GMAT Study Strategy

Jay,
I’m trying to develop a solid one now. One thing I can do is get private tutors. They aren’t that expensive here in India, although they are sometimes a waste of time as most of them aren’t that great.
I’m almost done studying for the CAIA exam. I’ll be done studying this week. I’ll pick it up again about three weeks before the exam.
Since the GMAT is not a curriculum like the CFA, I’m gonna get to work drilling problem after problem, (Especially in Quant as my verbal scores appear to be pretty good already). Adderall plus lots and lots of practice problems. I’d like to do about five hours of this a day for about three weeks.
By that time I should be both efficient and well experienced with the different types of problems so that I can judge. I’ll take a mock GMAT then, through Princeton Review.
Things I need to work on:
Quant:
1. Being faster and more efficient with arithmetic/calculations. I am not used to doing math by hand.
2. Writing by hand. I have almost deformed handwriting as I haven’t had to write anything by hand since I was about 6 years old.
Verbal:
1. Just need to get more practice. I’m almost there.
Then I’ll look at the practice test results and decide if I think I’ll be ready in the next month. I’ll cool off a bit for the CAIA. Register for Early October with possible November test date if I think I need to retake it.
Just need somewhere around a 700 and I should be all right. Don’t need top 3. Just would like a top 10 US or top 5 Int. Don’t care too much which one so will apply to quite a few.
 
yuoska - I’d be happy to chat offline - can you post your email and I’ll hit you up later this week? Unfortunately all of my email addresses have my real name in them…
Happy to help
 
How will you genius who scored 720+ in GMAT compare the time and effort you devoted to GMAT Vs. CFA exams ?
It seems from other posts that the best way is to mechanically drill lots of practice questions, as different from L1 and L2 that you have to understand the LOS inside out.
 
whui – yeah totally different strategy. To be honest I think the GMAT is easier than CFA. I made it to the 700+ range after 2 months of study, and usually need 3-4 months of study to pass the CFA exams. To put that in another context, it took me about half as long to get to the 90%+ range on the GMAT as it took to get to the 70%+ range on the CFA.
I found the biggest difference between the GMAT and CFA was the time factor. On each section (AM, PM) of the CFA for levels 1, 2, and the PM of level 3 (AM LIII is a different story) I finished the test with so much time left that I was able to go back and retake the exam again to double-check my answers. The GMAT left me on the edge having to guess on a couple just b/c I knew they’d take too much time to solve. Many of the more difficult GMAT problems (esp DS probs that you often have to solve multiple times in different ways) take so much work to get done that you need to know exactly how to solve it the second you read the problem if you’re going to get it done in 2 minutes.
I used the MGMAT books, which provided me a really great foundation, and tested myself using the OG 12 and the OG Q and V guides. I also took CAT practice tests using MGMAT and GMATPrep. I tried to answer QotDs too, like those at gmatclub.com and MGMAT.
For verbal, just learn your SC cold (memorize all idioms) and take your time with CR and RC to make sure you’re not missing something stupid. Verbal can often be the trick to a high score. My first time taking the GMAT I scored Q44/V42 – but the quant was at 69% and verbal 95%! Obviously if your Q and V scores are the same, the verbal is in a dramatically higher percentile. So bringing your verbal into the mid 40s can really kick your overall score in the pants.
Best of luck!!!
 
mossy695 Wrote:
——————————————————-
> whui – yeah totally different strategy. To be
> honest I think the GMAT is easier than CFA. I made
> it to the 700+ range after 2 months of study, and
> usually need 3-4 months of study to pass the CFA
> exams. To put that in another context, it took me
> about half as long to get to the 90%+ range on the
> GMAT as it took to get to the 70%+ range on the
> CFA.
>
> I found the biggest difference between the GMAT
> and CFA was the time factor. On each section (AM,
> PM) of the CFA for levels 1, 2, and the PM of
> level 3 (AM LIII is a different story) I finished
> the test with so much time left that I was able to
> go back and retake the exam again to double-check
> my answers. The GMAT left me on the edge having to
> guess on a couple just b/c I knew they’d take too
> much time to solve. Many of the more difficult
> GMAT problems (esp DS probs that you often have to
> solve multiple times in different ways) take so
> much work to get done that you need to know
> exactly how to solve it the second you read the
> problem if you’re going to get it done in 2
> minutes.
>
> I used the MGMAT books, which provided me a really
> great foundation, and tested myself using the OG
> 12 and the OG Q and V guides. I also took CAT
> practice tests using MGMAT and GMATPrep. I tried
> to answer QotDs too, like those at gmatclub.com
> and MGMAT.
>
> For verbal, just learn your SC cold (memorize all
> idioms) and take your time with CR and RC to make
> sure you’re not missing something stupid. Verbal
> can often be the trick to a high score. My first
> time taking the GMAT I scored Q44/V42 – but the
> quant was at 69% and verbal 95%! Obviously if your
> Q and V scores are the same, the verbal is in a
> dramatically higher percentile. So bringing your
> verbal into the mid 40s can really kick your
> overall score in the pants.
>
> Best of luck!!!
Good advice mossy.
 
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