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,****!!!).