GMAT Study Tips
Whether this applies to you depends so much on your specific situation and how much time you have to study (and, of course, how good you are now). But I will speak in general terms and about myself. I only had 3 weeks to prepare and work schedule was tight too during the period.
If you are working, then you may have to study for two or 3 weeks (mostly at night), including weekends, before you can tell how many questions are reasonable to do within the remaining time you have. (If you do not have to work, you can likely tell in a few days of 6 solid study hours each.) You may not have time to answer over 3000 questions, but do as many as you can, and be careful to use the last 1/3 or 1/4 for ETS questions (”Official Guide and PowerPrep“). More on that below.
I favor Kaplan questions for the initial phase of studying (books and CD based tests) because they are harder than others (more complicated and more subtle) and they give you all the good concepts. But do not become discouraged by Kaplan tests. You may consistently score significantly lower on Kaplan tests than on any others. But don’t worry. Then, when you have studied a lot (maybe 2/3 of your total time) switch to ETS’s PowerPrep and the Official Guide for GMAT review. Ignore ETS’s math and verbal instructions and reviews. Those of Kaplan are much better.
Specific Steps
1. Get Kaplan’s main book GMAT with the Higher Score CD. If you need brush up (and most of us do, to remember things like “0*0 is undefined,” “0 is even” and “2 is the lowest prime”) study that book well, but try to do it quickly so you can focus almost all of your time on doing thousands of problems. You do not need to take all four tests right away.
Note: When you use paper material (study books, etc.) always treat it similarly to how you would treat a screen because that’s how the test is. What I mean is, don’t write in the book. Use scratch paper to solve all problems. Record answers on scratch paper also. It keeps you accustom to working on paper that is not close to the screen.
2. The last big chunk of your time (1/3 or 1/4 of your total study time) should be with ETS questions ONLY! The pacing is VERY important and if you do questions that are too easy or too hard, you will not pace yourself correctly in the real test. I want you to finish on time. Any extra time you can glean from areas in which you are strong, should be reallocated to problems that are tougher for you. Ideally, you’ll finish exactly when the time runs out. Yes, it’s far better to finish early than late. But don’t fool yourself into thinking that finishing five minutes early is good. The ideal is to spread that time out on problems that are tough for you.
3. Get ETS’s PowerPrep software (downloadable from their web site - at least for those who’ve scheduled a GMAT) and you could get “The Official Guide to GMAT Review.” I found these two quite useful. There are 1500 questions in the book. If you can, do all 1500 in the workbook and TIME YOURSELF. Always use a sheet of paper to track where you are in each section and where the related answers are. This will keep you studying ALL TYPES of problems and not focusing on the more fun math problems. Try to keep the average time well below 2 minutes per question, especially for Reading Comprehension and Critical Reasoning. Notice what is a good pace for you and compare how many you get right for the time you had.
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