dj22 wrote:I am looking to take the GMAT in 1 month, and shooting for a 710+ score. I took it in the Spring of 2013, and received a 690 (V35, Q48, IR8). This was with little prep (just going through the free stuff on the GMAT website). I have purchased the
MGMAT books, along with the
Magoosh program. I am looking at how to best use the materials I have to study everything to get to my target score, and have looked through the 1 month plan from
Magoosh. My issue with this is that it says that it is for people just starting to study. With my situation (already being at a 690), and also working a full-time job, I want to really narrow down what I should focus on. Is there a modified plan that I should look at? Any suggestions? Thank you!
Dear
dj22,
I'm happy to respond.
That's a great question. Here's what I'll say. Probably that first batch of lessons, intro to the GMAT, is something you could skip wholesale. You know that. Also, you are clearly very strong in math. Here's what I'll say. If you look at a math module, such as "Percents and Ratios," and you feel that you already know all this,
don't watch the lessons. Just take the quiz at the end of that module. If you ace the quiz, then you know it--move on. You should be able to dispatch several math lesson modules that way. If you
think you know the subject and are not sure, you could breeze through each lesson by skipping to the summary page: again, if there are no surprises on the summary page, then mostly likely you know everything in the lesson. There probably will be a handful of math lessons with some time-saving tricks that are new to you. You may find these as you move through the math lessons, or you may encounter these if you get a math question wrong and are directed to a "related lesson." Overall, there probably are exceedingly few math lessons that you will need to watch from beginning to end.
As long as you are taking the quiz at the end of every math module and passing them, to demonstrate that you own that material, my understanding is that you would still qualify for the
score guarantee.
I would urge you to be a little more diligent on the Verbal side. It's probably important for you to watch those lessons thoroughly. Don't underestimate the verbal section: even the easiest ideas involve subtleties.
As you practice
Magoosh question, the Adaptive feature will feed you mostly medium, hard, and very hard question. There are a few hundred easy question, and you really don't need to spend any time with these. Keep in mind that if you were to use up all the medium & hard & very hard questions in
Magoosh, the algorithm would start feeding you easy questions, even though these are not appropriate to your level, simply because the computer has nothing else to give you. You don't want to reach that point. On the "Custom Practice" page in
Magoosh, if you select each question difficulty, you can see at the bottom how many questions are remaining for each difficulty level. As you move through the month, monitor how many medium, hard, and very hard questions are remaining. As these start to dwindle, you may want to select one of those difficulty levels specifically, rather than "Adaptive," so you finish out the questions in that difficulty level. You can pace yourself, so that you are on a pace to finish the medium, hard, and very hard questions. You're a math person: you can figure out what your rate should be, so that you do only the difficulty levels you need! If you don't see a single easy question during the month, that's OK, because you are likely to see very few of these on the real GMAT.
Those are a few things you can do to streamline your experience of
Magoosh. Let me know if you have any questions.
Mike
_________________
Mike McGarry
Magoosh Test Prep
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