Sad Background: I took GMAT on last July-28 and got a shocking 580 [Q44 V27]. After a 3 months' isolation from social life, this was the last thing I needed! Anyway, in last tow I have analyzed a lot where I went wrong and I was quite surprised to discover so many flaws in my earlier shot. Before I ask help from you experts, I would request you to review my mistakes [aka things-not-to-do-before-GMAT !]
Mistake 1: People always have suggested that no one should take more than one practice CAT in last three days before exam; but I was over-smart and decided to follow what I felt right. After going through lots of back-n-forward feelings in last 10 days. I felt I could just practice and improve my concentration level by taking more and more CAT. Consequently I took 2 full and 1 half Practice CAT's in the immediate two days before my actual test. No wonder that backfired badly. The scores were again bad and to make things worse, I totally lost my ability to concentrate [I don't know why].
Mistake 2: I wholeheartedly prepared myself with as much materials as possible. I completed the whole MGMAT guides and OG12. Also practiced math using Princeton review [it wasn't special], and Nova Math Bible [this underrated book made me unbeatable in Geometry particularly]. I also too GMAT Club tests and brushed through OG Quant+Verbal review 2nd edition + 1000 SC collection. Anyway, looking back at my preparation, I feel the quantity was there, but the quality was missing [not in the practice materials, but in how I used those]. I rushed through the questions and marked the difficult ones, but I didn't put enough time to review those later and brush my concepts. For a large part, I thought only more and more practice will help me eliminate these errors as I become more familiar with question patters. This strategy works for some people and worked for me in other exams, but this time it was not to be I guess. Another classic mistake.
Now, I'll tell you my strengths and weaknesses:
Quant: I'm very good at Geometry, Percentage, Word problems and algebra [and recently in venn diagram ;]. I suck at Number properties, combinatorics and probability problems.
Verbal: I have always been confident with grammar; however the structural pattern [or the adaptive nature or something else] of the test surely doesn't let me reflect that. I like SC the most, but I feel I can improve this with more practice as I'm good at understanding patterns. But I have no clue how to tackle the RC. One very strange thing - while I practice using ANY of the OG hard copy books, I ALWAYS hit above 80% on RC and CR. But in the CATs as well as in the real exam, they totally destroyed me. I just wonder whether it has something [or everything!] to do with reading on screens! Did anyone face similar problem?
Finally, I will appreciate your feedback on my questions below and on my plan over next 5 weeks:
1. Quant: How to improve on quant Number theories and probability: I went through the MGMAT guide on number properties, but it could not do much to improve my skills, particularly with divisibility, remainders, fractions, factors, probability and combinotrics. I'm too vulnerable to almost all DS questions involving these and shaky with odd-even and prime numbers etc. Could you please suggest me which guide can help me most to overcome my fears? I guess I'll not tyr that hard with probability and combinotrics, but I must cover rest of the number properties issues. What can help me most??
Goal: To keep scoring over 45 [I'm doing around 40 consistently, but I won't take chances]
2. Verbal: As my apparent killer is to concentrate for long period on screen and understand materials from there, I plan to practice 5 RC and 10 CR everyday for next 30 days using my PC Screen. I'll use mostly OG 13 materials mostly. Will it help? What else do you suggest?
For SC, I've already read MGMAT SC twice and found useful. However, for some reason, I am still not performing well in SC. So I'll go through SC Grail this time as I've heard a lot of good comments about this book. Also, I'll complete 1000 SC book for practice and speeding up. What do you say?
Goal: 45 [I know it sounds ridiculous to hear this from someone who just scored 26, but I'm confident I can do it as my foundation in verbal is good although I'm not a native English-speaker]
3. CAT Plans: I plan to spend 3hrs/day on weekdays and 10+hrs on weekends for next 1 month. As soon as I feel that the I have mastered what-it-takes to strike 700, I'll start taking practice tests. I haven't purchased any MGMAT CATs yet. Will those be good estimator of my preparation? What about GMAT Question pack 1? Useful?
Thanks a lot for your time, guys..!
Mistake 1: People always have suggested that no one should take more than one practice CAT in last three days before exam; but I was over-smart and decided to follow what I felt right. After going through lots of back-n-forward feelings in last 10 days. I felt I could just practice and improve my concentration level by taking more and more CAT. Consequently I took 2 full and 1 half Practice CAT's in the immediate two days before my actual test. No wonder that backfired badly. The scores were again bad and to make things worse, I totally lost my ability to concentrate [I don't know why].
Mistake 2: I wholeheartedly prepared myself with as much materials as possible. I completed the whole MGMAT guides and OG12. Also practiced math using Princeton review [it wasn't special], and Nova Math Bible [this underrated book made me unbeatable in Geometry particularly]. I also too GMAT Club tests and brushed through OG Quant+Verbal review 2nd edition + 1000 SC collection. Anyway, looking back at my preparation, I feel the quantity was there, but the quality was missing [not in the practice materials, but in how I used those]. I rushed through the questions and marked the difficult ones, but I didn't put enough time to review those later and brush my concepts. For a large part, I thought only more and more practice will help me eliminate these errors as I become more familiar with question patters. This strategy works for some people and worked for me in other exams, but this time it was not to be I guess. Another classic mistake.
Now, I'll tell you my strengths and weaknesses:
Quant: I'm very good at Geometry, Percentage, Word problems and algebra [and recently in venn diagram ;]. I suck at Number properties, combinatorics and probability problems.
Verbal: I have always been confident with grammar; however the structural pattern [or the adaptive nature or something else] of the test surely doesn't let me reflect that. I like SC the most, but I feel I can improve this with more practice as I'm good at understanding patterns. But I have no clue how to tackle the RC. One very strange thing - while I practice using ANY of the OG hard copy books, I ALWAYS hit above 80% on RC and CR. But in the CATs as well as in the real exam, they totally destroyed me. I just wonder whether it has something [or everything!] to do with reading on screens! Did anyone face similar problem?
Finally, I will appreciate your feedback on my questions below and on my plan over next 5 weeks:
1. Quant: How to improve on quant Number theories and probability: I went through the MGMAT guide on number properties, but it could not do much to improve my skills, particularly with divisibility, remainders, fractions, factors, probability and combinotrics. I'm too vulnerable to almost all DS questions involving these and shaky with odd-even and prime numbers etc. Could you please suggest me which guide can help me most to overcome my fears? I guess I'll not tyr that hard with probability and combinotrics, but I must cover rest of the number properties issues. What can help me most??
Goal: To keep scoring over 45 [I'm doing around 40 consistently, but I won't take chances]
2. Verbal: As my apparent killer is to concentrate for long period on screen and understand materials from there, I plan to practice 5 RC and 10 CR everyday for next 30 days using my PC Screen. I'll use mostly OG 13 materials mostly. Will it help? What else do you suggest?
For SC, I've already read MGMAT SC twice and found useful. However, for some reason, I am still not performing well in SC. So I'll go through SC Grail this time as I've heard a lot of good comments about this book. Also, I'll complete 1000 SC book for practice and speeding up. What do you say?
Goal: 45 [I know it sounds ridiculous to hear this from someone who just scored 26, but I'm confident I can do it as my foundation in verbal is good although I'm not a native English-speaker]
3. CAT Plans: I plan to spend 3hrs/day on weekdays and 10+hrs on weekends for next 1 month. As soon as I feel that the I have mastered what-it-takes to strike 700, I'll start taking practice tests. I haven't purchased any MGMAT CATs yet. Will those be good estimator of my preparation? What about GMAT Question pack 1? Useful?
Thanks a lot for your time, guys..!