Some more days to go...

I have been staying away from browsing, checking emails and BTG for a while as I don't want to get distracted (I'm easily dis-tractable, a reason is this post itself :) )

I had a 5% thought on July 27th to postpone GMAT, was not sure, but felt, may be I can work more hard for a month and can do well in the GMAT, but that thought subsided when I thought that, what if for the next attempt I am not so healthy and prepared as I am now. I also prayed god that day when I heard a feeble voice not too-- so dropped the plans of any postponement.

Coming to my concerns, below are some:

1. CR is taking around 2 mins 30 secs for questions ranging 600-800 level range in GMATPREP. (I have been using GMATFIX software)- Need to develop a strategy
2. SC, I want to revise all OG 12 Questions and Verbal supplement by 3rd, I am on track-- but still gotta do like 150 of them. I wanted to do GMATFIX SC's but I dont think I have time. So will focus only on OG SC.
3. RC- When I do practice I really do well- 95% in 6 mins max. But when it comes to attempting the same in exam, my accuracy is around 75%. I think its the nerves that catching - I need to find a way to fix it.
4. Math - I am going through my GMATPREP exams and figuring out topics I am still weak at; There are some topics still remaining which I want to complete. Also, I wanted to revise Math every day- I made good notes on CO-ORD Geometry, Remainders, Absolute Problems- Which I need to go through. (Probability and Combinations are the two topics I do know well before , but I havent touched the basics yet- gotta do those)
5. Flash Cards - I have around 50-60 flash cards, which I want to review every day.
6. AWA - Havent touched yet, but in 2 mock exams I wrote AWA. Will write down my templates soon.

I need to focus on these, which will be my focus for the next couple of days beside writing exams. Hope to carry that tempo and a little luck along the way :)

Coming Exams:
07/29 - Kaplan 8
07/30 - Kaplan 7
08/01 - 08/03 - GMATPREP
08/05 - MainExam

P.S: I will try to stay away from blogging again..already took 20 mins to type this blog :(

07/24 GMAT Update

Its been a week I have posted an update on my prep; Below are some updates:

• Took Kaplan 5 Exam, scored a 650 (Q: 64%; V: 94%); Reviewed mistakes in Math and Verbal.

SC

• Started Reviewing OG Verbal Supplement for SC - Doing 25 q a day and reviewing to see if I can do the question in 1 minute and what are the potential pitfalls in each question.

• Completed Reviewing the first 2 chapters in MGMAT SC book
  

CR

• Completed OG 12 CR review (2nd)

• Made CR notes.
  

RC

• Every day doing 6 RC; Mostly from OG 12

Math

• Completed Sequences, Absolute Value problems from GMAT CLUB

To Do:

• Math: Review Word Problems in MGMAT and practice problems from OG 12
• SC: Review MGMAT SC 1 Chapter & practice 25 questions
• CR: Review your CR notes and work on 20 Questions from OG 10 OR 12
• RC: 6-8 Passages- Also review your notes.

Exams

• 07/26 -GMAT PREP 2

Donot Think, Just Work.

This is the Mantra I am going to use for my GMAT. I am not going to think anything-- I will just work and apply techniques like a robot. That's it.

Today's Update:

SC: 40 Questions
CR: 35 Questions
RC: 5 Passages (Focus on Structure..Its improving accuracy and Timing)
Math: Onto Inequalities;

Tomorrow's Goals:
For each topic
1. Basics
2. Review Top 5 Strategies for each type
3. Practice

SC: Basics (MGMAT Rules) + What are the 5 Strategies to use+ 20 Questions (1.5 hour) + Parallelism (OG 12, OG 10)
CR: Basics (My Notes) + 40 Questions ( 2 hour) + OG 10 -20 Questions Review.
RC: Basics (My Notes) +Wrong One Review + >5 Passages (Focus on structure)
Math: Basics (5 Topics) + Inequalities( 1 hour)

07/17 GMAT Update

Have been working on GMAT for the last 2 days, relatively focused. Still back of the mind I am thinking whether I should focus on quantity or whether I need to focus on quality. I have been reaffirming myself that right now I am on revision mode until 18th and from 19th I will be on doing more questions.

Also, I have thought to read fewer debriefs of other people than I was doing everyday (around 2-5), because even though it does help me with tips and confidence, it leads me to think whether I should do new questions from various other sources- and accordingly it might affect my plans. So I am limiting myself reading less debriefs. Now onto plans and goals, below are some goals set and achieved:

07/15 - 07/17
SC: Completed comparison questions (Quantitative comparisons) - Made a notes of all questions collected and how to approach. I couldnt complete SC notes revision and OG 12. I have thought to first fix the major weak points and then revise. Now I am confident about Comparisons, and will move to Parallelism slowly. Plan is around 25th I want to complete all the major topics in SC with Solid revision.

CR: All weaken and Strengthen questions in OG 12(Reviewd Power Score chapters). Made some notes of tips/traps and how to approach. My approach involves carefully reading premise/conclusion, write down the premise/concl- short hand- predict and then remember whats the conclusion and attack each answer choice - will take me around 2 - 2.5 mins

RC: Completed around 10 passages in OG with speed timer. Did some LSAT passages on 15th. But I thought no reason to go to LSAT before I fix my timing. So focussing only on OG 10 + 12 with timer. Goal is to complete each passage in around 6 mins. Now i average around 8.

Math: Completed Rate Problems and Quadratic Eqns; Made a list of all tough questions, concepts in a doc.

I will be working more on Verbal parts CR/RC for the next up coming days. I will just review concepts in Math for about 1 -1.5 hour each day and SC I will do like 20 questions (weak points) and the rest of the time I will focus on CR/RC.

Todays Goals
1. CR: Review Assumptions/Conclusions/Evaluate Questions [Update: Done - Made Notes]
2. RC: 5 -10 passages [ Update: 7:30 - 10:00pm]
3. SC : 20 Questions
4. Math: Review Notes + Inequalities.

My Scores:
06/08/2010 Kaplan : 600 (Q:59% V: 53%)
06/28/2010 Kaplan 2 : 650 (Q: 77% V: 64%)
07/03/2010 Kaplan 3 : (Q:99% ) - Exam Ended After Quant
07/07/2010 GMATPREP 1 : 730 (Q50, V39)
07/10/2010 MGMAT3 : 590
07/15/2010 KAPLAN 4 : 660 (Q:92% V:40%)
07/22/2010 Kaplan 5

Yes I can!!

It was a complete chaos day for me in terms of studying for GMAT. There are so many thoughts coming in and making me nervous about this exam. I have decided not to think about them and just bend my head into the OG and just practice and just say I can do this. Its mental battle for me as I have written this exam before and I have a very bad experience- I have decided to fight it and get into a college I dream everyday. Hope I can by god's grace. Let me not falter in the steps I take, Let me not lose the hope and Let me not fear the GMAT. Lets face it, Let me Work Hard and Stay calm to get over this with a happy score.

-Madhu
===================================================
Completed Today:
1. OG 12 RC Inferences/Detail in OG 12 (around 50% of passages)
2. SC Questions (Around 15)
3. Kaplan Stress Management Workshop (Completed
- Do Exercise
- Breathe Well
- Relax yourself in exam
- When you talk, do not speak -ve about exam to yourself or w/t others
- Practice the attitude while practicing and writing exams

4. Personal Power - By Anthony Robbins (Started Listening)
- People dream, but people who act on it and continuously work on it get it.

5. Speed Reading (4 th chapter 20% complete)


Tomorrow Goals:
1. Kaplan Exam at 8:00 AM at Center
2. OG 12 CR - Review (Need to complete this by 17th, as I have BTG CR doc to start)
3. Math - Rate Problems
4. SC - 10 Questions
5. RC - 4 passages

Up Coming Goals:

July 15- July 18th (Math +CR Focus)
SC Goal: Notes Revision 1 time; OG 12 Revision 1 time.
CR Goal: OG 12 every question thorough review 1 time.
RC Goal: Just 4 passages per day (Focus on structure and try to apply the patterns).
Math Goal: Eliminate most of the weak points you have written in excel sheet.
3-day Main Goal: To complete OG 12 CR-Math Weak points - Revise SC notes
Timing: Complete 4 RC first thing in the morning, then move onto revision and CR

July 19th -July21 (CR Focus)
CR: Do 3 sets of 25 questions from BTG doc.
RC: Just 4 passages
SC: 20 questions/day; Revise Notes
Math: Do 50 questions/day; Revise Notes
3-Day Main Goal: Fix CR & Build confidence
Timing: Complete 4 RC first thing in the morning, then move onto revision and CR

July 21 - July 24th
AWA: Template finalization and application to exam
CR : 2 sets of 25.
RC : 4 Passages per day
SC: Complete in 1 min each question in OG 12 (2 hrs)
Math: 50 questions.

July 25 - Aug 3rd
Revision and Exams
Timing: 12 pm exam everyday w/t awa.

Practice Selection

Math : Learn concepts, Formulae, short cuts really well. Focus only on GMAT related problems- Official problems.
SC: Only OG12 + Verbal Prep + GMAT Prep (Don't touch anything else)
CR: OG 12 + Verbal Prep + 300 BTG + GMAT PREP
RC: OG 12 + OG 10 + GMATPREP

Yes I can!!

07/14 GMAT Update

Today's update:

Math - Completed Remainder Problems Theory and some remainder problems posted in BTG.
Check this thread, awesome
http://gmatclub.com/forum/compilation-of-tips-and-tricks-to-deal-with-remainders-86714.html#p651942

SC- Did around 20 SC questions, have started writing down my reasoning now of why each choice is wrong/correct, this is helping a lot.

CR - Did 10 Q - I need to work on proportions/percentages questions in CR, still my weakpoint.
Downloaded 300 tough question doc from BTG, gotta set time for them

RC - Did only 1 tough passage.

Major amount of time today I spent for analyzing some tough SC questions and CR questions. I also spent some time looking at deadlines for Wharton (Around Feb for Exec MBA).

Tomorrow I need to work on Math - Rate Problems, SC, CR - Some questions, and RC - Primary Purpose + Inference. I need to complete 4 articles in science daily and economist also. Anyways..too late..gotta sleep..

Happy Gmating!!

7/13 GMAT Update

Today was a little productive day in terms of Math. I reviewed the wrong questions in MGMAT and worked on Work Problems and Population Increase problems. I have collected and worked on some tough Word problem questions from BTG and MGMAT website , I feel its a good notes moving a head. In Verbal, I did 10 CR from OG, reviewing why each answer is wrong and In SC did around 5 questions- started documenting in powerpoint the wrong ones with explanation ( For like vs as comparison - Like cannot be used with prepositional phrases, ex:- In hungary, like much of Greece ... - Is incorrect; Use "as"). I didnt do RC Today, tomorrow first thing will be RC. Will focus on Inference questions in RC- Goal is to complete all RC- Inferences tomorrow.
I have noted some of the weakpoints and Todo's which I need to address soon:

Math
1. Inequalities
2. Absolute Value Questions
3. Mixture (Still some doubts)
4. Probability- Combinations.
5. Remainder Problems (07/13)
6. Rate Problems (07/13)
CR
1. Math related questions (Proportions - Percentages based Questions asking for S/W/A)
2. Underlined Questions, with twist at the end (07/13)
3. Bold Faced Questions.
RC
1. Inference (How to do them faster and with vgood accuracy) (07/13)
SC
1. Which vs Ing usage
2. Comparison (700 level questions)
3. Modifiers
4. Parallelism
5. Review Notes. (07/13)

I have to complete most of these by July 24th, from then I am planning to hit more on exams.

All OG12 Primary Purpose Questions Summary

I went through all the passages in OG12 for questions based on primary purpose and made a gist of what I learnt. One interesting thing I found is, I was able to answer all the questions, except one, correct. I have learnt that, after you read a paragraph, you got to jot down what does it say in 1 line, do the same for the rest and then summarize using 2-3 words what the passage is like, the passage explains/challenges/discuss etc., I have made a list of how each passage is laid out structurally and what are the most often key words used and wrong key words used in the an excel. Will review it often. Below is a summary of my learning.

Most often used wrong word: Methodology (Means method, principles). The passage explains a theory, but a answer choice is there which says methodology is explained. A theory and methodology are not same.

Some more wrong words used: Alternate explanation, Recent (Make sure a word such as new, current, today are used for recent, and specifically an alternate is proposed)

Most often used pattern structure: Explain/Discuss - out of 24 passages, 23 passages explained or discussed about something, only one challenged.

Other: When you see recent word - wrong answer would used "past" word and vice versa. If a date is mentioned, like In 1889, then wrong answer would say recently.

Thats it for today..Gotta do some CR and review math and then sleep :)

MGMAT Exam Review

Had chance to review MGMAT exam -Verbal part. These are the findings I had

Exam Thoughts

1. I need to improve my concentration levels, should focus on maintaining good focus through out the exam with goal on applying strategies and making sure I am taking the proper time needed for each question, and not look at timer all the time

2. I need to be serious, very serious about the exam when I am in exam mode. I cannot get distracted nor I cannot think about anything else, I just need to be focussed in the exam while writing the exam. Its an important exam for me and I cannot be lackluster while attempting a question, I need to give my best for each question, by applying all the methods, techniques strategies I have learnt.

3. First 10 questions I need to double check and be careful. Say to yourself before the exam, the first 10 questions i need to double check and apply the strategies and I cant be careless or less focussed.

3. Verbal Part

1. RC: I did fine, but main idea question, tone questions were the problem. I took more time for main idea Qs and selected wrong answers. I will focus on fixing the main idea questions for my next exam.
2. CR: Paraphrase, Paraphrase, Paraphrase- Don't go to answer choices with out paraphrase. This technique I need to employ for my next exam. Don't care too much about the score/time, just apply the technnique.
3. SC: Dont select an answer on a vague reason, or a hunch. Need to bolster with a strong S-V, VERB, Modifier, Comparison, Parallelism reasoning. I will revise my SC notes and will do modifiers/parallelism/comparison from OG 10 OR 12 for my next exam.

So that's about Verbal. I need to look into Math part soon. I have my next exam on July 13th, as mentioned above, I want to fix the above issues by then and try one more exam. Today I will work on doing main idea questions from OG, 2 LSAT RC (If time permits), 20 CR- Use paraphrase technique, SC- Notes Revision, Math - Reviewing MGMAT Cat Questions. That's it.

----------------------
Chanting Narayana Narayana wholeheartedly would free you from all problems.

Low score on MGMAT...What's next>>

Very much down after my MGMAT exam, I got a 590 in it. Well, its already 1:00 AM, so I have to see what went wrong in my exam tommorrow. But pretty disappointing performance. I have to see what I need to improve. Feeling bad about the test now :(

Manhattan GMAT Exam Today@ 9 PM- Target 670+

I got a MGMAT mock exam today evening at 9 PM. Preparing for it- doing some notes revision from Critical Reasoning and will be doing 1 LSAT RC and 1 LSAT CR and review some OG questions.

I have realized that I need to fix timing in RC and CR, Below are some approaches I am taking

- decrease my inner vocalization, regression and focusing on a posture that would keep me in top concentration,
- read 4 articles from sciencedaily, and economist
- Keep strict timer deadlines while practicing passages in OG and LSAT (3.5 Mins for reading 65 liner passage)

Gotta keep going, GMAT is becoming little burn out for me, but I am not going to give up on this, as this my last attempt and I will push myself to the best. Now back to studying..Need to get at least a 670 above in the mock exam.

----------
Food for brain ->
Eat Blue berries
Take a Omega 3 supplement
Drink lots of water
Eat Almonds and Walnuts.

28 days more to go

I got only 28 days before I write the main exam. I am preparing not bad except I spent the whole weekend with out studying and was enjoying with friends (back of the mind i didnt even think about GMAT:)
Anyway, I took the courage yesterday to write my first GMAT Prep exam. I got a 730 on it, with Q50, V39, but I got 4 CR which I already know, so I feel that my verbal score is inflated by 20-30 points. One thing I felt good was that I got only 1 RC wrong. I applied the timing deadlines to verbal and math sections and followed them rigorously.

For Math, I kept a pacing strategy of 7 questions for every 15 mins, and for verbal 8 questions for every 15 mins. Except some questions overall math I could perform well. I did silly mistakes in 2 questions and on some hard questions, I did know there was no information to support choice C, but I selected E. (I have this weird feeling when I do a hard question that may be I dont know the concept so thats why the answer is C. But it turned out that 3 of such questions which I have answered C turned out to be E, the correct answer which I predicted while doing the question- next time I will select what I deduce and just move on).

Coming to verbal, I am losing grip in CR. I have almost worked on atleast 700-800 LSAT CR questions and at one point of time my accuracy was very good, but when I moved to OG from LSAT, I started doing less number of questions and especially harder ones and now after some time I get harder ones wrong. I should have continued doing LSAT instead of switching to OG completely. Anyways, yesterday I worked on like 50 CR questions from KAPLAN, GMATFIX and my accuracy went down. Kaplan answers are weird though, so I stopped doing them. GMAT FIX was also not so ok too, as I faced some trouble answering even easy CR's.

Coming to Verbal from GMATPREP exam, I think I need to still improve, I got 4 cr, which gave me around 8 mins of free time and 4 correct answers which skewed my score to 39. I should have waited for 2 mins for each of those questions and then answered. Anyways, I am ramping up my prep from tommorrow onwards.

I was searching online to read some debriefs of people who excelled from low scores to high scores and I found these two links, both these guys had an amazing improvement from previous scores, key was speed reading combined with LSAT CR and LSAT RC.

http://www.beatthegmat.com/770-q50-v45-from-uzbekistan-t31620.html
http://www.beatthegmat.com/760-q51-v42-from-uzbekistan-t55430.html#240574

So I have thought to keep working on LSAT CR/RC until the end of the exam. Based on that I have made the below schedule for tommorrow.

Morning 5:30 AM - 1 PM (7.5 Hours)
RC - LSAT 1 (1.5 hour)
CR - LSAT 1 (1.5 hour)
MATH - 50 Questions (2 hour)
SC - 1 Hour

4:30pm - 6:00pm Free time

6:00pm - 9:00 PM (3 HRS)
6-7 : CR/OG CR Review
7-8 : RC/OG RC Review
8-9 : SC Notes

Below is What I did today:

1. Completed reviewing GMAT PREP Exam1 (Took around 4 hours)
- Made some notes of wrong ones (I had math 8, verbal 11 incorrect ones)
2. Read some speed reading exercises ( read 2 words instead of 1, dont repeat, keep concentrate while studying -no nail biting or moving legs etc., just focus, Imagine what you are reading. ) Initial WPM was 246, but working on fixation I could move to 350.
3. Did 6 LSAT CR/ 5 OG CR
4. Did 3 OG RC
5. Did around 50 Math questions.


I got only 28 days more to go. I should make sure I follow strategies I have written for each topic and revise notes that I have written.

Below are my upcoming exam schedules:

07/10/2010 MGMAT1;
07/13/2010 MGMAT2;
07/15/2010 KAPLAN 4;
07/18/2010 GMATPREP1;
07/21/2010 MGMAT 5;
07/23/2010 Kaplan 5
07/26/2010 GMAT PREP2;
07/29/2010 Kaplan 6;
07/30/2010 GMATPREP 3;
07/31/2010 Kaplan 7;
08/01/2010 GMATPREP 4;
08/02/2010 Kaplan 8;
08/03/2010 GMAT PREP 5;
08/05/2010 Main Exam

Good night and happy gmatting..

Kaplan Exam Ended Abruptly with Math Section

Hmm., after the math section, the exam ended abruptly. Anyway I scored a 99% on math, from 77% last time. Got two mistakes in math. I need to call Kaplan customer service tomorrow and find what the problem was. [I really wanted to write the Verbal, as I prepped well for Verbal, anyways will wait until 6th]

These are weak points I found from this exam in Math

1. Rate Problems
2. Inequalities, Absolute Values.

My next exam is on July 6th now, gotta wait until then for my next score. Alas, good night and I will be out to VA Beach tomorrow to celebrate my Wife's Birthday. So only little prep (4 RC, 20 CR) tomorrow early morning.

Getting Ready for My Kaplan Exam at 9 PM

Yesterday was a tough day, I could only study from 6 am- 9:30 am, 11:30 am - 2:30 pm, and 8:30 pm - 10:00 pm. Due to daily family activities, I have to spend the rest of the time to do some shopping for home etc., Anyways I could do RC-5, SC -40, CR-15 and no math. I got disappointed with my accuracy in CR/RC, around 70%. Not sure what I need to do, but I could pin point some issues with RC, which I will carefully work today. Couple of things I did last two days was to make a strategy on approaching any RC/CR; I made the strategy based on Kaplan/MGMAT and my experience with practicing the questions. I am applying this strategy whenever I work on a CR/RC. Anyways, I have a kaplan exam due today evening. Here is what I am planning to do

1. Complete Reviewing All Incorrect questions in OG CR (around 15q/33q)
2. Same for RC (15q/50q)
3. Same for SC (15q/34q)

I also made a check list of current weak points I have in Verbal and I will be working on those to fix them. Alas, Let me start working on these as its already 8 AM and I am planning to write exam around 9 PM, evening.

7/1 GMAT Update..33 days more to go!!!

Yesterday, I have worked on the below topics

Comparisons
- All GMAT Prep
- ALL Online Kaplan Questions

Mixtures & Proportions
- All Kaplan Online
- All GMAT Prep

- Completed all Assumption questions in GMATFIX online database.

Today (Thursday):

CR: Assumption, Conclusion, Strengthen Questions and wrote down strategies that I need to apply. Worked on around 30 questions involving those

-Attended Kaplan final class

- Adjusted my study plan to include some questions from Kaplan online database.

- Plan to complete (1000 SC, 900 CR, 200 RC, and 1600 Math Questions); I know a lot, not sure If I got the time to complete so many, but tentatiely, I kept 40 CR, 40SC, 40 RC and 40 Math questions every day for the next 25 days.

Tomorrow (Friday):

CR:
- 15 Questions from OG
- 15 Questions from Kaplan
- Review 10 wrong questions in OG
Time: 9:00 AM - 12 PM

RC: Practise the methodology on Kaplan CR's
- Do 4 from Kaplan
- 4 From OG-P
Time: 6AM - 8:30 AM (try doing some in evening)

SC: Review 20 questions which I got wrong in OG; 20 Practice Questions
Time: 2:00 PM - 3:30 PM

Math: Review notes and work on RATE Problems and Work Problems.
- Do Kaplan 40 Problems Online
Time: 4:30 PM - 7:30 PM

I know I am using the blog more as time management tool, but this is helping me to follow exactly what I write. So lets do it, have a more exciting day tommorrow starting to apply the RC Methodology I learnt in Kaplan to Passages, hope I improve my method to approach. I really want to spend time working on LSAT passages, but I like the online Kaplan RC's since the passages are laid out similar to GMATPREP and the content is more or less similar to OG, so gonna try them. I am planning to complete Kaplan/OG in 10 days from now then I am going to jump on LSAT. Lets see, I need to focus and learn the methods, its not the quantity rather than quality thats important in my preparation. I need to find what my weak points are and then fix them rather than doing what I know always. Time management is also very key, do all problems timed and note why you are taking more time on some and not on others.

I learnt a good point in todays class, learn what to do when you dont know how to answer a question. When you see a question and you dont know, then follow a methodology, for example in CR, if you dont know how to answer a question, find conclusion, paraphrase as best as you can eliminate answer choices and select one, even if you cant do it, strategically eliminate, even if you cant do it, just guess as fast as you can move a head. Dont get stuck!! thats the key between a 650 and 720.