A new strategy? Smart and Hard Work.

As the D day comes closer, a part of me tells that I need to work smarter instead of working harder. I seem to be  a bad planner. Or an ambitious planner. Plan too many things and don't stick to it. Or Iam a bad executioner. Iam just not able to execute what I plan.

Roomie comes back next week and this will definitely hamper ur studying pattern. He will talk,disturb and I won't get the full room as I have been getting for the last one month.
Anyway, I don't want to crib. I want to motivate myself and convert all my fear,apprehensions, tensions into some positive energy and do well. Remember, I don't want to take the GMAT again.( Even if my fear and imagination tells me that I have lost the battle and is convinced that I will get a poor score and will have to eventually retake the exam)

There is not much time that I have in hand. But there is definitely some smart moves that I can do. Let me concentrate on the stuff that appear as obstacles for me getting a good score.

Problem Solving

• Probability:
• Permutations and Combinations
• Mean,Median and Standard Deviations
• Interests  and Mixtures. and a bit of geometry (lcm ,gcd too)
• Reading the OG maths lesson
• Working on those CAT lessons

These are the areas Iam dreading now. I mean whenever I see a question from these areas, I feel uncomfortable. This needs to be corrected. I have to work on them and a night before the exam, I should be able to sleep comfortbaly with these topics not haunting me.

Data Sufficiency:
 It is strange but true. As an engineer, I should be acing the PS and DS section but this is not happening. DS continues to be a tough nut to crack.

• Algebra DS questions: A lot of people have commented that they faced more number of questions in DS than PS in the quant section. I have to work on them. More tougher questions need to be practiced.
• OG DS: I had completed the OG DS section in February but I hardly remember anything from that. It contains around 280 questions and I have to somehow take time to do all those again.

Sentence Correction:

 Perhaps the least time consuming and the least irritating. When I initially started with my SC questions, my accuracy rate was pathetic. It was around 45-50 %. Slowly, over a period of time reading all the questions over and over again have helped me.

     I have completed reading the SC sections of Kaplan and Princeton and have made notes from it too.

•  I will have to go through the OG SC questions again. Reading them again for the final time, and making small notes of the rules will be very helpful a day before the exam when I can review everything in about 30 mins. Thefore, work on the SC.
• I have decided that the megabank cannot be completed in the short time I had. However, I will just take a max of 5 random tests to see what my scores would look like.
• Reading the appendixes of the Kaplan and Princton should help.

Critical Reasoning:

I have done the OG CR questions once (in Feb). Did around 30 of them again. However, due to time constraint or rather lack of interest, I am not doing it again.This is one area where I am investing little time and expecting good accuracy.

• Practice a few CR sections from the LSAT books.
• Some stuff from Arco

Reading Comprehension:

   Irritating,annoying and frustrating. I have worked on them. Sitting and working on all the RC passages in OG will not help. What I need to do is take RCs in more test sittings and see how accurate Iam under test conditions.

• Practice RCs as a part of tests.
• Do 2-5 passages each of various sections (Arts,Science etc)

 

AWA

 It is very important on the day of test that you feel confident.

• A good AWA start will give u the necessary confidence to make sure that you can crack the quant section.
• Also, giving a full test with AWA section will tell u how much stamina you have and how much would u need.

This is an untouched area. I have to sit for half a day and work on this. I have the Arco Essay book and if I don't make any use of it, it is not good.

 

Test

I have told this before and am repeating it. The score that you will get is directly proportional to the number of practice full lenght tests I take.

Minimum Bare requirements.

•  4 Kaplan Tests (2 already Taken)
• 2 Princeton Tests
• 2 GMAC tests ( to predict the real score)

Below are mentioned some tests which If I can take, I would feel proud of my strategy and time management skills.

• Arco Timed test
• Arco Untimed Test
• 2 GMAC paper tests.
• 1 Arco Paper test

All the best and keep focusing on your Lakshya.