GMAT Strategy

Hi folks ,

I had posted a month back in this forum and at that time I was not able to prepare a solid strategy that How I will be going to beat this exam. But after a lot of study without plan and then I realize that I am not doing the preparation in the right way but finally thanks to you all for such a good forums I am able to sketch a good plan and after following it for a week. I am able to see improvement in my way of learning and attempting questions.

I have struggled a lot initially about the approach I was using for prepration. But these 24 days I was able to complete and clear my concepts for all these section giving me edge and a boost to prepare with confidence.

Lets start with a brief description , I have around 4 Years experience leading a team of 4. Iwork in the Strategic Information System Department of a big automobile company and in Planning and Management. I have booked my exam on 26th August 2008.

I have planned in this way

# As I am working I can afford only 1-2 hours daily after Job.
# I have just one weekend i.e Sunday cuz we work 6 days a week ;-(
# I need a good score 720+

Book I have

GMAT Kaplan Premier program 2008
Manhatten SC guide
Official Guide 10
Official Guide 11

I have started with the Verbal part as this is the main part in GMAT exam I am following Kplan GMAT ( review and questions ) for ecery section and then followeed by questions from OG 11 and at last from OG 10.

so for

CR >>>> First KPLAN (questions+review) >>>>OG11 (questions)>>>>OG10

I am approaching every section in this manner and it helped me lot I am also writing main points and answers explanations in my spiral pad.

I will be doing in this sequence CR>>RC>>>SC>>>DS>>>PB>>>AWA

As I have few days of May + June +July+ approx 25days of August..

I will be completing all these section with all three books till mid of june or latest by June last week.

Then I will start a time attack on all the questions and improve my speed with computer based exams.

I have also created a matrix to review my performance in excel sheet I am recording every question's answers in the sheet and colour red with the wrong and green with the right ones.

Please suggest me that I am moving on a right path or not ? Any suggessions.

I have a few comments:

1) OG11 and OG10 have overlap so you may see the same problems in both. You would be much better of using OG verbal and OG quant combined with OG11 as those three books contain no overlaps.

2) You have chosen to do all verbal topics at first then do quant topics after:

"AWA>>CR>>RC>>>SC>>>DS>>>PB>"

The problem is that doing 4 days of verbal may be too long and you may forget some important math lessons while you're focusing on verbal for those days. You could just as easily mix the V and Q topics:

"CR, DS, RC, PS, SC"

Doing so means you will be thinking about math and verbal on alternating days, which can help to keep the material fresh in your mind.

3) You should always do the OG material timed. One of the biggest problems test takers have is timing and you should structure your studies to address timing as soon as you learn the basics (in other words, after you have gone through the Kaplan 2008 book). If you hold off until after you have completed the OG books, you will have little material to work with on your timing.

Thanks a lot for your reply mayonnai5e I will consider these points in my preparation.

I know that I will have to do some problems again in OG 11 I think it will refresh my mind and logical ability as the best part about CR questions is you can never cram up answers.

I will try to focus on timing issue and will update...