GMAT Study Plan - Preparation approach, Practice tests and questions

November 28th, 2007 by Hagrid | Filed under GMAT.

After being asked by a lot of GMAT/MBA aspirants, we decided to write up a GMAT Prep plan for our readers reference. GMAT Preparation consists of four general steps (Concepts, Practice, GMAT Practice Tests, Last few days). Although these cannot be considered mutually exclusive, we have tried to separate them with recommendations at each step:

GMAT Concepts

Like any other tests, the scoring in GMAT relies heavily on the basics. It is very important to give enough time to master various concepts in Math and Verbal. There some very good books that will take you through this first step.

- Manhattan Sentence Correction: One of the pioneers in Sentence Correction strategies.
- Official Guide for GMAT Review (OG11): Its considered as the bible of GMAT Preparation. The book is published by GMAC and contains retired GMAT questions for practice, and also contains their explanations.
- Manhattan Reading Comprehension and Critical Reasoning guides are also very good to start with.
- Free GMAT Reference: Check out these free GMAT reference material in ScoreChase forums.

The next step to get the concepts correct is - to ask and clarify your doubts. But who and when and how much it costs? Its Free. Just ask your question on ScoreChase GMAT Forums, and get an answer within hours from GMAT experts around the world.

Another important step is to keep yourself updated with the latest GMAT test takers experience, learn from their experiences (and dont forget to congratulate them!).

GMAT Practice

Concepts will improve your overall approach, but practice is still needed to improve your accuracy in a timed session.

- Practice Questions: ScoreChase GMAT Forums offer GMAT Weekly Quests (Click here to Subscribe by email) which contain "expected time to solve" section so that you can time yourself while solving higher difficulty questions. Forums can also prove to be a never ending source for practice. Not just because you can ask questions, but because you can answer 100s of other questions posted by other GMAT Aspirants. Scorechase GMAT Gold Seekers Cove (Coming Soon!) would consist of monthly Math and Verbal questions which would give you plenty practice.

- Books: If you need more books for practice. Here are some very good books:

- Kaplan GMAT 800 : Very good higher difficulty questions
- Veritas Project GMAT: A good book with special focus on Permutations and Combinations
- The Official Guide for GMAT Quantitative Review: If you are strugling with Math, this book can prove to be a very good practice.
- The Official Guide for GMAT Verbal Review: If you are strugling with Verbal, this book can prove to be a very good practice.

- Time the questions you solve: GMAT Weekly Quests now come with a "solve within" parameter. Although they are harder than the usual questions, but they are supposed to test your concepts, so they are intended to be hard.

- Notes: Make notes of tips/questions you feel you may want to revisit at the end. Make sure this is extremely important stuff. Dont go marking small things. This is just to refresh your memory. Lets call them "The revisitables".

GMAT Practice Tests

Some GMAT Practice tests are better than others in terms of their degree of difficulty with respect to actual GMAT. However it is very important that you take as many GMAT Practice tests as possible. Some of the most common GMAT Sample tests available are given below. For their availability and to know how they compare with actual GMAT, please read our previous post GMAT Practice Tests - Costs, Comparison and Information:

- GMATPrep
- Kaplan
- Manhattan GMAT
- 800Score
- Princeton
- Crack-GMAT
etc.

There are two most important things to take away from a practice test:

1. Stamina: GMAT is a 3 hr (or more) test. Keeping your concentration intact for the full length of the test is very difficult. Hence building this stamina is crucial. We recommend you take as many full length tests as possible to build this stamina. Dont try to have ideal conditions for the test either, try to concentrate on full length tests while you are bummed with a heavy day at office, when you are devoid of sleep ..basically use your imagination on how you want to build your stamina and be prepared for the worst scenarios. Dont think twice before taking gmat sample tests that are considered hard, they can help you build your stamina.

2. Mistakes/Weak areas: If you can't identify your weak areas from practice tests, you can't judge improvements. Each practice test has different sets/difficulty of questions, the best way you can really compare your attempts is how much you have improved on your weak areas. By weak areas we dont mean broad topics like "Reading Comprehension" or "Probability", but as narrow as you can get within these areas, like - I am weak in questions such as "What is author's intent", "supporting assumptions" within respective subjects.

Last few days of the GMAT exam

Keep healthy, make sure you dont fall sick the last day. Yeah! what are the chances of that! You wont believe how many times we have heard of this one, so be careful. Drink enough water, sleep well, keep fresh. Before the exam, stop being hard on yourself and just go through "the revisitables".

Last but not the least, there is always DONTS for GMAT Prep, but that will come in a later post.

Disclaimer: This guide is only for your reference, please use your discretion while following the strategies provided here.

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