CR - 1

Critical Reasoning, although overwhelming at first, is an area that one can make a lot of improvement in a short span of time. This only requires mastering the CR question types and common answers for each question type.
So how to approach a CR question? The Powerscore bible book says that we should first read the stimulus as given and then go on to read the question (e.g, weaken question, strengthen question etc).

Let us consider a passage:

Many towns that have severe snow fall in the winter are prone to higher rate of accidents during the winter.  <--------------------- Stimulus/Passage

Which of the following statements, if true, weakens the above conclusion? <---Conclusion

(a)
(b)
(c)                                                        <-----------Answer choices
(d)
(e)

This is a break-up of the three parts of a Critical Reasoning Question.

Approach to target a CR question:

First, read the stimulus and understand it. Try to answer the following questions in your mind: what is the author trying to say, what is he persuading us to believe, what is the evidence that he offers.  ALWAYS, LOCATE THE CONCLUSION IF THE PASSAGE HAS ONE. Remember, most CR questions have a conclusion. A conclusion is a statement that begins with the word so,therefore, hence, as a result etc.

Second, move on to the question and place it into a particular question type(in your mind ofcourse). Eg. Does the question talk about strengthening the argument, then it is a strengthen question.
Fortunately, there are only 10 question types in CR and each one can be mastered.

Third, think of the possble 'correct' and 'incorrect' answers based on the question types posed. More on this point later.

Critical Reasoning questions fall into 3 categories except 'evaluate the argument' question that is  combination of two categories. Learning the strategy for each category and question is all that is required to master CR.

Category 1: Answer choices are under suspect and passage is taken as true
Main Point
Must be true
Method of reasoning
flaw in reasoning
Parallel reasoning


Category 2: Passage is under suspect and answer choices are taken as true
Strengthen/support
Assumption
Resolve the paradox

Category 3: Passage is under suspect and answer choices are taken as true(similar to category 2 except that the right answer is a polar to the answer in category 2)
Weaken

Evaluate the argument is a combination of family 2 and 3.

As you go through CR strategies, you will learn to recognize the question types and most questions will be explicitly stated such as 'which of the following,if true, is an assumption to the conclusion above'. so we know this is an assumption question. This recognition will easily come within a few days of CR study, so do not fret.

Source:Powerscore CR bible

Critical Reasoning Basics

Although, I did not fare as I expected in my GMAT , I'm going to go ahead and post my flashcards here,as I promised myself. I hope it is useful to someone.

I started the Verbal Section with the Critical Reasoning(CR) part. Mastering this section gives us a good hold over the Verbal Section and also helps us improve in the Reading Comprehension part of the Verbal Section.

There are a fixed type of questions that are askedd in the CR portion and mastering these questions by types is the best thing to do.

Note - I used the Powerscore CR book for my CR. A brilliant book and all my notes here are based on the book. Please don't sue me for any copyright issues, I'm just paraphrasing the book and my understanding.

Good Luck!

The following are the question types for CR
1.Must be True questions
2.Main point questions
3.Method Of reasoning questions
4.Flaw in Reasoning questions
5.Parallel Reasoning questions
6.Strengthen/Support the argument questions
7.Find the assumption questions
8.Resolve the paradox questions
9.Weaken the argument questions
10.Evaluate the argument questions

In the next post, I shall start targetting each question type.


SOURCE: Critical Reasoning Bible

Done

I did not perform as expected. Nevertheless, if anyone is interested in knowing my test experience or score then e-mail me or leave a comment here

Day 01 to the Graduate Management Admissions test

                                                    THIS IS IT

I'm almost there. I am excited, worried, happy, curious, and confident! Waiting to KILL the GMAT. GMAT - Here, I come to murder you.


For those of you who want a peek into the testin center, check this out : GMAC Video - Must Watch . This video gives a perfect understanding of GMAT centers.

Wish me luck - I have a huge task at hand ;-) . See you on the other side of the GMAT

Days 03 and 02 and India won the match!!!

Yesterday was my Day 03 and I took a GMAT prep CAT. Not at all happy with the score V was a 25. My worst verbal score till date. I noticed that concentration levels do affect my Verbal performance. Need to rest for the next 2 days so that I perform at my optimum level during the test on Saturday.

....And Indian beat Australia to enter the Semi-finals of the Cricket World Cup...woot woot!!

Days 05 and 04

Didn't really study anything yesterday and today because I'm already having exam-day stress. But, I need to buckle up and go through my flash cards as well as some other random topics that I am weak at. But, I still did 10 CR and 10 SC questions because I am 'inherently' weak in these areas and if I fail to do questions even for a day, I tend to mess up a lot.
Going to take a practice CAT tomorrow afternoon and will then drill my weaknesses again. I'm super super stressed out and I am going to do more yoga ont he coming days to de-stress.

Day 07 and Day 06

Took a MGMAT CAT on Saturday evening. The total was a 630 44Q and 32 V. Looks like my Q 44 has stabilized. Verbal seems to fluctuate between 28-30 usually and it is 32 this time.I need to get down to VErbal basics again this week as I wind up my prep. I tend to forget Verbal strategy much more easily as compared with Quant Strategy. In the meanwhile, I signed up for GMAT pill. The Videos in CR are good upto the one that I viewed. I really need all the help in CR.Sad Sad.

So,6 days to go.....the COUNTDOWN begins!

Day 08

Completed 40 DS problems from the Official Guide 12. The most daunting and boring task was to review the problems. But, I made some 20 Flashcards upto now of concepts that are new to me/hard to me. This seems the best part as it helps me cement concepts into my otherwise-dead brain :-D

Today's plan:
-Complete all the DS problems and their review
-Review my SC flashcards. I'm still debating with myself whether I need to go through the Advanced portions of the MGMAT SC guide. The topics seem too much for me to absorb and I'm already in a position in which I can kill atleast 8 out of 10 SC questions from the 600+ level. Anyone has any thoughts on this? Feel free to post.
-Take up 20 CR problems and their review

Day 9

Today is the time for 20 DS and 20 CR questions from OG 12. Also, need to go through my Verbal SC flashcards. I have a comprehensive list of flash cards that I made as a part of my GMAT prep. I shall put it up here once I'm done with my test - need to literally type them out as they are physical copies and not soft copies.
 Some of my Quant topics need brushing up. Speed problems and number properties are two such areas. Will work on these areas tommorow.

Day 10

As mentioned in my previous post, I took a practice CAT and reviewd the results too.
Now, 10 days to go for my day - I can't wait :-)
I took a 1 day break in between to prevent myself from going insane with GMAT prep. Here's what I did : Strawberry jam , for those of you who are interested.
The plan over the next 7 days it to go through EACH OG question and make flashcards for those questions that I don't understand. Then,1 final CAT 3 days before the exam. That's it.

I did make a plan for myself as outlined in my previous post but i'm not going to follow it. My plans are going to be dynamic. This will allow me to adjust for my weak areas.

Oh, and I took a Princeton Review test yesterday and scored a 570(Q40,V28). I REALLY trust PR tests. They are a very good indicator of your real GMAT score which will be 20-30 points higher as compared to PR.

my GMAT prep test

Took a GMAT prep test today from mba.com. Results were WAY below my expectation. I realized that I made a lot of silly mistakes and only 2-3 questions in each section were related to concept errors. I got 17 incorrect in Quant with a raw score of 44 and 16 incorrect in Verbal with a raw score of 30. 10 of the incorrect questions in Quant were SC questions. I can't believe this because I thought SC was my strenghth!
Need to work hard for the next 2 weeks.

Plan for next 2 weeks

Plan for the next 2 weeks:

March 12 - Take a GMAT prep test from mba.com (Supposedly, the most accurate indicator of your official GMAT score). Review the results.

March 13 - Review some AWA templates. I shall post links to these templates when I get to them. Also, start with OG 12 Quant Problems(oops, I've done only 20% of the problems upto this point).Target:20PS+20DS+10SC+10CR+2 Passages

March 14 - 20PS+20DS+10SC+20CR+2 Passages AND REview of MGMAT EIV book(make flashcards). Cover remaining chapters of Powerscore CR,about 4 chapters.

March 15 - 20PS+20DS+10SC+20CR AND Review of MGMAT WT book(make flashcards)

March 16 - 20PS+20DS+10SC+20CR AND Review of SC Advanced portion from MGMAT SC book(not really imp but I want to glance through this portion)

March 17 - 20PS+20DS+10SC+20CR

MArch 18 - 20PS+20DS+10SC+20CR

March 19 - 20PS+20DS+10SC+20CR

March 20 - 20PS+20DS+10SC+20CR

March 21 - Complete PS and DS

March 22 - CAT, Note down weaknesses. Need to revisit flashcards, do additional questions and revire the corresponding MGMAT guide for these topics.

Will plan on the last 3 days a little later.
MArch 23
MArch 24
MArch 25

Day 14

I improved on my CR today. Finally, Finally, Finally, I've started to get the hold of it. I really struggled for more than a week to get here and have been super busy studying almost 5-6 hours a day. For sure,GMAT is interesting and I'm actually enjoying my journey. I'm almost at the end of my journey, 15 days to go. Yippee! GMAT prep tends to burn you out sometimes, so I'm going to stop studying for 2 days and just relax. I"ll spend some time doing things that I like to do such as Crochet, Painting and watching Cookery shows(oh, did I tell you ,I LOVE cooking?). I"ll be back to the GMAT on sat, 12 march. I have a rough plan in my mind. Will outline the plan in my next post.

Good Luck to all of you studying away for the GMAT. It sure is a hard test, but take it in the right spirit and the GMAT teaches us so many things along the way. I developed my English Skills tremendously with GMAT Sentence Correction Questions. I, also, got a chance to review Math which may be used in Graduate or Business school. That reminds me, I'm going to continue this blog even after my GMAT to outline b-school admission procedures that I have collected over the last one year or so. This may be helpful to International Applicants applying to Universities in the United States.

Ok, I'm going to call it a day for the GMAT.

Days 17,16 and 15

I have been busy with some CR review. This is the hardest part of Verbal for me. And, I get worse with respect to accuracy when I follow books and strategy. May be I'm not following the books 100% which is very improtant for CR. For practice, I have been  10 SC and 2 RC passages daily. Quant practice is taking a little back seat for me. I shall catch up with Quant starting Monday 03/14.

Also, this afternoon I'm going to take a Princeton Review test. Will post back here with my result! Fingers Crossed.

Day 19 and 18

I am going to get down to CR basics this week. CR is my only problem area and it alone causes my verbal and total score to go very low. Also, I have learnt that an improvement in Verbal score will help boost the total score faster than a Quant score can. So, I want to make Verbal my strength and as a matter of fact, I am enjoying studying verbal more than Quant.
In summary, this week it will be a review of Powerscore CR book. I have not completed many chapters and need to get myself to do most of the chapters if not all. In addition, I am going to do 15 SC questions and 1-2 RC passages daily.  There's more to this - I'm weak in word problems so need to get some review done in that area. LOT of work this week and what's more , I have my TOEFL iBT scheduled on March 11. I wanted to be done with this test before the GMAT so that after the GMAT it is only partying ;-)

IMP - As the CR book name implies, this book is truly a CR bible. One thing that I learnt is we should not act smarter than the author and implement our own theory or strategy. Trust me, I learnt this the hard way and you would not want to do this. Follow this book blindly and think the way the book trains your brain to think. You will learn to kill most CR questions privided you have also done some practice from the Official Guide. Oh, and by the way, the Official guide is a GREAT book for the Verbal part. If short on time, religiously do as many problems as you can in the verbal section and READ/REVIEW the corresponding OG explanation. This explanation does a very good job and also teaches us many things.

Another imp foot note - Keep practicing the sections even if you feel you have mastered them. Why? You will tend to forget a few rules/theory if you leave a section untouched for more than 3-4 days. This happened with me. Let me explain. CR is a big weakness for me today. But,will anyone believe that CR was a major strength area for me 2 months back? I used to be able to do most CR problems and my accuracy rate was 85%. After mastering the CR section, I totally forgot about it and continued with other parts. now, when I try to go back to do CR, I realized that I am not able to recollect much. So, moral of the story : keep practicing the topics that you have mastered on a regular basis.

It is said that life is too short to make all mistakes on your own. Truly applies in this case. Got it? So Don't try to figure out what will happen to you if you don't practice daily. Take my word for this- been there done that - and you will not regret it!

Days 21 and 20

I have been doing some practice CR questions from the Official guide, Verbal Supplement. Not great news here. II have noticed that my CR accuracy depends ENTIRELY on my concentration levels except for a handful of questions in which there in a lack of understanding in concepts. Same goes for RC for me. I have not been doing much RC practice since the last 1 month and my MGMAT CAT #5 proved that this is not a good sign. I gto a 640(43,34) in my practice test. The third saturday after today is my test and I'm not changing the date.

Days 23 and 22

I did some RC practice over the last 2 days. Also, started my review for CR. Finished 5 chapters of the PowerScore CR book. It is 5 PM here and I still have a couple of hours of study that I can put in. I am going to start with the Official guide questions for CR. I'm also doing some practice SC from the OG,about 15 questions per day. This is just to make sure that I don't forget SC!

Days 25 and 24

It is already March 01 and I have started freaking out!!! Oh my. I just realized that it is hard to study under this pressure. I managed to complete a review of the NP guide in the last 2 days and also completed all the PS questions in the OF Supplement book.
My Verdict : Do only the last 50-60 problems in the PS section of the OG Quant review book. The rest of the problems are very simple, probably 500-600 level questions. Do them if you have the time otherwise just start with say problem 100 and go up!
I got half the problems wrong in the last leg, that is last 50 questions. This shows that I need to really review the problems so that I have something to learn from it. Today's target will be the review of all the problems.
Once done with this today, I shall start a review of the Critical Reasoning section. This may take me 2 weeks to do along with the OG questions. Oh,I don't have time :-(. Need to squeeze it in my schedule somehow. Alongside this CR, I have to review the Math concepts too(4 MGMAT books,****!!!).

Day 26

Sometimess we need time off from the GMAT and that's exactly what I did today. It was a lazy day for me and NO study.However, since it is neccesary to spend atleast 10 minutes a day with the GMAT books, I did a review of a couple of chapters of the NP guide. Tommorow's target will be to finish the NP guide and also finish the rest of the PS problems from the Quant book. Once this is done, I can start to review Critical Reasoning techniques which I'm already forgetting and there's a month to my test.

Day 27

Today I started with a re-review of the MGMAT NP guide.This book has a lot of small tips and tricks to help us immensely on the exam. I think I should be done with the review of this book in a couple of days. also, I completed all the SC questions in the Verbal OG review book. Wow,feels good. I have started to recognize a pattern that the GMAT tests with questions and wrong answers. I am going to continue with NP review tommorow too.

Day 28

 I did not study yesterday and took the day off GMAT. This is just to keep me from going insane...haha...Today I solved 30 DS questions from the OG Quant book. With this the DS questions from this book will be completed. In addition, I went through 20 SC and 30 PS questions. Enough for the day, will continue with problems tommorow.

Pick your Color

This post is just for fun

 

 .........................................the GMAT is all over me!

Day 30

Today I reviewed the SC concepts that I had done yesterday. This was just to make sure that I don't forget anything. Time to start with some OG questions for SC. I'm already doing stuff from the OG Quant book and will still need about a week to complete it. I solved 30 questions from the OG Verbal book today and got 50% wrong. Grrr..., feel like banging my head. The plus side is I reviewd my wrong answers with the help of the book and doscovered that the OG explanations are simply superb! Infact, for those of you who are short on prep time could go through the OG alone for SC and note all the grammar concepts/idioms tested. This itself would be a good study plan for the SC part of the test.

Day 31

I spent the President's day with the GMAT ,haha. I reviewed the MGMAT SC correction book. This took me two days,yesterday and today. I seemed to pick up a lot of 'new' stuff on GMAT SC rules; I hope I can put it to use when the time actually comes for it ;-).
I also solved 30 PS questions from the OG Quant book.
Ok, not bad for today! Off to bed now.

Day 32

Today, I took a MGMAT CAT and scored a 590(42,31).CryCry. My verbal score seems to have improved. Not sure what happened to the Quant though. What happened in the Quant section was, the test was throwing EXTREMELY strange topics and unheard of questions. I still don't know if I should take the Quant score as a basis for my further prep. I need to do some research on the Quant qestion types that I faced, I wonder if this a marketing strategy for MGMAT. The Verbal section was ok except for the CR's,which were hard. I think I'm done for today and will use the rest of the day to review the CAT answers and make a plan for the forthcoming week.

Day 33

Today I spent some time practicing some Quant questions from the OG Quant(green book). I completed the first 30 Ques in PS in hardly 30 minutes. My opinion - the first few questions are way too easy,better ignored. This was followed by 30 DS questions from the same book. I also reviewed a few topics in Sentence Correction such as S-V agreement, Pronouns and modifiers.

Day 34

Today's target is completed with Part 3 of the SC Grail book and the next 3 chapters of the MGMAT Geometry book. I have a tip here for those of you who find it hard to retain the MGMAT materials in your head - try using index cards and write out whatever you find hard/understandable so that you could review this over and over again until it is drilled in your head. It is around 8 PM right now and If there seems some extra time after dinner, I will start reviewing the MGMAT SC book. Upto this point, I have solved only a part of the Official Guide problems and it is time that I tackle each and every problem. It is a long week end here this week in the United States and I'm going to be dating my GMAT books(sob,sob).

Day 35

I am done with today's schedule. The SC GRAIL book was pretty concise and well-structured. I am yet to finish one part of it though. I also started review from the MGMAT Geometry Book.

Here's some thing new and exciting that I tried today : I started making flash cards. This might sound an old or boring idea to some but, for a person like me who has never used index cards in her life, I enjoyed making my flask cards. This is what I mean, for those of you who have never heard of them. I used a simple notebook to make flashcards/notes but realized that it turned pretty messy because When I re-visited some topics/sections and if I had to note a few new things then my entire notes set gets unorganized. This way, the Index cards are Awesome.

Today, it was 3 hours of study :

• I completed Part 1 and Part 2 of SC GRAIL.
• I completed 2 Chapters of the MGMAT Geometry book

GMAT fever is on ......

The countdown to my G-day begins!

I have been off GMAT for almost a week now. I decided to take a break as I had decreased my productivity over the last few days. I really needed to recharge before attempting to Prep again. After having completed review of the concepts tested on the GMAT, I'm going to go into more detailed/serious prep now. Also, I will post a regular schedule from now on as my plans will be dynamic and more dependent on days rather than weeks.

The weeks forward

Today is Valentine's day and I am studying away. Got a beautiful gift from my husband yesterday. He is not the to go around buying gifts but he did it for me this year. How cute!

Ok, so back to GMAT. I need to use the next 5 weeks to strengthen my weaknesses and clearly Verbal is a big monster for me.My last test was a Q 43/44 and V 30.I shall devote the next 2 weeks toward CR/SC and also slip in a little of Quant just to keep my mind sharp.I will review CR from this book and also use the powerscore CR bible. The latter is an extremely detailed book to attack CR.
I just purchased the Aristotle SC PDF and this books looks very promising. I will review this book alongside CR and make some notes too.

CAT 3 and 4

Finally, done with one round of my prep, yay! I took two CATs this week, one on Tuesday afternoon and the other one today. My score was 590 and 620 respectively. The first test was a MGMAT CAT and the second one was a GMAT Prep test. I realized that my Quant score ranges from 40 to 44 and my verbal score is stuck at an average of 30 points.Damn! Ofcourse, the good news is that I have improved tremendously in the Reading Comprehension area, a major obstacle for non-native English speakers like me. The GMAT prep test review showed that my SC skills need most polishing and CR needs some work too.

Assuming that I am at a 600 level now, I have so much to catch up to cross that coveted 7## barrier. Wish me luck guys! The GMAT is all over me and I am enjoying it.

Week 6

The past week was hectic,both, in terms of GMAT prep as well as social life. I had a hard time with GMAT guide that I followed for this last week. It had difficult concepts to deal with such as Work related problems, Probability, Combinatorics, Statistics. I have not yet mastered these concepts and this book definitely needs to be visited again. As usual, I did a couple of Chapters in SC and a few RC passages for practice.

The target for this week is to complete review of the next MGMAT Quant Guide, FDP.Alongside this, I will complete 1 chapter of the MGMAT SC guide too.

I just realized that my GMAT date is fast approaching, so will need to re-do all my study in the past few weeks so that I don't forget the things that I studied a few weeks back. Also, I need to complete the MGMAT SC and CR books. I plan to do this over a continuos stretch instead of breaking it up into parts otherwise the SC and CR strategies seem to go on top of my head.

Week 5

The GMAT fever is still on, atleast for me. This week, the plan is to finish review of the Word Translations Guide . This book addresses most of the so-called-hard topics of the GMAT such as Probabilty,Combinatorics, Statistics etc. I'm giving myself this whole week to go through this book. Alongside the Quant Section prep, I'm continuing with my review of the Manhattan GMAT SC book.

In summary this week,
Review of MGMAT WT guide
Review of the next chapter of MGMAT SC book, Verbs and Tenses

CAT 2

This morning I took a second GMAT CAT, the MGMAT CAT. My score was no big improvement but for the Verbal part. I spent the last week exclusively focussing on this part of the test and the result was 31 V. This may not seem a high score to many,but I'm not a native English Speaker and so, this score means a lot to me. From my observation, I have seen many native English Speakers,especially American English speakers, score very well on this part of the test achieving a Verbal score of 40+ and non-native speakers like me need to put in a lot of effort to get there. However, on the plus side, my Math skills are extremely sharp. Thanks to my Educational background and my country of origin(most people are inherantly above-average in Math).

Considering my latest CAT results, I'm going to revisit my GMAT prep plan for the next few weeks, I shall post my plan soon.

A GMAT lesson learnt

I was unable to concentrate on my GMAT prep over the last one week because of some personal commitments. I decided to start my prep today, no matter what. To my shock, I found out that ,it is extremely hard to get back into the GMAT groove after a break. I learnt a hard lesson :-( . I need to catch up with my schedule.

Lesson learnt - To all those preparing for the GMAT, make it a point to review atleast a few pages of your GMAT books every day, even of that means 5 pages. This will keep you going and not cut you out.

Week 4

Having taken a CAT some time back, I realized that my Reading Comprehension Skills are very low. I got all except one question right in my last Practise CAT(duh,terrible isn't it?). This is the reason for my total score to dip.I will be dedicating this week to Verbal RC and a few chapters in CR. Just so that I am in touch with the Quant part of test, I'm going to finish the review of the Foundations of GMAT Book this week alongside Verbal review. This is the book that I am referring to. Please note that this book is absolutely optional and does not even have great reviews written in the Amazon store. However, I'm reviewing the book since I want to score very high on the test. But,Infact,I found the book pretty useless except for the fact that it was a quick Math refresher to all concepts that we are expected to know on the GMAT such as Word Problems, Prime numbers(ahhh,I get stuck here), Equations, Probability etc.

And,by the way, one important tool that is giving my studies even more direction is the use of an Error Log. Many GMAT forums such as beatthegmat and gmatclub have always advocated one, but, I personally never had used them. Now, I'm using one during my prep. I tried to use the various MS excel versions that we have available(for free) over the Internet but they did not work for me. I spent 1/3 rd of my study time for entering the data in those worksheets. So, here's what I do: I maintain a plain,simple notebook and pen . I write down the questions that I get wrong and the concepts that I need to reinforce for the wrong questions. This is proving pretty helpful for me.

Ok,so back to study now - Happy GMATing to all of you!

My First CAT

I took my first CAT today and my score did not have any effect on me - it just shows that I need to work harder and that I have the scope to improve. Having gone through the MGMAT Quant guides,not all of them though, my score has improved a lot. Infact,I did not even know that so much of an increase is possible. If any of you want to know my specific GMAT score break up then shoot me an e-mail or just leave a comment and I"ll let you know.

This test has set a benchmark for me and I will review my study plan for the following weeks.

Flashcards - 6

Adjectives and Adverbs

• Adj and adverbs are modifiers

ADJECTIVES

• Adj modify nouns and Pronouns    Eg. A beautiful house stands at the shore
• Adj answer the questions: how many,which one and what kind
• Adj are commonly placed before nouns
• Adj are found in predicates after the linking verb  Eg. She felt lonely
• numbers are also used as adj   Eg. There are 300 cars parked today

Adj patters:

• Adj-noun

most adj appear before the noun they describe     Eg. An immature person makes many foolish mistakes

•   Noun-Adj

Adj follow the noun,when describing the direct object     Eg. He calls his brother stupid

• Subj-LV-adj

the adj describes the subj of the linking verb     Eg. This restaurant is expensive

Present and PAst Participles,nouns and phrases and clauses are also used as adjectives

• the jumping  horse won the race   Participle
• a copper or steel pan is hard to clean  noun=copper/steel
• prep phrases can b adj     Eg. the pan in the sink has cracked
• phrases with relative pronouns are often are adj

ADVERBS

• Adverbs modifiy words that cannot be modified by adj
• often words ending in-ly are adverbs. Eg, quickly,especially etc
• adverbs answer the quest: how,how often,to what degree,when,where
• clauses and phrases can also function as adverbs

Modifiers(adj and adverbs) should appear close to the words they describe othewise this leads to errors in the sentence known as misplaced modifier

Flashcards - 5

Verbs:

Types of verbs : transitive, intransitive,auxiliary and linking verbs

Transitive Verbs : the verb answers 'what' or 'whom'
Intransitive Verbs : describe actions but are not followed by direct objects or complements; followed by prepositional phrases
Linking Verbs: followed with subj complements(words/phrases/clauses that rename/describe subj); they describe conditions and not actions
Auxiliary Verbs: do not appear alone in a sentence but accompany other verbs . Eg, have, to be ,can, might and would; often modifiers appear in between and auxiliary verb and the rest of the verb phrase but are no a part of the verb phrase. Eg.,he has always liked music

Verb Tenses:
BASIC TENSES
1.Present Tense : describe actions that take place at the same time as they are being described.
2.Past Tense : describe actions/conditions that took place at a time before they are described
3.Future Tense : describe actions that will take place after they are described; it is created by adding 'will' to the basic form of the main verb

PERFECT TENSES
The Perfect tenses are used to describe how an event in the present ,past or future continues to be relevant at a later time.
---Mario has arrived home
1.Present Perfect : describes events that started in the past and continue
into the present
It is formed by using have/has with the past participle of the main verb
2.Past Perfect : describes an event in the past and shows that it was still relevant at a later time
Ex. Mario had arrived home when his mother walked in
It is formed by using had with the PP of the main verb
3.Future Perfect : describes an event in the future and shows its relevance to another event in the future
Ex.He will have arrived home when she walks in
It is formed by using will have with the PP of the main verb

PROGRESSIVE TENSES
This form combines the auxilliary verbs be,have and will with the present participle(ing form). It emphasizes that the event is in progress(either in the pres,past or future).


SUBJECT AND VERB AGREEMENT

• subj and verb must agree in gender and number
• try to avoid the words that come betn a subj and verb(modifiers)
• cross out prepositional phrases
• verbs in compound sentences are usually plural
• in sentences beginning with here,there or where the verb comes first. so invert the sentence to locate the subj
• most indef pronouns are singular
• SANAM pronouns are sing or plural depending on the noun they refer to
• collective nouns,team,morgan associates,aundience etc are always singular

ACTIVE AND PASSIVE VOICE

• Subj--------->verb--------->Obj     (Active Voice)
• Subj is obj of action <---------Verb   (Passive Voice)
• use passive voice only to focus on the target of an action

MOOD

• 3 types of mood: Indicative,Imperative and Subjuntive
• mood is the use of verbs to indicate a person's attitude toward what he or she is saying
• Indicative:verbs state facts or ask questions. Writers suggest that their statements are true. Most sentences fall in this category. Eg. A dream is what our sub conscious state of mind feels while asleep.
• Imperative: used for requests and commands. Eg, Girls,stay off the grass! ; Henry, do not trample my flowers
• Subjuntive:in this mood,writers suggest that the sentences/statements are not true although the writers wished that they were. VErbs in this mood express desire,request or suggestion, or indicate hypothetical conditions.

       Eg.If I were rich, I would live in Hawaii.
       Similar sentences can be expressed using auxilliary  verbs could,might,ought,should and would.
      The verbs would and could are known as conditional forms as they tell what would be true in imagined situations.   Eg. If I had a high paying job, I would live in Hawaii
                                                      Subj                                  Cond
If the condition described is not hypothetical then the indicative mood is used. Eg. When I retire,I will live in Hawaii.
Expressions with the words  as though and as if introduce verbs in subj mood

• Verbs that express commands or requests in the indicative mood,are often followed by subj verb forms.Among them are ask,demand,insist,recommend,request and require. Eg, The man at the gas station asked that Roland pull up closer to the pump. Eg. She insists that she be excused today from attending office
• Present Subjunctive: VErbs appear in basic form. Eg. I suggest that he fill the application now     
• Past Subj:used for imaginary or hypothetical situations. Eg I wish I knew how to dance 
• The verb be : is used in the same form (be) in suggestions and requirements; were(past participle of be) is used in desires and imaginary situations Eg. If I were her, I would go today

Week 3

Phew, the days have gone by so fast! I know that GMAT days are fast approaching and I need to catch-up. The past one month has been pretty indisciplined for my GMAT Prep.
So,for this week I want to review the Reading Comprehension Guide . This book has some detailed analysis for RC Strategies and Question Types. Once I complete the review of this book,I want to get to some practise RC Passages every night, may be 2-3 passages. I heard that, doing RC daily, can help non-native speakers immensely on the Verbal Section of test(which is where my challenge lies!!). I think I'm going to temporarily pause my Quant Section prep and move on to exclusive Verbal this week. Along with the RC review, I'm going to get back to my basic Grammar review. I never expected that this basic grammar review will help me so much on the Sentence Correction part of the test.

In summary, this week
MGMAT RC Guide
RC Passages from OG / MGMAT
Basic Grammar Review - Chapter 5(Verbals) and Chapter 6(Adj/Adverbs)

Flashcards - 4

Pronouns:
Classified as 6 types

• Personal Pronouns:

As a subj:I,you,He,She,It,We,you,they
As an object:me,you her,him,it,us,you,them
As Possessive:my,mine,your,yours,his,her,hers,its,our,ours,your,yours,their,theirs(mine,yours,hers,ours and theirs are not followed by nouns)

• Reflexive Pronouns:myself,yourself,herself,himself,itself,oneself,ourselves,yourselves,themselves

used when action is directed back upon itself,i.e, subj and obj is same
Reflexive pronouns cannot be used as subj; Ann and myself studie together (WRONG)

• Relative Pronouns

Rel pronoun always introduces a relative clause in a sent(adj or nouns)
who,whoever- - refer to ppl only
that- - ppl or things
which - - things
what,whatever,whichever - - things

• Interrogative pronouns : used to ask questions

all relative pronouns except that are interrogative pronouns

• Demonstrative pronouns: this, that, these, those - - used to point to things/ppl
• Indefinie pronouns: end in -body,-thing,-one ; always singular

Pronoun Antecedents:
-shud be clearly undrstood and must agree in no. and gender to the noun that it replaces
-if antecdent is not clear then supply the noun in place of the pronoun
-if forms such as 'they', 'you' are used vaguely then provide the noun.  Eg. They managed the store well. CORRECT The store cashiers managed the store well
-if pronoun and antecedent are not close to each other then,again, correct it

List of plural pronouns : both,few,many,others, several
SANAM - some,any,none,all,most/more - depends on anecedent
other indefinite pronouns such as anyone,each etc are always singular
nouns such as army,jury,audience,class - - singular

Week 2

After having finished reviewing the MGMAT Number properties ( The General Part), I have moved on to the next book. I chose to start with the Strategy Guide 3,Equations, Inequalities and VICs . The topics covered in this book were very easy to me(thanks to my Math background!) and I took one whole day to review the General Part of this book. So the plan for this week is to finish review of the Strategy Guide 3 and also do some reading from the MGMAT Sentence Correction guide , the first 4 chapters along with corresponding Official Guide Problems.

Week 2:
Strategy Guide 3 MGMAT
MGMAT SC book - Chapters 1,2,3 and 4
OG Problems for Strategy Guide 3

Week 1

You must be wondering what I have been doing. Well, I finished with the number properties book. I need to spend today and tommorow doing some problems from the Official Guide. Along with this book ,I finished a review of the related chapters in the Foundations of Math book. I have also kept in touch with my basic grammar review.

Flashcards - 3

Nouns and Articles

• Nouns are names. They indicate people,places,things and abstract ideas(anger, biology etc)
• Noun phrases:noun and some closely related additional words Eg. funny(adj) clown(noun)
• Noun clause:entire clause acts as a noun. Eg. They ate all that was on the table(all that was on the table = food / whatever)
• ask question 'who' or 'what' to find subjects
• to locate the direct object ask the question ' whom' or 'what'
• to locate indirect object ask the quest ' to/from whom' or 'to/from what'
• Indirect obj always comes before DO if both are present in a sentence
• Prepositional phrases: on the table, in the kitchen; they function as adjectives or adverbs
• Articles: A,An and The

Flashcards - 2

Sentence Basics

• Sentences are of two parts: Subjects and Predicate
• Subj is a place,person or thing
• Predicate says something about the subject

Eg. The hungry lions / ate everything
                 S                     P

• Linking Verbs : link subjects to verbs such as to be,appear,seem,feel

Parts of Speech:

• Noun:places,people or things
• Articles:A,an and the - used to refer to nouns
• Pronous:replace nouns
• Verbs:describe actions or conditions
• Adjectives: modify nouns and pronouns. Eg. small house
• Adverbs:modify verbs,adj or other adverbs;end in -ly;they answer question 'how','when','where'
• Conjunctions:connect words,phrases and clauses ;eg and,but,yet,nor,although,while,after etc
• Prepositions:connect nouns,pronouns and noun phrases to other words in sentences and indicates relationships between them. Eg: to,from,with

Phrases and Clauses

• Phrases are combinations of words within sentences that go together;they express a single idea
• there are noun phrases,verb phrases and prepositional phrases
• Clauses contain subj and predicate and can be complete sentences too
• Two types of clauses independent and dependent
• indep clause is onethat can stand alone as a sentence
• dep clause beginwith conjuctions such as although,while or a relative pronous such as who,which or that

Types of sentences

• Simple Sent:consists of a simple indep clause
• compound sent:has 2 indep clauses each with its own verb
• complex sent:consists of indep clause and dep clause(acts as a modifier). Eg. When we heard how much TV repairs would cost, we decided to get a new TV set.
• compd  complessent: has 2 or more indep clauses and atleast 1 dep clause

Sentence Patterns

•  S-V Eg. the woman arrived
•  S-V-Do Eg. She sharpened her chisel in the backyard
•  S-V-Do-Oc(noun or adj that describbes the Do) Eg.Alice called Charles amusing
•  S-V-Io(tells to whom or for whom the direct obj is intended)-Do Eg. Alice gave charles the rabbit
• S-Lv(is)-SC(not Do but refers to same thing as subj) Eg. Alice is happy(happy =Sc)

A sentence frag is an incomplete sentence (add missing element to corrrect it)and a run-on sent(add a period,semi-colon or conjunction to correct it) is two sent incorrectly punctuated as a single sent

Day 2

Finished chapter 4 of the basic grammar book. This chapter deals with verbs and related sub topics. It is Jan 2nd today and I'm in no mood to study seriously. We are planning to go to Times Square this afternoon - Yay!!I'm so excited. It's going to be a good break for me.In the coming 4-5 days, I plan to finish the number properties book. Unfortunately, I ordered the book on Amazon only 3 days back and it has,thus,still not reached me. This is the book that I am talking about.

Flashcards-1

Some important concepts(Coutesy: Foundations of GMAT Math by Manhattan GMAT)

Number Properties

• factors

If 6 is divisible by 1,2,3 and 6 then 1,2,3 and 6 are factors of 6

• Prime numbers

Numbers divisible by 1 and itself
2 is the only even prime number
2,3,5,7,11,13,17,19 are some prime numbers

• Prime Factorization

Breaking a number into its prime factors. Eg. 60=2*2*3*5

• If 12 is divisible by 6 and 6 is divisible by 3 then 12 is divisible by 3 as well
• If x no. of apples can be spli evenly into 5 groups =>divisiblity problem
• If the number q is divisble by 9,18 and 27 then find LCM of the 3 numbers to find multiples of q