, and take one day off per week - one day where you don't even think about the GMAT. Your brain needs that break to work better.

Practice tests

Take one of the free practice tests available from GMAC on www.mba.com as a diagnostic before you start your prep. It will help gauge your level so you know where you stand and just how much you need to improve. Take the same test again after you have gone through the strategy books and worked through the review questions. There should be some sort of improvement - if not, its time to review those concepts. If you have improved, then dive into the OGs. Manhattan GMAT provides 6 full length practice tests, so use those as well; take the first after working with the OG for a couple of weeks. Just a note though - no practice test can be as beneficial to you as the ones provided by GMAC. Use your second practice test a couple of weeks before your real test, so you have the chance to take it more than once if you wish. Aim to take a total of 6-8 full length tests during the course of your study.


Fixing the test date


The biggest mistake I made was fixing my date before the start of my prep. I am one of those people who need a deadline looming over their heads to get working. Unfortunately, since I was living in a new country for an internship, I just did not have the discipline required to work day in and day out on the GMAT - I wanted to travel, really get to know the city and do all those touristy things, since I didn't know if I would ever make it there. Due to this distraction, I wasn't able to fully complete the OG; in fact I was just halfway through, and didn't even touch the OG Verbal and Quant books. So either book your date in advance and reschedule it if you haven't finished with your material, or else only schedule your test when you are sufficiently prepared and are confident of acing the test. 

Before the real test

Do not take any practice tests on the week of your real tests. Do not overwork with practice problems either. Ideally you should not work on the GMAT at all on the day before your test. If you are like me and need to have a look at the problems to get your brain ready to tackle the test, then do one problem in each area on the morning of the test - i.e. one question each for RC, CR, SC, PS, DS and IR. 

To all those giving their tests soon, good luck! Feel free to ask me for anything you need. 

Manhattan GMAT Practice CAT 1

I've been terribly ill since yesterday, having a horrible cough and full body cramps. It sucks. I spent almost the whole day yesterday in bed, hugging my hot water bottle for dear life.

This morning, I felt fresh after 12 hours of sleep, and sat down (with my hot water bottle!) to take another GMAT practice test. For those who don't remember, my last two tests scores were as follows:

GMATPrep 1 (before starting my prep): 600 (Q42,V27).

VeritasPrep Free Practice Test 1: 620 (Q45,V31).

And today, I took Manhattan GMAT Practice CAT 1: 690 (Q47,V37).

So although 690 is well below my target score, I was mighty pleased with my result. I was steadily improving, in fact, my verbal score has drastically improved in the last 2-3 months, and I'm thrilled about that. While not much should be made about scores from companies apart from GMAC, I'm going to take it as a sign that I'm definitely getting better and better, as I try to crack that 700-score barrier.

One thing I really like about Manhattan GMAT's practice test is the review they provide at the end of the test. From what I briefly saw for each question, they not only provide you with the question type, the topic focus, and the time taken to solve it, but also the difficulty level and the estimated percentage of students who have answered the question correctly. I think this is a great tool to gauge your level - all my mistakes were in questions with a difficulty level of 700 to 800, thereby showing just why I scored a 690.

Exactly 2 weeks left till the big day.

GMAT Update: I don't even know what week this is anymore

I haven’t been here in a while.

It’s ridiculous just how hectic my life is, just when I need as much free time as I can get for the GMAT. I’ve spent the last few weeks visiting Cologne, Siegen, and Switzerland, each time meeting up with high school friends whom I haven’t seen for at least three years. It was amazing to know that the distance didn’t change a thing – no awkward silences, no feelings of let-down, it was all just wonderful and ended far too quickly in my opinion.   

I was going to post last weekend, but then Liverpool lost to Tottenham in a 4-0 humiliation, and to make matters worse, Novak Djokovic suffered from a partial muscle rupture on his back, and had to retire from his match after writhing on the court in agony. Not a pretty sight. I then managed to break a wineglass in the kitchen, made a chicken curry without a key ingredient as I’d forgotten to buy it, and checked my email to find an unnecessarily  rude message from a Professor at University giving me stick about my late arrival. All this gave me a major headache and I just couldn’t do anything else really.

This is officially my last week in Berlin. Next week I’m off to Paris, and will spend the weekend there before heading home. Sadly, my European adventures have come to an end. But I’ve had a brilliant 13 months, almost irreplaceable really, and I know I’ve met some people and seen some places that I’ll never forget in the years to come.

How can I concentrate on the GMAT when my time in Europe is coming to an end? It’s awful to have such expectations really. But I do try. I have finished all my strategy books, and it’s all OG from now on – practice, practice, and more practice. My scores are alright in the practice problems (as expected, RC being my least scoring section of the test, and SC the highest), but when it comes to taking a full length test, I tend to rush through, subconsciously panicking about the thought that I wont finish the test in time. I therefore end up with some very foolish errors, errors I would have never made had I more time. And I do have more time – when I took a test last weekend, I finished the quant section with 20 minutes to spare, and the verbal section with 16 minutes to spare. That’s crazy; ideally I shouldn’t have more than five minutes left at the end of each section.

Dad’s coming to visit me this weekend (to take some of my luggage back more than anything else really, I really don’t know how I’ve managed to accumulate so many things over the past year), but I still hope to take another test. This time, I shall treat it as a sequence of practice problems so that I don’t panic. Fingers crossed my scores improve!

Diagnostic Test Disaster

Everyone’s been saying I should take a practice test, just to gauge my level. To determine my strengths and weaknesses. To know what areas to work on in the coming weeks. So I went ahead and took a test this morning.

The result was disastrous. I scored a 600.

I read on the BTG forum numerous threads on people losing track of time and hence rushing in the last few minutes to get all their answers in. Hence I slightly panicked; every time I spent a little too long on a question, I would just give up and select an answer at random, thinking at least the next question would be easier. Looking back, that’s probably the worst approach, given that I finished each section about 20 minutes early, meaning that I finished my test almost 45 minutes before time!

I reviewed my answers just an hour ago, and I was shocked to see that only a few questions were answered wrongly due to a lack of knowledge. The rest of the questions were incorrect due to nothing more than pure carelessness.

The bright side? Well, I’ve not started any studying for the test yet, so things can only get better. Plus I have time on my side – the next three months to properly focus and give this a go. I’ve got the resources too, plenty of books that contain plenty of practice questions to keep me going. Additionally, knowing that negligence and inattention to key words is what separates me from a decent score is definitely encouraging.

Time to start learning then.