Beat The GMAT!

I actually woke up at 7:00 AM this morning to take a practice test. I finally mustered the discipline to practice under simulated testing conditions. What a miracle.

I took Kaplan's diagnostic CAT exam off of the CD. I was disappointed to find that this particular test was abridged and was not formatted the same way as the GMAT. This CAT was organized to test a set of only ONE specific type of question at a time (a set of data sufficiency problems, a set of reading comprehension problems, etc.) in six 13-minute sections.

I scored a 670 (42Q, 41V). To the uninformed reader out there, this score may look poor in comparison to my previous practice test scores, which were higher. But, you must note that this is a Kaplan test. Kaplan is notorious for making harder tests and skewing scores down 50-100 points from what you can actually expect on the real GMAT. Top GMAT prep folks in the past have traditionally scored much lower on Kaplan tests than they have on the real GMAT. As one GMAT forum contributor once described Kaplan: it's similar to how Olympic athletes train in high altitude--in the real event this training allows them to perform better. Consequently, I see a Kaplan 670 as equivalent to an actual GMAT 720.

But because of how the diagnostic was formatted, I totally ate it on the reading comprehension section today. My strategy for verbal hitherto has been to go through the sentence corrections quickly and build up extra time for reading comprehension. But today since I was given a RC section with about 2 minutes per question, I simply ran out of time and had to guess a lot. As a result, I got less than 50 percent of these questions correct. Ouch.

SUMMARY OF DAY 15 WORK:
1. Woke up at 7:00 AM.
2. Kaplan Diagnostic CAT off of Kaplan 2005 CD.

RECAP OF DAY 15 INSIGHTS:
1. Don't be discouraged by a low CAT score from Kaplan. Kaplan's tests are skewed way down from what you can expect on the real GMAT.

Labels: Practice Tests

This afternoon I studied Kaplan Chapter 4 - Reading Comprehension, pages 113-150. I thought that Kaplan provided a better strategy for attacking RC questions than Princeton Review did. My problem with Princeton Review is that they love having students skim passages. There's nothing wrong with skimming, but PR does it to the extreme.

Kaplan advocates skimming as well, but advises students to at least read the first paragraph of each passage carefully while skimming the rest. This strategy seems much more sensical to me. I also enjoyed reading about Kaplan's technique for labeling each paragraph in a passage into a certain structural type. For example:

- Paragraph 1: Introduce thesis
- Paragraph 2: Evidence for thesis
- Paragraph 3: Arguments against
- Paragraph 4: Arguments for
- etc.

Making these notes (on scratch paper) regarding the paragraph structure of the passages as I read them helped me refer back and forth to the questions and passages.

To finish the day, I did a practice RC quiz at the end of the lesson, getting 6/38 wrong. That's a score I definitely wish to improve. I had a good time though applying Kaplan's strategies to the quiz.

As a final note, I need to build endurance when it comes to RCs. It is damn hard keeping focus on these questions. I would die if I got back-to-back RC passages on the real GMAT, which does occasionally happen.

SUMMARY OF DAY 14 WORK:
1. Kaplan Chapter 4, Reading Comprehension, pages 113-127.
2. Practice RC Quiz, pages 128-150.

RECAP OF DAY 14 INSIGHTS:
1. Kaplan's RC strategies are better than Princeton Review's.
2. Very hard to stay focused on RC.

Labels: GMAT Verbal, Reading Comprehension

Today I covered the Sentence Correction unit in the Kaplan book: Chapter 4, pages 71-111. The strategies in this section were decent, but didn't wow me. What pissed me off though was that Kaplan offered no strategy for tackling idiom sentence correction (SC) problems other than "use your ear." I feel bad for non-native English speakers--it's hard enough for me, a person who was born in America and formally studied grammar, to answer idiom SC questions on the GMAT. The only thing you can do is memorize idioms from some list; I'm sure there is one out there on the Internet.

At the end of Chapter 4 I went through a SC practice quiz. I was pleased with the result--out of 54 questions I only scored 5 incorrectly. But when I was reading through the explanations to the quiz, I realized that Kaplan does a super shitty job explaining answers. Very hard to understand why certain questions are correct.

Damn you, Kaplan. Why are you making it so tough for me to learn?

SUMMARY OF DAY 13 WORK:
1. Kaplan Sentence Correction section, chapter 4, pages 71-87.
2. Kaplan SC practice quiz, pages 87-111.

RECAP OF DAY 13 INSIGHTS:
1. Kaplan provides no strategies for idiom SC questions.
2. Kaplan = poo, when it comes to answer explanations.

Labels: GMAT Verbal, Sentence Correction

To quote Eminem: "Guess who's back? Back again?"

That would be me. After a refreshing weekend trip, I was fired up today to do some good GMAT studying.

I began cracking the Kaplan 2005 book this afternoon, covering chapters 1, 2, 3, and a practice quiz on critical reasoning (CR). I spent the bulk of my time studying chapter 3: Kaplan's critical reading strategies. I highly recommend GMAT prep folks out there to take a look at this chapter. Kaplan did a great job breaking down the various types of CR questions to expect on the test and provided something important that Princeton Review did not provide for me--a method. I feel a lot more comfortable about tackling CR questions now.

After the review, I did a timed CR practice test from the Kaplan book (located at the end of chapter 3), giving myself 75 minutes to complete 45 CR questions. I didn't perform so badly. Out of the 45 questions I got 7 wrong, and half of those were from careless misreading of the passages. I feel like I can feasibly cut down my rate of error by half with enough practice.

In the middle of my long study session today, I found myself starting to tire and lose focus. After drifting in and out of my reading for a bit, it hit me that I really had to start exercising consistently. The GMAT is a pretty long test. It isn't easy sitting in front of a computer for 3.5 hours with undivided attention. I think with better physical conditioning, my mental focus will improve as well. I guess I'll hit the gym tomorrow.

Hey, what a coincidence, that was my New Year's resolution!

SUMMARY OF DAY 12 WORK:
1. Kaplan Chapters 1, 2, and 3: pages 3-33.
2. Kaplan Critical Reasoning Practice Quiz, pages 34-70.
3. Spreadsheet analysis of Kaplan CR practice quiz.

RECAP OF DAY 12 INSIGHTS:
4. Kaplan's Critical Reasoning Review is very good.
5. Exercise is important to build endurance for the GMAT.

Labels: Critical Reasoning, GMAT Verbal

This is my last weekend of travel. When I come back, I should be able to study uninterrupted until test day [Editor's Note: Oops, this did not happen. I ended up taking several breaks later on]. To any readers out there, thanks for being patient.

All this travel is bad for my studying, but good for the soul. Blogging resumes April 26.

I spent the last 3.5 hours reviewing my previous day's CAT exam. For the second time, I filled out this spreadsheet to track my correct answers and errors, classifying each type of problem. Very tiring, but I'm really happy I did it.

The cool thing about doing a Princeton Review test on CD is that you get to print out a nice analysis table at the end. It has cool statistics like the amount of time you spent on each problem (down to the second) and the percent of questions you got right for certain types of problems (problem solving, data sufficiency, etc.).

I found some conflicting results in comparing my second practice test to the first one a took two weeks ago. On the second test, I performed very well in areas where I had previously performed poorly. Unfortunately, on the second test I also performed poorly in areas where I had previously performed well.

This situation is frustrating because I can't readily identify where I am weak or strong. I guess I'll need more data from future tests to determine that.

Until then, I'll assume that I'm weak in every subject. Yes, the glass is half empty for me.

SUMMARY OF DAY 11 WORK:
1. Documented and analyzed errors from previous day's CAT using this spreadsheet.

RECAP OF DAY 11 INSIGHTS:
1. Princeton Review provides great statistics on your performance when you take a test off PR's CD.
2. Analyzing your test is painful but important to do.

Labels: Practice Tests

I spent a lovely and sunny afternoon taking my second full-length CAT off of the Princeton Review CD. I was a bit upset with the score: 690 (46Q, 40V). It is the same freakin' score I received on my first PowerPrep CAT!

Today I didn't do a good job of pacing myself. I ran out of time in the math section (had to guess the last 3) and finished with 8 minutes left on the verbal.

I didn't expect exceptional improvement since I've been travelling so much lately, but I did expect at least some improvement since Princeton Review tests are supposed to be easier than the real thing. The low verbal score for the second time around is starting to concern me. I really need to raise that to the mid-40s.

Tomorrow I'll do some analysis of my PR test, to see what went right and what went wrong.

SUMMARY OF DAY 10 WORK:
1. Took full-length CAT exam from Princeton Review CD (GMAT Adaptive 1) - 690 (46Q, 40V).

RECAP OF DAY 10 INSIGHTS:
1. Pacing is a huge problem. Only can be controlled through practice.

Labels: Practice Tests

I'm back from my 8-day vacation. I have successfully forgotten 80% of what I had learned in my first week of study. I'll probably lose the last 20% during my VERY LAST (thank God) travel excursion this coming weekend.

It was extraordinarily difficult getting back into study mode. I haven't felt such lethargy since the horrible case of senioritis I caught at the end of college. Since I was operating under limited mental capacity, this evening I only completed three tasks: reviewing my Princeton Review lesson notes; looking over all the wrong answers I've made on past practice problems; and reading the intro, chp. 1, and chp. 2 of the Official Guide book, pages 5-30.

Tomorrow I will take a full-length CAT on the Princeton Review CD. For the next several weeks, I will alternate practice CAT tests from the PR and Kaplan CDs.

SUMMARY OF DAY 9 WORK:
1. Reviewed Princeton Review notes.
2. Reviewed past errors on practice.
3. Official Guide, pages 5-30.

RECAP OF DAY 9 INSIGHTS:
1. Don't take long breaks from studying the GMAT. Stay consistent.
2. See #1.

I'm going on a trip for the next week or so; I will be suspending my blogging activity in the mean time. Normally I would never recommend GMAT students to take such long vacations early in their prep period, but fortunately I'm a big hypocrite.

Blogging resumes April 18. Thanks for your patience!

This evening I spent 3 hours meticulously going through each problem on yesterday's CAT exam and recording data onto this spreadsheet. For each question, I recorded: (1) the correct answer choice; (2) my pace on the question; (3) the result--correct or incorrect; (4) if I had an error/whether it was careless; and (5) the type of question (data sufficiency, critical reading, etc.). It was a tedious job, but I learned a lot from the results.

With regard to math, I was happy to find that nearly all the problems I got wrong were careless errors. Going through the test again today, I was able to solve virtually all of these questions through more careful reading. The few problems I couldn't solve because of lack of conceptual understanding have been identified through the use of this spreadsheet.

In my verbal section analysis, I found that I did very well in reading comprehension, only getting one of these questions wrong on the test. I also got several sentence correction questions wrong--mostly idioms. As for critical reading, most of my errors were careless; upon second glance it seems that I read through these passages too quickly.

I wish I could take credit for inventing this spreadsheet, but I have to give mega props to Ursula, a forum contributor who scored a 760 with the aid of this grid. For all the people practicing the GMAT out there, I recommend using this spreadsheet after completing any set of practice problems or practice tests. I'm certainly going to do so for now on.

SUMMARY OF DAY 8 WORK:
1. Recorded errors from previous day's CAT onto this spreadsheet.

RECAP OF DAY 8 INSIGHTS:
1. Make sure you do an analysis of your errors. It is tedious but very revealing.

Labels: Practice Tests

Okay so I didn't get up early for my first practice GMAT like I said I would. Last night I went to bed around 4 AM and I figured that I would be miserable waking up four hours later to do a three-hour test.

After a long night's rest I did my first full-length CAT exam using the PowerPrep software. As I had mentioned before, PowerPrep provides the best GMAT simulation in the market because it employs previously used GMAT questions. In creating your full-length exam practice schedule, I recommend practicing with PowerPrep in your first and last week of study (PowerPrep has only 2 tests).

I didn't perform so badly today: 690 (45 Quantitative, 39 Verbal), 92 percentile. At the end of my practice test, I was shocked by the result because I thought I had done very badly. The verbal section was okay--I expect to see a score increase in that area with enough practice. But the math blew me out of the water!

The actual GMAT math section was SO MUCH harder than what I had seen in the Princeton Review book. I'm sure I got many questions wrong in that section, but luckily most of my wrong answers were experimental questions, which aren't scored. I was so frustrated by the math today that I felt like bailing out of my practice test early on several occasions.

Here's a warning for future GMAT test takers: Princeton Review's Cracking the GMAT is a piece of shit when it comes to its math prep. I almost feel betrayed by them in that respect. On the lighter side though, the PR book did a decent job of prepping me for the verbal.

Nevertheless, I am encouraged by my PowerPrep score today. I am confident that my goal of getting a 750+ is within reach. Tomorrow I will dissect my practice test.

SUMMARY OF DAY 7 WORK:
1. Took first practice CAT using PowerPrep Software - 690 (45Q, 39V).

RECAP OF DAY 7 INSIGHTS:
1. Use PowerPrep for your first practice CAT.
2. Princeton Review will not adequately prepare you for the math section.

Labels: Practice Tests

I've finally finished all the lessons in the Princeton Review Book. Today I covered the Writing Assessment section, pages 262-288. I didn't get that much useful information from this material. Frankly, I'm not too concerned about the Writing Assessment in the GMAT because (1) I've done a lot of writing in college, and (2) I'm a native English speaker. For all you non-native English speakers out there taking the test, it's worth investing some time in preparing for the essays--business schools will more than likely be interested to see how you score on this part of the exam. Nothing ever seems easy for international folks trying to get an education in the US...

This evening I also did a set of verbal warm-up questions in the Princeton Review book, pages 304-311. I was somewhat upset by the results: 15/20 correct. The score was slightly lower than I had hoped, but I was encouraged by the fact that most of my errors were careless and that I could figure out almost every question. I wrote down all of the questions I got wrong on a piece of paper, categorized the type of question (sentence correction, reading comprehension, or critical reading) and cataloged each one as either "careless" or "didn't know". Perhaps later I will make a matrix of my errors to determine where I should improve.

Tomorrow I take my first practice CAT exam from the PowerPrep software. PowerPrep is an especially great CAT test to begin with because it is a close approximation (in terms of difficulty) to the actual GMAT. I'm going to try simulating test conditions by waking up early and heading to the library.

Hey General Management Admission Council: what's the deal? You guys should really allow for more afternoon exam times.

SUMMARY OF DAY 6 WORK:
1. PR Writing Assessment Review, pages 262-288.
2. PR Verbal Warm-up Practice, pages 304-311.

RECAP OF DAY 6 INSIGHTS:
1. Only foreign students should really be concerned with the writing section on the GMAT.
2. Be sure to practice CATs under simulated conditions.

Labels: AWAs (Essays), GMAT Verbal

Today my sister--a distinguished Kellogg alumnae--passed on some interesting information to me. The General Management Admission Council, makers of the GMAT, are offering people to take the GMAT for free at some of its new vendor sites this summer. It seems like a legit deal, check out the link here: Free GMAT [Editor's Note: This opportunity has passed, sorry.]

I just finished up the verbal review in the Princeton Review book, pages 208-257. I was struck by how the strategies for the GMAT verbal section are almost exactly the same as PR's suggested strategies for the SAT verbal, from what I remember back in the day. I wasn't so impressed by PR's suggestions for reading comprehension. But I found the Critical Reasoning rundown very informative. Without PR's introduction to the critical reasoning section, I do not think I would have formulated an effective strategy myself to attack this portion of the GMAT. I highly recommend test takers to read the PR book on this topic.

In other news, I forgot to mention a few days ago that I signed up for the Delta Course to supplement my math studies. The Delta Course has an excellent reputation for prepping GMAT students for advanced math questions found on the test, like combinations and permutations. For those of you who are somewhat weak in math like me you should check out this service. It's $27 for one year's access to the website. [Editor's Note: See my review of the Delta Course in my Reflections Post]

I've got to stop studying in the evening. And I have to stop studying in my room, where my comfortable and fluffy bed lies close by.

SUMMARY OF DAY 5 WORK:
1. PR Reading Comprehension and Critical Reading Sections, pages 208-257.

RECAP OF DAY 5 INSIGHTS:
1. Overall, PR's strategies aren't that different from SAT prep.
2. PR does a great job reviewing critical reasoning questions.

Labels: GMAT Verbal

For the past week I have been at home visiting my parents. More than television or the Internet, my parents have been the most significant distraction to my GMAT study schedule. They have been taking me shopping, bringing me along on various small trips, and overstuffing me with food. All of this attention is great, but it has seriously taken the momentum out of my studying. A word of advice to future GMAT test takers: try to study in a place away from your parents. It's a good thing that I'm going back north to my apartment tomorrow...

Consequently, today I had yet another short study session. I covered Princeton Review's section on Sentence Correction, pages 176-206. The book provided a decent overview on the various types of sentence correction problems that are most often found on the test. The book however caveated that its sentence correction strategies were not comprehensive, and left out discussion of several types of gramatical errors that could be tested on the GMAT.

It's important to note that the Princeton Review book is primarily useful for GMAT test takers who wish to score in the 500s to 600s. It makes sense to gear the book towards this "average" demographic because they represent the largest market.

For people like me who wish to score in the 700s, you have to supplement your study with more rigorous books like Kaplan, and a ton of practice.

But don't rule out Princeton Review entirely. I still think it is a good book to introduce the GMAT.

SUMMARY OF DAY 4 WORK:
1. PR Sentence Correction section, pages 176-206.

RECAP OF DAY 4 INSIGHTS:
1. Don't study near parents.
2. PR is geared towards people who want to score 500-600. Don't use this book by itself if you wish to prep for 700+.

Labels: GMAT Verbal, Sentence Correction

Today I finished the last two sections of the Princeton Review Math Review--Geometry and Data Sufficiency, pages 114-171. The geometry was pretty straightforward, but I had never seen a data sufficiency question before today. At first glance, they seemed pretty tedious.

But I have to hand it to Princeton Review. I think that they have developed an excellent strategy for tackling data sufficiency problems, and I recommend all GMAT test takers to check out their suggestions. In a nutshell, when it comes to these kinds of questions, PR recommends that you examine each of the two data sufficiency statements separately to narrow down the field. If the first statement is correct, you can immediately narrow down your answer to either choices (A) or (D). If the first statement is not correct, you can automatically narrow down your answer to either (B), (C), or (E). If you have not seen a data sufficiency question before, what I have just described should be utter nonsense to you.

In any case, test takers should be pretty comfortable with data sufficiency because they comprise of HALF of all the math questions on the GMAT.

In addition to my finishing off the math review, I did one of Princeton Review's warm-up math tests, timed: pages 298-303. Out of 20 questions I got 16 correct. After the short test, I reviewed the answer explanations to every question and wrote down the problems I got wrong on a sheet of paper. The 4 questions I answered incorrectly were all careless errors.

And that is going to be the killer. I have a feeling that the biggest thing that could threaten my obtaining a great math score on the GMAT is carelessness. The only way to reduce rate of careless error is a lot of practice. Nothing seems to come easy in this world. Except for the ladies, if you are me.

That was a lie.

SUMMARY OF DAY 3 WORK:
1. PR Geometry and Data Sufficiency sections, pages 114-171.
2. PR Math Warm-up, pages 298-303.

RECAP OF DAY 3 INSIGHTS:
1. PR provides good data sufficiency strategy.
2. Careless error is going to be the greatest threat to obtaining a good score.

Labels: Data Sufficiency, GMAT Math